***Hankie Alert***

Tyrone was in a world of excruciating pain. His other half, his soulmate, his beloved Lenora was gone. She had entered his life with such gentleness and sadness. Her grief had become his own after he’d Imprinted on her. It was an unexpected event, for Tyrone hadn’t looked for it to happen at the time it did, perhaps ever. However, when it did, his life had changed forever.

The first time he held her, he fully took in her familiar scent. She smelled of lilacs and something else that was uniquely Lenora. The scent of her and the feel of her hair against his face was like the breath of Heaven. Her body was soft and warm, her embrace friendly and appreciative. She was so sad that night, having been the anniversary of Linc and Landon’s death. He comforted her, drying her tears himself with his hankie. Even then, she seemed to understand that he’d always protect and take care of her.

When she entrusted her heart to his keeping, her embraces became gentle, yet passionate. She always came into his arms so readily, her body melting against him in utter surrender. Her beautiful golden hair cascaded silkily over his arms and hands. He loved breathing in the sweet, floral scent of it, closing his eyes and picturing the two of them stuck in that moment in time forever.

His Lenora breathed new life into Tyrone each time she kissed him. She kissed him with a fiery passion that stirred his blood every time. There were so many times when Tyrone felt as though Lenora’s kisses and love were the only things he needed to sustain him.

Lenora’s gentle heart was the thing that tamed the Wolf. Her compassion knew no bounds, and Tyrone admired her strength. His beautiful Lenora had weathered the darkest of storms and overcame such brutal tragedy. Her courage and strength was a true testament, and Tyrone was fascinated that she possessed a serenity that most people could never understand.

Tyrone loved everything about his Lenora, but her voice was one of the things he loved most. There was magic in her soft, lilting Irish tones. He could listen to her speak all day. To just listen to her was like being in the presence of a queen.

Tyrone adored Lenora’s speaking voice, but nothing could compare to her exquisite singing. She always looked so peaceful when she sang, and he felt as though he were stepping into another world listening to her. She was gifted both musically and with the weaving of stories. Had she been born in Medieval times, she would have put any bard to shame.

Loving Lenora made Tyrone’s life complete. Every time he held, kissed, or made love to her, she gave herself to him fully. He loved the soft little sighs she uttered when he expressed his love to her. When their lips joined in passionate kisses, her knees would give way, causing Tyrone’s arms to tighten around her. Lenora’s weight was completely supported by him, and she would always look at him with such love and trust that his heart would tremble with unbridled emotion. His Lenora never held anything back, and he returned her love and devotion without question.

As Tyrone held the lifeless body of his beloved in his arms, tidal waves of desolation crashed over him, taking bits of him as they receded. Each tidal wave was more intense than the previous one. As more pieces of his soul was carried away on the tide of despair, he howled his torment to the heavens where the deities seemed to have turned their faces from his everlasting sorrow.

Tyrone felt the Wolf rise up in him and was unable to keep him at bay. As Lenora’s form lay cradled in his arms, his fingernails began to elongate into lethal paws. Hair sprouted over his body, and he felt the hunger for vengeance. He pulled Lenora closer as the Wolf emerged, protecting her even in death.

In his wolf form, Tyrone’s howls escalated to a pitch and intensity that would chill the blood of even Hercules. Tyrone was crying his grief to the Great Alpha Wolf who oversaw all of wolfkind. Although the sounds themselves were unintelligible to the human understanding, werewolves would be able to understand every syllable. “I am forsaken! My true mate is taken from me, and I am riddled with perpetual agony. How will I endure without my Lenora? I am forsaken!” Although no human could understand the words inside the sounds, there was no mistaking the tortured desolation laced in each utterance.

Tyrone lost all sense of time as he keened his grief. He went on like this until his throat was on fire. His chest ached from a broken heart, and his soul cried out for vengeance. Although he rocked her still warm body in his arms, there was no sense of his Lenora within him. She had left him and had gone to a place he couldn’t reach. He was bereft, his soul in tatters. More howls filled the room and beyond…and with them came another earthquake. Tyrone had been oblivious to the first, and this one was no different. The sounds of shattering objects, toppling books and furniture, and screaming couldn’t penetrate the shroud of grief and despair that surrounded Tyrone.

With his keen wolfish senses, Deus sensed the initial quake even before it began. Without a word, he grabbed his two daughters and shepherded them to the desk in the waiting room. “Get under!” he barked at them. “Landon! Crystal! Find a doorway or get under a table. Quickly now!”

“Something’s…going to happen,” Valerie said, her eyes wide with growing fear. Being a wolf, she, too, sensed the coming quake.

“I don’t understand,” Theresa said in confusion as the three crawled under the desk.

Before anyone could answer, Tyrone’s first cries of grief came along with the desolate cry of Lenora’s name. All at once, Theresa felt Tyrone’s sorrow and uttered a high-pitched squeak. “Oh my god! Oh, Ariadne, no! It cannot be.” Closing her eyes, she inched forward with her magic, feeling for Lenora’s moment of death. She felt no such thing, however. There was no sense of passage and no dimming of a light, as Theresa sometimes referred to the process of sensing a death. Theresa’s magic clearly stated that Lenora was still on this plane, but the god-awful sounds Tyrone was making stated just the opposite. What the hell was going on around here?

There was no time to ponder this, for that was when the ground began to shake. “Ariadne, help us!” Theresa cried out reflexively. She grabbed for her sister, the two women locking their arms tightly around each other and crying. Deus wrapped his strong arms around them and held on tight. “Shhh, my darlings. Just hold tight to me, and don’t panic.” It was very rare that Aurora Skies experienced earthquakes, and this one seemed to have come out of nowhere. //Erica, get the kids under a table or desk as quick as you can.// His telepathic message desperately reached out to his wife.

//Tyrone!// Theresa sent out her own telepathic message. //Tyrone, answer me. Please, brother, answer me.//

The only answer was the crushing sorrow that poured into her from her twin. She gasped, clutched her head, and was unable to keep from crying out as Tyrone’s pain engulfed her. She held tighter to her father and sister, closing her eyes and wishing desperately for all this to go away. Black lines swam across Theresa’s vision at the intensity of Tyrone’s grief. “I think I’m going to faint,” Theresa whispered. “I can’t stand to feel his pain, yet I can’t avoid it. It’s…crushing me.” with that, she went limp in Deus’ hold.

“Theresa!” Valerie screamed, shaking her unconscious sister’s arm. “Theresa, wake up!” Valerie felt her wolf attempting to get free, but something stopped her. For some reason, Valerie was unable to transform. Why couldn’t she transform?

“The gods are angry with us,” Valerie sobbed, taking the limp form of her sister in her arms and rocking her. Although Valerie knew she was a terrible person and an even worse sister and daughter, she still loved her family and was distressed to see Theresa this way.

Landon and Crystal were huddled in a door frame with Landon’s arms wrapped snugly around a weeping Crystal. “Can this day get any worse?” Landon whispered half aloud and half to himself. In answer, Tyrone’s sorrowful howls escalated, and the ground seemed to shake even more.

At long last, the first earthquake died down. By then, awareness was returning to Theresa, who blinked dazedly. “Geez! Look who turned into a shrinking violet,” she said in self-disgust. “I haven’t fainted since I was sixteen and got dehydrated from the flu.”

“Oh, my god, Theresa! I was so worried,” Valerie sobbed out. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just a little embarrassed is all.”

Deus kissed his daughter’s cheek and hugged her close. “There’s no need for that. Anyone would have fainted in your shoes. I-I wouldn’t try to reach your brother telepathically though for a while.”

As if on cue, Tyrone’s howls sounded once again.

“Oh, Phaedra, no! Not Lenora!” Valerie exclaimed. “I loved her so much.” Valerie’s shoulders shook with renewed sobs.

“We all did, and she wanted me to tell you how much she loved you,” Deus said, kissing his younger daughter’s cheek. “We’re going to have to take care of each other and look after Tyrone especially.”

A tear rolled down Theresa’s cheek as Deus helped her and Valerie from under the desk. Tyrone’s despair was palpable, and Theresa could feel it without even trying. Still, the direction of her magic hadn’t shifted. Goosebumps arose on Theresa’s arms, and she shivered. Something eerie was definitely going on, and it frightened Theresa more than she wanted to admit.

“The kids! We have to find out about the kids,” a shaken Crystal said, tears still rolling down her cheeks. A sob tore from her throat when she saw there was no cell signal on her phone.

“I’ll find out,” Deus said, stepping over fallen objects to get to Crystal and hug her.

Crystal held tightly to the capable wolf as he reached telepathically for his wife. He was silent a few moments before patting Crystal’s back and letting out a huge sigh. “Everyone’s all right. Erica got everyone under the piano, and everyone’s okay.”

“Thank goodness!” Landon said, he and Crystal breathing out a collective sigh of relief. “They must be so scared.”

“I want to go home…and I want to be able to take Lenora with us,” Crystal whispered.

Landon nodded sadly and kissed Crystal’s cheek, tears welling. “Me too, Thumbelina. Me, too.” But Landon knew that wasn’t going to happen. As Tyrone’s chilling howls reached their ears. Landon’s complexion lost all color, his shoulders starting to shake. For Tyrone to howl like that, it could mean only one thing. A sob clawed it’s way up and out of him as tears flooded his eyes and spilled over. “Ma! Oh, Ma!”

Crystal emitted a mewling sound as she reached for him. Landon sank to his knees and covered his face with his hands. Grabbing onto him, she went to the floor with him and held him as her own grief joined his. Huddled together, the two of them looked like lost children from a refugee camp.

“Tyrone…I need to go to him,” Theresa whispered, then shivered at still another onslaught of cries and howls from her devastated twin.

But the second quake began, and the chaos rained down anew.

Eventually, the quaking subsided, along with Tyrone’s fearsome howls, which quieted down to soft, mournful whimpers. His mate was gone. He felt her absence in every pore of his being. It felt as though bricks were tumbling down over his body, battering it mercilessly. Losing her was painful in every sense of the word. Tyrone’s heart was broken, his soul was bereft, and his body felt as though he’d run through a field of landmines.

Great tears cascaded down the stricken wolf’s face. Tyrone’s fingers lovingly caressed the golden strands of his beloved’s hair. The silky strands glided through his fingers and lay softly against his pawlike hands. He gazed into her face in a haze of pain. He brushed Lenora’s cheek with the touch of an angel and traced her slightly parted lips with the pad of his forefinger. “Lenora!” His wolf’s gravelly voice choked on a sob as he formed her name, which was the first understandable word he spoke since she left him. “You look so peaceful, like you’re just asleep.” Tyrone’s broken heart wished with everything it still carried that she was only asleep and that she’d wake up any minute and smile at him again. As he cradled her, he realized she would never smile at him again. He would never hear her call him “Wolfman” ever again. She’d never be able to hold his hand or touch his face. Her beautiful voice was gone from him, and she’d never be able to tell him she loved him anymore. As he lowered his lips to kiss her one final time, he realized she’d never again return his kisses. Lenora’s arms would never hold him, nor would she be able to caress and hold her children and grandchildren or tuck them into bed. Lenora was never coming home again.

This brought on a fresh barrage of grief, and Tyrone let out a low, keening lament. How was he going to tell his children and grandchildren that Lenora was gone? How could he even face going forth from this room without his beautiful goddess? He pulled Lenora closer, rocking back and forth with her in his arms. Burying his face in her hair, he took in a long inhalation through his wolfish snout. “You still smell like my Lenora. The smell of death isn’t on you. You smell as you do when you’re deeply asleep. Lenora! Oh…my Lenora!” He breathed her in again, feeling something stir within the cloud of grief. She didn’t smell of death, and that puzzled him. Tyrone’s senses were very acute in human form but even more so as the Wolf. The instant someone passed from this life and sometimes even before, the scent of death ascended as if to help usher the soul to the afterlife. It was odd to Tyrone that the presence of death through his olfactory senses was absent. He reached for one of Lenora’s limp hands and held it to his cheek. It hadn’t yet begun to cool, and that, too, seemed odd. Tyrone had been sitting there with Lenora for a long time and knew that a person’s hands and feet were the first to grow cold after death. It normally happened fairly quickly, but Lenora’s hands still felt as warm as they had in life.

Tyrone bowed his head to place his ear close to Lenora’s lips and immediately snapped up straight. “I thought I heard…Lenora?” Tyrone could have sworn he heard a very soft whisper of air pass her lips. His fingers went to Lenora’s throat in search of a pulse. At first, he felt nothing. But then, he gasped as he felt a couple of light flutters. Lowering his ear to Lenora’s mouth again, he was certain he felt and heard another soft whisper of air pass her lips and land warmly against his cheek.

“Oh, Lenora! Are you trying to come back to me? Oh, Great Drogo, please make it so, I beg of you. Someone, get in here! Lenora’s heart is beating…and she’s trying to breathe. Someone get in here now!” The words sounded like guttural growls in Tyrone’s wolfish throat but were unmistakably understandable.

Tyrone placed little kisses over Lenora’s face and held her tight. “I’m here, Lenora. Oh, sweetheart, I’m here. Please come back to me. I love you so much, my Lenora. Open those beautiful eyes and come back to me.”