Page 10 of Bitten by Bloodmoon (Mateless Shifters #2)

At the moment, I won’t be finding out. Neither seems intent on using anything except their wolf abilities. The growls turn to snarls and howls, and yet, they both seem to understand what the other is saying in those snarls.

Suddenly, Nyx takes a bite of Ambrose’s neck. I scream.

“Ambrose!” I cry out. Please, gods, no…

Nyx releases Ambrose, but there is no gash with blood oozing. He didn’t break Ambrose’s skin with his teeth. He didn’t drink his blood. He can’t mind-control him.

For a second, I can breathe again.

Ambrose snaps his teeth in Nyx’s direction before he pounces on him, knocking him to the ground beneath him, before he tears into Nyx’s neck. A high-pitched yelp spills out of Nyx.

I grin, knowing it is a tiny piece of payback for what Nyx did to Rowena.

But I’m tired of waiting on the sidelines.

I want a piece of him, too. I want to hear him yelp and scream because of the pain I inflict on him.

I want to have Ambrose’s back and ensure that we are an unstoppable team together.

Shift , I think, closing my eyes. Shift . Change into the beautiful white snow wolf with gold flecks that match Ambrose’s. That shows the world that we are mates. Shift , I command her.

I wait and wait.

But nothing happens. I don’t even feel a stirring in my belly, or an inkling of her coming to life inside me.

I open my eyes and realize in horror that Ambrose is now the one beneath Nyx as Nyx bares his teeth at Ambrose, almost as if he’s giving him a chance to surrender instead of just outright killing him.

Shift! I scream to my wolf. I need you! Ambrose needs you! Our mate needs us!

No magic swells in my body. Nothing happens. I feel as human as I’ve ever felt in my life. My mind swirls in confusion over how I haven’t shifted. How could I have lost my wolf after working so hard to get her? She’s always come alive to save our mate. Why is she so silent now?

“You can’t shift, can you?” His cold, slimy voice slithers into my head.

“Get out of my head!”

“Make me. Or better yet, shift and save your mate,” he says.

“Ambrose doesn’t need me to save him.”

“Maybe not.” Ambrose freed himself and is now on the attack again.

I take a deep breath that I didn’t realize I had been holding.

“But you should ask him why you can’t shift.”

“He doesn’t know any more than I do.”

“Then ask him,” Nyx taunts.

“No,” I say the word out loud, and it draws both of the males’ attention to me.

“Are you okay?” Ambrose asks.

“Yes, I just can’t get Nyx out of my head.”

“He’s in your head? He can talk to you like I can?”

Fuck, he didn’t know. But I can’t lie to him. Not now, not about anything. I want complete honesty between us.

“Yes,” I breathe back.

“Fuck.”

If Ambrose’s previous attacks were vicious, these are completely driven by animalistic rage.

He’s not thinking as he attacks, just using his raw, limitless power.

His wolf fights, yes, but so does the part of him that’s witch.

The part of him that he had been holding back before, for some unspoken reason.

He shifts into his human form to shoot a blast of his power at Nyx before instantly shifting back into his wolf form to attack again.

Back and forth he shifts between his two selves—wolf and witch.

It appears he can’t use his witch powers unless he shifts.

And I quickly realize that he’s going to burn out and risk losing all of his power if he continues like this.

There is no way that fighting like this is sustainable.

I have to help him. I have to put a stop to this.

Shift, dammit.

I concentrate with everything I have, but nothing happens.

Nyx moves so fast from underneath Ambrose to on top of him that it looks like he teleported. Vampires are impossibly fast.

One bite. One taste of Ambrose’s blood by Nyx, and this will all be over. Nyx will be able to use mind control on Ambrose. He could kill him, and Ambrose couldn’t even defend himself. I can’t let that happen.

My mind whirls, trying to form a plan. Anything that I can do to help Ambrose get the upper hand. I wish I had a weapon. Not that I’d be any good using it. But I need something—anything to help me since my wolf is so hell bent on not making an appearance.

I stare at the two alphas tangled together, and I know what I have to do.

I take a step forward, then another on the mossy floor.

Neither of them seems to notice me moving as they are laser-focused on the other.

I have no doubt they would fight until one of them dies or both of them.

But I can’t risk losing Ambrose. I hoped that with the two of us fighting together, we’d have the clear upper hand.

But since my wolf decided not to show, they are too evenly matched.

Nyx has been too close to tasting his blood too many times.

I have to stop this. We have to find another way to take down Nyx.

Slowly, I creep toward them, my feet so light that I know that neither of them hears me approaching.

When I’m within striking distance, I take one final deep breath and I leap.

The second my feet leave the ground, I know how stupid my plan was.

I’ll be lucky if I leave here alive, let alone with minimal injuries.

I see the dark of their fur blending together as I land against both of their bodies.

The impact is hard, rattling me all the way down to my bones.

I’m going to hurt for days after this. But the pain of the impact isn’t the only thing I feel.

Something sharp swipes at my side, and I cry out in agony.

With a whoosh, I’m pulled hard in one direction—into a strong male’s arms. The fighting has stopped. But the question is, whose arms are these?

My head is spinning, and I can’t see anything in front of my face. I’m biting down on my bottom lip so hard that I taste blood, but I can’t stop. It’s the only thing keeping me from screaming in pain.

“Lumi, gods, Lumi!” I hear Ambrose screaming, and I know exactly whose arms are holding me.

Nyx .

His hand is pressed against my side, where my wound is.

“I’m fine,” I strain, getting the words out before clenching my teeth together again to keep the pain from escaping in a scream.

“You’re not fine, love,” Nyx whispers in my ear.

I growl at him. “Let me go!”

“If I remove my hand from where it currently rests, you’ll die.”

I frown, looking down to see that he is, in fact, correct. His hand is holding firm against the gash on my side, stopping the blood from spilling out in all directions.

“Let her go. I’ll do anything. Let her go,” Ambrose says firmly and calmly.

I shake my head. “No. Go. I’ll be fine. Nyx won’t hurt me. He thinks we’re mates. He wants to break the curse as badly as we all do. He won’t hurt me,” I say the words even though I’m not sure I believe them. But I say the only thing that comes to mind to get Ambrose to leave. To be safe again.

“I’m not leaving you,” Ambrose says through clenched teeth.

“Please,” I beg him, but as I speak, a cry comes out as well from the pain.

“If you believe she’s your mate, let her go, Nyx. She’ll die if she stays with you. I’m the only one who can heal her,” Ambrose says.

Nyx just shakes his head. “If you love her, you’ll heal her regardless of whether I let her go or not.”

Love —there’s that word. Nyx doesn’t realize that if Ambrose admits to loving me, it all but assures that I’ll die anyway, whether he heals me or not.

I stiffen in Nyx’s hold, and I can feel his cold stare on me.

“Let her go,” Ambrose says again.

Nyx sighs and then whispers to me. “It seems that your ‘mate’ isn’t willing to use his magic to heal you, so how about you shift? Your wolf will help you heal. You don’t need him.”

“I can’t,” my voice is shaky.

“Shift,” Ambrose says. His words are gentle and yet firm. An alpha command?

Within a heartbeat, I can feel my body changing.

It feels like I’m being flayed alive from the inside out.

My organs twist and burn, taking a different form as my bones bend, my back arching.

Long claws shift where my fingers were, sharp canines cut through my gums, and long, thick, white fur springs up, shining bright with the golden marks of the Moonlight pack.

Time slows. I don’t know if it takes seconds, minutes, or hours for me to shift.

The world seems to have stopped entirely around me as my body slowly transforms. The pain seems to linger just as long before completely trumping the pain I had felt in my side.

For a second, I wish I would just die to stop the pain from consuming me, but as quickly as I think it, the pain stops.

I shifted into my wolf form.

I’m standing on the ground on my four paws between Ambrose and Nyx.

I’m much closer to Nyx, and I know with his speed, I can’t take a step toward Ambrose without him stopping me, so in a way, he might as well still have his arms around me, holding me in place.

I’m as captured as I was before, but I shifted.

I shifted!

Ambrose’s alpha command worked. He—

I pause.

I shifted because of Ambrose. Isolde’s words come back to me. If a witch is the one to cause a wolf to shift for the first time, then that witch is the one who controls that shifter’s wolf forever.

I stare at Ambrose, and my world collapses around me. I can forgive him for not telling me he is a witch, but this…this can’t be true.

My breath quickens as I put the pieces together. Ambrose caused me to shift. Ambrose controls my wolf, not me. That’s why it’s so painful. That’s why I couldn’t shift when he wasn’t around.

I don’t have control of my wolf. I never will. He will always be able to control me. He’s not my mate. He can’t be. And if he is, I’ll reject the bond. Refuse to complete the marking ceremony.

“You control my wolf!” I scream at him in my mind. My body is shaking. The ground seems to be shaking beneath me. The world shifts. My rage explodes out of me, and it’s enough to let go of the wolf holding me captive.

I shift back into my human form. My weak form. The only version of me that I can control. My anger gets the best of me, and I feel compelled to lash out in a vicious manner.

“I reject the bond. You aren’t my mate!”