The Warlock Queen: Book 13 of the Grey Wolves Series

Prologue-3

Costin’s eyes were glassy with unshed tears as he gazed at her. “You leave me speechless,” he murmured. His hand cupped her cheek, and he pulled her face toward his.

Just before their lips touched, Sally whispered, “I’m still your brown eyes.”

She saw the tears fall as he kissed her. Sally felt the dampness on her own cheeks as she lost herself, not only in her own emotions, but also the emotions of her mate. She knew the months until the challenges began would pass quickly. Even with the time of mourning, the pack would not heal by then, if ever. They would, however, be ready to take on anything that thought to stand against them or the Great Luna.

Costin rolled them over so he covered her body with his own. Her mind cleared of all thoughts as he freed her of the confines of her clothes, which suddenly felt much too constricting.

“Stay here with me,” Costin whispered as he broke the kiss and ran his nose along her jaw, breathing in deeply.

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” Sally sighed as she settled into the care of her mate.

Jen pressed a kiss to Thia’s forehead and laid her daughter down in her crib. Then she wrapped her hands around the top rail of the crib and squeezed. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t seem to get herself together. After she’d gone on her little vengeance killing spree, she’d known a minuscule amount of peace, a tiny amount of retribution for those who’d been lost. But now she was buried beneath a wave of confusion and pain that seemed determined to drag her to the bottom of an ocean of despair.

The former alpha female could feel Decebel pushing into her mind. He was trying to decipher the emotions warring inside her. But how could he when she didn't even know what was going on? Jen hated making him worry. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t hurting just as badly as she was. He’d known Vasile and Alina a heck of a lot longer than she had, but his shoulders were so much bigger than hers, and they seemed to bear the weight of the pain with so much more ease than her own.

“You could let me bear it for you,” Decebel breathed from behind her.

Jen let her head fall forward, her blonde hair creating a curtain around her face, protecting her from his eyes. Why do I feel as if I need to hide from my mate?

“Jennifer,” his voice rumbled, and she heard how close his wolf was to the surface. “Let me help.”

After several minutes of silence, she released her death grip on the crib and turned around. She kept her head lowered as she walked toward him, passing him and walking into the living room. Jen heard Dec close Thia’s door and then felt his presence behind her.

“Talk to me, Jennifer.”

“What do you want me to say?” she asked, her voice sounding as weary as she felt. “I’m lost. I feel like the grief is making me lose my identity. I don’t even recognize myself, at least not my mind.” She threw her hands up in the air and let them fall uselessly by her sides. “It’s not like I expected them to live forever, but I guess I sort of did.” The thought sounded ridiculous when she said it out loud. She’d imagined Vasile and Alina as untouchable. Jen had thought nothing could take them down. But I was horribly wrong. What does that mean for the rest of us?

“It means we treasure every second we have together, no matter how bad,” Decebel answered her unspoken thought.

She lifted her head and finally let her eyes meet his. The amber orbs were glowing.

“I’m scared, Dec.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. Jen did not like admitting fear. She was supposed to be the strong one. She was the one who held her girls up when they were tired and felt like they couldn’t go on. But at that moment, it took everything she had to stay on her feet. What she really wanted to do was collapse on the floor and beat the ground while screaming at the top of her lungs. Maybe that would purge all her pain and frustration.

“It’s okay to let yourself hurt,” Decebel said as he padded toward her. “You don’t always have to be the strong one.”

Jen could sense her wolf’s grief as strong as her own. “I know,” she said as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. I can’t believe I still have any tears left to cry. “But I don’t enjoy my emotions being out of control. This despair … it’s … it’s so deep that I don’t know if I can climb out of it.”

“Nobody does, Jennifer. It’s part of life. It’s actually the part of life that makes it all worth living.”

Jen’s eyes narrowed. “Crying to the point of dry heaving makes life worth living? Are you trying to piss me off?”

Decebel reached out a hand and gently wrapped it around her upper arm. He tugged her toward him and, when she went willingly, pulled her into his powerful embrace. “When am I not trying to piss you off?” he asked before sucking in a deep breath. Jen knew he was taking in her scent, that the familiar smell comforted his wolf. “You know I think you’re sexy when you’re irked.”

She laid her head against his chest. “Mmm-hmm, stop trying to distract me,” she murmured. “What do you mean it’s what makes life worth living?”

“You’ve heard Vasile and Alina both say it,” he said. “There is no light without the dark, not in this world. There is no joy without sorrow. Or maybe, a better way to explain it is that a person cannot appreciate the good in this life unless they have suffered the bad.”

Jen remembered both Vasile and Alina saying similar things, and she knew what Decebel said was true.

“It doesn’t make it hurt less,” he said, answering her thought before she could speak it.

“No,” she agreed. “It doesn’t.”

After a few minutes of silence, Decebel hummed and then he started swaying. Jen listened to the deep timbre of his voice as the humming turned into words. Her lips turned up slightly. It was a song she’d sung to him many times before and a promise she’d made to him if ever he needed it again, she would remind him who he was.

“As I am reminding you,” his voice filled her mind even as he continued to sing. “You are mine. My mate, the mother of my child, the best friend of Jacque and Sally.”

“Are we going to be okay?” Jen’s voice sounded small and vulnerable.

“Is there any other option?” Decebel asked.

“Normally, I would answer no. But now? Now, I’m not sure of anything anymore. I don’t know what the future is going to look like for Thia, Slate, and Titus. I don’t know if we are going to have enough allies to defeat the damn Order. They seem to be crawling out of the woodwork. I don’t know if Fane is going to be able to fight every wolf that comes to stand against him. I just don’t know.”

“That’s where faith steps in,” her mate said as he continued to sway with her, dancing quietly in the safety of their suite. “The Great Luna is on our side, and if we follow her, she will guide us.”

“It’s that simple?”

“Yes.”

“But that doesn’t mean we won’t have pain.” Jen sighed. “It doesn’t mean we won’t suffer.”

“No,” he agreed. “But it does mean that we have a Creator who cares and is with us and feels our suffering.” He paused, and Jen could hear the thoughts rushing through his mind. “When you went on your hunting spree in the Order’s compound, were you on your own?”

“You know I wasn’t. You can see my thoughts.”

“So, the Great Luna was right there with you while you fought for justice. You were the arm of her justice.”

Jen nodded. “And if she hadn’t been with me, I would have killed every single person I came upon.” The thought made her feel sick, not proud.

“I know you’re hurting, and we can talk for as long as you want to and as often as you need to,” Decebel assured her. “But I think the best thing we can do tonight is get some rest.”

Jen knew he was right. She needed sleep in the worst kind of way. She let him lead her to their room and strip off her clothes before climbing into bed. She didn’t have the energy to put on her pajamas. Decebel turned off the light and crawled in beside her. He pulled her tightly to his side and wrapped his arms around her. Again, Jen laid her head on his chest. Her wolf had been pushing against her to let it take over. The wolf didn’t worry about what was to come or what was in the past. The wolf lived in the moment. Jen let her beast have control, and finally she relaxed. Her eyelids drifted closed.

“Sleep mate,” Decebel’s wolf rumbled. “All will be well.”

A week had passed since the Blood Moon ceremony, and Jacque still felt as if she was merely going through the motions of her life. She slept, she got up, and she took care of Slate. She, Jen, and Sally would sit in the library and let the kids play. Little was said among them. Mostly, they stared at the three pups on the floor. Thia decided she should teach seven-month-old Slate to walk. He was already doing the army-crawl thing as well as raising up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth like a race car at the starting line ready to take off. But much to Thia’s frustration, as soon as Slate would lift an arm to move forward, he’d fall flat on his chubby face.

“Hell,” Thia spat when once again Slate tumbled forward.

“Thia,” Jen growled, the voice of the woman’s wolf present in her tone. “I have already told you to stop using that word.”

“Mommy do,” Thia said, her own voice filled with accusation.

“Mommy is a grown a—” Jen stopped herself and took a breath before continuing. “Mommy is an adult.”

“Aunt Jen,” Titus said, “if you don’t want Thia to say hell, why do you say it?”

Jen turned to glance at Sally. “You need to dumb down your kid.” Then she looked back at Titus. “There are many things adults do that kids need not do, Tucker.”

“Aunt Jen,” Titus huffed. “You know my name.”

Jen shrugged. “You irritate me, your name becomes whatever I want it to be.”

Titus rolled his eyes and shrugged before turning to help Thia prop Slate back up on his hands and knees.

Jacque watched all of it with only a passing interest. Her mind constantly searched Fane’s. The day after the ceremony, he’d told her his wolf needed to run. Costin and Decebel had joined him, and the trio had gone out hunting every day since. He wasn’t shutting her out like he’d done in the past. She had front row tickets to all his thoughts, but they were so numerous and jumbled together with his emotions, it was hard for her to decipher them.

Mainly, she felt his worry. Jacque was doing everything she could think of to remove some of his stress. She’d hosted two pack dinners, inviting everyone to eat together. Most of the pack had attended, and the meals had been a good time of fellowship, a chance to share memories of their beloved alpha pair. As much as it hurt to talk about them, taking a walk down memory lane with the rest of the pack was cathartic. The little pieces Jacque gleaned from the other pack members were filling the giant hole left by the loss of the alphas.

“Mission control to Jacque,” Jen huffed.

Jacque blinked several times and looked up from where she’d been staring, unseeing, at the children. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Sally and I were just talking about how we need to have a big Christmas celebration that also includes all the birthdays, anniversaries, etc. that we’ve missed because of all the dickhead bad guys we’ve recently had to deal with.”

“For the record, I didn’t say dickhead,” Sally added.

“But you wanted to,” Jen said.

Jacque thought about the idea, and her first reaction was to say no. A celebration seemed like the last thing she wanted to take part in right now. But then she looked at Thia. The little girl was patting Slate on the back as if trying to tell him she knew he could do it. Thia had turned a year old with no celebration of the milestone. Each of them had birthdays that had come and gone with no acknowledgement because there’d been no time, and when rest had finally come, the reprieve had been short-lived. Who knows how long it had been since Titus had celebrated a birthday?

Finally, she looked at Sally and then Jen. “I think you’re right. We should have a Christmas that celebrates everything we’ve missed.”

“Excellent,” Jen said.

Jacque held up a hand. “But,” she added quickly, “I have a couple of stipulations.”

“Ugh.” Jen flopped back onto the couch. “Stipulations usually mean fun killers.”

“We have one night where the entire pack celebrates, but on Christmas Eve, it’s just our group, those of us who’ve been through it all together.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Sally said.

Jen pursed her lips and seemed to think about it before begrudgingly nodding. “I can deal with that.”

“All right then.” Jacque smiled. “Operation AGWCAEIB is in effect.”

Jen’s lips twitched. “Are you just trying to get on my good side by using my lingo?”

Jacque shrugged. “I wanted a smile, and I got half of one. So, I’d say it was pretty successful.”

“Go ahead, enlighten me. What is operation AGWCAEIB?” Sally asked.

“Operation A Grey Wolves Christmas And Everything In Between.”

“Nice,” Jen said with a nod.

“How do you think the guys will feel about it?” Sally asked.

“I think they’re going to be singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” while they frolic about tossing silver tinsel onto the trees.”

“Is that some weird fantasy you have?” Jacque asked, thankful to have a somewhat normal Jen back to distract her.

“I didn’t say they were going to be wearing Christmas Speedos,” Jen answered with an eye roll.

“And who's going to get the guys to frolic with tinsel?” Sally asked.

Jen pointed to the kids on the floor. “The big bad wolves turn to little puppies when any of those little fur balls whimper.”

Jacque smirked. Jen wasn’t wrong.

It was going to be an interesting Christmas. The only thing that would make it better was if Vasile and Alina were there to enjoy it with them.