300- JAX

300- JAX
POV Jax:

Lunessa had clearly been crying. I hated that she had to hear about Mother’s death over the phone, and from me.

“Hello, Jax,” she said, tense. “Kenzi said you found our communication crystal.”

“London thinks I can use it to reach Anna if I do it through my bond with her, but she’s weakening it.”

“It doesn’t matter. The magic will still reach her. There’s a spell, but since you don’t have a witch there to cast it, I’ll have to improvise. Give me a moment…”

A second later, she appeared in front of us. London screamed and nearly stumbled against the wall behind me. Lunessa looked around, surprised.

“I wasn’t sure this would work. Supposedly, there are barriers to keep this from happening, and my magic is weak with both the Elder and Mother dead.”

She looked around, as if searching for the witch’s body. I cleared my throat.

“Can you cast a spell to make the crystal work? London can update you on what happened, though you really shouldn’t be exposed like this. You need to go back to the pack.”

Lunessa gave a brief nod.

“There’s enough magic here to take me back. As I explained before, these crystals are activated with a spell, which I’ll cast for you, but using your bond can be a little unpredictable, especially because of the magic she placed on it. Normally, the crystal mentally transports the user to a place of their choice, where they can talk to whoever they want. We tend to visualize a body of water, since the elements of water and air aid communication. You may need to visualize your bond. If you connect, your body will become unconscious, so London will have to watch over you.”

Great. This just kept getting better and better. Lunessa and Anna were now exposed. A fae creature was on the loose. I would be unconscious, and we weren’t even sure this would work.

But what choice did I have? I couldn’t keep chasing Anna forever, hoping to catch up to her.

“Thank you,” I told her. “And I’m sorry.”

“I know you are.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry too, but it may take some time before I can forgive you.”

I nodded, understanding. Following her instructions, I sat cross-legged on the ground and held the crystal in my hands.

“Focus on your bond. Fight against any magic Anna placed on it and find that pulse of life that connects the two of you. The thread your wolves wove. Imagine a place that holds meaning for both of you. Where you connect.”

I focused on the bond, or at least where it should have been. It was so muffled under Anna’s magic, so hidden it almost felt dead, but that’s not how bonds work. Either they exist, or they don’t. So as long as I could feel it, I knew she was still with me.

Lunessa whispered an incantation, and the crystal warmed in my hands. My heart pounded with anticipation, and darkness enveloped me.

When I regained consciousness, I was in the middle of a clearing. It looked vaguely familiar, and thunder split the sky. The ground was muddy beneath my feet, and my body was soaked.

The crystal was gone.

Desperate, I looked around. Familiar faces stared back at me. Jenson. McCable. Warrick. Trusted guards. And the last time we had all been together, we had been hunting Dirk Kipling.

Horror washed over me as I realized where we were. At my feet, Dirk’s wolf lay dead, and Anna was kneeling, looking at me.

The mating bond clicked into place, and I nearly collapsed. Anna gasped, but her captors didn’t release her.

“Anna,” I whispered. “Mate.”

I reached out to her. I needed to speak to her. Tell her to come back. But somehow, my body didn’t feel like my own.

I grabbed her head and twisted, and my mate fell lifeless at my feet.

“No!” My cry of agony echoed louder than the storm as I fell to my knees. “Anna!”

“I imagine that one caught you by surprise.”

Whipping my head around, I saw Dirk’s dead wolf shift back, and the man grinned at me. His wounds were still there, healing, because the dead don’t bleed.

“You’re not a part of this,” I growled and turned back to Anna. Everything else had vanished.

“Oh, you and I are more alike than you think. I killed my mate to save my daughter. You killed your mate…” He looked down and frowned. “Why did you kill your mate? To save the mountain? To spare yourself the pain? To spare her the pain?”

“This isn’t real. That’s not how it happened. This crystal was supposed to let me speak with her!” Was this just some cruel joke? Was Lunessa trying to punish me?

I looked to the sky. The rain had stopped, and black smoke began to spread everywhere, as if everything were catching fire.

“The bonds,” I muttered. “This is Anna’s magic.”

“Smarter than you look,” Dirk murmured, crouching beside her. When he reached out a hand to touch her, I yanked him by the foot and threw him away.

“After what you did to her, you don’t have the right to touch her.”

With a laugh, Dirk rose in one incredibly fluid motion. “I lost my sanity for a time,” he admitted. “She looks like her mother, you know. I fought it, but deep down, everything I did was to save her. My murderous crusade was to make Emerson think I was still searching for the null, and when I could no longer hide her, I handed her over to his obsession. Emerson would have abandoned his pack to have her.”