“I miss you,” Cypher said softly. “I am where I am supposed to be, but I miss you.”
Tears rolled down Lilly’s cheeks. She lifted her hand and reached up to his face. To her absolute shock, and a good bit of horror, her skin met his flesh. He wasn’t warm or cold. He wasn’t anything. Strange. The feeling excited her and horrified her at the same time. She shouldn’t be able to touch him. Her mate was dead. She’d watched his head be removed from his body. She relived the horror of that sight every time she closed her eyes. She’d watched him fall, hitting the ground so hard he’d left an indentation. “How?”
“I don’t know.” He leaned into her palm. “The Great Luna must be giving us a gift.”
“Or a curse.” Lilly kept her palm in place, afraid to lose contact with him even for a second. “How am I supposed to grieve you if I still have a part of you here? How am I supposed to let you go?” Her eyes dropped from his, and she sucked in a shaky breath. She couldn’t. That was the answer. She would never be able to heal if Cypher was here but not really here.
“Lilly.” He said her name in that stern way that always caused her head to snap up when he wanted her to look at him.
She shook her head. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to live without you. I took this life on because I had you. You made me a part of all of this.” She knew that perhaps Jacque should have been enough to tie her to the supernatural realm, but it wasn’t, not really. Jacque was a part of the Canis lupus world. Lilly had never been, even when she’d once been in love with a wolf. In fact, being around wolves was even more painful for her now because they reminded her of what she could no longer have. In that moment, Lilly realized she wasn’t simply grieving. She wasn’t just sad; she was pissed. Actually, pissed didn’t begin to cover it. She was raging inside. She had been from the moment she’d rushed to Cypher’s lifeless body and wept over him.
“Beloved,” he tried again. “Look at me.”
Lilly shook her head. “No. I can’t. I can’t do this.”
“You have to. Do you love me?”
Her eyes darted to his. How dare he ask such a question? “You know I do. How can you even doubt me?”
“I don’t doubt you,” he said, his voice much gentler. “But if you’re willing to die with me, then you need to be willing to live for me. And that’s much harder. But you cannot simply stop living. I gave you my power for a reason, Lilly. You have a purpose, my queen. There is so much more for you to do in this life.”
“But I wanted to do those things with you!” she screamed, unable to hold in the anger any longer. “I wanted to experience all there is in this life with you! How can you ask me to just move on? Would you move on? Could you really just keep living your life as if nothing had happened?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Lilly. Of course you can’t forget. But you have to come to terms with the fact that this was the will of the Great Luna. She is our Creator, and we are the created. We do not tell her what to do or set our own destiny. The pot does not say to the potter, ‘this or that is what I will be and do.’ The potter has already planned out the pot's purpose before she has even put the clay on the wheel. When you accept this, you will be able to move forward. Not to forget, but to find peace.”
Her mate’s words rang true, but Lilly didn’t want to hear them. She thought of her friends, the ordeals they’d endured, and she couldn’t help but be jealous. They had all gotten their mates back. Costin had gotten Sally back from the grave when the girl had sacrificed herself. Decebel had gotten Jen back, too. All of them had gotten their mates back from the In Between. Lilly wanted Cypher back. Why was that too much to ask? Why couldn’t she have what everyone else had? Where was the fairness?
“Life is not fair, my love,” Cypher told her as he cupped her face in both of his large hands—hands that should not be there. “We accept the life we are given, and we do the best we can with the purpose that has been laid before us.”
“That’s shit,” Lilly said. She wasn’t ready to be reasonable. She wanted to stomp her feet and throw things. She wanted to beat the ever-loving crap out of everything in her wake, including the vision of her mate in front of her.
“Sometimes it is,” he agreed. He drew her into his arms and pulled her tightly against him. Though he didn’t feel right, he still smelled like her mate.
Against her will, Lilly felt herself relax. She gave in to the need to allow him to hold her. She knew it wasn’t really Cypher. It was some weird supernatural happening that apparently the Great Luna was orchestrating. Lilly had to accept it, at least for this moment. As her mate held her closer, she finally took a real breath. She’d been suffocating, but now … now she could breathe somewhat normally. She wrapped her arms around him, pressed her face to his neck, and took a deep breath. A sob burst out of her, and her body trembled. How was she supposed to live without this?
“Shh,” Cypher purred. Then he spoke in his language. She had
