Chapter Eleven

Raven’s POV

After completely blocking Willow's light energy, I burned a location circle into the grass using my dark energy. Then I placed my phone in the center of the circle with Serenity's hoodie on top of it.

 I looked at the Beautiful older redhead, "Are you Serenity's mother?"

She nodded, "Okay then if we are going to find her, I will need to use your blood to locate her."

"Okay, yes. Whatever you need," she said as she stepped closer to me. 

I pulled my dagger from my thigh and grasped her hand. "I will have to cut fairly deep. Will you be okay with that?" 

"Yes, of course. If it helps you find my daughter, I will be fine with anything."

"Okay," was all I said as I dragged my dagger across the palm of her hand, and hiss of pain escaped her lips. Blood spilled over the blade of my knife. I wiped the excess blood off of my knife on my sleeve before placing it back in its sheath at my thigh. Blood began to pool in her palm as I continued, "Now I need you to try to keep your blood dripping on the circle while I activate the spell."

I began to chant the ancient location spell over and over again. My dark energy began to build within our body, causing the sky above me to cloud. The more my energy grew, the darker the clouds became. A rumbling within the clouds began to build. The rumbling grew louder and louder, causing the ground to start to shake. I pushed Serenity's mother away from the circle with my dark energy just before lightning struck the location circle. A hologram-like image of the Silver Moon's territory rose from the circle. Then, it quickly disappeared with a great burst, causing me to fly backward and knocking the wind from me.

Alpha Derrick ran to my side and helped me to my feet. "So where is she located?"

I glared at him, "How the hell should I know!" I shouted as I shoved him away.

'Calm down, Raven. Maybe they have a good reason for lying to us?" Willow said, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt like she always did for people. 

I ran toward the redhead and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, "You know I was only doing this to help you guys find this Serenity girl, and you have the nerve to lie to me!" I shouted, glaring daggers at the woman within my grasp.

"Calm down, Raven. Nobody lied to you," Beta Jace said as he peeled my hands from his mother's collar. 

"Bull, that woman is not Serenity's birth mother!" I seethed through my tightly clenched teeth as I jabbed my finger towards the redhead.

A tear escaped the corner of the redhead's eye, "You're right. I'm not Serenity's birth mother, but I am her mother." More tears began to escape her eyes, and she tightly held her still-bleeding hand close to her chest.

'Nice going, Ray. The poor woman is terrified because her daughter is missing, and you went and made her cry! Not to mention that…" 

'Shut up, Low!' I mentally shouted as I let out a frustrated huff. 

The redhead's lip quivered, "So, are you unable to find her because none of us are blood-related to her?" 

I began to nod my head yes when Willow spoke up. 

'I was hoping that we could help them.' Willow whispered, and even though we were a part of each other, her words were so hushed that it was slightly tricky for me to hear her. 

I could feel Willow's sadness for these people, which tugged at my heart. When I  remembered what Quinn had said about Ren with blood spilling from her eyes and ears as she stood in a frozen alcove. I stood staring at the tree line as a great gust of wind whistled in a strange way that almost sounded as if it were whispering in my ear. "Find Ren. You must find her." 

I tightly clenched my jaw and ran my hand back through my raven-black curly hair. "No, I can still find her, but…"

'No, you can't, Raven!' Willow shouted, fear consuming her words. 

"But what?" Alpha Derrick questioned.

I glanced over at the redhead, blood still dripping from the laceration on her hand. “But nothing. I can do it.” As a soft, beautiful smile spread across the woman’s face, I said, “I’ll make my preparations while you get your hand taken care of.” 

‘Raven, you can’t! RAY!!!! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?! YOU CAN’T DO THIS!!’ Willow scolded, fear and panic wholly consuming her tone.

A soft smile worked on my face, “I’ll be fine. Besides, it's not like it will kill me to use my soul energy. Though it will take some time for me to be able to surface again, look at how happy it has made her?’ I turned our line of sight to Ren’s mother. A gentle smile rested on her face as she bandaged her hand. 

‘But Ray…’ Willow began to protest once again as I muted her and pushed her to the back of our consciousness. Then, I started preparing our location circle again by reburning it into the grass, burning away every trace of blood that had spilled over it. 

Once all traces of blood were eliminated from the circle, I placed my cell phone in the center with the map of the pack territory pulled up, and I looked around in search of the hoodie that belonged to Ren. “I’m going to need her hoodie again,” I said, finding it again in her mother’s arms.

“Of course,” She said, handing me the bloodied hoodie. 

“Is it okay if I tear off a piece of the hoodie because it won’t work with someone else’s blood on it,” I said as I glanced at the ground, biting my lip. “Or I could..”

I began when the woman began tearing the hoodie apart. She handed me a tiny shred of the shirt that was completely clean of all blood. “Will this work?”

I stared in shock at the scrap of fabric with only the brand imprinted. It was no bigger than my palm and was perfectly torn into a neat square. “Yeah, this will work,” I said as I nodded and pulled my dagger from its sheath. 

I took a deep, shaky breath and turned to Alpha Derrick, “Can you please have a medical team standing by?”

“Of course. We should be prepared for Ren when you locate her,” Derrick said.

“We will need someone for her, but I didn’t mean you to call them here for her. I meant that I would need medical attention immediately after I locate her.” I said as I stepped into the center of the location circle. 

“Wait, why will you need medical attention?” Beta Jace questioned.

‘Ren! You can’t do this! Please don’t do this!’ Willow frantically pleaded with me. 

I shook my head, and a tear escaped the corner of my eye. ‘I have to do this, Willow. I can’t explain why, but I knew deep within my soul that we must find this Serenity girl at all costs.’ I mentally told her as I completely severed our connection, knowing that if I didn’t, she too could be hurt. With a deep breath, I ran my blade from the crook of my left elbow down to my wrist. Fearful gasps escaped the crowd of shifters surrounding me. I pulled the hoodie scrap from my pocket, placed it in my right hand, and began the location spell.

As I began to chant the spell, I could feel warm blood flowing down my hand and dripping onto the now glowing circle. I raised my head towards the sky as the clouds grew darker and swelled above me. My hands began to shake as the pain of using my soul for the spell began to throb over me. I could feel my soul come forth as an offering for the spell. Everything seemed to move slowly around me as I rose above the circle. I stared at the churning clouds above me, knowing what would come next as I waited for the lightning to strike me. I could see lightning building in the center, and as it began to part, horror washed over me, for it wasn’t only lightning that was staring back at me, but a Soul Eater that had intertwined its body with the lightning. 

The spell continued to slip from my lips as I watched the Soul Eater slither towards me, attached to lightning. I could feel the Soul Eater’s pull on my soul growing stronger the closer it crept. The agony of its pull felt as if it was trying to tear me apart. My breath stopped when the Soul Eater came into contact with my skin. It slinked its way around my body. Every inch it touched burned as if burning lava was searing my soul, trying to separate it from my body. 

Blood began to flow from the corners of my eyes, followed closely by blood spilling from my ears, and just before my soul was to be entirely pulled from my body, I heard the voice that had come upon the wind.

‘Thank you for locating my daughter.’ The voice on the wind whispered as time completely stopped.  ‘I now will help you. I can not eliminate the effects of the Soul Eater, but I can expel it from this location, allowing you to keep your soul. In return, I must ask one last thing of you. Please tell Alpha Derrick that he must get to Serenity’s location as fast as possible, for a group of vampires is headed in her direction.’

I nodded my head, and lightning struck me with a great flash, causing me to fly back and the Soul Eater to disappear. 

“Are you okay,” Alpha Derrick questioned as he caught me in his hulking arms.

I coughed, and blood spilled from my lips as I glanced over at the location circle, which shined with the holographic image of Serenity’s location. A soft smile made its way onto my face, and my vision blurred as He placed me on a stretcher. I grabbed his hand with every last bit of strength I could muster. Alpha Derrick turned to me, “That is Serenity’s location, but you must h…hurry because th…there is a gr…group of vampires headed towards h…her.” With that, I let my hand fall, my eyes closed as I gave in to the pain of having had my soul nearly torn from my body, and darkness consumed me.