was Angela Lupei. We have a packmate whose name is Daciana Lupei. I’m going to see what I can find out. You might be related.”
His mind was still reeling from that bit of information when he caught up to Lily and grabbed her hand. He needed her to hold on to him, to ground him. She squeezed his fingers, then led him down the hallway and through the big kitchen. The rich scent of the rib roast cooking had him salivating, but Lily tugged him past the stove. At the far end of the huge kitchen, she opened a door to stairs going down into a basement he hadn’t expected.
Lily closed the heavy door behind him. Thick and made of metal, it was obviously fireproof. “Where are we going?”
“Someplace very special. I had to get permission from Dad to bring you down here. Since he didn’t hesitate, it tells me you’ve passed inspection. Here.” She stopped by a doorway with hooks beside it and grabbed a white cotton T-shirt. “You’ll need this.”
Curious, he put it on. It was snug and stretched over his wide shoulders, but at least it covered him, though suddenly needing clothing was an interesting thing. He hadn’t told her what her father had said to him about his mother’s name, but even Anton’s comments couldn’t compete with where Lily took him—down a tunnel that led them to a wonderland that defied description. They stepped out into a huge cavern with a large, shallow pool set in worn rock along one side. Slowly swirling tendrils of steam rose from the spring-fed pond, and the air in the cavern was warm and somewhat humid. He tried to imagine the entire pack hiding out down here during the forest fire Lily had told him about. The one that burned the original house to the ground.
It certainly explained the fireproof door.
They walked around the pool, and Lily pointed out hieroglyphs along the cave wall. She ran her hands over them as if they were old friends, before finally stopping at a point where the writing ended. She glanced at him, and he figured his amazement was written all over his face. “These are the symbols you said you could read when you were just a little girl? But how?”
She shrugged. “I never really found out. Either the goddess or the Mother, or maybe even the ancients who called me, but they’re still as clear as the printed page to me. When we have time, I’ll read them to you. They’re the history of our kind. At least part of it. I got the details from the ancient ones on the astral, which is where we’re headed now.”
He had so many questions he couldn’t narrow them down to the ones he wanted to ask, so he merely waited for Lily to show him. She put her hands against prints carved into the stone and stared at the rough wall in front of her. He sensed a change, a shimmer, and then a brighter glow until he was blinking against the light.
Stunned, he watched as the rock dissolved in front of Lily, opening up into the most beautiful place he’d ever seen—blue skies, green grass, and greener trees. Lily merely grabbed his hand and dragged him through the portal she’d opened. He stepped into a world he’d barely glimpsed the day before, a world too perfect to be real.
And yet it was. He turned, expecting to see the cave behind him, but it was more of the same—green, green grass, a beautiful forest filled with trees and flowers of every description—perfection so complete it was totally disconcerting.
“Look. Eve’s here.”
He spun around and stared as a subtle shimmer in the meadow in front of them grew brighter, sparkling beneath a brilliant sky without a sun, taking on form and shape until a beautiful woman stood not ten feet away.
Her aura shimmered like silver fire with streaks of gold and red leaping within the silver, more flames covering the full color spectrum, a woman of power. Unimaginable power, tempered by love. She raised her head and smiled. “Lily! You’ve come back.”
He was caught in the unusual swirling color of her eyes, constantly changing from green to gold to blue until he felt dizzy. She focused on Sebastian, and he blinked as she recognized him. “It was you. You are the one bringing darkness to my world.”
He glanced at Lily, but she was shaking her head. “No, Eve. This is Sebastian Xenakis. I don’t think