“Sally,” he whispered, his voice was rough and she felt his words rumble in his chest.

“It’s really me, Costin. I’m real. I know you don’t know what to believe, but I’m real.”

Costin pulled back and looked at her. He reached up, brushed away a tear from her cheek, and felt the wetness against his skin. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. There was no hesitation from Sally. She returned his kiss wholeheartedly. She kissed him as though her life depended on it. Costin felt Sally’s lips mold to his, and then part when his tongue pressed against them. Her taste hit him hard and he ended the kiss abruptly pulling back to look in her eyes.

“It’s you?” he asked, almost afraid to hope.

“Yes.” She smiled and it lit up the darkness that had been surrounding him for so long.

“Can you stand?” She asked him. “We need to get out of here. We only have a limited amount of time.”

“How are we going to find the others,” he asked her as he let her help him to his feet.

“They’re right here,” she pointed to the other males around them, now being attended to by their mates.

Costin’s eyes widened as he saw how close he had been to Decebel, Adam, Fane, Vasile, Gavril, Sorin, and Drake. It had only been mere feet between them.

“They’d been right here all along?” He looked on as the other males began to stand to their feet and the same realization hit them.

Decebel’s wolf was so close to taking over. He was fighting it, but he didn’t think he could watch his mate scream for another second. He was on the verge of phasing when he felt a warm hand caress his neck.

“Dec,” the voice was small, hesitant, not anything, like he was used to hearing from her. He looked up and his eyes met his mate’s. She wasn’t screaming or writhing in pain. She wasn’t swollen with their baby, and she wasn’t bleeding in childbirth. She was whole, healthy, and beautiful, standing before him. She knelt down in front of him and tilted her head to the side. A low growl rumbled up from his chest as he saw his bite mark on her neck. He reached for her and she willingly went into his arms. He closed his eyes and ran his nose along her jaw line and down behind her ear.

“Mine,” he told her as he pulled her closer.

“Yes, I’m yours,” she agreed.

Decebel waited, dreading the moment when she would be ripped from his arms and he would have to watch all over again as their baby died, or his mate was raped, or tortured by an unnamed foe. He held her tighter, praying that it would be over, that he wouldn’t have to live through any of it any longer.

“Baby,” Jen groaned, “kind of squeezing too tight.”

Decebel loosened his hold a little and when she started to squirm, he let out a growl.

“Not yet,” hesnarled. “I’m not ready to lose you again. Please just one more minute, let me hold you, please Jennifer.”

Jen stilled her movements as she heard the pain in his voice. She realized that he didn’t know she was really here. He thought she was still just his imagination and that he was going to have to watch those horrible things she had seen in his mind.

“Decebel, it’s really me.” She put both her hands on his face and held him away so he had to look her in the eyes. “I’m real. I’m not going to be tortured or raped. I’m here to get you out of this hellhole.”

He continued to stare at her and Jen could see that he was trying to decide what to believe. She could see that he wanted to have hope, to believe that it was her. But, he was so scared that it was an illusion, a cruel trick by Desdemona.

She leaned forward slowly so as not to startle him and pressed her lips to his. Jen meant for it to be a small kiss, just to reassure him, but it had been so long and he smelled so, so good. She ran her tongue along the seam of his lips and when he groaned she smiled victoriously as his lips parted and he deepened the kiss. Jen wrapped her arms around his neck and let him pull her against him. She didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to put even an inch of space between them, but they needed to hurry. She pulled back and looked at him. She patted his face and smiled. “You with me?”

“It’s really you? You’re really here?” Decebel asked, as he gripped her hair in one hand and pulled her closer to him with the other.

“Look around babe,” Jen told him.

Decebel slowly turned his head and his eyes widened as he saw the others. He stood abruptly, still holding Jen in his arms. She was really here with him.

“Decebel, put me down,” Jen told him as she patted his shoulder.

Decebel shook his head. “No. If I put you, down it might not be real and I’m not ready to face that. I can’t lose you. I can’t watch you hurt any longer.”

“I’m real baby,” she pulled his face to look at her. “I’m real and I’m not going anywhere.”

He nodded. “Okay, if you’re not going anywhere then there’s no reason I can’t hold you.”

Jen rolled her eyes. “Fine, hold me. Wear yourself out lugging my fat pregnant butt around, see if I care.”

“Glad we’re on the same page,” Decebel told her and pulled her tighter to him.

“You’re really not going to put me down are you?” She asked him after several moments.

Decebel shook his head as he continued to watch the others pull themselves together, gradually realizing one by one that their mates had come. They had said they would, and now they were here, to take them back from the grips of hell.