Chapter 38
Lumi
Moonlight filters through the canopy of trees, reflecting softly across my cheek. I close my eyes, letting it settle over me—cool, familiar. Then the first snowflake lands on my lashes.
I smile.
It feels like home.
I don’t know where I am. The smells aren’t quite right. I’m not back in Wintermoon territory. But it’s close enough to make me ache for it to be.
“I want you,” his voice is deep and determined.
I open my eyes, but I don’t see him. “Where are you?”
“Here,” he says from behind me, his lips dropping to my neck to kiss me.
I shiver as his hands wrap around me, leaning my head into his chest. I take in a deep breath, but his scent is masked. I toss a look at him over my shoulder, but so is my vision of him.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“Your mate.”
I expect this shadow of a man to shift into Ambrose clearly in my mind, but he stays a shadow. A blur behind me. His voice is a mix of Ambrose and Nyx. Like in my mind, I’ve combined them into one man.
This isn’t real.
I don’t know what’s really happening to my body right now, but I know this isn’t real. It’s a dream. One that’s distracting me from my reality.
“Sleep, sleep until it’s over, Lumi. Dream of something that makes you happy,” Nyx’s words float through my head again.
Being with my mate, whoever that may be, makes me happy.
I look down at the long, silky, sheer white dress I’m wearing. Something completely at odds with the forest I’m in.
“Is this my dream or yours?” I tease.
“It’s yours, but I might be influencing it a bit,” he says as he licks over the shell of my ear.
Warmth pools between my legs, begging for more.
“What do you want, Lumi?”
I want to know who you are. I want to know who I’m dreaming about. Who am I fucking in my dreams?
I don’t ask. It doesn’t matter. This is a distraction from the horror my body is currently going through. That’s all.
I start running, needing a moment to feel free.
My mate chases me. “You naughty girl.”
I laugh, running faster, the train of my dress blowing in the wind behind me. I run until I feel like I’m flying.
He’s faster, though. I wait to see if he’ll shift. If he’ll give me another clue as to who he is.
He doesn’t shift to catch me. Especially since I want to be caught.
With another leap, he catches my wrist in his and spins me. My dress twirls out all around me as he grabs me by the waist and spins like this is a fairytale.
When he sets me back down on my feet, my dress is gone. So are his clothes.
My cheeks flush. “Magic?”
He shakes his head. “It’s your dream, Lumi, you’re the one making the decisions.”
“Hmmm, then read my mind right now. Tell me what I want.”
“My cock, you want my cock.”
I rake my teeth over my bottom lip.
He’s right. I do.
He lifts me into his strong arms as I wrap mine around his neck and kiss and kiss and kiss.
I devour.
I kiss.
I demand more, more, more from him.
Take it all away. Take my memories, my future, my very existence. Take it.
His kisses are rough, demanding, and insatiable. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t let me come up for air. Doesn’t give me time to think about what I’m doing or who the man kissing me really is.
My back hits the rough edges of a tree trunk as he smashes his body between my legs. He doesn’t apologize for his roughness. Doesn’t try to soften the ache in my back as he settles his hard body at my entrance. He knows I want to feel a nip of pain when he fucks me.
His lips land hard on mine as he thrusts inside, burying himself to the hilt.
I gasp around him, taking him all in, and wanting more.
“Fuck me, mate,” I say into his lips.
He does.
His hips hit hard, deep inside me. And yet, I feel like I’m floating in the air. Intense pleasure pumps through me. A pinch of pain at my clit has me tumbling into an orgasm that I didn’t know I could feel so fast.
“You’re going to be okay. You’ll survive this. You’re strong. And I’ll be there to help you through it.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
And then the forest vanishes.
The walls close in.
I’m lying on the floor, spread out as I’ve just been unceremoniously dropped into a puddle of my own sweat and tears.
“Don’t you dare question my magic again. You’re nothing. You will not win against me. So don’t even bother, wolf,” Isolde says, starting to turn. “My coven members will be here soon to collect you and bring you to the feast, where we will serve you up to the gods to get our answers.”
And then Isolde is gone.
“Lumi!” Both men scramble to my side. But I can tell from the way they are moving that they are injured and in pain. They both have to practically crawl to get to me.
I blink, but the world is spinning around me. It takes me a minute for my brain to process where I am.
“Are you okay?” Ambrose asks.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” Nyx says.
I shake my head, trying to sit up, but I only make it to leaning on my forearms before the world spins again. “I’m fine. You have nothing to be sorry for. And I should be asking you two if you’re okay.”
“All we care about is you. Tell me the truth. Are you okay?” Ambrose asks.
“I told you I’m fine. I don’t even know what happened. It just felt like I was sleeping, dreaming,” I say, looking from Ambrose to Nyx, who has a curious look on his face. Like Nyx won’t quite look at me in my eyes.
Ambrose doesn’t accept my words; he slips into my mind, trying to figure out how I’m feeling, searching for the torturous pain I must be feeling. But he’ll find nothing but peaceful bliss.
Still, he runs through my head, searching in every nook and cranny for some hidden emotion that I must be hiding. Finally, he pulls back, rocking back onto his heels.
“Believe me now?”
He nods. “Thank fuck.” Then he looks at Nyx. “Thank you—you protected her.”
Nyx’s throat tightens until I see the vein in his neck. “I wish I could have protected you as well.”
Ambrose looks like he’s been slapped—the shock that spreads on his face. His cheeks pinken, his body turns white as a ghost.
“I’m—I…” he stutters.
Nyx shakes his head, like he knows now isn’t the time to discuss it.
I slip into Ambrose’s mind, feeling Nyx’s presence there. I don’t ask them if they are okay; I know they aren’t. I’m not ready for the details of what they were forced to do. I know it’s not fair of me that they had to suffer, while I got to dream.
“Don’t—there is no need to feel guilty. We all did what we had to do to survive. We need you strong to get through the rest,” Nyx says, and I know Ambrose can hear us. There are no private mental conversations between Nyx and me anymore.
“If you need to talk—”
“No, we don’t need to talk. We need to prepare for what Isolde has planned next,” Ambrose says.
She’s going to make us do this again.
She’s going to control us at the marking ceremony.
And it’s clear from how men are feeling that she succeeded in her mission. She’s strong enough to do whatever she wants to us. I don’t know how we are supposed to fight back.
“It will be different tonight. She’s invited the vampires and the wolf shifters. The other witch covens. Everyone who matters will be here. We’ll have more allies and more enemies. And we have a weapon that she won’t be prepared for,” Nyx says.
“No,” I respond. “I have no idea how to use my magic. And she’ll have ways to dampen everyone’s magic so that she remains the strongest. I won’t be able to use it anyway.”
Nyx looks from me to Ambrose. “She won’t be expecting you. We’ll find a way to use it to our advantage. Even if it’s just to save you. That will be enough.”
I frown, hating that. If I’m going to save anyone, it’s them. It’s others. Not myself. But I don’t argue with them. I know that’s not helpful at the moment.
Clothes appear in a neat pile. I eye them suspiciously, like they’re a bomb about to go off, instead of what appears to be dress clothes.
A loud thud behind us makes us all jump.
“What the hell?” Ambrose asks, pushing me quickly behind him.
Nyx jumps in front of Ambrose and then chuckles. “A bathtub—I guess Isolde would like us clean and well dressed instead of looking like she’s been holding us captive.”
I exhale the heavy breath I’d been holding as I look around for Isolde to show up and use her magic to command us to bathe and get dressed, but she never shows.
“Are we just going to do it? No resistance. Bathe and get dressed like the good puppets we are?” I ask.
The boys turn, looking at me with a heavy stillness in their eyes.
“We will do whatever you want us to, my queen. If you want to resist, we’ll resist…” Ambrose says.
“But if you want to take a warm bath, get dressed, and save our strength to fight outside of this cage, then that’s what we’ll do,” Nyx says.
I look from man to man, the exhaustion in both of their eyes. I don’t know what they just endured, just that they did. They survived and kept me from the worst of it.
I can feel Ambrose’s magic in the room, charged, ready for whatever fight I want to bring, even if it’s not the full strength of his magic. While Nyx holds steady, barely breathing, knowing that if he has too strong an emotion or scents my blood, he might lose control over himself again.
“We should take a bath, if I’m to survive any longer with the stench of both of you,” I say.
They chuckle, but it does nothing to shift the undertone of trepidation and anxiety that has been cast between us.
“One of you should go first—” I say.
“No,” they both growl at me.
“But I—”
“We will help you bathe first. We are not risking the water getting cold for you,” Ambrose says.
“Besides, it gives us another way to enjoy you on our own terms.” Nyx winks at me.
Both hold out their hands to me, and I extend my hand to both of them until I’m resting my hands in theirs. Warm and cold rushes up my arms at their touches, before cresting like waves that slam into each other across my chest. Competing emotions rise up in me, but I push them down.