Ch. 141: Goddesses Meet

CHAPTER 141:
Rachel~
It felt like nothing. No. Warmth.
Dark but warm. Cozy like being wrapped up in my favorite fuzzy blanket at home. Like I’m huddled in warmth on a stormy cold day.
“Rachel,” I hear a lovely voice saying my name slowly, like the lyrics of a song I know.
I stir.
It’s just so cozy here. Can’t I rest just a little longer?
“Rachel,” the voice says again.
This time there’s a hand on my arm. The feeling has me trying to wake before I can make the decision to do it.
“Rachel,” it says once more.
It’s dark but warm. But I have to go.
I start to stir, to look for the source of the voice.
Who is it?
Light surrounds me and it feels just as cozy and warm as before but its so bright. My eyes try to open but it’s just too bright. Then a shadow appears, making it darker. I open my eyes and they adjust to see-
Oh, it’s not a shadow. It’s a person. I know this person.
My mind is groggy like I’ve woken up from a deep stage of sleep. I’m slow. My synapses are not firing as fast as they usually do.
“Rachel, there you are,” she says.
And her voice and the scene around looks so familiar.
It starts to come to me then.
“Aurora,” I say aloud.
“Yes my strong warrior,” she grins. “It’s me.”
She helps me sit up and I look around to see three other women here. Two I don’t think I’ve seen, and another I feel like I saw once or twice a long time ago.
“Rachel,” the vaguely familiar one says. “I’m glad you’re with us.” She laughs and it sounds like a melody. “Well, we’re not glad how you got here. But we’re glad we get this chance to speak to you.”
I narrow my eyes and look at her, trying to pick up where I know her from.
“Oh, yes. Sorry. I’m Selene,” she puts her hand out to me to shake. “The Goddess of the Moon.”
The moon. I see a flash of a memory then. The moon. A body of water. Wolves. Wolves… I have a wolf. My wolf. My wolf? Wait. Not a memory. A dream.
“Did I - did we meet in a dream?” I ask her.
She nods gracefully. “Yes, a couple of times. But I speak more often to your mate.”
My mate.
Images of Jake pass through my mind. Us as kids, him breaking my heart at the dance, his apology for it, his wolf, his fight against Sean, his smile in the sun, his serious eyes looking at me with concern after I walked into that pole, his jokes at the library in middle school, his pained expression on the bench at the packhouse when he waited for my reaction to being his mate - all of it.
I don’t realize I’m smiling until I sob.
He’s gone. I’m gone. I won’t see him again.
I knew I might have to pull this final move. But I didn’t count on it. I actually counted on the opposite. But I had to save him, them - everyone.
“It’s okay,” Aurora assures me. “I know you’re feeling a lot right now. But we want you to know that you did it. Because of your sacrifice, your mate, your friends, they stopped The Collective. You saved the world.”
I smiled then and exhaled. Sad still, sure. But something about being here in this safe space, and knowing that they were all okay now - it all gave me a profound sense of relief.
Selene put her hand on mine and said, “I know it’s hard, missing your mate. But he’s strong. And he has a wonderful found-family. They are helping him. They’ll help him move forward.”
I nodded, tears in my eyes, but truly comforted by her words.
“Can I see him?” I ask her.
Her face is pained for a second before she replies, “I’m sorry I don’t have a way to show you. Everything I see and feel is from within. It can’t be shared like that…”
“I might have something,” a woman to her side says. She clears her throat. “I’m Hecate, the Goddess of Witchcraft. In exchange for your true friendship with my beloved Ally, and your huge sacrifice, I can create a short portal so you can see them. They’re together now. Would you like to see them?”
I nod enthusiastically.
Hecate pulls something out of a bag she has on her hip and waves a hand over it slowly making circles while she chants. And then she hands it to me. It’s a mirror. And then in a second it’s not a mirror anymore. It blurs all green and brown and blue. Then the image clears. It’s Jake. He’s standing inside a circle of our friends and two others I don’t recognize. He’s holding something. Someone, wrapped in white. The white sheet moves and I see it’s me. He bends down and presses our foreheads together, then gives me a quick kiss.
My heart breaks watching him go through this. And before I can ask any questions about what I’m seeing, it fades out again.
I drop the hand holding the mirror into my lap.
“He’s not alone. He would be okay - with time,” the other woman says, not identifying herself.
She has bright green eyes and hair so black it’s blue.
“This is Fayre, Goddess of the Faeries,” Aurora fills me in.
I nod my head to her.
“Rachel, do you know how often we all get together?” Fayre asks me.
I shake my head.
“Never before,” she says, smiling. “But because of what you all did, we came together to greet you when you passed over.”
I nod.
“We talked while you were coming to,” Aurora starts and pauses. I look at her, waiting for what she’ll say.
“And we have decided to give you a gift,” Hecate says.
“This gift - we haven’t given ever before. Not together like this,” Selene says.
“So this will be much stronger than anything we’ve done on our own,” Fayre finishes.
They seem done with explaining and so I have to ask, “What is it?”
“You,” Aurora says. “We’re going to send you back.”
They’re all grinning at me and I’m smiling so large, and feeling so much I start to cry.
“Really?!” I ask in disbelief.
“Yes. And just know when we do this with others - they get short lives, human lives. But you my dear,” Selene says, tucking a hair behind my ear. “You will go back with everything.”
I cry openly and blubber out, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Thank you,” Feyre insists, pushing a hand into my chest.
I wipe the tears away and try to steady my breathing.
“Now a few things first,” Hecate says, her serious sharp eyebrows outlining her dark almond eyes. “We would like to request that you pass along some messages to our children. While we can connect with them on our own, dreams and trances just aren’t of the same focus as the plane we are meeting in now.”
I am already nodding before she’s finished. “Yes, of course.”
“Please tell Kyle that his grandma loves him dearly and is so proud of him,” Feyre starts. “And tell him we both approve of his mate.”
I look at her and want to ask a question but Hecate speaks again.
“Please tell Ally that while others will call her a Witchling - in my book she is as full blown Witch as my first daughter. She is as powerful as she wants to be. And I know she will use it right.”
“Tell your mate that I love him. Tell him that he can fight for the pack he wants. That we all support it. And that I will continue to meet with him in his dreams when he’s stuck on something. You know how stubborn our boy can be.”
I smile at that.
“Oh and tell him to let you loosen him up a little! I want him to enjoy his life,” she adds, smiling.
I feel Aurora's hand on mine, and I turn to her as she says, “And to you - my angel warrior - just know that I am here cheering you on. You and your pack will do amazing things in this world, and remember that together you can defeat even the darkest of evils. Just like you did already.”
I nod and lean forward to hug her. Feyre and Selene lean forward to give me a hug too. Hecate looks on and smiles.
“Now let’s get you home,” Aurora says, pulling back out of the hug.
The three Goddesses and Archangel put their hands together in a circle around me and Hecate starts them off by chanting something in a language I don’t know. Before I know it they’re chanting it louder and louder, and sparks fly from them into me. I feel cozy again. And settle into it. The sparks multiply and I can’t see anything but light anymore.
“Oh and don’t be surprised who comes out after he marks you,” Aurora says.
Then it’s all air. It feels like falling. But a split second after I feel it, it’s gone.
I’m warm and can feel the sun on me. And a thin blanket.
And there’s this delicious scent.
“Rachel?” I hear.
My eyes flutter open and I see him, my mate.