[Rock]Taking Mike’s hand, I said a prayer to the goddess. He had proved himself in battle and honored his name, his family, and his goddess. I promised to take care of his whole family. Even if it meant moving to the pack lands to help Beth raise the babies. “This isn’t your fault. You did good,” I told him softly. “Rock?” Carmen’s quivering voice sent a spike right through me. I turned to where she stood. There were some gashes in her clothes, and she was bleeding a bit. Austin stood by her, looking about as beaten up. His eyes widened as he realized who I was kneeling next to. A wolf stood next to him. It whined and slowly started making its way closer, but it wasn’t looking at me, it was looking only at Mike. “Carmen...” Mike said breathily. She gasped and hurried over. I moved out of the way as she dropped to her knees next to her brother. The wolf followed her over and whimpered as it lay down next to Mike and Carmen. Mike sniffed for a moment, then he opened his eyes and frowned. “What are you doing here? Were you a member of this cult?” Trent was growling at the wolf and trying to protect Mike’s more sensitive areas from him. I stepped a little closer. If he tried to attack Carmen or Mike, I’d kill him. “Dad wasn’t in his right mind, Mike. He thought they would help him. It took a while for his mind to correct itself after Rhett took the fae magic out of him,” Carmen explained. “That’s not important right now. When I touch you, I see a lot of injuries and I can smell so much blood. Rhett, take Mike to the pack hospital.” “Carmen, I can’t travel that far right now. I expended a lot of energy helping to kill the demon. The best I could do is take him up to the top floor of this place,” Rhett told her quietly. She looked up and I could see tears streaming down her face. “Please, Rhett. Please take him to someone, anyone. Beth and the pups can’t lose him.” Rhett glanced from her to Mike, then to me. All of my senses said Mike didn’t have long. I didn’t want him to die, but he was going to if he didn’t get help. None of the fae we brought had healing abilities. Those were very rare. Only the healers could really do much. Carmen might have their seeing magic, but only those fae-born seers could heal. Rhett could get into the fae neighborhood in the human lands. “Can you get to the healers in the forest fae village?” I asked him. “The fae lands aren’t as far away as the pack lands.” “What about Echo? She’s at your house, right? Can you take him to Echo? I tried to contact her, but I can’t reach her. She can’t go places she hasn’t been unless someone calls her from there, either, and there’s no phone signal down here,” Harmony suggested. His shoulders sagged, and I knew the answer. Rhett hadn’t been presenting the traveling properly. That was the furthest he could go. Rhett never wanted to be the hero so much as he did right then. “Rhett, take Mike up to the top floor and have Gray call Echo,” Trent said. “He should be able to reach her just outside the cave. If she can heal Mike enough to get him to survive to the hospital, it will be enough.” “I won’t be able to come back,” Rhett replied quietly. “Rest with everyone else up there, then. We’re going to do a sweep to make sure there isn’t anything or anyone else, then we’ll head back up.” “Tell the vampires if they want to be useful, they can go kill the beetles when they get here,” I told him. “If there are any more cave trolls up there, they’ll help get them to the right place.” Rhett nodded and knelt down. “This will be painless, Mr. Beta.” In the blink of an eye, shadows swallowed them up, and they were gone. Carmen put her face in her hands and started crying. I bent down and picked her up, cradling her in my arms and trying to comfort her. Queen Ivy and Prince Rosario started checking on the other people who had been in the battle. A few others, aside from the werewolf warrior, had died while fighting the demon. There were a lot of injuries among the softer beings who helped. All the trolls were fine. Like me, they had used the stone on the ground to heal any injuries they got. If only healing Mike was that easy. He wasn’t made of stone. We couldn’t make stone into living human flesh. Carmen’s dad stayed where he was, sadly staring at the place his son had laid. Austin leaned against the wall. He looked more relieved than anyone. Trent went to him and hugged him tightly. I was glad there was someone there to comfort him. “Gemma’s safe, right?” Austin asked. “She’s with your family, waiting for you to come home,” Trent replied. “Thank the goddess.” “Should we start walking back up?” I asked Carmen gently. “It’s quite a walk and will take us a bit.” “I can walk, Rock,” she sniffled. “I know you can, my beautiful little mate, but I almost lost you today. You need to let me carry you until I know no one else will take you from me.” She laughed a little, then rested her head on my shoulder. Carmen was afraid of losing her brother and all of this was an immense strain on her. I was finally beginning to calm and looked down at Carmen’s dad. There was some sort of collar on him. “Is that collar keeping your dad from becoming human?” I asked her. “Yeah. Oberon said it also made it so he couldn’t hurt any of the cultists. We need to get it off of him. Especially if we’re going to clear the rest of the caves.” I froze for a moment and gripped her so tight she yipped. “No. We’re done here. I have you and Austin. That is why I’m here. Now we’re going home. Let the warriors and leaders play hero. If it were up to me, I’d get all our people out of here, then call in some goblins to destroy this place and bury any enemies who remain. “We are not going with them, and I will not listen to a single objection. We’re not warriors and we’re not staying here,” I growled. Carmen’s eyes widened, surprised by the sudden shift in my demeanor. But she didn’t protest. Instead, she leaned into me, trusting me to take charge and lead us all to safety.“Okay, Rock,” she whispered. “Whatever you think is best.”I nodded, feeling a sense of relief wash over me. We had already lost too much in this battle. I couldn’t risk losing her again.“Let’s get the group going up organized, then everyone else will continue on,” Queen Ivy announced. She decided I would lead the group heading back up. Austin, Carmen’s dad, the injured fae and shifters, plus Harmony, would come with me. Forrest wanted Pyla to go back up, citing that having Elbio meant they didn’t need another cave troll. Pyla laughed and refused. She might be a lot smaller than him and softer than him, but she wasn’t intimidated. It made me smile because I knew it was a very troll thing to do. She was just as stubborn as he was. Queen Ivy shut down his arguments by pointing out, again, that Pyla trained as a warrior. She was more skilled than those who trained only when they were much younger. That was definitely a jab at him. “Maybe you should go with them, Forrest. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” Pyla giggled. He growled but didn’t reply. Anyone who knew Forrest knew he wasn’t used to people not doing what he said. The goddess definitely gave him a good mate. He needed someone to challenge him. We gathered everyone up and the people who weren’t hurt carried those who were. Viola went with the other group, but Tripp came along as someone to help fight anything that might pop up. Even if I was fairly certain I knew the surrounding tunnels were empty, we weren’t taking any chances. As we made our way through the tunnels, I couldn’t help but feel a wave of relief. Carmen was alive and in my arms. Her dad stayed with Austin. He had a leash attached to the collar and kept Carmen’s dad close. That was strange. It took a while and about halfway up to the top, a group of vampires, led by a cave troll I knew, went past. We nodded to them. At least we know the message got to them. This meant it was after dark. We’d been here for a little over three hours. Whatever magic was cast on the cave was really potent. I told the cave troll with them how he would know where I had sealed the beetles in. He nodded at me with a small smile before calling me a halfie and saying he could have figured it out on his own. Carmen smiled at that. She knew it was just how we were. “We’re pretty close now,” I whispered to Carmen as we passed the place where the cult had been keeping the vampires. “I never want you to do something like this again, Rock. Promise me you’ll send other people instead of coming yourself. I... I can’t lose you and my brother,” Carmen said tearfully. The entire time we’d been walking, I could feel her body shaking in my arms. I could hear her stilted breathing. Since I could see even in pitch-black darkness, I couldn’t miss her silent tears. There was nothing I could do to reassure her about her brother. “Carmen, I want to promise you that. I want to make you happy and I want you to never be afraid, but I can’t. No matter what, I will never lie to you. If someone takes you from me, I will find you and bring you home. I’ll never put my trust in someone else to protect you again. After this, I can’t.” “I don’t want to lose you.” “And I don’t want to lose you. So no more getting kidnapped,” I murmured and kissed her on top of her head. “I can’t stop feeling guilty about Mike,” she replied. “I feel even worse about the fact that I was grateful that it was him and not you. Beth will never forgive me. I’m a horrible sister.” “There’s nothing horrible about things like that. It’s natural. The fact that you feel guilty and it upsets you is what shows what kind of person you really are. If you didn’t feel bad about it, then you would be a horrible sister.” Carmen closed her eyes and snuggled in my arms. Maybe I couldn’t stop her tears, but I would always be there to remind her she was a good person, even if she occasionally had bad thoughts. We continued walking until we felt a strange energy. It was like a chill running down my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Someone was trying to make the tunnels close. Pyla and Elbio would survive it, but no one else with them would. None of those vampires would make it out. I set Carmen down. She gripped my shirt and wouldn’t let go.“Carmen, I have to go. Someone is trying to close the caves. They’ll kill everyone. I want all of you to keep going. Get everyone out of the cave entirely.” “No. Don’t go, Rock. What if they kill you?” “I’ll go with him, Carmen,” Tripp said. “We’ll stop ‘em. I got a date with Viola tomorrow night and I can’t let her get buried before I finally get my chance.” “I’ll go, too. I have a little more power left in me. If I can help, I want to be there,” Harmony added.Carmen shook her head. A couple of the less injured people set down the person they were carrying. Most of them could walk, just not the distance we had traveled. Austin came up behind her and handed her the leash her dad was on. “I’ll go, too.” “You’re an omega, Austin! You can’t go!” Carmen shouted. “I’m stronger than I look, and I’m still a werewolf. These people fought to save me. This is the least I can do.” “You can’t go, Austin. We can’t protect you,” I said sternly.“I don’t need to be protected. I saved Carmen from being sacrificed, and I kicked Oberon into the pit where the demon lived. You can’t treat me like I’m as weak as I was when we met. I’m stronger than that and it’s a waste to leave me behind,” he insisted. Looking at Carmen, then the others who were watching everything, I frowned. He was right. If I prioritized him over the other people when he was offering what they were, I would undermine him and tell everyone that I didn’t think he was capable. “You can come, but you stay back. If it looks like we’re not going to survive, I need you to get out and make sure Carmen doesn’t come back into the caves. I’ll survive them collapsing, but she won’t,” I replied. “No! Rock! You can’t do this! I won’t go!” Carmen screamed, making people wince as her words bounced off the stone walls. I pulled her into a tight embrace, trying to calm her down. “Carmen, I’ll be okay. I have to do this. Forrest, Queen Ivy, Harmony, Trent.... None of them will survive the tunnels and caverns collapsing. Your pack, the forest village, they would lose their leaders. This is important. Go. Take your dad and get out of here.” Pushing her away from me as gently, but firmly, as I could manage, I moved away from my mate. She reached for me and I ached to hold her again. The building magic was too dangerous, though. One of the men from the crew, who was carrying a dark elf on his back, patted me on the shoulder, then went to Carmen and threw her over his shoulder after letting the dark elf down. The dark elf he’d been carrying picked up the leash when Carmen dropped it. She screamed and fought, but the man who had her wouldn’t let her go. I was grateful to him as the group moved on. Gathering the others to me, a total of seven people, we set off, with me in the lead, toward the building magic.