Bound by the Moon (The Ancients Series Book 4) (14 page)

This woman was dangling a big carrot on a stick in front of me. I would give up a lot to be with my family again. I would give up everything, although, I’d at least take a minute to process the loss of my own soul first. “Are you telling me you can grant such a request?”

“Me? Heavens no. Why would I do that, even if I could?” She eyed me again, as if I were a much lower being. “I don’t have a lot of time, so let’s not play games here. You are a conundrum to me. On the one hand, you are responsible for my oldest daughter’s death. On the other, you seem to single-handedly be bringing my other girls together. I had hopes that they would be the first of the witch families to understand that a coven of familial witches was the strongest power source there is on Earth.” A particularly bright twinkle lit her eyes up from the inside-out as she spoke. “If someone were to, perhaps, tip them off to that… then maybe you wouldn’t have to carry the burden of being the only white wolf left. Maybe they could help make new species that would take the heat off of you, so to speak.” Her ambition washed off of her in waves. “You will do that, won’t you? I might be swayed then, to forgive you for Sophia.”

“What is she talking about?” I asked of my white wolf ancestors.

“She’s talking about a chance for you to go back.”

“To go back?”

“To live again, Jess.”

“What? I thought you said there wasn’t a way for me to go back to the other side?” My ancestors looked pained as the woman beside them smiled, and anxiously awaited their explanation.

“The devil is in the details, is it not, Kezia?” Aislynn tossed the accusation back at the woman in question. In order to gain access to the other side again, to return to the life you once knew, it requires great sacrifice. A dual sacrifice actually.

“Why must everything require sacrifice? Isn’t that what got me into this mess to begin with? Seriously, I already sacrificed myself, and baby Jack, what more could the beings in charge possibly want from me?”

“They want nothing from you.” Aislynn scoffed in my direction. It was the first time I heard her be less than kind to me.

“Watch it Aislynn, dear, your true colors are showing.” Kezia laughed as she spoke. And while there was a cruel edge to her tone that was never present when Serena spoke, Kezia’s voice was almost indistinguishable from her daughter’s.

“What do you mean they want nothing from me? How in the hell can I sacrifice what I don’t have to give? If they want nothing, then there’s no way to get back to my life.”

“Oh, but there is, sweet child,” Kezia cooed. “It just won’t be you who does the sacrificing this time.”

“I still don’t understand.” I looked back and forth between the two women, trying to figure out just how much crazy actually ran in my bloodline. Actually, I decided it was probably best not to know the answer to that particular question. I waited, instead, to hear what these two sacrifices would entail, but no one seemed willing to answer my question. Aislynn stood there, looking from one white wolf to the next, as if they were communicating silently among themselves. You would think, if that were the case, that I would be able to hear them too. After all, I was a white wolf in life, so now I should belong to the club or something since I was technically dead.

CONVERSATIONS WITH THE PAST

“The first sacrifice is ours to make, Jessica.” Aislynn referenced herself and the rest of my white wolf ancestors. “Nearly all of our line were born on the heels of another sacrificing herself for the next in line. We were only supposed to be born every 200 or so years, just like the witches. I think you can do the math as well as I can. There are almost twenty of us here, in our little ancestral pack. When a white wolf dies, it re-sets the clock, so to speak. Instead of just carrying on the gene until the 200 years have passed, a new white wolf is made on the heels of the last wolf’s breath. In other words, when you died, your daughter’s white wolf gene was activated. She will grow to be a white wolf, just as you are.”

“I suppose she should have said, just as you were.” Kezia teased.

“Willow…” my heart ached at the mention of my daughter, but I had to get to the bottom of this. “If I go back, will it be undone?”

“We don’t know. None of us has ever gone back to find out. There is a reason we have never gone back, Jessica.” Her head dipped, as she hesitated telling me. “Our leaving this place, and living again, it is possible, but it comes with a price. As far as we know this can only be done once, and only under certain circumstances. Apparently, this one, had something to do with that little after-death fail safe.” Aislynn pointed at Kezia then, who actually giggled and made a little clapping gesture with her hands.

If I didn’t know before that she was such a horrible person in life, I might have been amused by her antics. Baby Jack squirmed in my arms again, and I was honestly afraid that he would pull away enough to break out skin to skin contact we had going on. I stopped what I was doing, and held my question until after I situated Jack to ensure our skin stayed in contact. “I’m assuming my case meets all the specified criteria?”

“Yes, it does.”

“And what about little Jack here? Will he be able to go with me?” Aislynn’s grim look was all I needed to know that it wouldn’t be possible. “What if I sent him in my place?”

“You would send him back to die of starvation in a cavern long forgotten by all, but one ally, and who knows how many monsters?”

“Layla is out there though. I haven’t been gone that long yet, she’ll still be there. Gabriel promised to keep her there for an hour. Surely, it’s been less than that.”

“Time works differently in here, sweet wolf. Things have already come to pass out there while some of us stood around getting familiar with old family members.” Kezia tossed an accusatory glance over her shoulder at Anna and Lucas.

“How much time has passed? There has to be a way to get him back to his mom. Can’t we contact Serena again, or Layla, and let them know?”

“If we do what Kezia is proposing, we will not be able to communicate with the living world any longer. We will be released from that which binds us to this in-between place. Most of us will move on.” I’m not even sure which wolf spoke, because I was so stunned by the admission.

“You won’t be able to guard the portal anymore? That’s what you guys did, right? You were the guardians of this side? Surely, you weren’t just hanging around to give free advice to the next white wolf in line.”

One of the older wolves stepped forward then. “Truly, it is an honor to do so. We have watched each other grow, learn, love, and we’ve even shared in each other’s losses. We have actually, always served as guardian to the white wolf line. We’ve offered advice, and prayed that the next of us would do better than their predecessor. To answer your question though, yes, we are the guardians of this portal.”

“Should we sacrifice that position to re-open the portal to send you through, it will take everything we are to get you back to the land of the living, and seal it shut again.” Aislynn offered before looking up at her Grandmother, Kezia. “Something else may try to slither through while it’s open, which is another reason we’ve never considered it.”

“Is that child touching you?” Kezia asked casually, pointing to where baby Jack was, as if I had not been having another entirely different conversation with the white wolves already.

“What?” I looked down, and noted that Baby Jack was indeed still skin to skin with me. “Oh, that. I asked Layla if there was a way to protect him, in case I had to cross over while holding onto him. She mentioned that maybe if we maintained skin on skin contact he would survive the trip over here since I was bound to the portal, and the contact would mean he was then linked to me.”

“This is why you will succeed where these women have failed their line. You are brilliant, my dear.” Kezia clapped her hands together. “You remind me so much of me when I was younger. Not in looks, of course, the only one of my children to resemble me in any way physically was Angel.” The smile lingered on her face then. “Have you met her yet?”

“No.”

“Oh, well, I imagine you will in the future. She was always so curious about her sister’s line of wolves, but I tried to keep the younger girls from the older ones before my untimely death. You know, Angel has the gift of creation too. The most rare of them all, just like me.”

“Okay…” I wasn’t sure if Kezia was going to continue extolling one of her youngest daughter’s virtues to me, but I had more important things on my mind. “So, you’re saying that as long as the baby and I continue to touch, I should be able to take him with me, correct?”

“I’m fairly certain he’ll live.”

“Fairly certain? Seriously, fairly certain isn’t a good enough gamble when it comes to a baby!” My voice was raised, and Kezia tsked me for it.

“Child, for all your smarts, it seems I congratulated your brilliance too soon.” Righteous indignation rolled off of her then. “The baby is already in the world of the dead, if it doesn’t work, you will at least have a body for the mother to lay to rest. If it does work, you will have a baby to give back to her. If you do not try, you both remain dead, on this side, for… oh… ever!”

“Point taken.”

“If you are successful, that baby may also become a key to opening the portal. He will have to be guarded well for all his living years.” Aislynn cautioned. “And we don’t know what kind of side effects being here will have caused for him. No one goes back to the land of the living unscathed. That includes you too.”

“Understood. So, in order to do this, the baby and I have to keep touching, and then what?”

“Then we must sacrifice the ancestral line to open the portal, and to be able to seal it shut behind you.”

“Okay, so when I get back will I still be able to communicate with you, if the portal is sealed shut. I mean the way we used to communicate in the dream world.”

“Jessica, we already told you, expending the power it will take to re-open the portal long enough for you to pass through, and then shut it again, will take all the magic we have left. Our energies will dissipate, and most of us will move on to a new place. We will no longer be linked to you, our line, or the portal when it’s all said and done. Think of it as one of those pesky side-effects I was talking about. You do not go from being dead to alive without paying a hefty price. ”

“I get that, I do. Who will guard the portal when you guys move on though?”

“That is where the other sacrifice is needed, my sweet.” Kezia’s sugary tone was beginning to grate on my nerves.

“Another soul has to offer themselves as your line’s permanent guardian spirit. Once you cross the threshold, both you and that baby will be keys to opening the lock on the Gateway to the Dead. When you are gone, your next in line will also be a key. We are unsure if it will linger that way with little Jack’s lineage.”

“I would offer myself, but, I don’t see you as the little whipped dog following me on my excursions, so I have to pass this time.” Kezia offered. “Although, being released from this hellish place into your line’s servitude almost seems a fair trade. I once thought the earth itself was getting boring, but being locked here for so long has shown me the error of my ways.”

“Well, gee, thanks for that… I think.”

“Oh, don’t thank me. They wouldn’t let me go, because they know I’d find a way to trigger the loophole.”

“Loophole?”

“Whoever agrees to be your guardian spirit will go back and literally become the guardian spirit for you, and that of your familial line, for eternity or until no more are born into your line to protect.” Aislynn explained. “She would just find a way to have her back turned while she got everyone killed.”

“I see. No love lost for a long distance granddaughter huh?”

“About as much as you had for you dear, Auntie Estella Sophia.” She snickered then.

“Seriously, you are ten kinds of disturbed over there, lady.” Kezia raised her brows at my comment, but continued pacing behind the white wolves. Her brown skin seemed to be illuminated from within, in a way reminiscent of the glow Willow had about her when last I saw her. I thought to ask what that glow was all about, but then I was interrupted before I could start.

“I’ll do it.” A male voice I would recognize anywhere spoke up. I turned, ghastly pale, which was saying something considering where I was. I hadn’t been imagining things though, when I saw who it was standing there, I had no question that I had heard correctly.

“Dad?”

He gave me the sheepish grin he used to when he teased me as a little girl. “Hey there, Jessie-girl. We need to get you back home, and I don’t know anyone more qualified to be your familial guardian than me. From what I heard, I would be a shoe-in. I have every reason to see you succeed, and Willow, and anyone other members of your line, because they’re all a part of me.”

“Dad,” I whispered, having really not heard a word of what he was offering. “How are you here?”

SACRIFICE

“Aww Jess, a second ago, I wished I wasn’t here. Then I heard your voice and was drawn over here in time to figure out what was needed to send you back. How the hell did you get here anyway? Layla said you made it to where you were supposed to be. I didn’t think that meant that she’d led you to your death.”

“She didn’t dad. I was, well, it’s a long story. I didn’t actually die, I walked through the portal as a still living being. I think that’s one of the reasons why they’re able to send me back.”

“It is.” Aislynn agreed.

“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here though, dad.”

“Louis. He came for Mikael and Eileen when things didn’t go his way here with you. I think he wanted to send your family members, maybe even your whole pack to you, one at a time, so you’d be there to see us as we each crossed over.” I cringed, tears falling from my face, as I listened, and waited for the next fallen family member to appear. Maybe there wouldn’t be a reason to go back when all was said and done.

My father must have read my expression, or maybe it was my looking all around, and taking inventory of the souls surrounding us that tipped him off. Either way, he pulled me in for a hug, and continued on with his explanation. “I honestly don’t think anyone else will be joining me today. We had a plan in place, thanks to Serena. She expected this would happen, but wouldn’t say how. She called in the big guns, and we just had to hope they got there in time. I was part of the plan to make sure they didn’t get through to the weaker family members, if the big guns were late.”