Chapter 24
Lumi
“You’re okay,” Riven says as soon as I open my eyes. “You’ll be sore for a while, but you’ll live.”
“What happened?” I ask as I move to sit up in bed and then regret my decision. My entire body feels like I’ve just been run over by a truck. I’m sore everywhere. Everything hurts.
“We were hoping you could tell us,” Nyx says.
I blink, shocked that he’s here, standing on the right side of my bed.
“What do you remember?” Ambrose asks from the left side, as he gently takes my hand in his.
“I remember Nyx going off with a vampire, Stellan?”
Nyx nods.
“I remember you ordering everyone to protect me,” I say to Ambrose.
I can feel Nyx’s glower at Ambrose, but Ambrose is unfazed. “Go on.”
“I remember having to pee. Emeric taking me to the bathroom on the main floor. One without any windows.”
“And then?” Ambrose asks.
I frown. Obviously, something terrible happened for me to end up back in my bed feeling sore all over, but whatever it was, I can’t seem to remember a single second of it.
“I have no idea. Waking up here is the next memory I have.”
Both men exchange stares, and I know they are communicating with each other mind to mind. I should try to listen in, but I’m too tired to even do that.
Riven is fussing over some bandage on my neck. “What happened?”
He looks up at Ambrose and Nyx as if for permission, but sees they are busy fighting with each other mind to mind, so he answers me. “Someone held a knife to your throat. Cut deep enough that you would have bled out in another minute if it weren’t for…”
“If it wasn’t for who? Who saved me?”
Riven rubs the back of his neck like he doesn’t want to answer me.
“Who?” I beg again, looking from him to Ambrose and Nyx.
“Amora saved you,” Nyx answers me.
I frown. “Amora? She hates me. Why would she rescue me?”
“Because she has a vested interest in your survival, the same as we all do, so that you break the curse for the vampires,” he answers.
I blink, trying to process that Amora saved me. “She must know who tried to kill me. What did she say? Can I talk to her? Thank her?”
Nyx shakes his head. “She’s bound by some deal or mind control. She can’t speak of it.”
My confusion grows.
“Why can’t I remember?”
“Blood loss, combined with something traumatic like that, can cause temporary or permanent amnesia. Hopefully, you remember something useful soon. In the meantime, you aren’t to be left alone for a single second. Not even to pee,” Ambrose says.
Well, that sucks. But I understand his concern for me.
“You sure you didn’t have anything to do with this?” Ambrose accuses Nyx.
Nyx doesn’t look offended or surprised by Ambrose’s accusation. “I was with Stellan the entire time. Besides, if it had been me, I wouldn’t have used a blade to kill her. And if I had wanted her dead, she’d be dead.”
His words send a hush through me, because I know he’s right.
“What did Stellan want?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Vampire stuff. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“You mean you made a blood deal with him or the vampire king used mind control on you, and now you can’t talk about it either, just like Amora,” Ambrose says.
Nyx’s jaw tenses ever so slightly. And I know that Ambrose is right.
“We should consider all of the options then. What do we know?” I ask.
“I think we can safely rule out vampires. They would have no need to use a blade, and with the amount of blood spilling from you, it would have worked them into a frenzy, even if they were trying to hide that it was a vampire killing you. And the vampires know you are planning to end the curse for the vampires. They have no need to kill you. They need you alive,” Nyx says.
“Even Draven, Nikolai, and Vespera? They hate me.”
He shakes his head. “They’re dead.”
“What do you mean, dead?”
“I mean, after they hurt you, I hunted them down and killed them myself.”
Shockwaves wash over me. “Why? They were vampires. You were their lord.”
He huffs but doesn’t answer me. The world stills for a moment as Nyx once again surprises me.
I turn to Ambrose, needing a moment. “Who do you think did it then? Witches? Someone here?”
“They had to have magical powers to transport you. Strong, almost unheard of magical powers. Everyone here is mostly wolf shifters,” Ambrose says.
“You have that power,” Nyx says, in an accusatory tone.
Gods, they are going to kill each other before this conversation is over.
“I would never hurt Lumi. She’s my mate,” Ambrose says.
Nyx flinches at the word mate. “I’m pretty sure having her surrounded and basically held captive for hours by your pack hurt her.”
“Stop, it wasn’t Ambrose.” Nyx looks at me like he doesn’t believe me. “Smell me. His scent isn’t on me, is it?”
Nyx leans close, scenting my neck at the spot where the blade was pressed. I can feel his cool breath against my skin, sending chills through my body. But I don’t move. Don’t react.
Ambrose tenses next to me like he thinks Nyx is going to take a bite out of me right now.
“No, I don’t smell Ambrose anywhere near your neck,” Nyx concedes. “But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t use his magic to transport you so that someone else could kill you. Even if he wasn’t doing it consciously, his curse could have triggered him to do it.”
“I was spying on you the entire time, asshole. I heard your entire conversation with Stellan. Would you like me to recite it from memory to prove it wasn’t me?”
Nyx growls.
“Enough. It wasn’t either of you.”
They both look at me, and Riven, who has been silent the entire time, speaks. “It had to be Isolde. She is the only one with magic strong enough to transport you through a portal and attack you without being close to you. There is no scent of anyone on you. It had to be Isolde.”
“But why would the witches try to kill me? They want me to break the curse for them.”
“Maybe a seer saw that if they kill you, another mating pair will quickly form that will end the curse for the witches,” Ambrose answers.
“Or maybe Ambrose’s curse is using the witches to try to kill you,” Riven answers.
Nyx doesn’t give his opinion, but I know he has one. I can see the wheels churning in his head as he puts the pieces together.
“It has to be someone that Amora couldn’t speak about.
Something that the vampire king wouldn’t want us to know.
Something that could change who I’d break the curse for,” I say slowly, trying to piece it together myself, but I have no clue who that would be.
If someone was trying to kill me, I’d think the vampire king would want me to know so that I could stop them.
He needs me alive. Unless, like the witches, he thinks another mating pair will form. One that he can better control.
I can’t come up with a good answer. I look to Nyx. “What are you thinking?”
He runs his hand through his hair, and his cool eyes pierce through me as if he’s fighting with himself to speak or keep silent.
“It’s a crazy theory—one that I have no idea if it could be true or not. I don’t know why the vampire king wouldn’t want you to know this information. I don’t know how it could be true. But…”
“Whatever it is, we need to know. Nothing is off the table.”
Nyx opens his mouth about to speak when a booming voice echoes overhead.
“We have Amora, and we’ll kill her in the next sixty seconds if you don’t show up in the clearing beyond your pathetic little pack town,” Isolde says.