36
Jaxson
The world dropped away.
Stephanie.
My mind whirled, completely unable to process her words. “Are you sure?”
Savannah nodded and stepped close, laying her hand on my arm. Her touch calmed the heavy seas, and the pressure in my chest released as the world seemed to steady around her.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
I’d never had time to mourn my sister, only to put out the fires after her death. To keep the pack and the LaSalles from tearing each other apart. When I’d finally had a moment to look up from the chaos, too much time had already passed.
Yet I’d never imagined her as a ghost. I’d never thought of her as anything but gone.
When I opened my eyes, shadows of concern draped across Savannah’s face.
“Are you sure it was her?” I whispered.
“I think so. We need to meet her again in the Garden of the Wolves. She said you could ask questions…”
My mind reeled with the possibilities. Our pack had always prohibited speaking with the dead, but the chance to talk to my sister…it was intoxicating. I studied Savannah in every detail. Could it be true that my sister had returned to help us? Or to warn us?
I swallowed. “What did she say?”
Her hand traced up my arm. “We spoke about Billy. And the Dark God.”
“Is that why she came?”
Savannah looked away, out over the water. “She came to warn us that we won’t be able to defeat him unless I’m whole. She said we must travel to the land of the dead to get that shard of my wolf’s soul back.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and gripped her arms. “Savannah, I’m sorry, but no. Crossing the veil between the worlds is perilous. Our legends say that those who enter the Deadlands don’t return. We’ll be able to release your wolf once we stop the Dark God. Then you won’t be in danger of being controlled.”
She bit her lip. “There’s more. She said that without my wolf, we won’t be able to overcome him. We need to find a way to do this—I don’t think we have another choice.”
Blood pounded in my temples as a million doubts tore at me. My sister wouldn’t lead us astray, would she?
Never. My father might be willing to throw me to the wolves, but Stephanie—I could always trust Stephanie.
I made Savannah repeat their conversation over and over, looking for any clue she might have missed. Finally, Savannah stepped back and threw her hands down. “Enough. My gut says she’s telling the truth. We need to try.”
I studied her, truly studied her: the fire that flushed her cheeks, the set of her jaw, the strength of her stance. My mate was the key to it all—to the prophecy, to the Dark God, to me. And she needed to be whole.
That had to come first, or we would all fall.
The others could handle everything else. The pack, the council, the preparation. Right now, my mate needed one thing.
I nodded. “Okay.”
Her expression transformed as the reality of the situation sank in: we were going into the Deadlands. She nodded, no longer quite as confident. “Okay, then. We do this. We need to go now. Stephanie said we didn’t have much time.”
We skirted the shoreline back to the portal, where we found the loremaster and Sam, who was perched on a large boulder.
Sam hopped down as soon as she saw us. “There you are! What took you so long? People have been filtering out for half an hour. The loremaster said you two survived the trial, so what happened to you?”
Savannah gave her a hug. “Thanks for being here and speaking up. For everything. This might sound crazy, but Stephanie appeared to me, and we need to go to the land of the dead.”
“Are you nuts?” Sam snapped.
Savannah explained everything, and when she was done, all Sam could do was run her fingers through her golden-blonde hair. “Holy shit. This is crazy—you know this is crazy, right?”
The loremaster thinned her lips and narrowed her eyes. “It will be very dangerous, Jaxson. It’s not wise.”
Savannah looked from the loremaster to Sam to me, flickers of doubt and despair creeping into the shadows of her expression. But I was set.