Now that the portal was fixed, Hazel and I had nothing else to do but wait for night to fall that night, for the full moon to come out and for her to transform into her wolf and lose control of her human side.

Because I'd somehow managed to finish the portal up quite quickly, we had a few extra hours until sundown to make the preparations.

Hazel had recommended I put a barrier in front of the portal, just incase someone decided to come crashing through over the next few days. I did so, the air obeying my command with ease.

As for Hazel, well... she had sworn she wouldn't hurt me, but that didn't stop her from persuading me to put up shields around myself for the night as well, just to be safe. Without access to the portal or to me, she'd be trapped in the relatively small cavern alone that night; her wolf form wouldn't be able to fit through the small crevice that we'd used for entrance.

She assured me that her wolf was one of the milder ones, and wasn't likely to put up a hissy fit out being "caged," like some of the others did. I found this true after a few more hours had passed, and she'd shifted, my shields already up.

Her wolf had taken one sniff of the air around me, and, like she'd told Xavier would happen, she took a protective stance and paced back and forth in front of my little bubble, snarling at the portal as crevice, looking for any signs of danger.

Content that I was safe with her by my side and my magic shielding me, I was about to settle down and close my eyes when I heard a rough, familiar voice come through my head. It didn't speak in the common tongue, rather the strange one of a wolf. It translated in my head into, How dare you hide from me? I will find you, and I will take you.

The words were obviously those of Xavier's wolf, and shudders went through my body at his words.

I knew that we could use a mink link, and I'd been warned about his wolf's obsessive urges, but... well, I'd never heard of a wolf talking through my head. I shook my head, and sent back through the mind link something that translated into Xavier, calm down. I'm not hiding; I'll see you soon.

How soon? he demanded, his roar filling my mind.

Soon enough.

Upon hearing his returning growl, I cut off the mind-link, and looked to Hazel's wolf, who I could have sworn was giving me a somewhat curious look. I just shook my head, and she went back to her pacing, never once faltering.

Making sure I kept the magic shields up around myself and the portal, I finally, and probably foolishly, drifted off to sleep.

----

The morning was marked by a loud thud and a quiet, high-pitched squeal of surprise. My eyes snapped open immediately, trying to find the source of commotion, and then I saw what it had been.

Hazel was collapsed on the floor in her human form, looking out-of-breath and exhausted. I hurriedly dropped the shields that were surrounding me, and rushed over to her, checking her pulse and that kind of thing.

I heard a chuckle as I knelt beside her, and I gave the sweaty girl a curious look, cocking my head to the side.

"I-I'm fine," she said, still sounding very out of breath. "This happens every time the full moon ends; I'm always quite tired afterward. The noise you heard was probably my falling to the floor."

I nodded in understanding, but was still a bit worried about the girl. She chuckled once more, and pointed a hand over to the satchel of supplies we'd brought into the cave with us.

"If you really want to help, you could go grab me some water," she said, and I did so immediately.

Hazel propped herself against a wall, effectively taking on a sitting position. She took the canteen between her lips and drank nearly the entire thing. Luckily, we had a lot more where that came from.

When finished, she looked at me, and gave me a half smile. "Stop worrying about me, I'm fine! You might as well check in with Xavier; make sure he's alright and all."

I pondered her suggestion for a moment, remembering the words that he'd sent through my mind-link last night. I shuddered at the thought, remembering the way the chilling words had snaked down my spine: I will find you.

Deciding that I'd rather just hang out with Hazel for a while and talk to Xavier later, I shook my head, and she gave me a curious look before understanding seemed to wash over her features.

"Oooooh, he talked to you, didn't he?" she asked, looking slightly amused.

I gave her a small nod, not really wanting to talk about how his words had affected me.

She let out a small giggle. "Must've been strange to talk to an alpha on the night of a full moon. Lemme guess, he wanted you, yes?"

I nodded, more than a bit confused by her giggling. But then I realized why: he was her brother, and she likely found this entire conversation entertaining.

Taking my mind off our conversation, I walked over to the satchel and pulled out a couple of apples, tossing one to her. She caught it effortlessly.

"Thanks," she said, taking a big bite of the apple, "I was hungry."

"Figures," I said, beginning to work on mine as well.

Hazel stood at last, stretching her arms above her head and looking much less exhausted than she had before. I took in her tanned figure, my gaze resting on a wicked scar on her forearm that I hadn't noticed before.

"How'd you get that?" I asked, gesturing to the scar with my free hand.

She shrugged. "I could ask you the same thing," came her response, and I stared at her in confusion.

"Your pant leg is becoming soaked with blood," she elaborated, and I glanced down, realizing she was right. The left leg of my pants was soaked with a deep scarlet liquid, and from one whiff I could tell it was my blood.

I frowned, only then realizing that I felt a sharp, stinging pain in my leg. I hurriedly pulled the fabric up, revealing an almost knife-like slice that cut deep into the skin of my calf.

Hazel let out a low, appreciative whistle, seemingly impressed by the wound marring my skin. I realized then that she had to be a warrior, if Xavier's brother had sent her through the portal to hunt for me. It would make sense for her to be impressed by a wound, much like a schoolkid might be impressed by a black eye.

My breathing became shallow as I quickly rushed over to our remaining water supply and rinsed off the injury, the pain and bleeding seemingly becoming worse by the second.

Hazel swore, and rushed over to take a closer look at my wounded leg, and I saw her eyes widen in fear.

"What's wrong?" I demanded, alarmed at the growing look of panic on her face.

"That's not your wound, Luna." Hazel's voice became more feral and wild and her chocolate-eyes become infinitely darker. I realized that it was her wolf coming through her, taking on the caring, yet extremely protective tone that I'd seen in her last night.

I, meanwhile, just sat there and gaped at her, not understanding her words at all.

"Contact Alpha Xavier, Luna. Please," she begged, and I did just that. And then it was my turn to swear as I opened the mind-link.

I felt pain coming through the other side of the bond, pain that rivaled mine tenfold. Only then did I understand what Hazel had meant; this was Xavier's injury, not mine. I was somehow receiving it through whatever bond we shared, but I knew his had to be far worse.

Xavier, what's wrong? Answer me! I demanded, trying to keep my tone strong although I felt so weak inside at the thought of him hurt.

He took usual to respond than usual, and the connection seemed to be flickering on and off, as if he were having trouble maintaining consciousness. Been... captured by... Fae... Igola realm... Love... you... Quinn.

And then, with a sudden scream, the bond cut off, and I could no longer feel my mate, my other half, on the end of the line.

I hadn't realized that Hazel had spent the time I was in my mind to tend to my leg, but she had, and it was currently wrapped in gauze, though the pain had gotten worse, and I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Some Fae had been blessed with the powers of fast recovery, but not me. I might heal faster than the ordinary human, but a wound like this would take me weeks to fully recover from.

I was silent, numb inside, as Hazel helped me into a new pair of pants, not once saying a word, simply staying focused on the task at hand, which I was thankful for. I don't think I could've took another person breaking down at the moment.

Once she deemed me finished, she sat down in front of me, grabbing my head between her hands and bringing her eyes to meet mine.

"Luna," she said, the panic in his voice guised by an attitude of calm demeanor. "Tell me what happened."

I took a deep breath, but couldn't bring myself to say the words. Maybe if I didn't say them, they wouldn't come true. Maybe none of this was true; maybe it was all just a bad dream.

But it's not a bad dream, whispered a small, rational part of me. It's real, and you've got to pull yourself together so you can save Xavier. I took another deep, shuddering breath, and told Hazel what he'd told me through the mind link, excluding his "Love you" statement from my recap. I had enough to think about at the moment without my heart turning into mush; I could think about those words later.

Her breath stilled as I told her about the Igola realm. She had a frightened look on her face, and I wondered what about this realm could be so bad that it could scare her.

"Are you sure he said t-the I-Igola realm?" she demanded, almost shaking me in the process. I simply nodded.

I tilted my head to the side, asking a silent question: What's the Igola realm?

She took a deep breath, and her shoulder slumped, defeated, and she took a seat against the cave wall opposite of me.

"The Igola realm is... pretty much the most dangerous Fae realm that we know of. Its residents are dangerous and deadly, and many of them have been trained since the days of the war that raged on millenia ago. Fae are immortal, you know."

I groaned. Somehow, I'd forgotten about that little fact from the legends: Fae were immortals; even people with only a little bit of Fae blood in them tended to be immortal, or at least have far longer lifespans than the average human. Which meant that there was a good chance that I, too, would live forever... until I was killed.

And then I thought back to the rest of what she'd said. If we were truly dealing with centuries-old Fae, then this was going to be one hell of a fight. Hesitantly, I asked a question that was the real deciding factor in the outcome of any kind of rescue we tried to stage: "What types of magic do they possess?"

I saw her stiffen, but she continued. "There are only rumors; the spies that we send to that realm don't tend to come back. We are fairly certain that they have no Sermonis, if that's any condolence."

I was a bit relieved to hear that. Sermonis were considered to be some of the deadliest Fae around, and had been hunted throughout history because no one, not even the Fae themselves, wanted to deal with their powers. That was why I'd had to be careful to disguise my powers throughout my years; that and the fact that witchcraft was punishable by death from order of the Queen. Still, most Sermonis had been killed over history, and were incredibly rare nowadays, which made my existence all the more mysterious.

She continued. "We believe they have quite powerful healers, along with some clairvoyants."

The healers and clairvoyants often sat on the sidelines of battle, taking care of the wounded or helping other Fae fight by predicting their opponent's next move.

"They also have some Elementals, which are the most dangerous. They are the warriors that have crushed civilization within the blink of an eye."

Elementals, whose true name had been forgotten throughout history, were Fae that controlled the elements. However, they only ever possessed an affinity for one element, never more than one. This made them different from the Sermonis because while the Sermonis could control anything by interrupting their energy signals, the Elementals literally were the elements themselves, with human consciousnesses. They were human in shape, but that was where the resemblance ended. Elementals for the affinity for fire were humanoid figures with a body of flame; no face, hair, or anything like that. Water Elementals were made up of water, and so on. They were able to make rational decisions in battle because of their human counterparts, much like how werewolves were able to control both sides of themselves.

Despite all the information she'd given me, I just shrugged, and said, "So what?"

She gave me an incredulous glance. "So what!? They've got one of the most powerful forces in the world, and more importantly, they've got the numbers. I don't doubt that you couldn't kill many, many elementals at once, but surely you know that your power will drain eventually. After you've slaughtered enough of theirs, you'll collapse, and they'll take you prisoner."

She had a point there. I'd never actually drained my energy reserve before, but I was sure there was a stopping point to my power. Still, that wouldn't keep me from raising hell while finding and retrieving my mate.

"I doubt they'd be willing to risk to many people just for the sake of capturing one Sermoni; it wouldn't be worth their trouble," I reasoned, but Hazel shook her head.

"We don't know what they want with you, or with Xavier, for that matter. Considering they only captured and not killed him, I'm guessing they want you, or else he'd be dead right now. My brother... he's weaker in this realm, without his pack. I'm sure he put up a hell of a fight, but if he's against what we thought he was, he didn't stand a chance." I could see the pain in Hazel's voice as she admitted this, admitted to a Fae that the Alpha werewolf was unable to fend for himself. An Astro was unable to fend for himself. Things just got a whole lot more difficult.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing thoughts. "We're going. We will rescue him, or at least I will. Are you in or not?" I demanded, giving her a look that just dared her to say no.

She bowed her head and muttered, "Of course I'm coming, Luna." Then she looked up, and met my eyes. "You need someone to watch your back, after all."

I grinned.