Page 33 of Bitten by Bloodmoon (Mateless Shifters #2)

Nyx

T he whip strikes my back, and searing pain jolts through my body like a lightning bolt.

A scream tears at my throat, threatening to escape, but I clench my jaw tight—refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing my cry.

Still, with the next strike, a sound escapes—the smallest of squeaks.

Then another. And another, until the dam breaks and I’m screaming so loudly that it rattles the walls.

It echoes off the walls until everyone can hear.

That makes it worse. Now everyone can hear what he did.

Everyone knows he broke me. And this is only the beginning. He’s only warming up.

“I’m here, you don’t have to face this alone,” a soft voice whispers through the air, but I must have imagined it. I’m all alone. There is no one to face this torture with.

Chains get slapped around my wrists and ankles, like I’m capable of doing any damage in my current state. My back is torn to shreds. All my bones are broken. But it’s not enough for him.

I’m yanked by the chains attached to my wrists and ankles. I stumble, falling, and I don’t bother to get up as I’m dragged by my wrists. There is no point in fighting anymore. My fate is inevitable.

“You’re not alone.”

I shake off the words. I’m hallucinating now. But with that shake comes a new torture scene.

A lifeless girl lies on the cool ground in front of me. Her features are vague, but I know exactly who she’s supposed to represent. The next, she’s shifted form. Person after person flashes in my mind, ending in the last one—Rowena.

Killer, killer, killer…

Innocent victims, lost to my bloodlust. To my rage. To the vampire killer inside me that I can’t control.

“You’re not a killer. You’re a protector. You’re nightfall—the one that ushers in the darkness and makes it safe to go out into the dark.”

I don’t know where the words are coming from, but she’s wrong. So damn wrong.

The harsh memories of my past start twirling together like a tornado spinning and spinning and spinning. I can’t stay focused on any one memory.

Bring back the physical pain, I beg. It’s so much easier to block the painful memories when the physical pain is rotting my body. But the pain seems to be diminishing. Leaking out of my body like sweat through my pores.

My breathing becomes slower. My heart beats again, pumping the blood through my body that was stagnant before. I brace myself for the pain as my blood flows through my veins against the wretched spell, pumping poison. But it doesn’t come.

The room stills.

Silence engulfs me.

The images stop.

“Can I kiss you?”

Her words are as gentle as silk against my mind. How could she want to kiss me after everything she saw in my head?

I’m about to say no. To leave. To run as far away from me as possible when she says, “Please. I need to kiss you.”

The words are so soft, so gentle, so filled with need that I have a temporary lapse in judgment. “Yes.”

Her lips are as gentle as her voice when she kisses me.

Her tongue carefully parts my lips—but the moment she’s inside, the kiss shifts.

It’s ravenous, like I’m the only man she’s ever wanted or could ever want.

There’s a hunger behind it that floods me with wild, reckless thoughts—ones I don’t dare voice even in my head. Dangerous thoughts.

Kiss by kiss, a little of the darkness begins to fade away, and light starts to shine again. But it’s not day, it’s night. And it’s moonlight hitting my skin, not sun.

I open my eyes, and the relief filling hers is overwhelming.

“There you are,” she says with a warm smile as moisture fills her eyes.

I glance around the room and find it’s just the two of us.

“Everyone else left, knowing you should get some rest. I told them I’d take the first shift watching you. I should tell someone you’re awake, though. They’ll be worried about you and relieved to hear you’re okay.”

“They know.”

She frowns. “How?”

“They can hear us. Wolf hearing, remember?”

“Oh,” she blushes.

I grin. “They won’t listen now that they know I’m okay.”

“Why?”

“Because of what they think we’ll do.”

“Which is what exactly?”

Dark heat floods both of our minds as I show her a second of what that could be. Of our bodies melding together in…

Her blush shuts off my thoughts.

“Are you okay?” she asks, her voice full of concern.

I hate and love how she’s looking at me. “Yes, thanks to you.”

She shakes her head. “No, thanks to Riven. He’s incredible.”

“He’s an anomaly, that’s for sure. One that we are thankful for every day. But I still have you to thank.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You did everything.” I study her closely, needing to understand her more. “Why? Why try to ease my suffering when I’ve done horrible things to you? To others? You’ve seen what I am? I killed your best friend.”

“There’s always a reason.”

“What?”

“There’s always a reason that you kill.”

We stare at each other. Ask me. Ask me why Rowena is dead.

It’s on the tip of her tongue. I know she wants to ask, but I can sense her fear at the answer.

She doesn’t ask.

She’s not ready. And I’m not sure I have the answer for her yet anyway.

“You’re really okay?” She asks again, her eyes running over my arms and chest that are bare to her as the covers are pulled up to my waist.

“It appears so. The spell is gone. No long-lasting damage done.”

“Well, I’m not sure how we do that again. And I’m not sure how useful it was anyway. She didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. And the information she gave us wasn’t helpful at all,” she says.

“What’s the alternative? You’re just going to complete the marking ceremony with Ambrose in a few weeks and hope it doesn’t kill you? That it gets your wolf back? And that it breaks the curse for the wolf shifters and not the witches?”

“No.”

“Then we have to get more answers first. We’ll have a better strategy next time.”

“Or you could mark me.”

“What?”

“You could mark me. What if it’s all a diversion, my connection with Ambrose instead of the other way around? What if you’re really my mate? What if it’s more important to break the curse for the vampires than any other creature, and that’s why we are mates?”

“I’m not going to mark you unless I’m a hundred percent sure you’re my mate. I’m not going to risk your life like that.”

She frowns. “There’s no way to ever be a hundred percent sure.”

“There are plenty of ways to be more sure than you are now about who your mate is. It has to be more than you just running from Ambrose and thinking I’m a good kisser. Even if I am, there has to be a bigger connection between us.”

“You still don’t think there is even a real possibility of us being mates, do you?”

“I’m a vampire, cold-blooded, and have no heart. Vampires don’t have mates. I’m pretty sure the day I became a vampire, I lost any chance at having a mate.”

Her eyes search mine before she speaks next. “You’re worthy of having a mate. And you’re more than just a vampire. You’re a shifter, too. What if we’re mates and you never explore it with me because you’re too busy self-deprecating to explore it—”

I kiss her. I kiss her so fucking hard that there can’t be any doubt in her head how badly I want her. I desperately want us to be mates, simply so she can be mine. I don’t care about the curse. I don’t care about some long-ago fated connection with her. I care about her—about wanting her.

I roll our bodies until she’s buried beneath me and I’m pinning her against the bed.

Letting all of my feelings flood her head—want, desire, need.

I shatter any hold she has on our connection just as I wreck her body with my kisses.

I kiss her lips, but I’m a greedy fucker who wants more.

I kiss down her jawline, her neck, her ear.

I’m rewarded with every tiny whimper and soft gasp she’s capable of making. While her hands dig into the skin of my back, begging me to kiss more, harder, everywhere.

“What do you want, love?” I purr into her head. She wants to explore if we’re mates, I’m game. She wants me to kiss the fuck out of her until she passes out from exhaustion, done. She wants me to stop and go to sleep in another bedroom, as if nothing had happened, I can do that, too.

“Fuck me, Nyx. Let’s find out if we could be mates.”