Chapter 2
Lumi
Irun, each step feeling like I’m stepping on red-hot coals.
My entire body crackles in pain—the bargain I made demanding that I turn around and complete the marking ceremony with Ambrose.
The pain that ricochets through my body is violent and blinding.
The magic of our blood deal is relentless in its command: turn around.
But I can’t stop. If I do, someone dies. Me. Nyx. I need to buy us time. I need the sun to rise. I need another month to figure out how to keep us both alive, even as the blood deal threatens to kill me first.
Another jolt through my body has me crumpling over, barely able to catch my breath. I pant, my paws hitting the ground as thick mud tries to hold them in place, making it almost impossible for me to take another step.
“Do. Not. Stop.” Ambrose’s words hit me hard in my mind, and the magic seems to ease a little as it realizes that Ambrose isn’t commanding me to finish our blood deal tonight.
I can’t send any words back. I can’t tell him that I’m not stopping; nothing can make me stop. My life and Nyx’s life depend on it.
I run, but it’s not fast enough. My legs seem to move more slowly with each step. I look up at the sky and see the first hint of sunlight peeking ever so slowly over the horizon. Just a little longer, I just have to make it a little longer.
I look over my shoulder to see if Sylara has caught up to me again, but I don’t see her anymore. She stopped to fight off a witch and told me to keep running.
I did.
I ran.
I left her.
I hate that I left her to fight alone. But I didn’t have a choice. And I know as Nyx’s beta, it’s what she would want. She would do whatever it takes to protect Nyx.
“Nyx,” I whisper into the part of my mind he used to occupy. But the word tumbles down a never-ending void, going and going and going…never reaching its final destination.
Nyx is gone, and it’s my fault. I rejected him. I severed the bond we shared. I thought it was a kindness to kick him out of my mind. If I couldn’t have him, then I at least needed to not torture him by letting him hear every thought that Ambrose and I had. I thought I was giving him peace.
But now I’d do anything to have that connection with him back. Maybe that’s selfish, because nothing will change. Ambrose is my mate. The deal I made with Ambrose will force me to be his and not Nyx’s. The only way to save any of us now is to accept Ambrose as my mate and choose a curse to break.
The emptiness might be the death of me if the deal I made doesn’t kill me first.
I try to take a breath, but the magic of the deal wraps around my ribs with a death grip, squeezing so hard that I can’t suck in a breath. So much for thinking the deal’s magic was giving me a break. I stop. Just to catch my breath.
The forest falls too quiet as a cold awareness settles in my chest. I’m being watched. It’s an unsettling feeling until I sense the familiar touch of his icy shadows hit me like a warm embrace.
I look up slowly. Nyx is standing at the edge of the clearing where I stopped. His dark eyes bore into me, as if he were trying to speak to me. But neither of us has to speak to understand each other.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
Stay alive.
The words transfer between us despite a mating bond no longer existing.
But then I look closer, and I see the pain etched into every muscle of his body.
How strained he is, forcing his body to stay frozen as he looks at me like I’m the very air he needs to breathe.
I’ve only severed our connection for a few hours now, and we are both in more pain than I ever thought possible because of it.
How are we supposed to endure a lifetime of this?
I see Nyx make a decision.
No, please gods, no.
And then I feel him on the edges of my mind. He hesitates for less than a second, and then he digs into my mind, invading it like I’m butter that he can just rip through and shred.
“Kill me,” his command comes hard and fast, pushing the magic of the deal I made with Ambrose from my body and demanding all of my attention.
Magic is strange. I’m still learning what magic trumps what magic.
Which is stronger? Which is going to win out?
Right now, the mind control that Nyx hits me with is all-consuming enough that the blood deal I made with Ambrose feels like a bothersome fly, not like the weight of the world will crush me if I take another step.
“You promised me. You promised me you’d never use your mind control against me again. You promised.”
I send the words out, knowing he can’t get them. But even as I do, I feel the pull to him, the magic demanding that I move closer so that I can sink my teeth into his neck and end him.
One of my white paws moves on its own accord, lifting into the air and then taking a single step toward Nyx.
“No!” I shout the single word, but it slips into the depths of my mind, never to be heard.
My second paw lifts and moves, forcing my hind legs to jump forward to keep my balance.
I snarl in Nyx’s direction, knowing I don’t need words for him to get the message.
“You can snarl, growl, fight it all you want, Lumi, but in the end, this was always going to happen. I’m not your mate.
My vampire curse has been activated. I’ll soon go mad, unable to control my own bloodlust until I’ll have to be ended.
Not to mention Ambrose’s curse ensures that I’ll kill you before the sun rises if you don’t kill me first.”
I feel the pull again—like a magnet yanking me toward him. I can’t stop it. I take another step and then another.
“No, stop this!” I send another thought flying toward that mental connection we used to share, but it goes nowhere.
This time, it just bounces off the walls in my head, over and over, repeating until my own words feel like taunts to me.
“No, stop this! No, stop this!” Why did I sever our connection? Why did I think that was a good idea?
“I’m coming. Just hang on,” Ambrose says suddenly in my head. I’ve never been so thankful to be reminded that I still share a connection with him—my true mate.
“Shift me back into a human!” I scream at him as my legs move forward again.
“What? Are you crazy? No way! Nyx will kill you in a heartbeat, and you’ll have no way to defend yourself if I do that.”
Another step. I’m five feet away from Nyx. Close enough that in one leap I could tackle him and take out his jugular with one sweep of my teeth.
“Ambrose, please! He mind-controlled me to kill him. I can’t stop it. If you don’t shift me, I’ll kill him,” I beg. And then everything that I’ve done will have been for nothing.
“Shifting you won’t stop you from killing him,” he says.
“I know, but it will slow me down. Give you more time to stop me.”
“Who says I’m going to stop you?”
“Ambrose,” I hiss, the fear taking over me in strong waves.
But before I can take another step, I feel the sharp pain explode down my spine.
My body begins twisting. My bones breaking, shortening, straightening.
My skin is shifting, my fur disappearing.
The pain is just as excruciating as the first time.
The control I have over myself, my body, and my mind has all been taken. My body by Ambrose. My mind by Nyx.
I know why they’ve done it, but right now, I’m pretty pissed at both of them. And I plan on telling them both exactly that when I can breathe again.
Time slows, speeds, and then slams into me as my naked human body collapses onto the ground. Hopefully, Ambrose has gotten here because I don’t have any energy left to fight Nyx’s mind control. My only hope is that my body is too weak to kill him and there are no weapons nearby.
Slowly, I stand and stare directly at Nyx, who is looking at me in complete awe.
His hungry eyes peruse up and down my bare skin, not missing a single part.
The runes that mark me as part of the Moonlight pack light up my skin, glowing under the moonlight.
They confirm once again that Ambrose is my mate.
“You bastard,” I growl out. “You fucking prick. How dare you use mind control on me? How dare you force me to do the one thing that you yourself would never be able to live with after doing? The one thing you’re more afraid of than anything? How. Fucking. Dare. You!”
Nyx blinks, my words ripping through him like a shockwave, and I can tell from his expression that the control he had on my mind vanishes. The concentration he must have needed to ensure I followed his command is gone.
“I’m nothing to you. A former fling you once thought could be your mate.
A boy toy you could play with when your mate hurt you.
I’m the one the gods placed in your path to fuck with you.
” He pauses. “I’m a predator. A monster.
A killer. I’m nothing. A blip in your memory that you shouldn’t feel guilty about killing.
I deserve to die. The things I’ve done. The things I will do if I’m left to live.
Kill me. End the curses. Live happily ever after with your mate. Fall in love with him.”
My anger almost splits me in two. “You’re an idiot.”
“I’m sure I’m that too,” he says hesitantly. “Whatever reason you need to think is what I deserve to die.”
I shake my head, my long silvery hair falling over one of my bare breasts. “You don’t deserve to die. And if you think I could kill you and be able to live with myself for a single second after I did it, then you’re a fool.”
He blinks again, slowly, like he’s processing brand new information that never occurred to him.
“I still love you, you idiot. I love you. I’m doing everything I can to keep you alive, including completing the marking ceremony with Ambrose if I have to. I’ll do anything for you, but I won’t kill you any more than you’ll kill me.”
“You love me? Then why break out bond? Why reject it?”
“Because I was doing the same thing you think you’re doing now—a kindness. I thought you couldn’t handle feeling the connection that Ambrose and I would inevitably have to share to become bonded mates. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have taken that choice away from you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” He blinks back a tear. “I never would have mind-controlled you to kill me if I thought you loved me. I thought you rejected me because—”
“Because I love Ambrose? He’s my mate, not my love.”
There’s a stillness between us.
“You shouldn’t have shifted. You’re vulnerable. You need to run. You—” he says, suddenly panicked.
“You won’t kill me. Not without a long, long fight first. We have time.”
“Don’t come any closer,” he says, holding his hand up in front of him.
“You won’t kill me.”
He shakes his head. “Two minutes ago, you were panicked that magic was going to make you kill me. If someone doesn’t kill me, I’ll kill you before you have a chance to break the curse on the next full moon.”
Sunlight flickers through the branches of the trees, lighting up the spot where we stand to the point where Nyx has to take a step back to remain in the shadows.
It’s over. There is no chance of my breaking a curse for a month. And the blood deal I made with Ambrose didn’t kill me either.
I exhale a harsh breath—thankful that I don’t have to lock myself as Ambrose’s mate just yet, and terrified that it means I have a whole month to keep Nyx from killing me.
A whole month I have to keep him alive. But I also have a whole month to figure out how to save him while saving myself in the process.
And that flicker of hope is what I have to hold on to.
I take another step closer, reaching my hand out slowly. Nyx stares at it like I’m going to burn him with it.
“Please go, love. The curse will cause me to kill you. It might not even be on purpose. It could be an accident like I trip you and you fall off a cliff or something.”
I stare into Nyx’s deep eyes. Eyes that have suffered.
Eyes that are still begging me to kill him, so there is no chance he’ll end me.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that he is the only man I’ll ever love.
I thought I loved Ambrose once; I was wrong.
This is love. This desperate need to be with him, to die for him, to do anything for him.
Even forgive him instantly for asking the unforgivable of me.
His intentions are pure. He loves me so wholly that he’s so desperate that he’ll do the only thing he can to save me, too.
“You won’t kill me, Nyx.”
I reach out, stroking his face.
He winces, recoiling a tiny bit, but his eyes stay locked on me. He can’t bear to tear his eyes away from me.
And then, Nyx falls to the ground—lifeless.
I scream, my world being torn apart right in front of my eyes.
“It’s okay. He’s okay,” Ambrose shouts, panicked as he runs into view.
I hear Ambrose, but I bend down, trying to wake Nyx up. But I can’t touch him. My hands stop at an invisible barrier.
“What?”
“I have him in a magical cage.”
“Release him,” I say, a tear falling from my eye.
“Is that what you really want? Or do you want me to keep him safe even from himself until we figure out how to break the curses?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, the pain too much, but I know he’s right. This is the best way to keep everyone safe for the time being.
I nod.
Ambrose exhales in relief.
“I’m sorry, Nyx,” I whisper through the space that used to be our bond, knowing that he’ll never receive the message.