For once in my life, I didn't want to blink. Blinking was a natural, necessary but unnoticed bodily function that cleaned and lubricated my eyes. But, for me, I worried that once I blinked, the view in front of me again disappeared under my own mind's tricks.

The directional wind that blew straight in my face and dried out my eyes, searing their edges with strain, was no help against my internal conflict.

Solomon's scent hit me like an icy blast of arctic wind. The amount of information I learned from his presence blew my mind. He smelled like, of all things, the cold. A near-smoky sensation of ice cold air filled my nostrils. It shot tiny, ice-needle prick-like sensations through me, like a mild brain-freeze in my sinuses.

His tall, large-boned but slim muscular toned body stood with an elevated chest, exuding a quiet level of energy. Underneath his cool demeanor though, confidence, power, and a storm of emotional energy that, considering the circumstances, he kept locked down like an iron vault.

Like he's hiding how he's... No, couldn't be.

The edge of his long, dark gray coat flapped on both sides of his long legs with each closer step that he took. The biting wind at his back, his straight, platinum-blonde hair lifted off his shoulders like the strands levitated. A few strands brushed over his high, sharp, angled cheekbones. The view of his sky-blue eyes, as if I looked into a mirror, blurred from my sight as dryness stung tears into my eyes.

'Zara...' He flashed his open palms to me, a movement that flinched my eyes. 'No one here is going to hurt you.'

'How can you link me?' My knees brushed against the crushed gravel of the one-way road when I crouched down and picked up the Silencer gun I'd dropped. 

With a shaky hand, I clipped the safety back in place, then slid it into my holster. The aching sting of gravel biting my knees drew my hands down to brush them clean. My calves quivered when I squeezed my thighs and stood upright.

'You linked me.' He took another step forward. 'Despite how I've tried and tried, I couldn't reach you. But two days ago, I heard you, Zara.'

My feet froze in my spot and my layers of denial peeled back with each slow, steady step he took, closing the gap between us. The weighted, curious eyes of Simon, Raina, Idris, and Cole blurred out of recognition. Tobias' grimace as his hand gripped his bullet wound all faded away.

Solomon's scent wrapped around me, unleashing a familiarity within the newness. I didn't dare close my eyes but if I did, then I stepped back onto one of the North's white cliffs and the cold, briny wind caressing my skin. The flash of my memory from my last night there refreshed in my mind, as clear as looking at a mental postcard. I stood in the tallest packhouse tower, gazing where the navy blue sky met the horizon in the near-black water. The white peaks of the rough waves reflected off the pale light from the low-hung three-quarter moon.

A smile twitched the corners of my mouth up.

Except the briny stink is missing.

Solomon's stoic expression softened, then his eyes sparkled like aquamarine gemstones. 'Appreciate that, thanks.'

My lips parted and his scents coated over my tongue. 'How can you hear me already?'

He paused eighteen inches from me, his presence and scent overwhelming the space between us. My frozen feet stumbled back, but he reached out, clasping my wrists with a firm, gentle grip, and steadied me.

Warmth flowed between us, like a broken cord was welded back together with one contact. My eyes locked onto his, observing the flickers of green dancing in the depths of his ice-blue irises. A tickling sensation down my cheeks informed me I started crying.

'I don't know but I've waited a long time to hear your thoughts.' Solomon leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine.

At his contact, my brain swelled and stressed against my skull. A throbbing sensation pulsed in my forehead and I squeezed my eyes shut. A warm, glowing sensation rushed over my body, like an internal heat lamp was turned on.

Closing my eyes, I felt not one, but two more presences in my headspace. One felt foreign and unfamiliar. The other I missed like a limb was chopped off my body and my knees quivered at the softness in her voice that replaced her normal indifferent snarkiness.

'Nor.'

Lumi!?

My shoulders and spine sagged as her presence inside me grew the warmth of a newly lit candle. Contentment rippled across my skin, drawing a smile across my lips. She fell quiet, focusing all of her attention on the secondary presence. Smaller, fuzzier, I felt its existence with no definition.

Lumi ignored the scene near front of us. The metallic scent of iron threading the air opened my eyes. Based on the small pool of blood under Tobias' left knee that the rogue now attended to, it didn't look so good.

Every hair on Lumi bristled, raising up the hairs on the back of my neck and down my forearms. All her focus, her energy, and her feelings targeted Solomon, amplifying the connection with each moment that our foreheads pressed against each other's.

Trembles crept up my spine. My lower lip quivered and fatigue tugged on my shoulders. Stooping my head, I collapsed against Solomon's chest, and surrendered to the violent sobs that quaked through my shoulders and spine.

The warmth and comfort from my brother's arms around me, unfamiliar yet unmistakable and reassuring, released an eighteen-year dam of repressed emotions. I said nothing and pushed out direct mindlinks to him. Emotions rolled off of me like the ripples from a stone tossed into a clear, pristine pond.

I thought you were dead.

You're - you're here.

I'm so... sorry.

He absorbed my unleashed pain, anger, guilt, sadness, bracketing his arms tighter around me. Like the strongest tree in an old forest against a hurricane, he stood tall, straight, and unyielding. A tiny splash onto my temple pulled me back and I saw that tears also trailed down his cheeks.

'Zara...' His thoughts choked on his words.

Solomon's resolve crumbled and his emotions hit me like a mack truck. I squeezed my arms around him like he grounded me, bracing myself and absorbing his pain as he'd done mine. Breath for breath, I calmed his anger, pacified his guilt, and embraced his sadness like it was mine.

As our emotions intertwined, a flicker of new sensations sparked inside me. A calm resolve took root and regrew inside me, inspired a steadfast courage to take root, and instilled a brazen lack of fear.

'I feel...' Rearing my head back, my eyes lifted to Solomon's. 'That's why he did it.'

My vague reference cast a hardened look over his eyes, like water frozen under a sheath of ice. His angular jaw clenched and throat bobbed as he swallowed. His gentle tip of his chin provided all the acknowledgement I needed. The realizations of why we were separated, why we were lied to, why we'd been denied each others' existence rang through my mind.

We're stronger together.

Lumi was in full agreement.

'Not weak.'

Her irritating but appropriate comment snapped me out of my reverie. Blinking, I brought my attention back to the bigger picture. My arms loosened around Solomon and I pulled back, tethering us with one hand gripped into his shirt under his coat.

Lumi, are you... okay?

'Tired.'

If mentally scratching my head was possible, then I did. After more than a three-day absence, my wolf was tired.

Umm, okay? You need a nap?

'No. Tired of being...'

She paused like she searched for the right word. Despite my best efforts, she shot down every guess.

With me? 'No.'

Not in control? 'No.'

Solomon snorted, shifting it to a cough when I elbowed him.

In the Western territory? 'No.'

I give up. You can tell me when you think of it.

'...Alone.'

My heart pinched at her answer.

She was tired of being suppressed and forced into the dark space of the farthest corners of my mind. She deserved to be front and center, to grow and flourish in her own elements, not buried within the blocks of memories I'd never remember.

Now that we'd gotten a taste of the connection with Solomon, every cell in my body felt exactly the same way as Lumi did.

I'll die before I lose this again.

Solomon's eyes tracked mine, then shifted to a more green-tinted coloring. My forehead tensed further and Lumi flashed the image of another white wolf in my mind. Spots of gray and black hairs dotted the insides of his ears and his nose pure black, but otherwise he looked like a giant, fluffy snowball.

'He's not a snowball,' Solomon cut through with a laugh, his shoulder bouncing into my temple.

'My headspace feels crowded.' I winked. 'In a good way.'

'So many years.' His arms tensed around me again. 'I've waited for you. You haven't made it easy these past few months.'

"If I would've known..." I whispered into his coat sleeve.

"As much as I hate to break up this sickening display of sibling affection," a sullen voice snapped out from behind Solomon. "Tobias is still bleeding out a little. Matter of time before his pack tracks him down."

"Although technically she did you a favor," the rogue continued and laughed at Tobias. "Now you can say she shot you and ran off."

"Can't say how much I appreciate that," Tobias gritted up at me from his seat on the gravel road.

"You're lucky I didn't aim in between your legs," I snapped and narrowed my eyes. "Consider it a reminder that it's easier to be upfront and honest."

"He's right." Solomon turned and guided me to the black SUV. With blacked out windows and no identification, it looked like a stripped down version of my - no, our - father's security vehicles. "Zara, you need to go."

"Me!?" I squeaked and grabbed his arm that was closest to mine. "I - you-you're not coming too?"

"It's not safe yet." His whispers stole the positive emotions that had bloomed inside me.

No. NO.

"Where are you going?"

"North," he replied in a terse, strained voice. "To repay a debt I owe to Alpha Faelen and fight with the Silverback pack when Cassius attacks their territory."

My eyes shifted past his shoulder, to where Idris and Raina stood, arms crossed in their usual tough-guy stances.

"Then I'm coming with you," I replied indignantly. "I can help, I can fight. Raina -"

Solomon stopped, turning to me with darker eyes. "No. My promise is not ours."

"I just found you," I whispered through husky tears and circled my fingers around his forearm, which softened the clench in his jaw. "I can't let you go."

He cupped one hand around my cheek and his eyes softened with a warm emotion. "You need to go south, Zara," his voice laced with sadness. "Reunite Simon with his family. Caleb and Cole will escort you there."

"Caleb..." I echoed the unfamiliar name but, by process of elimination, my eyes traveled over to the rogue.

He stood, with his messy, torn up appearance, near the SUV. Even under his dark brown leather coat, the muscles in his arms tensed when he crossed them over his chest. His brown eyes were dark and hooded, like he frowned within his own thoughts.

Either that or he's really impatient. I'm so bad at reading boys.

'He's a little rough around the edges, but he'll keep you safe.' Solomon's thoughts offered me little comfort.

"No," I blurted out loudly, which prompted everyone's - well, Cole, Raina, Idris, Caleb, and Solomon - lifted eyebrows.

"Feeling's mutual, Sweetheart," Caleb muttered in a low tone that was threaded with bitterness. "Don't worry, you're not my type either."

"Zara," Solomon's softly, firm voice warmed my ear. "You need to keep up the lies, long enough for Alpha Sandolf to show his side. He'll keep you under his protection and away from Cassius' attention long enough for me to come back."

"No." I clung to his arm, my lips pushed out a pout. Pleading with both my eyes and my voice, I wasn't below begging, "Solomon..."

'Come with us to the border, at least. Please, I have so many questions.'

'And you deserve answers,' he relented, then sighed at Caleb. "Take the other car with Simon, Cole, Raina, and Idris. We'll stop at the northeastern rendezvous spot in the South."

Raina and Idris' eyes widened, which led me to assume they expected to head back north, but they nodded. Their lack of resistance filed a future question of their association with Solomon in the back of my mind.

Raina threw me a sympathetic smile over her shoulder, which I returned with a nod.

"No." I pointed at Caleb. "He's coming with us too. I want all the answers."

"She's a pain in my ass already," Caleb muttered, but hopped into the other car.

After I waved to a frowning Cole, I climbed in behind Caleb. Inside, I made sure I sat as far away from him as I could get.

"So, we're going to leave him?" I looked out the window at Tobias, who'd now propped himself against the rock mountainous wall on one side of the road.

"He'll be fine. You've given him a good enough alibi," Solomon chuckled, slid into the seat next to me, and nodded to the driver. "What do you want to know first?"

Without a blink, I answered, "Everything."

Caleb's snort echoed through the SUV's interior. The only quality about him I found more offensive than his rudeness was the strong combination of his Axe body spray and cologne. Whatever he used, it gave a combined, potent effect like he bathed in musky sandalwood and cinnamon.

"Everything? Don't ask much, do you, Sweetheart?" He scoffed, shifting his gaze out the window.

While my nose twitched at the smell that also burned my corneas, I studied the back of his head. His dark brown hair faded to a very short length at the nape of his neck and around his ears, longer and messier on the top.

My fingers twitched with an urge to fix a few haphazard strands in the back. Then I remembered that would involve touching him and preferred any contact instead involved my fist punched into his face.

No comment on how he's more attractive in person. Nope.

Even sitting, Caleb's head was six inches taller than mine, and he shifted side facing so his broad shoulder avoided contact with mine. My eyes traveled over his profile, following a fine sprinkling of facial hair that dotted his jawline, rounding up over the perfect bow of his pink, full lips.

Snap out of it, Zara.

"First of all." My eyes narrowed and mentally I shot daggers into the back of his skull. "Do not call me Sweetheart."

"Fine, Babe," he spat over his shoulder. "Or should we go with Princess? Flower? You seem to collect more nicknames than souvenirs on your little mate selection tour."

"Argh, you are so -" I stopped myself when realizing I knew nothing about him, past detecting extra bitterness he wrapped around the end of his statement.

Until five minutes ago, I didn't know his name.

"Wasting a lot of time on your questions, Princess," he whispered a glint sparkling in his eyes. A perfect color of medium-brown, his irises had such a perfect even spread of tones.

Almost unnatural.

I turned my back on his rudeness and grabbed Solomon's hand. His skin, the same pale color as mine, was covered with scratches and marks. My chest squeezed at the red ones. "Nor... He's your wolf, right?"

"He is." Solomon hummed, a baritone set of vibrations hitting my ear. "He's still offended that you called him a snowball and clawing at me to meet Lumi."

"Lumi?" Caleb butted in with a grunt. "That's your wolf, Flower?"

Crud, it's like he's cycling through all of them.

His low voice washed over my other ear, sending a shudder down the back of my neck. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or a disgusted, turned-off thing.

"It means snow," I snapped over my shoulder.

"I know. Fan-fucking-tastic, another white wolf," he scoffed, removed his coat, and crossed his stupidly toned arms over his chest. Blocks of muscles clenched in my peripheral vision. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to camouflage a white wolf?"

"You should have plenty of practice," Solomon's tone sounded teasing but his eyes remained serious as they found mine. "Despite his unpleasant personality, Caleb will keep you safe. He's done it for me, at least."

"How did you escape, Solomon?" My eyes roamed over his appearance.

With gray depressions beneath his eyes and swollen lids, he looked tired. The protrusion of his cheekbones gave him a look like he could use a decent cheeseburger, but otherwise still radiated the quiet sense of power and control from when we first met.

"Simon started replacing my meds with placebos." The hand I wasn't holding squeezed into a fist near his mouth. "Nor took over once he was awake. Meredith and Tobias staged my escape to look pretty similar to how I imagine it looked when you tore the lab apart."

"I didn't..." I stopped at the smile that curled the corners of his mouth up. I couldn't return it, feeling the hot sting of tears in my eyes, and looked down at our hands. "Lumi did, after we found the room where..."

"Where our mother was murdered?" Solomon's voice edged in anger and threaded in bitterness, so I lifted my eyes to his and found the same hard emotions burned inside them. "You can say it, Zara. It's the truth. That bastard killed our mother when she wasn't useful to him anymore."

His words, and the emotions he soaked them with, burned into my chest. He wasn't wrong, but the truth was an unfairly painful one to swallow. I squeezed my eyes closed and breathed until my pounding heart beat calmed.

When I opened them, Solomon's gaze had shifted out the window, where the gray mountainous terrain of the Western territory had already smoothed out into more rolling hills.

And I'm taking him further than where he needs to be.

"You grew up in the Western territory," I reiterated what I already knew. "Escaped six months ago. What do you know about this stupid mate tour?"

At the word 'mate,' Caleb snorted. When I glared over my shoulder, he not-subtle-at-all covered it up with a loud coughing.

"I feel sorry for whoever is your mate," I whispered.

"If I had a conscience, then so would I," was the odd, sarcastic response. "She has no idea."

"I was hoping you had that insight, Zara." Solomon's gaze softened, his narrowed eyes rounding. "We weren't sure what Cassius' angle was, dragging you around the country like some kind of puppet. Nobody finds their mate like that."

"It's all bullshit," I mumbled and a rush of warmth spread over my cheeks. "He used me like bait to flush you out. Unlike me, they don't have enough of your DNA samples to continue making the vaccines."

His eyes drooped closed, then he rested his head against the seat back. When his eyes opened, the vacant gaze in his eyes made it look like he looked past me. "Always a lab rat."

"It's not your fault." I dropped his hand, brought mine to his cheek, then redirected his eyes on mine. "And you're worth more than that... You're everything to me."

"Aww," Caleb cooed. "You're a real sap, Sweetheart."

It's like he's asking me to shoot him.

'Between the legs.'

"No, it's Cassius." Solomon's voice hardened again and both of his large palms ran over my shoulders, then his fingers tensed into my biceps. His eyes were ice cold when he spat, "He's nothing but a nightmare, tore our family apart and murdered our mother. Most recently, he had you beaten then left on the side of the road like garbage."

A small gasp left my lips. "You know about that?"

"I was there," he whispered, then a lone tear beaded up and spilled over one of his eyes. It ran into my index finger, so I swept it aside. "It took everything I had not to try and rip him apart. We were there in the North too, although we didn't mean for your car to go over the cliff."

"Not my best move," Caleb grumbled.

Solomon and I both dropped our hands as I spun around in my seat and squeezed my eyes into narrow slits. Blackness fuzzed a halo around Caleb as I jabbed one of my index fingers in the air between our noses. "You!? You shoved us over the freaking cliff!?"

"Like I said, not my best move." Despite his voice's low volume, he didn't actually sound very sorry. "Got yourself out fine though."

While she didn't respond, Lumi's snuff showed that she was less than impressed with his 'compliment.'

"We didn't know where you stood at that point," Solomon offered. "So, Caleb had the brilliant idea to get himself captured, see if he could find out more about you."

"Not my best move either, but nice work rejecting Lucus." I practically heard Caleb's eye roll. "Faelon was trying to get you out, Babygirl. Threw months of extraction planning to shit right there, great job."

Babygirl? Oh gosh. He is so infuriating!

"Lucus..." I turned around and looked at Caleb. The memory of his screams echoing off the stone walls from the prison flashed through my mind. "He... hurt you, didn't he?"

His voice dripped with sarcasm and fake concern. "Not concerned about me, are you Princess?" A shine flickered in his eyes, like the thought amused him.

"You haven't done anything but make me wish I'd pushed you off a cliff," I grumbled. "Don't get me started with your terrible cologne polluting my airspace. I preferred your prison stink smell."

"Can't thank you enough for making me go through your heat either," he retorted. "Every male's wet dream right there."

Both my palms clapped into my face as warmth spread over my cheeks. Like a rash, it spread across my forehead and down my neck. If that wasn't embarrassing enough, Caleb noticed.

Leaning closer, his breath tickled the skin under my ear. "How far down does that blush go?"

Oh my gosh! This boy is so rude!

Solomon snorted and I wanted nothing more than to bury my head into his shoulder. "You'll never know, Caleb."

He chuckled, then parted his lips and ran the tip of his tongue over the seam. The flicker of light pink drew my eyes down and my blush spread...

"Ahhh!! Noooooo!" He opened his mouth and released a loud, wailing scream. It pierced my ears and vibrated off the windows, making me clap my hands over my ears.

"That screaming? The corners of his lips tucked into his cheeks, creasing them. "To answer your question, no. That was only my best acting attempt. We didn't know whose side you were on then. But after the East -"

"Back up..." I studied Caleb's expression for a reaction. "Why were you so important to my father? He made a personal trip to collect you, one rogue. Why?"

His brown eyes trained on mine and a fire of emotions ignited behind them. His mouth pressed into a firm line. In addition to appreciating no further teasing, I used his silence and truly studied his face. His chin had a tiny cleft in the center, a small, crescent-shaped scar sat near his lower lip, and his nose a slight, gently sloped crook in it.

For someone with dark brown hair and deep brown eyes, he had little to no freckles or beauty marks on his face. I hated to admit how his skin was flawless and he actually wasn't half -

"Take a picture," he whispered without a blink of the eyes I stared into. "For your next round of heat."

And then he says stuff like that.

My cheeks burning, I broke my gaze off his annoying and not attractive face.

"Guess it's on me to fill in the holes." Solomon scoffed behind me. "We had Caleb get captured, rescued him but Cassius had too many men for us to get to you. We tried again in the East -"

"East?" I interrupted him. "After the ceremony, that was really you?"

"Sure was." From behind me, Caleb's loud laughter rolled over my ears in waves. "Got to witness you flaked out of your mind, screaming and running around in your underwear. Never a dull moment with you."

Both my palms slapped over my now incinerator temperature-level face.

This guy makes Cole look like a boy scout.

"Ahem." Solomon coughed and the unimpressed look in his eyes implied he also saw me like that too. "To the East, we're mindless rogues, so Torak took you away quickly. We tried again when you went West, but -"

"You got Elena or Rose instead," I mumbled.

"Exactly." His eyes danced, like he was amused by that development. "Cole was more clever than I thought."

"Why did you hurt them then?" My fingers trembled against his cheeks at the memory of Raina and Elena in the hospital, so I drew it back and curled them into a tight fist. "You put my friends in the hospital."

"Your friends were escorted by Cassius' security team, trigger-happy Central territory pack warriors," he stated. "Raina is a bit attack first, ask questions second personality, as she reminded me when we intercepted them near the northern border. We're all on the same page now."

Another snort from Caleb cut into our conversation, so I glared at him again. After a huffed sigh, I turned back to Solomon. "After you escaped, you've just been living as a rogue for the past six months?"

"Not exactly." His lips twitched, relaxing the tension in his jaw. Warmth flowed in his eyes, making him look happy for the first time since I met him. "Only the past three months."

His excitement stole the breath from my lungs, turning my voice into a whisper, "Where were you before then?"

Without a blink, a bright smile lit up his entire expression like it bathed in sunlight. "I went home."