Chapter 21
Ambrose
Iwatch Lumi slip away, like she doesn’t think I notice her. I always notice her. I’m always watching her. Every instinct in me is telling me to stop her, to go after her. That this can only end one way.
But I resist, because if I stop her or go after her myself, she’ll never forgive me. And I’m so close to breaking through her walls. So close to her giving me a real chance at competing for her heart.
I look at Emeric across the table from me. “Go.”
It’s a command, an order, a hope, and a need all in one word. He’s not my beta anymore. He can tell me to fuck off. He doesn’t have to follow my orders.
But Emeric nods. Still loyal to me despite everything he and I have been through.
Within seconds of Lumi walking out the door, Emeric follows. And I can breathe again. But the reprieve is temporary, because I can feel every emotion Lumi feels as she runs to Nyx.
Worry, concern, want…it’s all there. But the emotion that has me most concerned…hope.
I keep my mind busy with mundane tasks. Cleaning, showering, getting dressed. Anything to not hyperfocus on what Lumi is doing with Nyx. But the intense feelings flood me all the same.
Heat, want, desire…stronger than I’ve ever felt from her flood my system, making me hard just from the thoughts in her mind. But they aren’t directed at me. They are directed at him.
I try to pull away. Try to give them privacy. But it’s damn near impossible. I stare down at the new mark on my hand. The one that should be a snowflake, but instead, it’s a vampire rune—it’s him. Why are we so interlinked, Nyx and I? What am I missing?
We aren’t brothers. Aren’t related in any way that I can tell. Other than our love for the same girl, I can’t figure out why we are connected in this way.
Nyx is better at blocking me out than Lumi is. Still, I feel his own thoughts flickering in my mind, and I push through his thick wall, needing to know what he’s feeling. Needing to know if he’s currently fucking her and undoing every inch of progress I’ve made with her.
Control—intense control. He’s concentrating on everything he has, so he doesn’t kiss her, fuck her, or kill her. All are competing thoughts in his mind.
I pull away and block them both out. This isn’t helping. I’m just hurting myself.
I go find Riven, knowing I need something larger to distract myself with. He’s in Nyx’s office with a large stack of books.
He doesn’t even bother to look up at me when I enter the room.
“Need some help?” I ask.
He pauses as he turns the page, still not looking up from whatever he’s reading.
He hands me a book from his stack. I take it over to the chair in the corner of the room and start flipping through it.
But after reading the same page six times without comprehending any of it, I realize this isn’t going to be a very good distraction.
“He’s not going to touch her. You know that, right?”
I look at Riven now. The man who is an anomaly himself.
Mostly wolf shifter with some witch traits.
It’s impossible. An abomination. And yet, he is.
Not gifted with magic, but born with it.
Two supernatural powers existing in one creature.
I’ve never seen another and may never see another again in my life.
“I don’t actually. I don’t trust him. And if you share the connection with him that I do, you’d know that his intentions are anything but pure.”
Riven shakes his head. “Nyx loves her. He’ll always love her. He won’t do anything to hurt her. And giving her hope, making her fall for him again, would be giving her hope. It would endanger her life.”
“Doesn’t matter. He’s a bastard that can’t control himself.”
Riven sighs. “I know about the blood deal you made with him. He doesn’t have a choice. This is the best way to protect her, so he’ll do everything he can to protect her.”
“How do you—” but I stop before I finish asking.
It doesn’t matter. I know Riven is right.
The blood deal will ensure Nyx doesn’t touch her again.
He’ll do everything he can to push her to me.
As long as my curse doesn’t force him to kill her first. Hopefully, the blood deal we made is stronger than the curse.
My ears perk up as I hear them enter the house. I’ve never moved faster, reaching the stairs in record time. Sylara enters first, followed by Lumi, then Nyx.
I glance out the window and see a flickering of blonde flur dart by—Emeric.
And then a woman I don’t recognize walks in after them. With sharp green eyes, long thick hair, and a look of determination on her face.
“I’m Amora. I believe I’ve met a few of you before. It’s nice to see Nyx’s home. It’s very him,” she says sweetly.
Lumi visibly flinches every time she speaks. Nyx doesn’t even look in Amora’s direction. And Sylara seems bored with the entire thing.
Nyx and Amora are dressed, most likely traveling in their vampire forms. But Lumi and Sylara are naked. It doesn’t usually bother me. In fact, I’ve seen so many wolf shifters walk around naked that it is practically meaningless. But right now, my possessiveness overtakes my senses.
In a split second, I release my magic, yanking one of my shirts and Lumi’s leggings toward me. Before she can even register what’s happening, I’ve already pulled the shirt over her head.
“Thanks, I know that everyone is used to being naked around each other. But I’m not sure it’s something I’ll ever get used to. Thank you for knowing so well and knowing that I would feel more comfortable covered up,” Lumi says in my mind as she slips the leggings on underneath my oversized T-shirt.
“Of course,” I say back, omitting the part where I’m so possessive of her that I can’t stand for others to see her naked anymore.
Sylara studies the exchange suspiciously—the only one still naked and not giving a damn that she is or who is looking at her.
I spot Kael out of the corner of my eye, his eyes never leaving Sylara’s naked body, but not moving to stand by her or possessively covering her up like I did Lumi. I know that Kael has a thing for Sylara, but I’m not sure she’ll ever give a damn about him.
I pull Lumi to my side, draping my arm over her shoulders once she’s finished getting dressed. “I’m just glad you made it back safely. It’s dangerous to hang out around so many vampires.” I don’t say Nyx specifically. She knows he’s dangerous and chose to be with him anyway.
Nyx sniffs the air, and I know he can smell how Lumi and my smell have intertwined.
He can smell her sex on my fingertips. He doesn’t know how far we’ve taken things, just that things have progressed between us.
He can smell it. See it in the way she doesn’t pull away from me as I stand with my arm draped around her shoulders.
And then, because I can’t help myself, I lean in and plant a kiss on Lumi’s lips.
I’m not sure how she’s going to react to kissing in front of Nyx, but I need to kiss her. For myself. For her. For him. I need to claim her. She’s mine, mine, mine! I want to shout.
To my surprise, she’s beyond receptive to my kiss, parting her lips like she needs my tongue to save her.
My tongue dips inside, and I kiss her in a not-so-sweet way.
A little aggressively, a little possessively, I mark her as mine with my tongue deep in her mouth, my hands wrapping around her body until I pull the softest, sweetest moan from her throat.
Then I stop. Her eyes are a daze, and she takes a slow breath, her eyes on me, not him. For a second, I think I’ve won. I’ve gotten the girl.
“Really? You think you can take her from me with a single kiss?” comes Nyx’s voice in my head.
I pull Lumi tighter to me. “Yea, I do. She’s standing by my side, not yours. And you saw the look on her face when I kissed her.”
“You didn’t fuck her last night,” he says calmly, like he’s just pulled the trigger on the bullet that he knows will kill me.
“Of course I did.”
“You. Didn’t. Fuck. Her…You. Haven’t. Fucked. Her. Since. Me.”
I growl.
Lumi looks at me curiously, but I just shake my head.
Nyx looks from her to me. “It’s not enough.”
“Fucking her isn’t the only way to her heart.”
“No, but if she can still remember me. Still thinks about me when you kiss her, it’s because you haven’t fucked her senseless.
You’re the most powerful witch I’ve ever seen.
Use that magic, make it the most romantic, magical night of her life.
Pretend you have three dicks. I don’t know—but you need to pull out all the stops when you get her in your bed again. ”
“You weren’t that memorable. She was almost there last night until these damn markings showed up. Another night and she’ll never think about you again.”
Nyx huffs. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“What about you? You aren’t doing your part enough.”
He chuckles. “I’ve played my part perfectly. I am doing what it takes. Do you fucking smell me?”
I do, he smells like sex—untamed, filthy sex.
The kind you get after fucking all night long, not just one time.
And Amora, she’s covered in his scent. There is no faking that.
No pretending. No, almost going there, but pulling back at the last second.
They are fucking like the feral animals they are.
“Hands, now,” Lumi says, interrupting us.
Nyx and I both frown, but the way she says it is all alpha-like. There is no arguing with her.
I hold up my hand for everyone to see. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone has entered Nyx’s living room now.
The markings that link me to Nyx are so clearly drawn on the back of my hand.
Lumi holds out her hands next. A snowflake on one, a crescent moon on the other.
We both look at Nyx, who begrudgingly holds up his hand, palm facing us.
I roll my eyes, and then he dramatically turns it.
Someone gasps when he reveals the snowflake.
“So explain to me like I’m an idiot what this could mean, because to me it looks like Lumi’s mate is Ambrose. Nyx’s mate is Lumi. But Ambrose’s mate is Nyx? How does that fucking make sense?” Brax asks.
“The markings don’t mean they are mates. But it could be a clue from the gods about their fates,” Riven says.
Silence stretches as if no one wants to speak about how our fates might be intertwined. But it’s obvious that they are. Suddenly, everyone’s heads turn at the same time as we all sense them coming.
Vampires.
I glare at Nyx. “What are your vampires doing here?”
He listens carefully. “I don’t have vampires.”
“You’re their lord. You have your own vampires.”
“Being a lord isn’t like being an alpha. I don’t have control over them, just influence. And right now, with the curses, they are all scared.”
“Get them the hell out of here!”
“It’s my pack’s territory. I’ll decide if they need to leave or not.”
“Keeping them here isn’t safe for Lumi.”
“No shit,” he spits back before putting a wall up.
Asshole.
Lumi studies me, and I know she knows that I was talking to Nyx in my mind. I know she can hear us talking sometimes, but her confused face tells me she didn’t hear anything now.
“If I ask you to stay in the house for your safety until they leave, will you?”
“Are you asking me?”
I sigh. “No.”
“Good, because I’m not going to be locked up in a cage. I’m an alpha now. I have a responsibility to protect my pack.”
I give her a weak nod. I don’t say everything that I’m thinking. That her pack is only Kael. That if she dies, my heart goes with her. That if she dies, the fate of our world ends.