Peri swallowed down the massive lump that had formed in her throat at the discovery of her comrade’s betrayal. She’d deal with him. Before the magic settled and the air cleared, Peri would strip him of his power. She had a fate worse than death in mind for the fae scum. He would become like the humans. He would know illness; he would know wounds that would not heal. He would experience growing old and then he would do the one thing that fae didn’t do—Alston would die a natural death.

Sally’s movement caught Peri’s eye and the fae snapped out of her revenge plot.

“She’s been having more and more headaches,” Stralina explained.

“Her own magic is attempting to fight off what has been done to her.”

Peri placed her hand on Sally’s head and whispered softly in her own language. Suddenly the girl’s shoulders relaxed and she dropped her hand from her forehead.

“Okay,” Sally mumbled. “Not that I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth, but that was weird.” She was talking to herself, so obviously some things hadn’t changed regardless of the altered memory. Peri stepped back and watched as Sally continued on her way.

“Can her memory be restored?” the pixie asked.

“Magic that alters the mind can be very dangerous,” Peri answered. “If tampered with by another magical being who didn’t cast the original spell, well, that can be deadly. The good news is her memory can be restored. The bad news is it can’t be restored immediately, not all at once. Her memory will have to be revealed slowly, over a period of time. And time, as always, is not on our side.”

The high fae and the pixie watched as the girl with short blonde, purple streaked hair, haunted eyes, and Sally’s face, walked away from them.

“Tell me why I am letting Costin’s mate walk away please?”

Starlina raised her shoulders to her ears and held her hands up next to them, palms up. “I got nothin’ boss.”

“You are supposed to lie to me. Give me some touchy feely pixie encouragement about how we need to handle this delicately and that we can’t freak her out and I’m doing the right thing, yadda, yadda, blah,” Peri lectured, finally looking away from Sally’s fading form.

“Okay. Yadda, yadda, blah,” Starlina said as she patted Peri’s leg reassuringly. Then she looked up at the high fae and grinned, giving her a thumbs up. “As you say, I totally got you.”

Peri rolled her eyes and placed her hand on the pixie’s head. “There was no touching in my directions. You touched.”

“You’ll get over it.”

Peri smiled to herself as she flashed them from Oceanside. The little pixie was going to do alright if she could hold her own with the likes of Perizada.

They appeared in Jen and Decebel’s suite at the Serbian mansion. Peri knew that it would be empty. The Serbian Alpha and his mate would be on the way to their meeting with Vasile by now.

“Why are we here?” Stralina asked.

Peri’s smile was wicked as she answered. “Because this is the Alpha’s suite. It will annoy the crap out of Jen’s mate to have my scent all over his territory.” Just as quickly as the smile had appeared, however, it vanished as Peri computed all of the information she had gathered. The biggest kick to the gut had been finding out that it had been Alston who had cloaked Sally’s memory. “He was supposed to be a good guy, dammit,” Peri whined. “What is it with all these fae jumping off the good ship lollipop and hopping on to the bad ship rotten apple? Do they offer better health insurance? Perhaps, they have some company perks that the good guys just can’t compete with.” Peri ended her monologue with a very dignifying foot stomp.

She tilted her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. Sucking in a deep breath of air, filling her lungs to their maximum capacity, she held it. She held it until her body forced her to let it out. Peri managed to relieve a little of her tension but not anywhere close to all of it.

“Can I ask what we’re doing here, besides trying to annoy the Alpha?” The pixie said in a calm, soothing voice. It made Peri want to punt her across the room like a ball. She hated when others were calm when she was so far from it. But it wasn’t Stralina’s fault, so she refrained from kicking the little pixie.

“Stalling,” she answered as she began to pace the room. Her devious mind was always at work, so, as she paced, Peri touched everything she passed. Decebel was going to hit the roof. It would be hilarious. Focus, Peri, she growled at herself.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” she said, deciding that talking out loud would better keep her on task. She was pissed off about Alston, and was, for some reason, projecting her anger onto Decebel. Okay, she knew the reason, he was a butthead. Boom. Reason enough to take unwarranted anger out on him. “Sally’s memory is jacked up. It can be fixed, however.” She held a finger up. “It must be done slowly.”

“You’ve covered this,” said Stralina.

“Shh,” Peri snapped. “Don’t mess with my mojo. In order to uncloak her memories, we will need to take our time. If Costin finds out that we’ve found her, he won’t give us the time we need. He will simply follow his instincts and go take back what is his. So, Costin cannot know. Now—” Lowering her finger she tapped her chin thoughtfully. “The question is, who do we tell, if anyone at all?”

“Do you think it wise to keep this information from Vasile and Decebel?” Lucian’s voice rumbled in her mind. “I understand why you can’t tell Costin. But the Alphas will be very angry if you keep the location of a lost pack member from them—not to mention her two friends.”

Peri was well aware that Jen and Jacque were going to have a barbeque featuring her as the stuffed pig when they found out that she hadn’t told them where Sally was or what had happened to her.

“The more people that know, the greater risk that Costin will find out. If he tries to get to her while her mind is still so heavily affected by the magic, he could kill her,” she pointed out.

Peri could feel Lucian’s frustration at the situation. He didn’t like the idea of two powerful Alphas angry with his mate.

“Go to the meeting and feel them out. Perhaps, you should gauge their ability to handle the information before you decide what to reveal.”

“I will likely find that their ability to act rationally about their lost friend and healer is about as likely as your ability to do a striptease while wearing a tutu. Then what should I do?” She felt his amusement at her which brought a much-needed smile to her face.