Chapter 7
Lumi
If looks could kill, Nyx might get his wish and be dead right now. I hate his suggestion. I hate every fucking thing about it. Except the part where I can save myself—that part I believe. But this—this isn’t the way.
“That’s an interesting theory,” Riven says, pondering Nyx’s thoughts.
“No, it’s not. It’s stupid. I loved Ambrose before. I loved him fiercely. I loved him so much that I thought he was my mate immediately upon meeting him. He still has his curse. My love didn’t stop it from happening.”
“You loved him. Loved being the keyword. You’re not in love with him now,” Nyx says.
The air shifts awkwardly around us as the entire Moonlight pack and Bloodmoon pack members listen to our conversation. It must be confusing for them to listen to, knowing that I loved Ambrose before. I’ve accepted him as my mate now, but don’t love him.
“I can’t just force myself to fall in love with Ambrose to test a theory!”
“You can start by forgiving him. You can start by trying. Clinging to a love that will bring your demise is stupid love. Ambrose is your mate, start acting like it. The only reason you won’t let yourself fall back in love with him is your own stubbornness.
You loved him for a reason. Your feelings weren’t fake.
They were real. Find them again,” Nyx says.
I want to scream. I want to shift into my wolf and go after him. Lock him in a brutal fight until I knock some sense into him.
I want to tackle him to the ground, plant my lips on his, kiss him like tomorrow might never come. I want to rip his clothes to shreds, claim him right here in front of everyone.
Nyx stares back at me with his cold, unflinching eyes. Eyes that pretend he can’t read my thoughts anymore. That he can’t tell exactly what I’m thinking, despite not being able to climb into my mind like before. It doesn’t matter. He knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“We’re done here,” Nyx says to his Bloodmoon pack members.
Ambrose must have told the same thing to the Moonlight pack members, because the number of people surrounding us has suddenly diminished greatly. And Nyx—he’s just gone.
Talonis and Brax are still standing in the shadows where he was a moment before. The only thing that gives me any hope that Nyx is going to be okay alone is his promise to me. That he won’t kill himself to save me. He will fight his curse every day as long as I’m fighting to find a way to break it.
But for now, it leaves the rest of us staring at each other like we don’t have a clue what to do next.
“I’m going to scour my mother’s journals to see if she wrote anything down about breaking witches’ curses. Maybe there is something else we can do,” Riven says, lost in his thoughts.
“We’ll make sure Nyx doesn’t get into any trouble,” Talonis says, and Brax nods.
“Thank you,” I whisper back. Although it all seems moot. We’re all doomed to die, no matter what we do.
Sylara and Kael walk over to me. Sylara opens her mouth to speak.
“Go,” I say, before she speaks.
Her eyebrows jump up. “We all agreed not to leave you alone with anyone. There always needs to be at least two of us with you.”
“Ambrose’s curse triggers other people to kill me, not him to kill me. I’m his mate. He loves me. I’m safe with him, I promise.”
Sylara looks from me to Ambrose suspiciously. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
Kael, on the other hand, sees right through me. “We’ll be nearby if you need us.”
I nod. “I won’t. Get some rest.”
And then it’s just Ambrose and me.
“I think Nyx is wrong,” Ambrose says.
“What? Why?”
“Magic, curses, they do have loopholes, other ways they can be broken, that’s true. But you loving me would be a far too easy way to break the curse.”
I stare at him suspiciously. “Are you just trying to give me an out? A reason that I don’t have to fall in love with you in hopes that I’ll fall in love with you?”
He chuckles. “No, I genuinely don’t think it will work.”
“What will work?”
“The marking ceremony. Breaking the curses for the witches.”
I frown.
“I know you don’t like that answer, but it’s what I believe.”
I shake my head, hating every answer that anyone gives me. “There has to be another way.”
“Maybe, maybe not. We just keep trying, keep searching for answers. And keep each other alive until we figure it out.”
I nod.
“You look beautiful, by the way,” Ambrose says, out of nowhere.
I freeze, not sure how to respond to him.
“Sorry, I—I shouldn’t have said that. But now that I can love you openly, it’s hard for me to keep my thoughts to myself. I know you’re in love with him. It’s why you are working so hard to save him. I just—” he runs his hands through his hair, his broad chest expanding under his thin white shirt.
He’s ruggedly gorgeous with his broad shoulders, messy hair, and confident stare at me.
For a moment, I try to let myself feel all those things I felt before.
Before, when I first met him. Before, when I loved him.
When I thought he was it for me. When we were fucking, it felt like so much more.
But when I think about how I felt then, nothing conjures up in my mind.
The feelings are nice, but nothing like what I feel now.
“You know we can’t save them all. We can’t protect everyone. We have to choose. And saving the vampires first could lead to our demise,” Ambrose says.
I frown, hating where this is going.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because if the vampires are the first freed from the curse, they’d be stronger than any of us. They would be at their full powers. They could kill the rest of us before anyone else has a chance to break the other curses.”
“We have a blood deal. If you don’t break the curses for the vampires, you die.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not saying I won’t honor our blood deal. I’m just thinking out loud. That’s all. We need to think about everything before the next full moon.”
Suddenly, my stomach growls.
Without a second thought, Ambrose holds up his hand, pulling like he’s tugging on a magical rope I can’t see.
A table and two chairs that I recognize from Nyx’s deck appear.
A second later, two plates of food and a bottle of wine sit in the center of the table.
Even our surroundings have changed, and we are a good mile or more from Nyx’s house, deep in the forest.
“Have dinner with me?” he asks.
I stare at the table, the food, the candle he just magically produced. Like it’s somehow supposed to impress me. All it does is piss me off and remind me of the lies he told me.
‘No’ is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t make the word come out. Is it the blood deal we made stopping me? Or my conscience that attempting to love him again could be the only way to save myself from certain death?
“Okay,” is what leaves my lips instead.
The chair across from me slides out on its own, though Ambrose never lifts a hand. His magic takes over once again. I stare at the chair, unsettled by the unnatural way it moved. Hesitantly, I take a seat as Ambrose sits across from me with a disarming smile.
Damn, he has a good smile. I try to look at him through a different lens.
He’s attractive. A great-looking male who is easy for any female to find sexy.
He’s the strongest alpha, willing to do anything for his pack and the other wolves.
He’s sacrificed a lot. Deep down, he’s a good man.
But I don’t get butterflies in my stomach.
I don’t get the rush in anticipation of our next kiss or the flicker of heat at his touch.
I used to love him. I try to push our past aside. The mistakes he made were just that—mistakes. He’s asked for forgiveness. He’s taken responsibility for them.
Forgive him.
Wine magically appears in my glass. Ambrose lifts his glass, and I hold up mine as well.
“To a fresh start. I can’t believe I have the privilege of watching you fall in love all over again.”
“That’s one optimistic way to say that,” I mutter.
“I have a lot of optimism when it comes to you, love.”
I frown. “What did you say?”
He frowns, unsure what I’m referring to.
I shake my head. I must have imagined it.
I take a long swig of my drink. If I’m going to have hallucinations, I at least want to be able to blame it on being drunk.
As I set my wine glass down, it magically refills itself.
I blink and then look up at Ambrose as if I’m seeing him for the first time. Every time I see him perform magic, I realize how immense it is. I still think he’s more powerful than he lets on sometimes, from the magic he uses when he tries to impress me.
“Sorry, do you like my magic or would you prefer me to keep it to myself?”
His voice is timid, unsure. Pulling back all the layers of himself, he’s suddenly vulnerable. He’s sweating, nervous, more nervous than me.
I find myself slipping into his mind, trying to understand what’s happening.
“Of course she’s not impressed by your magic, you dimwit!”
I freeze.
Nyx.
I can hear Nyx in Ambrose’s mind.
I’m definitely hallucinating.
“You can go now. I’ve got this. Who is she currently sharing a meal with?” Ambrose snaps back to him in his mind.
“And who is she currently in love with?” Nyx hisses back.
My heart explodes.
It’s not a hallucination. It’s real. I can hear Nyx in Ambrose’s head. I may have severed my connection with Nyx, but their connection is as strong as ever.
I don’t know if I should cry or laugh. How could they still have a connection? What even is their connection if they aren’t mates?
“You should really drink some blood. It might make you less cranky,” Ambrose snarls back.
“I’ll get you some ice for your blue balls.”
I chuckle, and Ambrose stares at me suspiciously for a beat and then says. “You can hear him, can’t you?”
I smile, I can’t help it. “Yes.”
“He’s insufferable. I can’t get him to stop talking most of the time. Like a constant annoying little brother always nagging me about something.”
I bite my lip and then say, “Thank you.”
Ambrose’s eyes widen at that.
I reach across the table and take his hand in mine. “You don’t know what it means to me that he isn’t alone.”
He nods. “I can see why you fell in love with the bastard. I understand what he does for you. But I’m not him. I can never be him. I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want you to be him.
I’m just not sure how to do this. How to fall back in love with you when he has dug himself so deep into my very essence of who I am.
I think about him before I even open my eyes in the morning.
And it will be him I think about as I take my last breath. ”
“You’re afraid,” he says, not as a question, but because he feels the energy I’m giving off through our bond.
“Yes, I’m afraid. I’m afraid I’ll never love you as I do him. That you’re my mate. The entire universe says so. But what if we never have that epic love story that being mates usually entitles you to?”
“We have a lifetime to find that love. And epic love doesn’t have to be this huge thing. It can be small. It just needs the tiniest of sparks to light an entire forest.”
I nod.
“Tell me the rest,” he says so gently. I know he already knows what I’m about to say via our bond. But I need to get the words out anyway.
“I’m also afraid that I can’t love two people at the same time. If I love you, I’ll lose my love for him. And that—I think it’d feel like losing a part of myself to lose my love for him. But my love for you would never be enough for you if it were split between the two of you.”
“Any love you have for me is enough.”
“Maybe. Maybe it would be enough for you, but not enough to break the curse. What if, to break it, I have to give all of my love to you? And if I do, if I break the curse, I lose myself in the process and wish I were dead anyway.”
Ambrose is about to speak, when the world goes dark. We’d been having dinner under the moonlight. But it’s like someone covered the moons and stars, throwing a blanket of darkness over us.
I fight against the darkness, trying to throw it off of me. But it’s like fighting against an invisible blanket. No amount of thrashing will get it off.
I’m suffocating. There is no oxygen here. The darkness has snuffed all of it out.
“Ambrose,” I whisper into his head.
He doesn’t respond.
Fuck, we are being attacked. And our connection isn’t working.
I feel the first sharp slice against my cheek. Nails or teeth? I’m not sure, but it hurts all the same.
Shift, dammit, shift.
But I can’t.
I should run, but I can’t see an inch in front of my face. I’d be running blindly, most likely, toward the enemy. And I’d be leaving Ambrose alone.
Another strike slices through my side, and I scream out. The pain blinds me even more.
I’m powerless.
Completely blindsided by this attack.
Witches?
Vampires?
Doesn’t matter.
I reach for the blades Nyx gave me and start wielding them blindly.
I hit something.
It hisses in response.
Good, if I’m going to die, I’m not going to die without fighting as hard as I can.
A growl echoes through the darkness. I slash my blades through the cool blackness, but it doesn’t stop the undeniable feel of sharp teeth sinking into my shoulder.
Must be vampires.
Fuck.
“Ambrose!” I scream for his help, but I’m greeted with silence.
Is he alive? Dead?
I connect to him, knowing he’s the only thing that can help me now.
Our connection is still there. He’s alive. But barely.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to save us.
The tiniest, craziest of ideas form in my head. I have no idea if it will work, but it’s my only chance. I find that thread—the one that leads to the cool, dark shadows in Ambrose’s brain.
“We’re being attacked. Help,” I send to Nyx through Ambrose’s connection, and hope to the gods he gets the message.