Page 16 of Bitten by Bloodmoon (Mateless Shifters #2)

Nyx

Y ou’re going to have to do a lot more to convince the vampire king.

Orson’s words send a chill through my already frigid body—already a sensation to which I’ll never get accustomed.

When I was only a wolf shifter, I was full of warmth—my body blazing with heat.

Now I am nothing but cold, frigid shadows, and unyielding darkness.

I have an inkling of what we would have to do to convince the vampire king we are mates and therefore earn his protection. It’s not something I’m interested in, and I know Lumi definitely won’t be interested. But we might not have a choice if we don’t get answers by the next full moon.

As we exit the cave, I give Talonis a look that tells him exactly what I plan on doing and that he has his own job to be doing: cleaning up the human village mess.

We can’t stay here. My vampires may have given us their blessing, but that’s because it’s what they want to believe.

They are desperate to have the curse broken, and as I’m their lord, they are easily persuaded by me.

But the other vampires—ones who have seen Lumi with Ambrose won’t see it that way. They’ll just see her as another meal.

Talonis nods. Without a warning, I scoop Lumi into my arms and run.

In the moment, I figure it’s better to save her life and ask for forgiveness later rather than risking a vampire taking a bite out of her.

I’m all for free will and control over your own destiny, but right now, I just want us all to get home in one piece.

Lumi scrambles in my arms, trying to get her blade somewhere against my skin that will do damage. I commend the fight in her; she’s going to need it. It seems the damage Ambrose has done to her has only intensified her will to battle, but she lacks the skill to use the knife effectively.

“Put me down, you bastard!” she wrestles in my arms.

I tune her out, easily carrying her despite the surface-level scratches she produces on my arms until we are back in the living room of my house. Only then do I put her down.

“You’re welcome, love,” I say, knowing it’s going to get a reaction out of her.

“You’re welcome? I didn’t ask you to carry me.”

“No, but I did save your life.”

She narrows her eyes at me, defiance blazing in her gaze as she lifts her blade and thrusts it in my direction.

“I didn’t ask you to save my life! Now your entire vampire court thinks we are mates, and we are going to have to prove it to the fucking vampire king, whoever that is. I don’t need your help! You aren’t my mate!”

I cock my head as I watch her crumple in front of me.

I want to kill Ambrose for the harm he caused her.

She loved him—no, she still loves him. Her heart can’t switch off as fast as she wants it to.

The pain consumes her so completely that it seems she would rather die than live with another moment of her agony.

She truly doesn’t want to be saved. She wants to either fight her own battles and win, or lose and not have to live with the pain anymore.

I can feel it, and I’m not even in her head.

“I’m going to make sure the house is cleared so you two can have some privacy. That is, if you each promise not to kill each other,” Talonis says.

We both snap our heads in his direction.

He chuckles. “I’d let you kill me if it meant you two would work together for a few minutes. But I’m not sure it would change anything.” And then he looks at me. “I’ll make sure the humans are dealt with discreetly—make it seem like a fire got out of control.”

Before either of us can say anything else, he vanishes, and the silence in the house tells me he’s taken Sylara, Riven, and Brax, instructing them to leave. It’s just the two of us in this castle.

We stare at each other, the tension high. Until finally, I unbutton the top couple of buttons on my dress shirt before sinking into the leather chair.

“Kill me if you must, I won’t fight you. I’ve killed enough for today,” I groan.

Her eyes flicker at me in confusion. “You killed a vampire who had gone mad. It seemed like a mercy to end his life quickly and honorably.”

“Was it? It still ended his life. But he’s just a vampire. So I’m sure you don’t weigh his life as much as a wolf shifter or human. He deserved to die. All vampires do. We’re killers, predators that need to be eliminated.”

I close my eyes as my head falls back against the cushion, the weight of what I had to do hitting me in full force. I hate killing. I hate ending a life. I hated watching the humans’ lives end. I hated playing the game just to maintain my power. I hated watching Lumi put her life at risk like that.

She doesn’t respond to my comment about vampires being predators. “It’s the curse, isn’t it? That’s why the vampire was losing his mind.”

I nod.

“What would have happened if you didn’t kill him?”

I raise my head, finally looking her in the eyes, trying to decide how much to tell her.

“Vampires used to live for thousands of years. An immortal lifespan if they weren’t killed by another creature.

The curse shortened that lifespan considerably, making us mortal.

Every time we feed, our lifespan shortens and our minds weaken until the curse takes hold of us.

Once it does, there is no reversing it. We lose everything that makes us us.

We lose control over our minds. We become rabid animals who only want to feed and feed and feed.

We want to feed the curse. Our curse only wants blood.

It wants to use us to wipe out the world.

If I didn’t kill him, he would have tried to kill everything and everyone in his path until he went so insane that he would have driven a stake through his own heart. ”

She stares at me for a minute, processing. “How long do you have before that happens to you?”

I chuckle. “Worried about me, love?”

She doesn’t answer. “How long?”

“Longer than most, as I’m a half wolf shifter. I don’t usually have to feed on blood at all, and not feeding seems to keep the curse from starting.”

“Why did some of the vampires not want you to kill him? It seemed like a mercy.”

“They hoped he could be saved when the curse is broken and reversed. But death is final; there is no coming back from that.”

She nods slowly. “You did the right thing, ending his life. He wouldn’t have been able to live with himself even if his curse was reversed.”

I don’t respond even though I agree with her.

“How did you become a vampire lord? I wouldn’t think they’d trust a filthy half-breed.”

I watch her as she walks around the room, running her hand over the fabrics of the chairs and down the lines of the curtains as if she can’t stay still. The fabric of her shirt, my shirt, wafts as she walks, until our scents mix in my direction.

I hold my breath, not allowing myself to smell us together. She’s not mine, and the longer I spend with her, the more I know she’ll never be. She’s destined for far greater things than the likes of me. She can’t be tied to a man fated to die a cruel, savage death like that vampire I killed.

“There are seven vampire lords. When one dies, anyone interested in becoming a successor goes to the king. He’s the one who decides who the next lord will be,” I reply.

She watches me closely, waiting for me to say more. When I don’t, she asks, “And what did you have to do to prove to the vampire king that you were worthy of becoming a lord?”

My body tenses as if remembering alone will put me back in that place. “Enough.”

“Why put yourself through it?”

“To protect my pack.”

Her eyes soften a little as if she understands me better. But I don’t want her to understand me. I don’t want her to be unafraid of me. I’m capable of killing her without any remorse. She needs to realize that.

“How did you escape?” I ask her.

“Quickly,” she says, throwing a one-word answer at me like I did her.

But unlike me, she’s screaming her thoughts at me.

I can see how she tricked Sylara into thinking she had womanly problems, for which she needed help retrieving supplies.

How Brax was distracted by an ask to retrieve wine for her, which left her and Riven alone.

How she just straight up told him her plans, and he allowed her to walk right out the door, thinking it was the right thing to do.

He’s always had the biggest heart when it comes to allowing others free will.

Flashes of her following my scent and her intuition led her to me.

I saw her watching me, in awe of my power.

I feel her fear and how she pushed past it to confront the vampires.

How she’s truly not afraid of death, and how tired she is of being controlled.

How she won’t allow herself to be controlled ever again.

“Get. Out. Of. My. Head!” She yells so loudly, trying to shove me out. Instead, she just sends her thoughts even louder to me.

“I can’t, not unless you block me out. You’re screaming your thoughts so loudly, and our connection is so strong that it’s as if you are talking to me.”

She frowns. “Get out. I know you can. Stop getting in my head.”

I force myself out. I try to sever the connection, but it feels like cutting off one of my arms. It feels wrong not to be in her head.

I frown at that.

“You claim you’re my mate, but you’re not better than Ambrose. You’re both controlling assholes.”

I wince. “I’m not controlling anything when you send your thoughts to me. Learn to block me if you don’t want me in your mind.”

“How would you feel if I could read your thoughts?”

Relieved. Like a burden has been lifted. Like I don’t have to decide what to share and what to keep secret. She would just know everything, and then maybe we could figure out what this connection is between us and use its purpose, or end it once and for all.

“You can, I you want to.”

“No, I can’t.”

“It’s a two-way connection. You can get into my mind just as easily as I can yours. You can probably do the same with Ambrose.”