26. Lumi
Chapter 26
Lumi
I raise my eyes at him as he growls low and deep, the sound vibrating through my body, sending equal parts fear and electricity zipping through me.
“You going to lock me up again? I’d like to see you try. I don’t care if you are my mate; I’ll never complete the marking ceremony if you lock me up again.”
His eyes widen in amusement. “Have I told you that I love how brave and sassy you are? But no, I’ve learned my lesson about locking you up. I won’t resort to that again unless you leave me no choice. Which, based on how you’re acting, might be what we are left with.” He leans in closer until his breath is hot on my neck. “But don’t act like you can resist becoming my mate. You can’t resist me any more than you can resist breathing.”
I narrow my eyes. “You underestimate how stubborn I am if you think I’ll ever choose a mate who treats me poorly.”
“Oh, I know. But you won’t get to choose who you mate with if you end up dead. Do you know how dangerous Nyx is? Do you know he aligned his pack with vampires? Do you know he’s willing to do anything to defeat us as soon as the curse lifts?”
I swallow. “I know he’s dangerous, but I couldn’t leave Kael to die either. He’s my best friend.”
“There is so much danger for you. It’s everywhere. Nyx, the vampires, the witches, the other shifters…me.”
I snap my teeth at him, catching some of the flesh of his earlobe between my teeth and biting until I draw blood before he pulls his head away. “I thought I was your strong queen.”
“You are. And you have so much untapped power that I have no doubt you will soon be powerful enough to take on anyone. You’re not there yet, but I can’t wait until you have that strength.”
“Why? So you can mate with me? Mark me as yours?”
He smirks, his eyes glistening with dark, lust-filled thoughts. “Maybe, but also so that I don’t have to worry about you dying anymore. I’ll know you can protect yourself. And when we are together, I’ll be able to fully unleash myself on you.”
“No one’s stopping you,” I taunt him.
The guttural groan that emanates from his throat has my core heating and dampness dripping in my panties.
We stare at each other for a moment, locked in a battle of wills, waiting to see who will break first. We both want the same thing. Simultaneously, we move—our lips colliding in an aggressive kiss.
My arms are still pinned to the glass window behind me, so the only thing I can control is the kiss. I kiss him brutally, bruising and nipping and tasting every inch of his flesh that I can reach. Blood drips from the nicks on his lips, and his tongue battles mine.
His bare chest pushes against my skin, but it’s not enough. I want more, more, more.
I hate the bra I’m wearing.
I hate the shorts blocking us from truly joining together.
I want to know once and for all if Ambrose is my mate. Once he’s buried inside me, I’ll know without a shadow of a doubt that he’s mine. That we were made for each other. That the universe fated it from the very beginning.
I don’t know Ambrose well enough, and he doesn’t know me. Not in all the ways we should before we are to be mated, but time isn’t on our side. We’ll be constantly attacked if we don’t complete the ceremony on the next full moon. The entire pack is in danger until we do. And I won’t let that continue to happen if I can do something about it.
His tongue pushes deeper into my mouth in a claiming, possessive kiss that has me writhing. But it’s not enough. I want my hands free. I want to grab onto the length of his hair. I want to rip the rest of the clothes from his body. I want him thrusting inside me.
He chuckles against my lips. “Your thoughts are very loud when I kiss you.”
My cheeks burn red.
“Don’t be embarrassed by your need for me. Never .” And then his lips move from my mouth to my jawline and then down to my neck.
I shiver, arching my back, pushing our bodies further together as his lips kiss so tenderly against the skin on my neck. My body heats to the brink of explosion. Electric energy flows through me faster than lightning as my eyes roll back in my head. I’m going to come from his kisses alone.
I can’t think. I can barely speak but manage to say, “More.”
A rumble of a growl vibrates through the room, shaking the decor on the walls.
“Only if you promise to never put yourself in danger again. To never leave this house without an escort of either me, Emeric, or Rowena.”
My heart stutters in my chest. “That sounds an awful lot like a prison to me.”
He shakes his head as he nuzzles against my neck. “It’s the only way I can give you freedom while keeping you safe. Just until the marking ceremony.”
I frown, but then he kisses me on the neck again. And I want him so badly that I could very easily agree to any terms. Even keeping me locked up and only letting me free for sex and food.
“Fuck me, and we have a deal.” My eyes glisten with dirty thoughts. It’s only a couple of weeks until the full moon. I can make this promise to him easily enough.
His teeth rake over my neck like it’s as much of a struggle for him to accept my terms as it was for me to accept his. “It’s all I want to do—fuck you, explore every part of your body, claim you, but…” he chokes on his next words as I thrust my hips forward until I can feel his hard length against my lower stomach. “I don’t trust myself with you, not to hurt you. I need you to be at your full strength first.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“And when I fuck you, it can’t be a part of some deal. It needs to be because we both want it.”
“We both want it,” I counter.
His eyes darken as he stares at me. “Nyx made a deal with the vampires. I don’t know what the exact deal is, but he’s powerful and dangerous, more than either of us even realize. He’s taken so much from me.” He shakes his head. “Never again.”
“Never again,” I agree.
“You don’t understand everything—you don’t know the implications if we don’t break the curse this time. And it’s more than being attacked by others trying to get us to break the curse faster. It’s so much more.” He places his forehead against mine in a desperate attempt for me to understand. “It’s so much more, and I want to tell you. I want to tell you fucking everything. But I don’t want to put that burden on you.”
I suck in a breath.
“I wish everything was different. That I could court you properly, that we could take our time, fall in love first. We don’t have that time.”
I capture his mouth with mine and then speak in his mind. “I promise.”
Everything changes after I speak those words. There’s a trust and hunger that wasn’t there before, for both of us.
He releases my wrists, and both of our hands grab onto each other at the same time. My hands grab onto his neck and tangle in his thick hair, holding him to me as if my life depends on it, while his hands grip my ass, holding me so tightly against his body that it’s hard for either of us to breathe.
“I need you,” he says, his face buried in my neck.
“Then have me.”
His eyes blaze with a golden light, shining brighter than I’ve ever seen his eyes before. Nothing else changes about him. No claws form. No sharpened teeth. No fur. No shifting, but I know his animal instincts have kicked in as much as his human desires have. And I know what he means about not being able to stop himself. This is my last chance to stop him.
I don’t want to stop him. Instead, I let out a soft whimper filled with need.
His hands clasp the front of my bra, shredding it open as easily as if it were paper. He doesn’t hesitate as his mouth captures one of my nipples, encasing it fully as his tongue licks around the sensitive bud.
I hold on harder to his head, barely keeping myself upright, knowing I’d topple over if the glass window wasn’t still behind me. He quickly moves to my other nipple as his hand cups my breast, and his thumb flicks its peak.
Heat courses through me in a way that it never has before. I’m flooded with blood and heat and emotion.
I must fuck him. I must have him. He’s mine.
The thoughts flicker through my head, coming so hard and fast that I can’t process anything but my need for him.
He slides down my body, and my shorts go with him as he kneels in front of me, staring hopelessly at the spot between my legs, dripping with warm desire.
He takes a deep breath, taking in my scent, and shudders as his eyes roll back in his head. “You smell better than anything I could ever imagine.”
“Taste me.” Before the words have even fully left my throat, his tongue is licking up my slit and locking on my clit.
The heat spreads faster through my body at every sweep of his tongue. Heat like I’ve never felt before. Heat that spreads like a wildfire through my body, flooding me to the point that I might pass out.
Ambrose must notice my reaction because he lifts me up, sweeping my legs over each of his shoulders while never once letting up his devouring of my clit.
In a second flat, I’m tossed onto my back on his bed, and his pants are gone as he stares at me bare-naked and spread out on his bed. I stare right back, taking in every muscle rippling down his chest all the way down to his large cock straining in my direction. It’s all I can really focus on, even as I notice a glow of something on his skin that’s supernatural and not something I’ve ever seen before, even on wolf shifters.
I lick my lips, and then he’s on top of me. His lips on my lips. His cock is hard between the moisture soaking between my legs.
“Hot,” is the only word I can get out as my body blazes and sweat soaks my body. I’ve never been so overtaken by anything in my life.
Ambrose growls, his lips kissing me hard and punishing. His cock is so fucking close to sliding home, to completing our own private ceremony declaring each other as mates.
Something shifts in the air, in us. I don’t know what exactly, but suddenly Ambrose is moving faster, too fast. My mind whirls. Claws shoot out of my fingers and dig hard into his back. His teeth sink into my neck, and he starts shifting—fur, ears, teeth, and claws all begin to form where he was before.
I gasp as the hunger remains in his eyes as he’s half wolf, half human on top of me. The heat propels through my body, and I realize this is it. This might be the moment I finally shift. For a single second, I feel joy, but the shift doesn’t happen.
I’m burning up. And Ambrose is lost to his wolf and desires as he sweeps down my body, biting down on my clit so hard I scream my orgasm out both in agony and sweet release of pleasure.
My heart flutters hard and fast. I have to stop him, but I can’t. I don’t know what’s happening—to either of us. All I see is his predatory stare as his features remain half wolf, half human. If we are truly mates, it’s not going to be enough to save me from him.
The burning in my body says I’m not strong enough to survive even if I stop him. That I need him as badly as I need this to stop. The fire will never burn out of my body. I’ll never shift until I have Ambrose, until I’m sure he’s the one.
Before I can process what to do or how to save myself, Ambrose is thrown from my body, pinned against the wall by a fully shifted Emeric.
“Wait, I need Ambrose,” I cry out as Rowena scoops me from the bed. I’m too weak to even fight back or lift my own body.
“We need you alive,” she says simply. And then I’m carried so quickly from Ambrose that I can’t even begin to understand what happened to him or me.
I’m alive, but I’ve never felt more dead as the heat continues to burn me alive from the inside out. Until finally, I succumb to the feeling, and blackness takes over me.