Growing more petrified with each passing minute, the Blanchard’s assembled in the living room to plan Yasmine’s rescue. A minor comfort came from knowing that Olympia, the aunts, Zelda, and Seth were now home, all called instantly after Yasmine’s kidnapping. But even their presence was of little relief. No one had any clues as to their beloved Yasmine’s whereabouts.

  Zelda was doing her utmost to connect to Patric’s mind again. She strained from the effort but could produce no results. “I can’t do it,” she moaned.

  “Keep trying!” Seth cried. “You have to. You have to find them.”

  “I’m trying,” Zelda panted, still trying to scan the world for their location. “He’s got a fortress ‘round his mind. It’s stronger than I am.”

  “You must find a way in, Zelda,” Olympia urged.

  “They could be anywhere.” Beryl said. “We cannot just sit here waiting for Zelda to make a connection. We have to do something else.”

  “Arielle?” Artemis asked. “Do you have any special abilities that might help us?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

  Arielle looked disappointed in herself. With all of her abilities there was nothing in her arsenal which might be of help locating Yasmine. The Blanchards needed help. and she wished she could be the person to provide it, but there was nothing she could do.

  “Demitra,” Artemis said. “You are the only other psychic here. You have to try.”

  “I’m not even half as strong as Zelda,” Demitra admitted. “If she can’t do it—”

  “Yes, but perhaps the reason she can’t do it is simply because he knows her mind now too. He can stop her. But he hasn’t been inside yours. Just try.”

  Demitra closed her eyes. She focused on her niece. Yasmine’s soft, delicate features came into her mind. Her voice. Her laugh. Her sweet innocence. She strained to connect. Strained to find the slightest trail of her energy. Nothing would come.

  Yasmine was groggy. Her head was pounding. She groaned as she lifted her hand to rub her sore neck, and the bump on her head. Sharp pains swept through her back and shoulders. She had been standing in the den at home. Now she was here, wherever here was. What happened?

  “I’m sorry for the discomfort you feel,” Patric said standing above her. She realized she was laying on some sort of rectangular folding table.

  “What did you do to me?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid it was the force of us going through the window. You got banged up a little.”

  “Where are we?” She fought her own dizziness for the power to speak. Her words, when they came, were slurred. Perhaps from the alcohol she had consumed or perhaps it was a concussion. “What are you going to do to me? Where have you taken me?”

  “Relax, my dear,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “I had to knock you out in the car so that you wouldn’t try to escape.”

  “What car?”

  “The car I took from the unfortunate man last evening. I myself do not need transportation. But I could hardly carry you across town on my back. I had a car waiting for us down the road. We drove here.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  She glanced sideways to take in her surroundings. It looked to be a vacant studio loft apartment. The room was very large and judging from the dust and dirt, no one had lived there for quite a while. Candles were lit around the floor and the walls--many of which clearly stood in place of where older ones had been burned at some earlier time. There were trails of long dried wax in many colors streaming beneath them. This had to be where Patric lived. From the appearance of the candle wax, he had been staying here for some time.

  “Where is this place?”

  “Do you like it?” Patric asked. “I secured it a few months ago when I first arrived. We are in Tuscaloosa.”

  “Downtown?” she asked. “I can see the marquee of the Bama Theater.”

  “Very good,” he grinned. “Your sight is growing clearer. We are across the street above a row of shops. I would not bother to scream. This area is rather vacant after five o’clock. Nothing is open. The nearest people are two blocks away in the restaurant district.”

  She sat up on the table, still wobbly. He did not try to restrain her. He assisted her in fact, quite gently even. As if he cared for her comfort. For some inexplicable reason, Yasmine wasn’t afraid. Not the way she should probably have been. She had no sense of terror. She didn’t fear being raped or killed. This man was a monster and she knew it, yet she felt no feeling of imminent danger from him.

  “Why did you take me? Why did you bring me here? I thought it was Fable you loved. What use can I possibly be to you? Seems like an awful lot of trouble, just to eat me.”

  He laughed. His laugh made her feel momentarily afraid, but the fear passed. And in its place came a kind of recognition. For the first time, she felt something very familiar about him. That laugh was familiar. Not the tone, nor the richness of quality to it, but the cadence. The melody of it she had heard before.

  “I assure you I won’t eat you,” he grinned.

  “But you’re a werewolf.”

  “After living with witches, I’d think you would be the last person to stereotype anyone, my sweet Yasmina,” he said.

  It was bizarre. Everything was so confusingly bizarre. Yasmine had seen him rip Seth’s arm off. Seen him unleash a pack of wolves onto her family. Yet now, in the dim flickering light of the loft, she found herself almost feeling safe with him. She might have even liked him had she never known what he was capable of before. Things began to click in her mind. Little light bulbs going off. He had always been kind to her. That night at dinner, when Seth poked fun at her weight, Patric had defended her. The night of that terrible battle, when the wolf pounded towards her, ready to kill, it had been Patric who had charged forward to stop it. Patric saved her from the wolf’s bite that night.

  “We know each other, don’t we?” she asked. “I don’t know how. But your face. It’s like the face of a man from a dream I don’t remember.”

  “There is an old saying,” he began. “This is a thought I thought I’d think again, I think I thought, when I remembered that none of this happened.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “To understand, you have to have remembered,” Patric told her as he gently stroked her cheek.

  “Remember what?”

  “Your soul knows. Listen to it.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why didn’t you run far away from here after the family confronted you? You know how strong they are. And yet you came back. Why? Why not get out of here as fast as you can?”

  “Are you worried for me?”

  “Yes,” she said automatically, without thinking. Then realizing that she did actually care she corrected herself. “No. No, you’re a monster. You are a werewolf. You’re a killer.”

  “I wasn’t always a wolf. I wasn’t always a killer,” he said. “And I came back, for you.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you are the very reason I came to Alabama,” Patric’s eyes were glowing now, not with the rage she had seen during his attacks. It glowed with some other emotion. It felt like love. “You are the reason I sought out Fable,” he continued. “I knew from the moment I saw her that she was a Blanchard. And the Blanchards had you. And you belong to me.”

  “…you belong to me.” Demitra whispered.

  “What?” Seth cried, confused.

  Zelda removed her arms from around Demitra’s waist where they had been standing entwined together, surging their power into one larger force. Olympia’s idea had worked. Combining their psychic powers amplified their strength, and they had found a trail. Backing away from each other, the two psychics shared a mutual nod and a knowing smile.

  “I know where she is,” Demitra informed the others. “She’s alive. She’s with Patric. They are in an old loft in Tuscaloosa.”

  “There are dozens of lofts in Tuscaloosa!” Fable exclaimed. “Which one?”

  “That’s where you come in, daughter. Let’s get down there and you use that animal sense you have and locate Patric.”