Chapter 39
Nyx
Stay in control.
You love her.
You might even love him.
Don’t breathe. You’re a wolf shifter, not a vampire. You were never meant to be a vampire.
Control yourself.
Their blood tastes disgusting—not like a sweet, delicious, enchanting rush of flavor that engulfs me in uncontrollable desire.
Bite them.
Devour them.
Drain them.
“Drain them? Really, asshole?” Ambrose says, hearing my thoughts in his mind.
I growl back. “You try being a cursed vampire. My fangs aren’t in your neck or hers, are they?”
“No, but you can control your thoughts.”
“If you don’t want to hear them, then stay out of my head.”
“I see you altered the clothing I laid out for you,” Isolde says, staring at Lumi.
Ambrose and I both grab onto one of Lumi’s hands, needing to touch her. Not to protect her, just for comfort.
“It was scratchy.”
“Hmm,” she notices our interlinked hands and grins. “I see that the three of you are getting along so well. That’s nice, but since only one of you can be her mate, I don’t think this newfound friendship is going to last long.”
Hunger washes through me in an overwhelming urge. My body feels like it’s twisting in on itself from the pain. I need blood, need to feed. I’m not going to hold on much longer. I need blood. I need her fake cure. I need something to dampen this ache in my throat.
My muscles contract, trying desperately to hold onto the control that I have.
And then the images start. The terrors of what I’ve experienced in my life all flash in a chaotic order through my mind, driving me mad.
I grip my head with my free hand, needing it all to stop. It’s how I know the vampire curse hasn’t gotten me yet. I can still remember everything from my past.
The one mercy of the curse is that I will forget. Forget this pain that I’ve endured over and over and over again. The heartache will disappear until all I care about is blood.
“You’ve got this,” her voice drifts in the wind of Ambrose’s mind. Her thumb brushes across the back of my hand, and I realize how hard I’ve been squeezing it.
I loosen my grip. “Sorry, I’m okay.”
“I know you are,” she says back.
But I can feel Ambrose’s heavy thoughts of displeasure at seeing me even a little out of control right now.
“Are you ready to meet the gods?” Isolde asks with a wicked look.
“You don’t really think you’re capable of summoning the gods, do you? You’re not that important,” Ambrose says.
“I guess we are about to find out,” Isolde says.
The cage door flies open. A door I’ve begged for days to open, simply opens.
Chains don’t wrap around our wrists or ankles. We could run or attack. But the look on Isolde’s face tells me there is no use in even trying it.
“You really think you can use your magic to keep us from escaping all night?” I ask, trying to figure out her plan.
She just grins. “Come, vampire lord, and bring your friends.”
She walks down the hallway that I’ve been staring at, and we all start walking.
I frown, not remembering actually deciding to follow her, but my body is. I don’t feel that familiar feeling of magic over my own body.
“How is your magic?” Lumi asks in Ambrose’s mind.
“Still contained. What about yours?” Ambrose asks back.
“I can’t tell,” she says. I can feel her trepidation. I’m sure it’s impossible for her to trust magic that she’s just experienced and doesn’t have any understanding of. Much less how she has magic. I know she’s not going to trust it. But I wish she would. It could be the thing that saves her.
We continue to walk hand in hand until I smell blood. So much fucking blood.
I drop her hand, needing every ounce of control and focus not to attack.
Human blood.
Witch blood.
Vampire blood.
Wolf shifter blood.
All of it overwhelms me. Hits me. Begs me to taste all of it. To drain every being here until I’ve consumed it all. Control them all.
I can’t see where I am. Who’s here? For a moment, I even forget why. All I can focus on is the intense, overwhelming, singularly focused desire to drink until I can’t smell a single drop left in this room.
Cool touch zaps through my fingertips as she touches me. Like a shot of ice shooting through my veins, she cools the fire burning through me with a single touch.
I look at her. I don’t know if she even realizes what she’s doing when she touches me. Does she realize that she’s using her magic to help dampen my curse? That it’s more than whatever physical connection we share?
It’s her.
She’s doing this to me. She alone can help me keep the curse from taking over me.
I feel her pushing Ambrose toward me. I feel her guiding him to pry in my head again, but I put up the dark, shadowy wall that prevents them from communicating with me.
I don’t want her protecting me. I’m not her mate. I’m her villain. And the sooner she realizes it and lets me go, the better. I don’t want to give her any hope.
There’s a pounding at my mental wall. Ambrose yelling at me; Lumi pleading with me. Neither of them will get me to let them in, though. Because I know what I must do tonight. I know what will save them. And they are all that matters in this.
The only thing I allow is for her to continue holding my hand. It might be the only thing that keeps my bloodlust controlled.
The room clears a little, the edges becoming less blurry as I make out the expansive ballroom we find ourselves in.
Rows and rows of tables seem to be placed in a circular rim around us.
Food and drink are placed on large platters in front of them, but I dare not take a single breath to determine what I smell.
And we stand in the center of it all. Faces, I should be searching for faces—Amora, Sylara, my pack. But I can’t bring myself to focus on any of them. Too terrified of what I’ll find. And it doesn’t change the single thing I can do to save them. I get one chance at this.
“Welcome, everyone, thank you for coming,” Isolde says, her voice booming at an unnatural volume as if she were speaking into a microphone.
The room is quiet. So quiet that the only sound I hear is heartbeats, inhales, and exhales.
“Tonight, we speak to the gods. Tomorrow, we break the curses,” she continues.
A loud, ominous chuckle breaks the silence of the crowd. One I’d recognize anywhere.
“Not possible. You haven’t found a way to speak to the gods. Whatever you are about to do is nothing more than a fancy parlor trick, witch,” Veltheris, the vampire king, says.
A blast of magic hits me hard in the chest, knocking my hand from Lumi’s. The second it does, the pain floods through me. Heat and fire, like nothing I’ve ever felt before, burn like a racecar through my body. Hunger for blood.
Blood, blood, blood.
I turn to the woman with white hair and crystal blue eyes next to me. Her blood smells the sweetest. I want hers first.
I take a step toward her, baring my fangs, ready to pounce, when that same magic holds me back as liquid is poured down my throat.
I cough, almost choking on the sour liquid. As soon as the liquid hits the back of my throat, I cool. The burning disappears. My eyes focus on the woman in front of me. The woman I love and don’t want to drain.
“A little demonstration of my fancy parlor tricks for your amusement, vampire king,” Isolde says.
Veltheris grins, showing nothing of his true emotion to her. “Impressive, if I were someone who was easily impressed. But that is not summoning a god. Nor truly breaking a vampire curse. You know nothing of the curse that we bear.”
“And yet, you are here. If you want to break the curse, you need me to do it,” Isolde says.
“Are you okay?” Lumi’s voice pops through the bond I share with Ambrose.
“I’m fine,” I pant back.
“Good, don’t shut us out again, asshole,” Ambrose threatens back.
“What’s our plan?” Lumi asks.
I look Ambrose in the eyes, and I know he puts up a tiny wall, one that just keeps her out of our private conversation.
“Protect her?” he asks.
“Always,” I say back.
Then I turn to Isolde, preparing myself for what I know comes next. Riven has been researching. He told me the rumors of how to speak to a god. I know what it entails. And I won’t let anyone else get hurt.
“All three of the ones with the ability to break the curses stand before us, each one of them has been marked by the gods,” Isolde says.
My hand raises without control, being forced to display the snowflake marking to the crowd. Ambrose’s vampire rune is on display. As well as both of Lumi’s snowflake and crescent moon tattoos.
Veltheris’s eyes widen. His entire body shifts, almost in fear.
A man who is fearless as far as I’m concerned.
A man whom I’ve always thought of as a god himself.
The power he wields. The ability to keep his curse from taking hold of him.
I’ve never seen anything like it. And yet, seeing the markings on our hands, it’s almost like he’s ready to bow before the gods.
“You’ll need my blood—” Veltheris starts.
“My blood, and the blood of the wolf shifter king,” Isolde says, pointing to Ambrose.
“Only one curse can be broken. I’m not going to give over my blood until negotiations and deals are made. And the blood has to be willingly given. It can’t be taken from me in order for it to work,” Veltheris says, the power in his voice returning.
“Ambrose, tell the vampire king about your blood deal with Lumi,” Isolde says.
Ambrose grinds his teeth as if he’s trying to keep his mouth shut, but then finally says, “I vowed to break the curse for the vampires.”
Isolde smiles. “So if the wolf shifter is Lumi’s mate, then they will break the curse for the vampires. And if the vampire lord happens to be her mate, then you have complete control over him to break the curse for the vampires.”
“What do you want, Isolde? What’s in this for you?” Veltheris asks.
“I want a way to break the witch’s curse.
All the seers believe that once one curse falls, the rest will follow.
I’m a patient woman. I just want the truth.
I want the correct mating pair to complete the marking ceremony.
I don’t want to watch another pair die in the attempt and have to start all over again to find mates that can break the curse.
The only way to do that is to speak to the gods directly,” Isolde says.
Veltheris knows better than to believe a single word that Isolde says. But I know he’s desperate to break the vampire curse. That he’ll do almost anything.
“I’m going to regret this.” Veltheris slices across his wrist with his fangs. He holds out his arms as blood begins to drip quickly from his wrist onto the ground.
A witch from Isolde’s coven races over to him, collecting his blood in a small bowl. She carries the bowl to Isolde, who looks at Ambrose.
“Your wrist,” she says.
Ambrose holds out his wrist to her as she uses her magic to slice into his flesh. But I watch the other witch. The one holding the bowl. It happens so fast that I barely even notice it. But she collects a drop of the blood into a small vial.
I don’t know why Isolde wants the vampire king’s blood for herself, but I’m sure it can’t be good.
Ambrose’s blood drops into the bowl, followed quickly by Isolde’s.
Isolde holds the bowl up, and I know what comes next.
“Me—choose me,” I say to her, stepping forward.
She clicks her tongue. “You would be my first choice, but I do not get to choose. The gods choose. They will speak to one they have marked.” She nods toward the markings on the three of us. “And they will take one of us present here as the sacrifice. We do not get to choose either.”
And then she slams the bowl down onto the ground. The bloods mix. All eyes stare, none of us believing we are actually going to be speaking to a god. This is a fairytale. This isn’t real.
And then the blood starts moving, traveling in two directions. One toward the circle of chairs, choosing the sacrifice. The other is moving toward the three of us.
Lumi grabs my hand again, and I stare at the blood gliding in our direction. Begging it to choose me. Not daring to look at who the blood is choosing to sacrifice in the process.
Please, take me. Not them.
The blood slithers past Ambrose.
Keep going, I beg it.
And then it stops just in front of Lumi.
We all take a collective breath, and then, she vanishes.