Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Corbin
“Come again?” I bite out, not hearing her right. There’s no way in hell she’d have said something so asinine.
“You’re the Moon Goddess’s grandson. You and Cyrus.”
“That’s bullshit.” I think I’d fucking know who my grandmother was. Big Daddy would have told us. “Who the fuck told you that?”
“The Moon Goddess herself,” Karsyn answers. “She and the Earth Goddess were both just here.”
A chill races down my spine. How the fuck is that possible?
I can’t deny that she’d been talking to someone.
I witnessed it myself. I felt the presence as she spoke.
Her voice was so quiet, and the confusion I sensed inside her .
. . fuck me. My mate wouldn’t lie to me.
She couldn’t. Even if she did, I’d smell the lie.
The only scent coming from Karsyn is that of mine and of innocence.
This is my mate right here.
“What else did they tell you?” She mentioned the name of a man I hadn’t heard in a long damn time. One Big Daddy told me didn’t exist anymore. He was a halfling shifter who killed my mother when she refused to mate with him rather than my father.
Victor Wulfsige, at one time, was a close friend to Big Daddy, but he was never a true friend.
He’d only wanted to get close to my mother.
Unfortunately for him, my mother had better taste in shifters.
She and Big Daddy loved each other until she took her last breath.
I remember that. It’s vague. Cyrus and I had been young when it happened, but I remember it tearing Big Daddy up.
Leaving him raging for a long time . . .
years after she was taken from him. He was never able to finish off the bastard who killed his mate.
He told my brother and me the one who killed her simply vanished.
Big Daddy gave up the search in order to see to his sons, but he never forgot. Hell, he never looked for another mate, either, and I don’t blame him. The stories he used to tell us about our mother made her out to be one of a kind and irreplaceable.
Karsyn licks her lips nervously and presses her hands into my chest. “Let me up, Corbin, and I will explain everything. I don’t want to talk about it like this.”
Feeling her unease, I pull away, climb off the bed, grab the jeans I’d shoved off in my need to be inside her, and pull them over my waist, leaving them unbuttoned.
Moving to the dresser, I snag a shirt from the top drawer, and step back to where Karsyn is sitting up, clutching the sheet to her chest. Shifters aren’t one for modesty, but she wasn’t raised in our world.
For that matter, she wasn’t exactly raised in the world of humans, either.
Her life has been on the run or held captive by the enemy.
“Drop the sheet, Syn,” I order calmly while unfolding the shirt and balling it up in my hands to expose the opening for her head to go through. I quickly help her put arms through the sleeves before sitting on the edge of the bed, turning to face her. “Now, tell me what the hell just happened.”
Karsyn nods, sucks in a breath, and starts fidgeting with her fingers in front of her while she explains.
“The fire, it was me bonding to you. They explained it was our souls merging. The Goddesses said that it now meant you were protected from harm so long as I was not hurt. Our lives are now one. So, as long as I live, you live. My magic protects you through the bond we share.” She goes on to describe the way they both looked, how the Moon Goddess had looked at me with loving eyes.
Then she informs me of the warning about Victor and how the past never stays in the past but comes to the present.
Karsyn also tells me about the future changing and that with Cyrus and me finding our mates, things have changed.
Where Death is concerned, it’s no longer Cyrus’s problem but mine.
“The Earth Goddess also told me I was no longer two halves but whole. I don’t understand it completely, but she said I would never truly shift.
However, I’ve fully merged with the wolf inside me when your wolf mated with me. ”
I take in all that she’s shared, my mind turning over it all. Soaking in all the information, calculating what needs to happen next.
“Death came to me in my dreams. That’s why I don’t want to sleep,” she whispers long moments later, breaking the silence and surprising me further.
“What happened?” I growl, not liking the fear that I can smell pouring from her.
“He said I had until the blood moon to come to him otherwise—”
“The blood moon,” I growl, interrupting her. “What the hell does the blood moon have to do with anything?” I remember the bastard mentioning the moon before, as well.
“With the blood moon coming, it’s not just any blood moon. Normally, the blood moon heightens a blood witch’s power, but this one is different. There’s an alignment which will give Death the power he needs, but he needs the blood of pure, innocent wolves and witches that are of the earth.”
“But you’re not of just the earth, so why would he want you?” I cock a brow, dread knotting my stomach. I saw what she showed me of her past and what’s to come, but has that changed?
“I’m to be the offering to the blood moon,” she answers, no more than a breath. “It’s why he wants me so much. During the offering, he’ll absorb my magic, and my blood will soak the earth under the moon.”
“The hell it will happen,” I snarl. I’m not about to let something like that happen to Karsyn. No fucking way. I won’t let it.
“If he gets his hands on me, it will happen. He’s strong, and I can’t fight him.”
“You don’t have to fuckin’ fight him, Syn. That’s my job. I’ll kill the bastard and make him wish he never fucked with you,” I state, my anger growing. “I’ll be damn if I let you be taken from me. You’re my goddamn mate. Fuckin’ mine.”
Without giving her a chance to speak further, I snatch her into my arms and slam my lips to hers, not taking time to prepare her as I should or think of her being sensitive after taking her.
Pulling her over me, thighs spread on either side of mine.
Reaching between us, I yank the zipper down, my cock springs free, jutting upward, throbbing at the ready to be inside her again.
I line her pussy up with the tip and slam upward as I jerk her down.
Karsyn wrenches her lips from mine and cries out as I repeat the motion, her body doing as it did before, welcoming me inside her.
The walls of her pussy convulse around me, tightening, taking what I have to give.
But more, she burns for me. Her body combusts into flames, surrounding us in its heated fury.
Knowing what I know now, I don’t let it fuck with my head.
Twisting, I lie her on her back, jerk the shirt over her ample tits, seeing the sweet tips I’d sucked on early and rip the shirt over her head. As much as I want to suck those nipples again, I intend to mark her again. And again.
She doesn’t want to sleep. Fine with me. I’ll fuck my mate until she’s too exhausted to think of anything or dream.
This woman is mine. No matter her being a witch or a halfling.
She’s my mate. Mine, and I’ll be damn if I let anything happen to her.
Not some bastard who will sacrifice her to gain her power or to anyone else.
I’ll do what it takes to protect her and keep her safe. Same as I would do for my daughter.
Let Death come, I’ll make sure he regrets it.
First things first, find out what else I can find on this Victor Wulfsige. Find him, and I’ll take the fight to their door. They won’t be expecting it, or if they are, they won’t be able to handle what’s coming.
No one gets between a shifter and his mate without conflict, let alone vengeance. I’ll rip the throats out of those who dare attempt it.