Piercing Silence Read Online Free PDF Page B

she
clearly hadn’t thought her plan through. “A coat would have been
smart,” she huffed at herself, “and earmuffs, gloves, a canteen of
hot chocolate. Bloody hell, Jennifer, you act like you’ve never
trekked through the cold mountains before.” She couldn’t help
laughing at her ironic statement considering in recent months the
forest and mountains had practically been home. Now, as she once
again trudged through the foliage, she wondered what could have
caused her best friend to return to the woods that was home to many
unseen supernatural beings.
    Night was falling rapidly and the
temperature was dropping as she climbed higher into the mountains.
She’d considered phasing to her wolf, but she didn’t like the
vulnerability of being naked out here, even if it was only briefly
while she put her clothes back on. Not to mention, she’d have to
carry her clothes in her mouth.
    “How is Jacque?” Her mate’s voice flowed into her mind. She was
surprised at how long he’d gone without reaching out to her, though
he would have known in a heartbeat if something was wrong. Jen
considered his question. She had to play her cards carefully or he
and Fane would be ripping through the forest like obsessed mad
men.
    “She’s good.” Jen didn’t specify that the ‘she’s’ part was
meant to be short for ‘she was’ and not ‘she is’ . So she wasn’t technically
lying. The last time she’d seen Jacque she was good.
    “Has she explained why she is closing the
bond between her and her mate?”
    “Not in so many
words,” she hedged.
    “What has she said?”
    Jen could tell he was
growing impatient with her, not that it was anything new. “We haven’t really made it to that part of the
girl time. We’ve just been taking a stroll down memory lane. Again,
not a lie,” she thought to herself. They
both had indeed strolled through the forest where tons of memories
remained. They just hadn’t been together while doing it.
    “Do you think you could
please ask her to let Fane know she’s alright?” Even in her head she could hear the bite in his
question.
    “ I can ask her. That
doesn’t mean that she will do it.” Jen
stopped to look around because she hadn’t been paying attention in
the least to where she was while she’d been answering Decebel’s
questions. She shivered when she saw her surroundings and realized
where she was. The large boulders protruding from the mountain and
deep crevices brought back not so happy memories. “Good times,” she
muttered as she remembered being pushed into one of those crevices
by Martha, the she-wolf who’d fallen in love with a human and only
wanted to be with him. Don’t ask Jen why the nut job thought
pushing her into the side of a mountain would make her dreams come
true. Apparently, when crazy people do crazy crap it totally makes
sense to them.
    “ Why is your heart beating
so fast?” Decebel’s question had her
returning to the present, pushing back the memories of Martha and
her craziness. Sometimes she appreciated how in tune her mate was
to her. And other times she really wished he was as clueless as
most women thought the male gender to be.
    “ Because I’m walking,
briskly.”
    “ You and
Jacque?”
    “ Exactly, I am walking,
and Jacque is walking, and it’s at a speed that causes the heart to
beat more quickly. This way blood can get oxygen to my muscles so
that I can walk briskly.” The words were
just pouring out of her even as she screamed at herself to shut the
hell up. She still hadn’t lied, or at least she hoped not. It was
probably a pretty good bet that Jacque really was, in that moment,
walking. Crap, she was in a damn forest. What else do people do in
a forest but walk? Okay, so maybe there
other things they could do, she conceded
with a sly grin.
    “ Other things, who, could
do where?”
    “ Bloody hell does the man
miss anything!” “Listen, B, you know I
love our little chats, especially when they get spicy, but I