Page 15 of Bitten by Bloodmoon (Mateless Shifters #2)

Lumi

I ’m standing in a dark cave surrounded by dozens of vampires that are looking at me like they want to drain every drop of my blood from my body, as Nyx pulls me tight against his hard frame. My heart is thundering in my chest, but it’s not the vampires I’m afraid of—it’s Nyx’s words.

“She’s my mate.”

There is no way he actually believes his own words, is there?

I shudder at the thought of this dark, alluring man, with chiseled features, whose skin feels cool under my touch, whose eyes turn from black to red, whose wolf looms large, and moves with lethal precision, is my mate. He can’t be my mate.

I don’t want a mate. Not anymore. I don’t want to be the key to breaking the curses.

“I’m not your mate,” I snap into his mind.

“Now’s really not the time, love.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t announce something that isn’t true to your entire court!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have snuck in, and I wouldn’t have to save your ass.”

I frown, looking around the room at the hungry vampires.

Nyx’s words have barely changed their reaction.

The blade that Nyx gave me is burning a hole through the side of my leggings where I tucked it against my hip.

I should be holding it in my palm, but it won’t do much good against these bloodthirsty monsters.

At least none of these vampires appear to be the vampires I’ve fought before.

“You’re quite impressive. When Nyx said you would escape, I didn’t think you would in a matter of minutes,” Talonis says as he moves to stand on my other side and slightly in front of me in a protective manner.

I cock my head at Nyx. “Nyx said I’d escape? He knew I would?”

Talonis grins from out of the corner of my eye. “He knows you quite well, I’m afraid.”

“Hmmm,” I say.

“Can you two stop? Now isn’t the time to be discussing how Lumi got away from three of my most trusted pack members,” Nyx says.

“Maybe—” I start, but Nyx shoots me a hardened look that has me slamming my mouth shut. But I’m not done speaking to him. “Then maybe we should talk about how you became a vampire lord?!”

“Later.”

I narrow my eyes at him in frustration. We will be talking about it later. How can they accept him as a vampire lord if he’s also a wolf shifter alpha?

But they did, they do. They bowed to him with all the respect his title earns him.

And they did it willingly, all with a look of awe and reverence on their faces.

No one questioned his authority when he decided the fate of the rabid vampire.

Even though moments before, they had been split in two, ready to fight each other to the death.

When he decided to kill the vampire, they respected his decision.

I admit, watching him kill the vampire, a quiet hush fell over me.

One moment, I was in awe, just watching his aura grow around him in his inhuman stillness, and the next, he was gracefully moving with lethal speed.

He struck so fast, so fluidly, that I know the vampire felt nothing when he died.

A jolt of horror crashed down on me as I watched how dangerous Nyx really is.

You should be afraid of him. He would kill you just as easily if given the chance. But then why am I staring at him with a blistering heat burning in my eyes?

One of the vampires steps forward, “Respectfully, my lord, we know who she is. She can’t be your mate. She’s the alpha wolf’s mate.”

Nyx growls, a deep guttural sound that silences every breath in the room, including my own.

The vibrations seem to swell over our bodies in almost magical, forceful waves that nearly knock me on my ass.

Ancient, feral, inhuman. I’ve never heard a sound like that before.

And I have no idea what it means. Was that sound real, or was it meant to intimidate the other vampires?

“Lumi isn’t Ambrose’s mate. She’s mine ,” the way he says she’s mine is like he’s using mind control and his alpha command combined on every person in the room. With how convincing those two words are, I almost believe for a second that he’s telling the truth.

Nyx pulls me tighter against his side, his hand splaying over my hip as his thumb runs circles over my inner hip bone, in a driving a person mad sort of way.

It’s an obvious display of dominance and control over my body.

And I don’t like it one bit, despite how the butterflies start dancing in my belly, wondering what else his touch might feel like if I let myself go there.

Maybe in a different world, I would play along with his games, try to convince them I’m his mate.

Or at least, not fight him about this. But after what Ambrose did to me, I’m done playing games.

I’d rather die here and now by these vampires than pretend another second or let him touch me like he owns me.

I grab his hand, yanking my body free. “Nyx is mistaken. He’s not my mate.”

The vampire closest raises his eyebrows, and there is a collective gasp as I dismiss Nyx.

Nyx doesn’t move. He doesn’t try to pull me back in. He doesn’t speak to me in my mind, demanding that I shut up. He doesn’t command me to shift with his mind control to get me to stop talking. He lets me step away.

Is he so unconcerned about my safety? Or is there a reason he’s not fighting me?

The handsome vampire stalks closer, his eyes fixed on me in unrelenting focus, yet even as he advances, I sense him tracking Nyx out of the corner of his vision—calculating, studying, as if weighing predator against prey.

“So then, beautiful Lumi, who is your mate if not Nyx?”

“I have no mate. I belong to no one.”

He chuckles. “You sure are a fiery one. I think your name should have meant fire instead of snow.”

I glare at him as he inches closer, but I don’t tremble in fear. I’m done being afraid.

Nyx doesn’t move to block the vampire’s path toward me. But I notice Talonis inching closer until Nyx puts up a hand, stopping even him from getting close enough to protect me from the threat.

“Every wolf shifter has a mate. You have a mate. You just have to be smart enough to find yours.”

I shake my head. “I don’t care about finding mine. And I’m not sure I’m even a wolf shifter. I’m a human for all that matters.”

I feel Nyx’s gaze laser-focused on the back of my head. But still, he says nothing to me out loud or in my head. For once, I’m not sure if the silence in my head is comforting or not.

“Why does Nyx think he’s your mate then?” he asks slyly.

“Because Nyx is an overconfident male who thinks just because he can slither his way into my head, then he can get into my pants as well. When in reality, I’m sure his alpha shifter and vampire lord powers give him plenty of abilities to speak into others’ heads. That doesn’t mean I’m his mate.”

The vampire’s eyes cut from me to Nyx and then back to me again. The others in the room trade glances and hushed whispers that are too quiet for me to hear.

“You don’t fear him or me. Any of us,” he says it more like a fact than a question.

“No, I don’t fear. Not anymore.”

In a second, he’s at my throat, fangs brushing against my skin. The next second, he’s flat on his back, a stake millimeters from being thrust into his heart. Nyx grips the stake with coiled, vicious intensity, barely resisting the urge to strike.

The vampire chuckles, looking deeply into Nyx’s eyes before raising his hands. “I concede.”

Nyx drops the stake.

“She’s your mate,” the vampire says. “You convinced us. But you’re going to have to do a lot more to convince the vampire king.”

Nyx drapes his arm over my shoulders, turning me to leave, but he freezes at that word as if just now realizing the truth of that and what that means for him.

“The curse will be broken long before I have to convince the king. Once it is, there will be no need for persuading anyone.”

“For both your sakes, I hope so.”