“Come to us this night. To aid our search for innocent hands. Wind, Earth, Fire and Water seek what is hidden and bring it to the light.” Amanda touched the twins’ blankets as her eyes went bright white. Sarina watched in awe, always touched by her mother’s power. She’d once thought, as a little girl, that it’d be neat to have powers like her mother, but sitting here now, she realized the burden her mother carried. While she did so with much grace and humility, Sarina knew the gift wasn’t meant for her. Her life was complicated enough as an alpha werewolf’s daughter, especially now that her twins were missing.
Within minutes the spell was over and Amanda was coming back to herself. Sarina wanted to rush to her, to beg her for what she knew, but Sarina had learned long ago that her mother would only dispense the knowledge so that action could be taken as quickly as possible. “They’re beyond our borders, towards the caves. Lilith only took them to get to you,” she said, turning to look at Romeo.
“Does her obsession know no bounds, that she’d kidnap two innocent babies?”
“She’ll kill for you,” Amanda said, heatedly. “We both know that. Having you before was a test. Now she’ll stop at nothing until you’re hers.”
“How do we kill her permanently? We killed her before and the bitch came back,” said Romeo.
“We have to separate her soul from her body and destroy both. If her soul were to find a new body before we destroy it, she’d be able to come back again.”
“And how do we do that?” asked Sarina.
“We beat her at her own game,” Amanda said, looking straight into Sarina’s eyes.
Sarina knew what was coming, but she didn’t want to hear it. She knew, also that her mother didn’t approach the subject lightly. “I’ll do whatever you think is best, Mama,” Sarina said, grabbing her mother’s hand.
“We need to get started, today,” Amanda said, seeming to gain the sense of purpose that she’d lost after Jason’s death. “I’m going to contact Penelope, Briana, and Lucia. I’ll need the help of their elements in order to make sure everything goes as planned.”
“What exactly is the plan?” Romeo asked. Sarina looked at her father and for the first time saw how Jason’s death had aged him. He was no longer the fun-loving father she remembered from her youth, but the hardened man who’d do whatever it took to protect his pack, his family.
Amanda spelled out the plan as best she could, leaving finer details for a later discussion once everyone had gathered. So far, she’d been right, Sarina didn’t like it one bit. It meant leaving her sons in the hands of a crazy bitch who thought of nothing but what would aid her obsessive cause at getting Romeo Traverse to seek her out.
***
“I don’t like it,” she complained to Brody in her old room upstairs. “But I don’t see any other way to end this. I won’t let her kill any more members of our pack. Killing Jason nearly took both of my parents out. I can’t imagine what will happen if we lose anyone else. Not to mention the families that lost loved ones on the preemptive attack Fenris pulled. We owe them something earth shattering for all they’ve cost us.”
“I don’t like it either,” Brody agreed. “However, I’ve come to trust your parents and your mother’s ability. If there’s a way to get this psycho to die once and for all, we need to do our damnedest to make sure we succeed. Because, even when we get the twins back, if we don’t kill her dead for certain this time, she’ll continue to cause us trouble.”
“I totally agree,” Sarina said, letting Brody pull her into his embrace. It wasn’t an easy thing, to sit idle when your children were in the hands of a crazy, socio-path. Sarina headed to the kitchen, hoping that preparing food would help her keep her mind from unraveling.
“Can I help?”
“Sure,” Sarina said to her little sister, Shawna. With six years between them, Sarina had always thought of Shawna as a pest. Now though, as they’d both grown and matured, especially over the last couple of years, Sarina saw in her sister an asset she was blessed to have. “How are Mom and Dad handling everything?” asked Sarina.
“I’d say they’re fine, but I’d be lying. Dad’s angry and hard, something he’s never been. Even after you found Brody, Dad wasn’t this unapproachable. I think losing Jason really messed them up. Mom’s lost herself somewhere. I’m hoping that working to find the twins and take out Lilith will help bring her back to herself.”
“Maybe having Aunt Penelope, Briana and Lucia here will help.”
“Let’s hope so,” Shawna agreed. The two women worked hard to make a dinner that would satisfy even their hunger for revenge. Each of them had a personal stake in finding the twins and seeing both Lilith and Fenris pay for their obvious mistakes. Romeo was a fair and just ruler, a leader that everyone in the Delta pack looked up to. It wasn’t smart to cross him, especially where his family was concerned. The fact that Lilith didn’t seem to care and was blatantly overstepping her bounds was a great concern.
“So,” Romeo said, his eye meeting everyone at the table in turn. As far back as Sarina could remember when it came to dinner, they’d always eaten at the table as a family. In times of crisis or celebration it was the one place they always gathered, a place where one could always find a smile to share or tears to shed. “I need to know as much about her now as we can, everyone does. What she looks like now, weaknesses, if you noticed any other obsessions, etc. Anything you two can remember will help.”
Sarina caught Brody’s nervous stare before he spoke. “She, Lilith, exudes a sort of sexual aura. She uses it to her considerable advantage when dealing with men. I’m certain she used it on both myself and Jason before he was killed. When I was finally free of her in my mind, I was stunned even as I tried to reach Jason and Sarina. Forgive my crudeness, but Lilith threw herself at him as if he was the last candy bar within a million miles and she was having a hypoglycemic episode. I’m certain she knew he was your son and that Sarina was also your daughter. I don’t think though,” he hesitated before continuing, “that she wanted to kill him. She was all over him moments beforehand. I think she did it out of impulse, which would be a great disadvantage to her. She doesn’t often think before she acts, at least that time she didn’t.”
“That’s good,” Romeo said. “Thank you.”
“She’s also extremely jealous of you and Mom,” Sarina said. “She hates Mom and wants to take her place. She seems to think that by joining with you, she’ll take her rightful place. Did you and Lilith have something, before Mom… before you mated?”
“What?” Romeo said, his voice bruising in its roughness. “How dare you—”
“She said you would remember who your real mate was and I took it to mean that she thought somewhere in her mind she must have thought that you two had mated sometime in the past.”
“If she did, she’s delusional as well, which would be another advantage,” said Romeo, realizing the intent of Sarina’s question.
“Could she have mistaken you for Uncle Damon?” Sarina asked. It wasn’t common to bring up her father’s brother, seeing as he’d died long ago and had never seen any of his twin’s children. But Sarina thought it worth mentioning as it would make sense and could clear this whole thing up much easier than an all-out war, which was what Lilith seemed to be pushing for.
“No,” Romeo said, shutting down her idea completely. “Before we killed her last time she said she’d never been in love with Damon and that she’d only been with him to get closer to me. Her single focus has always been me, unfortunately.”
Sarina knew the idea brewing in her mind was ludicrous, but it was so strong that she voiced it before she could talk herself out of it. “What if we give her exactly what she wants?”
“What?”
“Hear me out,” she said, rushing on. “Her single focus has always been getting to you. So what if we give her that? You’d be able to keep an eye on the twins and gain extremely valuable intel.”
“So you think I should just waltz over to her, claim to love her, and let her dominate me?”
“No,” Sarina said, impatient. “I think we should trick her into thinking that she’s finally won you over. Then, when the time is right, we’ll separate her from her body and destroy both her body and her soul, if you can call it that.”
To her it didn’t matter that everyone seemed to think she’d lost her mind. Her children were in danger, her brother had been murdered, her wedding day was pretty much ruined without Jason, and at least delayed because of this sordid wench; Sarina didn’t know why everyone couldn’t see the sense in her plan.
“I think she’s right,” Sarina heard her mother say, nearly dropping her fork in the process.
“You do?” Brody said, irritatingly so.
“I do,” Amanda said again, more confidently. “And no, I don’t say that lightly. It’ll mean sending my mate, the man I’ve loved for more than half of my life, into a den of vipers. However, it’s the only way I can see to keep little Brody Jr. and Jedidiah safe. Not to mention it’ll give us a chance to figure out how to get that bitch out of her body and into hell where she belongs.”
“I don’t like it,” Romeo sighed. “But I agree with Amanda. I don’t see any other way to keep the boys safe. If we attack them outright, she’ll kill them to spite us. Even if we try to out flank her, she’ll kill them. Our best solution is to give her what she wants and to pray that we can defeat both Lilith and Fenris from the inside out.”