“Only the Mother knows,” I muttered, taking off faster when I saw Grace was hurrying deeper into the forest.

The grass between my toes, the soil beneath my feet, the prey amid the trees, and the whisper of the wind through the branches, all of it messed with my wolf. The beast wanted out, especially as I was nervous about Grace, and where she was concerned, he was more than all in.

I mean, that wasn’t to say that I didn’t feel the same way, it was just… the wolf was a lot more primal.

Any threat against her, be it a mosquito or a human with a gun, required the same depth of vengeance.

Death.

As the totem started its siren song, though, serenading me through the air, I relaxed a little, knowing that was where she was heading. With Cade at my back, we made a surreal conga line and when she darted into the sacred circle, I watched in bewilderment as she froze.

Cade jerked my arm and demanded, “What’s going on?”

“What about this situation makes you think I have a clue?” I growled, pulling my arm from his grasp before I doubled up my speed.

At my side, Cade did as well, and we crossed through the sacred circle together—sheesh, he really was getting faster.

As we passed through, Grace started moving again, and without cutting us a backward glance, she moved to the totem and pressed her hand to it.

Which was when everything went to shit.

Between one blink and the next, everything around us changed.

We went from the sacred circle at the clearing where the totem stood, pride of place, watching over everything and nothing like it had done for a thousand years or more, to a weird kind of forest.

And when I said weird, I meant it.

My life could be defined by the word ‘strange.’

Everything about it made no sense, and yet, I was standing. Usually on planet Earth, but this place was like nowhere—

“It’s like Pandora.”

I snorted. “Only you’d remember that dumb place from that stupid movie.”

Cade elbowed me in the side. “It was a generational masterpiece.”

“That I can’t remember the name of.” But I knew what he meant.

It really did feel like some kind of dreamscape.

Frowning as I twisted around, I saw a multitude of sights that were enough to put anyone on edge. Trees that were an array of colors and none of them simply brown or green. A pond that looked like it’d been sprinkled with diamonds it glittered so hard. A sky that was neither blue, nor black as night. Merely in between. And this could be considered twilight but it was both too bright and too dark, all at the same damn time.

The grass beneath my toes was alive with color, and the plants around us were like none that I’d ever seen before.

Sure, I couldn’t be considered a botanist, but when I said plants, these were like a cacti, a succulent, and a frickin’ rose had gotten together and made babies. It was, in all honesty, alien.

“This isn’t Earth.”

“Yeah, well done, Captain Obvious,” I muttered.

“It’s Nevaehai.”

Seeing as this was the first time Grace had spoken, I turned to face her and the breath was sucked from my lungs. Cade’s too if his audible gasp was anything to go by.

“Grace, you’re glowing!”

She peered down at herself, twisted one of her arms this way and that, but the other was holding a book to her chest, the stance protective.

Not about to state the obvious like Cade, I asked, “What’s in the book, Gracie?”

“It’s about this place,” she said softly. “It was in my room last night. Did you leave it there?”

Cade and I shared a look and, unfortunately, we simultaneously declared, “No!”

A lot too stridently.

Unsurprisingly, her eyes narrowed. “What happened last night? I woke up with a migraine, thirsty as heck, my bed out of alignment, and this on the floor.”

“Nothing. You just got tired,” Cade told her, but his voice was calm. Soothing.

Mother, sometimes I just wanted to rile him up. He was my cousin, a fellow mate of my woman, but that didn’t mean he didn’t drive me insane.

Sometimes, I felt like insanity was the better prospect because everything about my life drove me nuts.

From the shit I could do, from the past things I’d done, and from the future that awaited me.

I was only eighteen and already, my fate was sealed.

No one should know their fate.

No.

One.

But here the three of us were, missing a Musketeer, and we all knew we were fated to be together. The knowledge went deeper than that though, because if that was all I knew, I’d be happy. Finding a mate as a kid was considered to be fortunate.

Only trouble was, I didn’t feel so damn lucky.

My woman’s fate and my own were tangled together in so many ways that it beat a Gordian knot. There was no untangling it, and neither did I want to, but escaping our destiny? I’d do that in a heartbeat.

The destiny that saw her blacking out. That saw her moods triggering elemental shifts that had everything intangible in her vicinity under her control. One of her mates could act like human-Valium whenever she was stressed and would make Wikipedia look slimline when he ascended to his rightful place in his culture. Another was on the run for manslaughter. I could heal people, bring them back from the dead… And none of that took our parents into the equation.

We were one big ball of whacko.

Why did I feel like I was the only one who felt that? Who felt like I was being crushed beneath the weight of our fate?

“What is this place? What is Nevaehai, Grace?” Cade asked, and I wasn’t sure if he was changing the subject or just curious. He was usually curious about most things.

“It’s the Mother’s soul.”

I snorted. “Yeah. Right.”

Cade elbowed me in the side. “Shut up. She means it.”

I glowered at him. “How do you know?”

“Because I know my mate?” he retorted. “But also because my mom has mentioned it.”

“Why?”

“Because she keeps me in the loop on some things.”

Some things… not all things.

The qualification had me pursing my lips but I switched my focus back to my mate who had her nose in her book. Her lack of awareness concerned me. It was almost as if someone else was controlling her, and with her strange reactions to tense situations, that only made me more nervous.

I sighed, feeling guilty again before I even asked, “Do you ever just wish we were normal?”

Cade’s eyes were intent as they drilled into me. “Some people are born to be normal and wish to have what we have. Some people are born to be different.”

“And what if I don’t want to be different? What if I just want a quiet life?”

“Then you should hope that reincarnation exists because the only way you’re getting a quiet life is if you’re born again.” I winced at his droll tone, but he grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. “The fact you were talking to Ashley of all people tells me you’re going through something, Knight. If you ever need to speak with someone who doesn’t want to just stir shit, someone who actually gives a damn about you, I’m here.”

I could have been a prick, asked him why I’d want to talk to my baby cousin, but I didn’t. Nor did I have any explanation or reasoning for why I’d spoken to a girl I didn’t even like. Everything was up in the air in my head, and in the real world, that made sense. I was a teenager. Sometimes we pulled dick moves. Sometimes we were jackasses. So why did I feel like I had to be perfect all the time?