Cynthia thought about it, trying to remember something, anything from their history that might aid them. She couldn’t think of anything that would help, but she knew someone who would know.

“Do you have a cell phone?” She asked Peri, who gave her an “are you freaking kidding me” look.

“I need to call someone.”

“What, you’re using your phone a friend option at this point in the game?” Peri walked over to where Jen lay, ignored the snarling Decebel, and reached into her pack. She pulled out the cell phone that had been dead for days.

She pushed power into it, and then handed it to Cynthia.

“Hope you know that this is your only life line left. Asking the audience isn’t an option and fifty, fifty just might get us killed by some pissed off mates,” she told the doctor.

“You are just a bowl full of cherries,” Cynthia snatched the phone away and started dialing.

“No my dear doctor friend, you are confused with someone who wants to blow smoke up your furry butt. What I am is a bowl full of wake the hell up and smell the roses.”

Q

Wadim snatched the phone up when he recognized the American number.

“Hello,” he asked, breathlessly.

“Wadim, it’s Cynthia.”

“You’re alive?” He asked as he flung himself back on the couch letting out a deep sigh of relief. Skender and Dillon who had been talking with him about their next move, both moved closer to him.

“Well, for the moment the answer to that question is yes. However, it is liable to change at any moment.”

“Why? Where are you? Where’s the pack? What’s going on? Where is Decebel?” Wadim had jumped to his feet at her declaration. He paced back and forth while the other two wolves in the room watched him with nerve wracking intensity.

“Okay, you are going to have to shut up and listen,” Cynthia growled through the phone.

Wadim took a deep breath and gathered his composure. “Okay, I’m good.”

“We’re in the forest on the way to the mansion,” she said.

“We’ll send vehicles for you,” Wadim interrupted just as Dillon made to leave the room.

“WAIT!” Cynthia yelled. The males froze.

Dillon, having taken all the waiting he could handle snatched the phone from Wadim.

“What the hell is going on Cynthia?” He growled.

“If you males would just chill out for two seconds and put away your need to control every damn thing around you I could tell you.”

A pause. “I’m listening,” Dillon responded, in a much calmer tone.

“It wouldn’t be wise to send any males near these females right now.” Dillon heard a scream in the background and felt his wolf rise up inside of him.

“Desdemona is working her bitchery and the females have a spell on them. The males can’t touch them,”

“Why can’t the males touchtheir mates?” Dillon snapped.

“Once again, keep your trap shut until I am finished.”

Dillon bristled at the order, but ignored it when he heard Fane yell Jacque’s name. It took everything in him not to crush the phone in his hand.

“It’s a long story, but basically the females uninvited the touch of their mates. I can’t get into the whys just now. At the moment, the males are watching their mates endure terrible visions, happening only in their heads. And, the males can’t touch them to help! Peri has tried to break the spell and tried to force the pack magic to break, but it’s not working. We need to know how to restore the male’s ability to touch their mates so we can move the females. Peri thinks that we can break Desdemona’s spell by transporting the girls somewhere farther away. Sometimes this type of magic has a limited range. It’s a shot in the dark, but at the moment I think we’d take just about any suggestion if it would fix this.”

Dillon stared at the floor as his brain tried to process what Cynthia had just told him. He knew that Skender and Wadim had heard everything and he could tell from the looks on their faces that they were working it all out in their head, searching for any solution possible.

“HELLO!” Cynthia yelled. “Look, the world is falling apart as I know it and I don’t have time for you to go into all freaky Alpha mode, so please help me.”

Wadim moved slowly as he took the phone from Dillon.

“Cynthia,” Wadim’s voice was steady and he felt less panicked, as he discovered that he had a purpose and could be of help. “The males were in their human forms when the woman put the binding on them?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, okay,” Wadim, said again. “The males need to change. The wolf is not bound by the human female’s desire. The mate bond from wolf to wolf is different than the human bond. I don’t have time to explain it.”

“What about Sally? She isn’t a wolf.”

Wadim thought about it for a moment, but then shook his head. “It should still work. Costin’s wolf sees Sally as his equal, as his she-wolf regardless.”

“Okay so if they shift they should be able to touch them?”

“I think so.”

Cynthia growled. “You think so or you know so?”

“Crap Cynthia, it’s not a freaking exact science. I’m going on what I’ve learned over the centuries of documenting our race, so truly, anything is possible, but what other choice do they have right now? By the sounds of it, they are on the verge of killing anything or anyone. Get those males to change and get them and their mates home.” Wadim was breathing heavily when he finished and his heart was pounding in his chest. This is what it was to be pack. When one in the pack hurt, they all hurt. When one in the pack was in danger, they all felt the urgency to save them.