“Why would something in your history look like that in their minds?” Wadim asked Ainsel.

“Usually when there is some sort of tampering with a memory. It’s either something someone has done to one of the holders, or there has been some sort-of spell cast over that specific memory so that though you might have been there when it happened, but you would not remember that it even occurred.”

“Why would someone try to wipe out an entire battle?” Costin thought out loud. “Part of surviving as long as we do is from learning from our past, our mistakes.”

Peri stood up and brushed off her clothes and gathered herself. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying that some things are better left forgotten?”

“Yeah, and the idiot who said it died because he forgot not to walk through the forest of his enemy where some of his friends were killed,” Wadim told her.

Peri paused and looked back at the historian. “That’s not true,” she challenged him.

He grinned. “No, but you have to admit it would be a fitting end for someone who would say something so very ignorant.”

Peri gave a noncommittal shrug but didn’t disagree, for once.

“Can you lift your magic just long enough for me to flash back, so I don’t have to wait for nerd boy and sex toy to keep up with me?”

The two wolves behind her coughed on their surprised laughter at her description of them.

Ainsel waved his hand absently. “Done,” he took a step forward when he spoke his next words, “I wish I could help more Peri,” Ainsel told her.

“Ouch,” Wadim muttered.

“Yeah, that was not a wise thing for him to say to this fae.” Costin agreed.

Peri gave the king a curious look and then a slow smile spread across her too beautiful face, “I think you can king. What would you say to action, intrigue, sword fights, pirates, betrayal, and true love?” She nodded at him as if it were the best idea she had ever come up with. “Come on, it will be just like The Princess Bride only better because I’ll be there.”

The last thing Costin and Wadim heard as Peri and the king flashed was Ainsel’s voice. “What’s The Princess Bride?”

Costin and Wadim laughed, but their laughter was cut short when suddenly Peri appeared, grabbed both their hands, and then they were gone.

Chapter 19

“If I never see you again, at least I can say that you were mine. At one time, you belonged only to me. I hold onto that as I feel the link between us slipping away. I hold onto the knowledge that there was a time when the bond between us completed our souls, leaving no space between us. There was a time when I did not question how long our lives together would be, because where you went, I went. And now, somehow, we went different directions, and I am so much weaker without you.” ~Alina

“Do you think we will ever have children?” Jacque asked Fane as they lay on their backs on a blanket in the floor oftheir room. Fane had surprised her with a midnight picnic, complete with chocolate covered strawberries and the little finger sandwiches that she always thought were ridiculous. It had made her laugh, and that had been his goal.

“Most definitely,” he told her.

“How can you be so sure?”

“I don’t believe you could have been brought into this world and not be given the chance to pass on your love, compassion, intelligence, and loyalty to a child who could then be a light in this dark world. How will good remain in the world if those who are good do not raise up the next generation?”

Jacque smiled at him. “Thought about this much?”

Fane chuckled. “If you mean about procreating with you, well, what man doesn’t think about that with his wife?”

She smacked his arm and then broke into uncontrollable giggles as he tickled her. Though he never tickled her long, because there was only one thing he liked more than her laughter, at least that is what he had told her, and that was kissing her.

He braced himself above her on his arms and looked down into her flushed face. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she tried to catch her breath. Jacque looked up into those amazing blue eyes and thought that if she could go to bed every night staring into those eyes, then she would be happy.

“One day, my love, we will have a child and that child will be more loved than any child in history.” He leaned down and kissed her gently, but had to stop because of her laughter. “What is funny?”

“Fane every parent feels that way about their child.”

“Maybe so, but then those parents aren’t Canis lupus. We love on a whole different level.”

“Don’t I know it,” she said breathlessly at the mischievous flash in his eyes.

He leaned down to kiss her again and as Jacque waited for their lips to touch, she felt his weight growing lighter on her, the heat of his body was leaving hers. She opened her eyes and saw that he was fading. “Fane,” she called his name, reaching for him desperately. His eyes were sad, as his lips moved, she read the words, “I love you.”

Jacque woke with a start as she sat up. Dirt was stuck to her sweaty cheek from where her face had been pressed to the hard ground. She looked around her and remembered where she was—the dark forest-not in her bedroom, not with chocolate strawberries, and not with her mate. Her heart pounded painfully in her chest and she pressed her hand to her chest as if that could take the pain away.

“How are you?” she heard Alina’s soft voice a few feet from her. Her mother-in-law looked utterly exhausted. She had been trying not to sleep, worried that the white wolf would return. Jacque hadn’t decided if Alina was worried she would miss seeing him because she wanted to see him, or if she was afraid she wouldn’t be awake to protect them. Most likely the Alpha was torn between the two emotions.