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Clinging to him in shock, I let him lower my feet to the ground. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
Jamie chuckled. “I told you I was on my way.”
I blinked at him in surprise. “What?”
“I know you heard me, you were talking to me too,” he said, his lips falling into a confused frown. “You did hear me, didn’t you?”
“I…I did, but I thought I was hallucinating,” I said. “But how? The only place we can share thoughts is supposed to be the alter. How were we talking to each other?”
“The mating bond?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t know…mabye…” I trailed off with a groan clutching my head. “My skull hurts.”
“I’m sure it does,” Maria said, appearing beside us again. Her face was covered in sweat and grime. “The oxygen in that box had to be seriously low.”
“I would assume so,” I sighed.
“You’re so cold.” Jamie squeezed my hand and released it to shrug his jacket off. “Between that and the blood loss, I don’t know how you’re alive.”
He held out his jacket, and I slipped my arms through, grateful for the warmth, no matter how small the size of it made me feel. “Me either. There weren’t any air holes in that thing, but I never had any real trouble breathing.”
“Actually,” Maria cleared her throat. “I have a theory about that. A theory that might explain, both why your still alive, and how the hell that wound on your shoulder is already healing.”
“What?” I frowned and pulled my shirt aside to see that the space where Adrian’s dagger once sat was whole again. The only sign of trauma was a large star shaped scar and what I guessed was the shadow of a bruise.
“I think it has something to do with that,” Maria said, pointing past us. “I think that might just be the answer to all of our problems.”
Turning around, I narrowed my eyes searching the darkness for whatever she could possibly be talking about. What I saw had me doing a double take. Adrian had buried me just north of the tower in the woods. We were near my favorite spot.
I gaped at the stones. “He thought burying meherewas a good idea?”
“I’m not sure it was his idea,” Maria says. “And…Evie, I’m so sorry. I never met to tell him where the books were. I never meant to help him. I just couldn’t say no. He used the Alpha bond, I couldn’t…”
“I know,” I said, looping my arms around her. “I know. He told me he forced you, and we’re gonna make him pay for it.”
She nodded as I pulled away and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “We will, we will, but I think there’s something about this place that has to do with you.”
“What do you mean?” Jamie asked, hovering at my shoulder.
“I mean think about it. You’ve been drawn to this place since we were kids. It’s always given me and everyone else the creeps. You are the only wolf that ever comes out this way, and I’m the only person who’d know that. That’s why Adrian would’ve thought this was the perfect place.”
“Okay.” I frowned.
“Then, when you were buried, Jamie could suddenly feel you like you were standing right next to him, right? Since when is the average mating bond that strong?”
“I’ve never felt anything that powerful before,” Jamie said, threading his fingers through mine. “One minute, I was listening to Adrian telling me that you’d abandoned me and attacked Claudette, then suddenly as I was leaving the Alpha house to go running, I felt you. I felt your panic, your sadness, I heard you calling for me. Then I said something to you, and you responded.”
“I thought I was hallucinating,” I said, scrubbing my hands over my face. “But I don’t know why I’d have a connection to this land. It’s stuff that was hear before the wolves came over from Ireland.”
“I wonder if your mother hid her talisman here?” Jamie said, scanning his eyes over the broken buildings. “Maybe that’s what brought you here.”
“It fits the old saying.” Maria nodded. “Like calls to like.”
“If that talisman is here, I need to find it. I have a feeling it might help me protect us from the witches.”
“And Adrian.” Maria sighed. “He’s been wreaking havoc for too long. He needs to be stopped. I mean, seriously, Evie, he’s talking about mating with witches to create a new race. He wants to bring them here, to give up the rites to parts of our territory.”
“He’s lost his mind.” Jamie shook his head. “I say we find this talisman and just go. Start our own pack.”
