Chapter 6
Nyx
“Does it hurt?” I ask Lumi when she approaches me in the living room while I stare out the large windows at the fading sun sinking over the horizon.
She’s almost survived an entire day since Ambrose’s curse was triggered.
Her standing next to me isn’t triggering any psychosis.
I’m not filled with rage to kill her. But I don’t know how much longer it will last.
I spot Talonis and Brax standing at the edges of the living room. I’ll never be left alone with Lumi as long as I live, which probably won’t be much longer.
She glances down at the new markings on her hand that shine brighter than her silvery white hair. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Are you lying?”
“No. Why would I lie?”
I take a breath and am flooded with a sharp, cool scent that conjures images of snow settling over pine.
Immediately, I realize my mistake and then hold my breath, forcing the smell of her out of my head.
Suddenly, the hold I have on my feelings is stifling, like I’m strangling myself.
The control that came so easily before is now hanging on by a thread.
I don’t know what I want to do—drink her blood, kill her, or fuck her.
But none of the choices are an option for me right now.
“Nyx?” she asks gently, her pupils dilating at the sight of me struggling.
I grind my teeth together so hard that my fangs scrape against my gums, but I don’t speak. Not until I have control again.
“You need blood,” she says after watching me.
“No,” I grit out, before snapping my mouth shut again.
“There is no reason to withhold any more. Once you drank, you became a full vampire in every way that matters. With or without the curse driving you to drink, a vampire drinks blood. You need blood. You can drink from m—”
“No!” I say sharply, cutting her off.
She frowns at my outburst. “You need to drink.”
“I’ve drunk plenty.”
“No, you haven’t. You need blood. I think it would help you keep control.”
“It won’t. When I drank from the witches, I was insatiable. I lost my mind. Couldn’t focus. Lost all sense of who I was and what I was supposed to do. Until…”
“Until what?” she asks, her voice heated.
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
She reaches her hand out to touch me, but I pull it away before she can. I can’t let her touch me. I can’t let my attachment to her grow even further. I won’t survive as it is. I won’t survive her, not now.
Her chest rises and falls in harsh breaths, like she’s struggling to breathe. I want to look into her crystal clear blue eyes. I want to push back into her mind and understand everything about her like before. I want that connection that I’ve never felt with anyone else back.
I close my eyes instead, refusing to allow myself to look at her.
She’s not mine.
My only job now is to keep her alive.
“Riven wants to see what our combined magic can do against my curse,” Ambrose says, breaking up the tense moment between us.
“Of course. I’m coming,” Lumi says, quickly gathering her composure. Her cheeks flush like he just caught us making out instead of just having a conversation.
Rage and annoyance flood my head as Ambrose leaks his feelings, thundering into my mind. He doesn’t say anything. I don’t even know if he realizes our connection is open.
And then I’m frozen by a different feeling invading my head. Lumi walks by me to follow Ambrose, but her fingers skim mine with a quiet spark that hums through me.
Fuck.
I release the breath I’d been holding and draw in one deep, intoxicating breath. Instantly, every feeling I have for her crashes over me. The faintest glimmer sparks between us where our fingers touch, there and gone in the span of a heartbeat.
Love, lust, want, desire, uncontrollable hunger—it all surges through me like something wild and unrestrained. And for a moment, I swear I can feel her thoughts again. The force of her love for me, still so deep and unshaken, rattles me to my core.
Rage like nothing I’ve ever felt rumbles through, shattering the delicate, wispy traces of love that were drifting through my mind.
“Go watch your mate try to break the curse with his little magic,” I say.
Another wave of rage hits me, and I know Ambrose is glaring at the back of my head.
Lumi looks at me one last time with a desperation in her eyes. “Feed,” she whispers. “For my sake, feed.”
She doesn’t wait for my reply; she just follows Ambrose out of the house.
“You’re not going to feed, are you?” Talonis asks me.
“No,” I say, turning toward where he and Brax are standing.
“But we’re going to go watch, right?” Brax asks, with a mischievous look in his eyes.
“Hell yes, we are,” I say.
Riven has gathered the Moonlight pack members in my backyard.
It’s shocking seeing them in my own territory, let alone my backyard.
If you had asked me a year ago whether this would ever happen, I would have said that hell would have had to have frozen over for it to happen. And yet here they all are.
Ambrose leads Lumi to a grass spot at the edge of the circle while he makes his way next to Riven.
Brax, Talonis, and I stay on my covered deck that protects me from the fading sunlight while still giving me a good view of them. Kael and Sylara are standing near the edge of the circle with a few other Bloodmoon pack members. Sylara nods at me when she sees me, like she’s happy I came out.
“So what’s the plan?” Ambrose asks Riven.
“I believe that every one of your pack members has a small piece of your magic. Despite you being granted your magic, you are the strongest between the two of us. So I want all the magic to pour through you. All of the pack members will try to channel their magic to you. Once they have, I’ll add mine.
And then you have to concentrate on breaking your curse. ”
Ambrose just stares at Riven like he thinks he’s insane, and there is no way that this will work. But then Ambrose turns to his pack members, and I know he’s going to try what Riven suggested.
“How can we send you magic? We aren’t witches?” one of his male pack members asks.
“Magic is mostly about your intentions and energy. There is some finesse and practice to wield it properly, but you won’t need much to channel what magic you have back into me.
Especially since that magic was mine to begin with, and you becoming a pack member distributed some of my magic to you,” Ambrose says.
The Moonlight pack members look at Ambrose in bewilderment, but they trust him. It’s a wonder to watch his leadership. My pack has become a family to me. More equals all playing our own parts than me being their leader. But Ambrose—he is a true leader. A true alpha deserving of the title.
“I’ll start,” Emeric says, stepping forward.
“Concentrate on me,” Ambrose says, his voice steady, giving them more confidence.
Emeric chuckles. “Easy enough.”
I know each member of this pack has an individual witch curse because of who Ambrose is; they were all cursed.
As Emeric concentrates on Ambrose, I pry into Ambrose’s mind and get hit with Emeric’s curse.
Fuck, Emeric can feel all of Ambrose’s pain. Fucking hell.
I pull back out of his head, needing a break from the intensity between them.
Others slowly gather closer to Ambrose as they start channeling their magic into Ambrose. I can tell from how Ambrose is sweating that it’s working. Their magic is pouring into him. The problem will be whether he can harness and control it long enough to break any of the curses.
Lumi steps up, ready to take her turn. She closes her eyes, and I automatically slip back into Ambrose’s mind when she starts to send her energy to him.
I don’t know what I expect to see or feel, but I gasp when I’m inside his mind.
Because I feel her—that familiar coolness, flurries of snowflakes kissing my nose as they fall over my eyelashes, feeling.
She’s in his head as she sends him the small kernel of magic she must have from belonging to his pack.
For a moment, I feel complete again. Like the piece that’s been missing has been returned. But it’s only for a moment. And then, it’s gone.
Her magic is in him.
She retreats from his mind.
And I’m empty once again.
She was the last of the Moonlight pack members to give Ambrose her magic. As soon as she’s done, Ambrose turns to Riven. Without a word, Riven pours his magic into Ambrose.
Ambrose braces as Riven’s magic hits him. Since Riven is half witch, the magic he has far exceeds the magic the pack members have. They hold the connection for what feels like an eternity until Ambrose absorbs as much magic as he can, and then a blast shoots out of Ambrose.
Everyone hits the floor, ducking under the explosion of magic that flows out of Ambrose.
Lumi!
I stand up immediately, searching for the love of my life. She’s hit the ground, face down, like all of her other pack members, and she looks completely unharmed.
I reach for our connection like it’s second nature before I remember the emptiness there.
The blast from Ambrose finally recedes. Everyone stays down for a few more seconds, nervous it’s going to happen again.
“Did it work?” Emeric asks as he slowly stands up.
“No, it didn’t,” Lumi answers for Ambrose.
“How do you know?” Emeric asks.
“Because I can still feel the guilt, the heaviness that he carries, the pain. Can’t you feel it?” she asks Emeric.
Emeric frowns. “Yes.”
“If it had worked, the pain would have lifted. He would be able to say I love you to me without feeling the heaviness of his words,” Lumi says.
“But how can you be sure?” Emeric asks.
“Say it,” Lumi says gently to Ambrose, but it’s in his mind. I find myself in his mind, and I hear her as if she were talking to me in my mind.
“Are you sure?” he asks back.
“Yes.”
“I love you, Lumi.”
Terror lights up Lumi’s face in the same way it did before. There’s a shift in the air, like the curse has a mind of its own.
Ambrose didn’t break the curse.
Ambrose turns to Riven. “Any other great ideas?” he snarks.