My Lycan Mate of Suicide Forest

"I'll help you. Andreas was supposed to take care of me, and he didn't. He left me. So I'm leaving him in the only way I can," Zoe's eyes stung with the words that were so true and pathetic. She knew they sounded pathetic, but what else did she have in this world other than to rely on the elder? Who knew what would become of her after this, but this was the next step.

"Are you comfortable with Lucas staying with you here until Samhain?" August asked as gently as she could. She heard Greta snort nearby at the concern she was giving the still unidentified creature that was Zoe, but even in light of everything Zoe had done there was a need for compassion here. August wasn't blind to it.

Zoe nodded wordlessly. Lucas was kind. Plus, she couldn't wait until the rest of these sensitive lycans left so she could ask him about why he was staring at the Luna so differently. It didn't escape her highly attuned eyes, and there was so much about August she still wanted to know. She hadn't even chipped away at the surface. Hopefully they would allow her to stay in the pack so she would be allowed to witness all that the Luna had yet to manifest.

Graeme raked a hand down his face and beard. This was a lot simpler when Zoe was a lycan in his mind. Or even alyko.

"Are you some kind of vampire, Zoe? One that doesn't require blood?" his stern face studied how she squirmed in reaction to the question, wringing her hands together and finally pleading to August for help with distress in her eyes.

August's face paled. Graeme had struck on something with this question even though Zoe wasn't able to answer. With the Veiled, August could see how the question created a frenzy of chaotic, panicked energy rather than the typical reaction she had to questions that she couldn't answer. It was as if this restriction that Zoe had on her very physiology itself didn't want them following this line of questioning. August had never seen anything like it.

"How many different kinds of… creatures are there?" August gulped, eyes widening as she found herself far adrift again from the comfort of what was safe and known. It wasn't just lycans and alyko or fae. She was staring into the eyes of some kind of vampire-like creature who seemed unable to at least easily die. Vampires. Seriously?

"It's impossible to say," Greta shrugged regretfully, "most don't want to be known."

"And if there are portals between all of those universes I was telling you about," Zoe piped up, the excitement returning to her voice, "then the possibilities might as well be infinite. Each of those separate universes would have different natural laws—only the fundamental structure and configuration of the strings and dimensions that gave rise to the multiverse would stay the same across them. Almost any creature you could imagine would be possible. Portals would allow creatures to travel between worlds…"

"Are you some kind of vampire, Zoe?" Graeme tried again, cutting off her rant while August was suspended in the idea of portals between worlds. Her experience with the tree guardian in that other place she and Graeme had visited seemed to fit the description from the little that she understood of Zoe's ramblings.

A tortured groan made its way from Zoe's throat. She shook her head, objecting to the question and to what it was doing to her.

"She is," August sighed, her own face twisted in empathy for the pain Zoe was struggling against.

"How do you know?" Lucas' mouth dropped and he stepped away from the girl so he could watch her more carefully.

"It's hard to explain. I can see things that you can't see, Lucas. And I can see her reaction to this question. There is at least something about it that hits too close to the truth."

"Fuck," Graeme spit, digging a foot into the ground in thought. "What did the elders get us into?"

"Would that mean that whomever gifted this vampire-like creature to the elders in exchange for the alyko and organized the deaths of our parents was also…" Greta began, her thoughts tumbling out into words as they arrived, plunking into the air like stones before she shot a worried look at her brother. "... Also a vampire?"

Graeme nodded. "Or something more dangerous."

A wave of shock had August's teeth chattering. This thing that was responsible for Zoe's presence here would be returning, and it would be returning for her.

"Zoe told me she was excited to meet him—whoever he is. And one thing that we know about Zoe is that she is fascinated by things that are different," August spoke of the girl as if she wasn't standing right there before them, with wide, fearful and yet somehow simultaneously exhilarated eyes.

"So I'm confused, she hasn't met him?" Sam asked. "But was gifted by him?"

"And when would she be meeting him, then?" Greta turned to look at her mate before directing her gaze toward August and her brother.

August felt a tremor run down the length of her. They hadn't mentioned that part. They hadn't even really had time to think about that part in more detail yet.

"He wants you too doesn't he? Whatever psycho this is that we're talking about," Greta growled. "Well you have the whole pack behind you now. We'll figure it out. And Zoe will tell us all she can, won't you Zoe?" Greta grabbed the girl again and shook her.

"I d-don't know what I can tell you."

"Why have you never met this guy?" Lucas asked patiently beside her.

She sighed, concentrating on her feet. "I don't know what I can tell you," she repeated.

"Try," Greta snarled, shaking her again for a small whine to escape the girl.

"I n-never met him.. But I was m-made by him," she said through gritted teeth, tears beginning to run down her cheeks.