"We didn’t get anything." Sebastian spoke to Matt through the mind link as he drove through the night ruined streets of Nightshade, the roads making the ride even more treacherous as the car kept jolting and bumping over rocks and debris.

"Does that mean she didn’t come in a pair?" Matt questioned with a deep frown, stopping mid stir over the bacon in his pan. What was that supposed to mean then? If she didn’t have a twin and didn’t have a wolf, there was no way they could guarantee she was the prophesied one. The one thing that had made Sebastian believe it a hundred percent had just been shaken. Matt thought, switching off his gas burner because he already knew he wouldn’t be eating tonight.

"I didn’t say she is not the one." Sebastian remarked, turning his head briefly to look at her. She was curled up on the seat with her back turned away from him, looking even smaller than she already was, and it pained him to see her like that. She was heartbroken but she had stopped crying and stopped talking and that somehow felt worse.

"I think the orphanage is hiding something." Sebastian continued. "I need to find out what, but I can’t do that with her here. She is in a very vulnerable state right now. Send my private jet to Kasa Land along with the red berge warriors. We will reach Kasa by tomorrow. I will send her back to Silver and handle things here myself."

There was no space for his private jet to land anywhere near Nightshade, and even if there were it would draw attention immediately. Kasa Land was the empty stretch of land beyond the Blue Bridge where a jet could land without anyone noticing, as there was no pack settled anywhere near it.

Sebastian planned to put Viola on the jet back to Silver and then return here with his men. At least that way he wouldn’t have her safety to worry about if things broke out into a pack battle. As much as she needed her twin, Sebastian needed that twin to be real just as badly, because it was the only way to confirm everything before it was too late.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Matt questioned, bracing his hip against the kitchen counter. "Nightshade has some of the most unpredictable werewolves around and it is too far out to get backup to you quickly if things go wrong. Why not both come back, you pick as many men as you want and go back properly?" He suggested.

"No." Sebastian said firmly. "That is a waste of time I don’t have. I need to confirm more than anything that she is the one, or there is no use in any of this. I have eleven days before the 30th and you know what that day means, so don’t try to talk me out of this. Just help me. Her twin is the only way to fully confirm it and if I can’t find her...I can’t keep Viola."

Matt let out a slow breath. He understood what Sebastian was trying to do, and having put his entire hope on Viola only to have it pulled away from under him was not something that would end well for anyone involved. Without her wolf they couldn’t confirm the rest of the prophecy description, but with the twin they would at least have confirmed it one way.

What Matt couldn’t quite understand though was why Sebastian was working this hard to prove Viola was the one when in the past he had never pushed this far for any she-wolf the prophecy had pointed toward. In fact he had faced every 30th day with a grim stubbornness lodged in his chest, as if he had already decided he would never find her and would eventually resort to what his father had done before him. Sacrifice.

"Seb." Matt said carefully. "What if there really is no twin?"

Sebastian’s eyes hardened and his fingers tightened around the steering wheel. "There has to be. I believe she is the one to break the curse and free Silver. And if she is not the one...then I will find a sea creature if I have to travel to the deepest part of the sea myself and use it as a sacrifice. Now do as I say and get the men ready."

Matt was taken aback by those words. "You can’t mean you would actually dive into the sea to find a mermaid? If they do exist the way Doctor Gilbert claimed, and given everything the werewolves have done to them in the past, I believe they would trap you down there and kill you before you even got close. Don’t even think about diving into any sea or ocean, man, or you will be eaten alive!"

At the beginning of time, mermaids had lived alongside werewolves in peace, sharing the oceans and seas in a coexistence that had held for longer than either side could fully remember, until the werewolves discovered the powers those creatures carried and what consuming their fish side could do to one of their own.

A mermaid’s tail could grant a normal wolf the powers of an Alpha. A mermaid’s tears, which hardened into pearls upon hitting the air, were among the most expensive and sought after jewels in the world, the kind rogues would give anything to get their hands on. And then there was the mermaid heart, the most powerful thing of all, a power capable of curing anything. Even a generational curse.

When the werewolves discovered this, the hunting began, and it didn’t stop until it was widely believed that every last mermaid had been killed off.

Most held the belief that they were entirely extinct now, wiped out completely.

But research carried out by Doctor Gilbert’s father had uncovered something that changed that assumption.

Sebastian’s own grandfather had used a mermaid’s heart to avoid sacrificing the woman he loved, which meant at least one had existed within living memory of his bloodline.

"If they had gone fully extinct we wouldn’t have found even the dead ones when we searched in the past." Sebastian said. "I believe if we look deeper there will still be living ones out there somewhere. They are simply in hiding and I will find one if I have to scour every ocean and sea there is." He shut the link before Matt could say another word.

If he couldn’t use his third Luna to lift the curse to the next generation then a mermaid’s heart would do the work just the same, and he could keep Viola alive and with him whether she turned out to be the prophesied one or not. But for now he had to push that thought aside and focus on finding out what had really happened to her sister and who was hiding it.

Sebastian knew he was already in deep water by letting himself get this attached and letting their bond strengthen before he had made sure she wouldn’t be hurt the way his other Lunas had been. He just hadn’t been able to stop it, not even slightly.

And right now her quiet heartbreak was hurting him too, because he didn’t just sense it from her, he felt it sitting in his own chest like something heavy that didn’t belong to him.

Sebastian turned to look at her again but she didn’t stir from her curled up position, even though he knew she wasn’t sleeping.

The road grew even more treacherous ahead of them and Sebastian had barely finished cursing the latest jolt when he heard the engine crack and then knock out. The car rolled slowly to a stop in the middle of a small town in Nightshade, every light inside it dying along with the engine.

Sebastian let out a long curse. The road had finally managed to destroy his car entirely. Even with the car going completely dark and still around her, his wife didn’t move from her spot.

He was parting his lips to speak when his eyes landed on a small hotel a little way ahead with a nightclub attached to it. He knew that no matter what he said right now she wouldn’t respond, and would rather press all her pain and heartbreak down into herself and let it sit there until it crushed her.

An idea came to him. He unclipped his seatbelt, got out of the car and walked around to her side and opened the door.

Her eyes were open and she was staring into the space in front of her without actually seeing any of it. He bent down, unclipped her seatbelt and took her hand gently, slowly pulling her attention back to him.

She looked so completely lost that it broke something in him and pierced at it at the same time. "The car engine has knocked out. There is a hotel a short walk from here. We can spend the night there." He told her and she blinked slowly, looking away from him as she replied,

"You can go ahead and stay there. I want to be alone." She whispered in a small hoarse voice.

Sebastian would be damned before he left her alone in the middle of Nightshade. He bent down and gathered her into his arms, lifting her out of the car.