Chapter 5
Lumi
Aclawing sensation on top of my hand yanks me out of my deep sleep. Someone is dragging a thousand tiny needles across my flesh all at once.
I open my eyes quickly on full alert. I don’t spot an immediate threat. Kael is passed out in the bed next to me. Sylara is asleep, slumped over in the chair in the corner of the room like she fought sleep for as long as she could, but finally lost the battle.
I stare down at my hand again, and my eyes widen in shock.
Markings are magically being drawn into my hand right in front of me as if someone is drawing them right now.
I watch, feeling a mix of confusion and fear, unable to take my eyes off the black-and-silver drawing.
I must be delusional or hallucinating from lack of sleep. But every time I blink, I see it.
I have a rune on my stomach. The same as everyone in the Moonlight pack. The rune spread down my arms when I was fucking Nyx to taunt him, but I haven’t seen one just spontaneously appear.
“That can’t be good, right?” Kael says, suddenly looking at my hand.
The design looks to me like an intricate snowflake. But I’m sure it means more. Someone who is familiar with magic would probably know.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not really, more like a sharp prickling sensation.”
“Hmmm, you should ask your witch mate what it means,” he says.
“He’s an alpha. The witch part of him is just one tiny part of who he is.”
“But it’s still a part of him. And the witches are still the enemy,” Kael says.
“What are you saying? That I shouldn’t accept him as my mate? I’m not sure I really have a choice in the matter,” I say.
“I’m just saying, tread carefully when it comes to him. You can accept him as your mate. You don’t have to fall in love with him. And the vampire—”
“I know. I need to let him go, realize he’s a lost cause and going to kill me someday.”
Kael shakes his head softly. “I was going to say don’t give up on him so quickly. We gave up on our pack far too fast. We should have gone back. Fought harder. Maybe we could have saved some of them.”
“We couldn’t have. You know that, Kael. We were two weak humans, unable to shift. We would have just gotten ourselves killed. You shouldn’t carry guilt from that day.”
“And you shouldn’t carry any guilt from loving who you love,” he says as Sylara stirs.
“Fuck, I fell asleep. You still alive, Lumi?”
I chuckle. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Good, fuck I need a ton of coffee. One of the guys better have one ready for me by the time I get downstairs,” she says loud enough that I’m sure the entire house heard her.
“Well, you’re a delight when you wake up,” Kael says.
“Get out,” Sylara says.
Kael laughs, taking my hand, and he pulls me out of bed with him. “Let’s leave her alone before she kills us.”
“We’ll make sure there’s coffee when you come down,” I say.
She hisses at Kael, but smiles at me.
Before I even make it down the stairs, Brax has a coffee in my hands. He’s holding a second one that I assume he’s giving to Kael. I raise an eyebrow at him when he doesn’t.
“An offering for the grumpy princess upstairs. Talonis is making more coffee in the kitchen,” he explains.
Even though I doubt anyone will notice one more rune amongst the dozens up and down my arms, I hold the coffee with my right hand and hide my left hand in the pocket of my sweatshirt.
In the kitchen, Riven pours out a row of coffees while Talonis is standing over the stove cooking what smells like eggs and bacon.
“Yours is the third coffee. You like yours with just a dash of cream, right?” Riven asks Kael.
“How did you know that?” Kael says, taking the third cup.
Riven shrugs. “Magic. I’m good at intuition and reading people.”
“Go sit at the table. I’ll bring the food over in just a second,” Talonis says.
Kael and I take a seat next to each other at the broad metal dining table that runs the length of the room.
Emeric jogs in a moment later. “All’s calm outside. No sign of any witches or vampires or other wolf packs. The Moonlight pack is currently passed out in Sylara’s house, and the rest of the Bloodmoon pack have all kept to their own houses.”
“You should sleep, Emeric,” I say.
He grabs the coffee Riven made for him just as I freeze at the familiar scents and footsteps making their way down the stairs.
“What, and miss all the fun? I don’t think so,” Emeric teases.
When I look up, I see Ambrose and Nyx. Both with a cup of coffee. Both staring at me like I’m theirs.
My eyes shift back and forth between the two dangerously gorgeous men. I don’t know who to stare at or what to say to either of them. Both of them have the right to stare at me the way that they are.
Ambrose is my mate. The one I’m supposed to share a life with and love on paper.
The one I’ve accepted and am willing to let mark me.
But Nyx…the love I feel for him is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
He has all of my heart. I’d die for him.
I’d kill for him, become a monster for him.
Which is probably why the gods didn’t make him my mate.
Together, we might destroy the world. So they separated us, made it impossible for us to be together.
They were foolish, though, because apart, the world doesn’t stand a chance.
A loud thundering of footsteps clunk down the stairs until Sylara is standing in the hallway with her cup of coffee, looking from the two men to me.
“Ugh, I should have stayed in bed.” She drops into the seat on the other side of me, like she knew the two men would fight over it if she didn’t. “Everyone, sit down so we can figure out a plan for today, and I can go back to bed as soon as possible.”
“Maybe you should just go back to bed now, princess,” Kael says.
She hisses at him. The rest of the guys smartly take a seat at the table without another word. Nyx and Ambrose sit directly across from me, making it impossible to avoid their stares.
Talonis brings heaping platters of eggs, bacon, and sausage, plopping them down in the center of the table, while Brax starts passing out plates and silverware to everyone.
For a few minutes, the room is silent except for the scooping and passing of food.
It could almost be seen as a normal get-together with a bunch of friends for brunch, not a group of mixed species trying to figure out how to stop curses that will destroy us all in the middle of the afternoon.
Until I forget and take a bite with my left hand. Eyes bore into my flesh more intensely than the feeling when the markings were formed in the first place.
“Lumi, what happened to your hand?” Ambrose asks, his tone off kilter.
Nyx just stares in disbelief, just as I did earlier. He can’t decide if it’s real or a hallucination either.
I retract my hand, covering it for a moment underneath the table.
“I think it’s a new rune. I felt it being drawn on my skin. It’s what woke me up,” I say.
The room is once again silent as everyone stares at where my hand is hidden under the table.
“Can I see it again?” Ambrose asks.
Tentatively, I hold out my hand for everyone to see the intricate snowflake design.
“It’s not a rune I’m familiar with. But it’s strange that we can all see it. Usually, the runes of the Moonlight pack can only be seen by other Moonlight pack members,” Ambrose says.
The others nod, agreeing they can see it.
“It’s also unusual for you to get new markings after the initiation,” Emeric says.
“Are your other runes and markings visible?” Nyx asks, staring at my covered chest.
There is only one way to know for sure. I pull my sweatshirt off, revealing my sports bra. My cheeks flush a little, even though I’ve been naked in front of every person here before, and none of them think anything of it.
But there, shining just as brightly, are the other runes on my body. Ones that match Ambrose’s and the other members of the Moonlight pack.
“Just as visible,” Nyx says as he looks to each person in the room, who all nod that they can see them. Before, I thought it was only Moonlight pack members and Nyx because we were connected with our bond.
“So what are our theories?” Sylara asks, finally coming back to the land of the living.
“Well, the most obvious is now that Lumi has accepted Ambrose as her mate, even if not officially through the marking ceremony, that she is getting more markings to cement their mating bond together,” Emeric says.
Nyx flinches, so slightly that I know I’m the only one who notices.
“I’m sorry,” my words tumble off the cliff toward him. My heart squeezes so tight at causing him pain. My entire body tenses, wishing everything were different.
“Any other reason we can think of?” Kael asks.
The room is silent. My heart sinks a second, knowing that Emeric is right. But I hate that I don’t like the markings for that reason.
Brax clears his throat suddenly. “It looks like a snowflake.”
Everyone stares at him as if not understanding where he’s going with this.
“We don’t know what it means. It looks like a snowflake.
Nothing like the other Moonlight markings.
Her name means snow. She’s from the Wintermoon pack.
I’m not saying I have any theories as to what it means, just that it could be connected to her past, to who she is.
And not necessarily because of some mating bond that she accepted. ”
I smile at him. I don’t know why I needed the hope that I wasn’t going to be covered in markings soon that claimed me as Ambrose’s mate. I will accept him. I will complete the marking ceremony with him. But I don’t want my entire identity to be tied to him.
“For the time being, we should focus on how we break the curses and keep Lumi alive,” Ambrose says.
Everyone starts bobbing their heads in nods.
I take a sip of my coffee, knowing this conversation isn’t going anywhere. There is only one way to keep me alive, and I hate it.
Silence stretches once again.
“Magic,” Riven says.
“What?” I ask, my heart jumping in hope.