“I know that she took some of the burden off my shoulders for a while,” was her soft reply, and her words were loaded down with a wistfulness that I couldn’t help but hear. You didn’t need to have skills with empathy to know that whatever Sabina had done, she’d appreciated it.

“Did you hear her give that prophecy?” Ethan’s tone was calm, which was BS, because I could hear his heartbeat from over here.

Just like mine and Austin’s, it was racing and rampaging, and would continue to do so until Sabina opened her damn eyes and could explain things for herself.

Until we knew she was okay, and we could see it for ourselves.

“I know what Maribel told me,” she whispered softly.

“Whose spirit did she invoke?” I asked, trying to stay calm when I was feeling anything but.

She cleared her throat. “I’ve always believed it’s Kali Sara. Do you know who she is? Did Sabina explain—”

My mouth dropped open at that, and I graced her with all my focus as I stared at her. “Your saint?”

Her shoulders hunched high beside her ears. “Yeah.”

I cut Ethan a look and saw he was just as confused as me.

What the humans believed in, their God? He didn’t exist. He was a merging of so many fables of the Father of our culture. An aggressive God who smote and who sent plagues and who demanded subjugation.

Their New Testament God was technically our Mother.

A gentler being. One who believed in free will. Who gave with one hand and cast out more love with the other.

Kali Sara, therefore, didn’t exist because from what I knew, she was a saint who acted as the go-between with the humans’ God and the Roma. They dialed her up and hoped she’d pass on the word to God.

I reached up and scrubbed a hand over my face, almost wishing Austin hadn’t asked the fucking question in the first place. How did we have more information than before, but somehow, have less than ever?

“Do you know who she’s talking about?” Austin asked warily, and I knew his wariness was founded in my agitation.

He didn’t give a shit if he pissed me off. Didn’t give a damn if I chewed him out… He just didn’t want her to be frightened.

It was then I realized how little faith I had in Austin sometimes. As pack enforcer, I needed his brawn not his brains, almost as if he didn’t have them. Even if I’d always relied on Ethan’s smarts when they were both sharing the same role, I knew Austin was capable of more than just being a meat-head.

Hesitantly, Lara answered, “I believe Kali Sara was speaking of the spirit inside Seth.”

My mouth tightened at that.

“Where is the child?”

Ethan cleared his throat at her question. “Confined to his room until Sabina awakens.”

She sighed. “That’s probably for the best, even if I’d like to say it isn’t.”

I cut her a glare. “Not my finest moment, sticking a ten-year-old in solitary confinement, but I wasn’t about to have him wandering around when he was a danger to his mother.”

“Do you know what that was about?”

“I’m not a lie detector, Ethan. I’m not Sabina,” she replied gently. “I just know there’s a great source of energy in him, and it’s far larger than he is.”

“Meaning?” I rumbled.

“It’s ancient, and he definitely isn’t.”

My brow puckered. “So he’s possessed?”

“Yes.”

The simplicity of her answer had me surging to my feet in a smooth move before I stalked over to the bed and climbed onto the mattress. The need to be with her, to cosset Sabina, to hold her and be close, was one I could no longer fight.

We’d taken turns, off and on, for the time she’d been down to be with her, but now, I needed her in my arms, so I carefully wrapped myself around her, making sure she was tucked into the curve of my body.

As I did so, the way she flopped around like a rag doll was enough to make me feel physically sick. She was somewhere beyond sleeping.

Unease traveled through me as I thought back to those moments after our claiming—when a cougar had attacked her after she’d defended the beast from my challenge.

As her lifeblood lay gushing out onto the soil beneath her, she’d been as still as this. As silent.

And one thing I’d come to learn about Sabina? Silence wasn’t golden.

Silence was boring.

She brought with her the sounds of birdsong and the sensation of joy. She made me feel alive, even as she calmed and soothed me, giving me the strength to make the hard decisions when it came to pack life.

I rubbed my chin over her hair, uncaring that tiny wisps were snagged in my stubble, just needing her to be close, to give me something, anything, that told me she was close to the surface.

When the mattress jostled, I connected with Austin and Ethan and recognized that they were still in their corners of the room. It was Lara.

Lara, who I wasn’t sure if I could trust yet.

I shot her a glare, not appreciating her moving into my very personal space, but she didn’t flinch at that, just started stroking a hand over Sabina’s hair.

“She was the only person who ever tried to make me feel better, do you know that? Jana and Cyrilo never cared if our father hit me. But Sabina, she cared,” Lara told me softly. “And the first thing I do after years apart is knock her out.”

“Hardly your fault,” Austin rumbled, but I sensed his tension too—even if it wasn’t enough to make him move away from his armchair. I had my own instincts, but I knew, after years of being honed as I sent him and Ethan off on challenges that were unique to the pack, anything from criminal investigations that necessitated liaisons with the humans, to business meetings I didn’t want to handle myself, I could trust his instincts too. He continued quietly, “Sabina asked you for your help.”

“Why did she bring me here? Do you know?” my sister-in-law questioned, her brow puckering as if she was in pain.

“She believed you could help Seth. He’s been living with us for a while, and he does very strange things,” I rasped.

“He will,” she agreed. “The power in him is causing a spiritual degeneration. He is only small, after all. He can’t withstand such a force.”

My brain flickered from thought to thought, processing her candor, her beliefs, because even though I’d been raised with the fear of invoking the Father, it was a tale told to terrify children into behaving… A myth.

It had to be.

Who was possessed by a spirit?

And if that was ever to happen, how?

Children weren’t invited to the totem circle until their covenant. Then, and only then, were they touched by the Mother. What could Seth possibly have done to have welcomed such a malignant force into his being? He was, as Lara had said, only small.

It made no sense.

None of this did.

I pressed a kiss to my mate’s hair, then when she sighed, her lips parting as she exhaled, “Eli,” we all tensed, but when she relaxed and slept again, I felt something in me, some inner ball of tension, ease.

She was here.

She was okay.

All was going to be well.

Clenching my eyes closed, I kissed her again.

“Eli?”

Lara’s soft voice caught my attention, and I rumbled, “Yes?”