Page 36 of Bitten by Bloodmoon (Mateless Shifters #2)

Lumi

T he torment crawls through my body slowly, like it has all the time in the world to torture me. Each bone, muscle, and nerve takes its precious time shaping and forming my wolf as if an artist is behind each stroke, carefully crafting a masterpiece.

All the while, I’m writhing in agony, and I have no idea if the battle has started around me. I’m incredibly vulnerable until my shift is complete. Which means Nyx, Sylara, Riven, Brax, Talonis, and Kael are all vulnerable too, spending time protecting me instead of on the attack.

But I can barely think about anything except the explosive pain. It’s just as painful as the first time, like my mind and body are bending in unnatural ways to the whim of another.

“You’re strong enough to survive this. It’s almost over. And then you can kill him, me, whoever you fucking want, love. I’ll save your blades for when you shift back.”

Nyx. I cling to his words, focusing on them instead of the pain.

It’s almost over. I’m strong. I can kill him.

Those words are my salvation. That string connecting us keeps me alive when I feel like dying. And another word creeps into my mind— mate .

And then the pain vanishes. I’m standing on four legs. I open my eyes and feel the weight of every gaze on me. Everyone else has shifted, probably in seconds instead of the agonizing minutes it took me.

I can easily see across the field to Ambrose, making out every expression and line of his face. His lips are in a tight line across his face.

“Do you expect me to thank you? I’m not going to. This wolf isn’t mine to control, is it? You can tell her what to do, whose side to fight on, and she’ll fight for you, won’t she?”

Nyx nuzzles up against my side in his wolf form, standing several feet taller than me.

“Be ready to run if I turn on you. I think Ambrose can control me now that I’ve shifted,” I say to Nyx.

Nyx growls in Ambrose’s direction and snaps his teeth together like he wants to take a bite of him.

“No, I don’t expect you to thank me. And I won’t control your wolf. You have free will to fight however you want to. I just wanted you to be able to protect yourself and not rely on any man—me or him,” Ambrose replies.

Warm light starts to blind me. The vampires behind us scatter to the edges of the woods, seeking refuge in the shadows.

Only the shifters remain on either side of me in their wolf forms. Ambrose has both wolf shifters and witches fighting alongside him.

The vampires can’t fight with us unless we drive the fight into the woods.

But then I’d guess that’s why they are here at dawn instead of dusk.

“Try to lure the fight to the woods so the vampires can fight too,” I say to Nyx.

He nods his broad head.

“Isolde will attack first. She’ll hit you or me,” he says back.

He’s right. Ambrose won’t hurt me, but Isolde has no such qualms. “She’ll hit me. He’ll go after you.”

Isolde raises her hand. I dig my paws into the ground beneath my feet, preparing myself.

I wish I had time to practice fighting in my wolf form.

Moving every muscle in my body still feels unfamiliar, like I’m in a stranger’s body.

I know I belong here, but it’s not my body, not yet. It’s like I’m borrowing a costume.

I leap just as Isolde blasts her magic in my direction, the blow missing me by millimeters. Ambrose and his pack start running in our direction at full force. The witches stay where they are, their feet remaining planted on the floor.

Cowards . They won’t get involved in a hand-to-hand fight. They’ll just blow magic our directions and let the shifters risk their lives for them.

“Stay close.”

“They can’t kill me,” I remind him.

“Yeah, but they can kidnap you.”

“Even if they do, they can’t hurt me. I’ll survive.”

“Until the next full moon, when they force you to be marked by someone you reject as your mate,” his voice shakes with anger at even the thought of that.

“It won’t happen.”

“No, it won’t,” he agrees.

Magic pours down on us as the Moonlight pack reaches us.

I hiss at the burns that strike against my fur from the witches, but otherwise, ignore the pain as the pack bounds in our direction.

Ambrose leaps at Nyx, and before I can jump between them, I’m hit hard by a pack member I don’t know well.

I quickly lose track of the others. Flashes of brown, black, gold, and white colored fur all become a blur around me, which makes it hard to tell who is fighting on which side.

But I know to go for the wolves marked in the golden colors of moonlight.

The blasts of magic seem to strike just as haphazardly, not always striking just the Bloodmoon pack.

A dark colored wolf with a golden stripe down his back circles me before growling, like he’s trying to get me to submit.

I growl back, my own voice sounding strange to my ears. The heaviness of my paws hitting the earth with each step is getting more familiar. I snarl, letting my lips curl back around my teeth, and then I strike, lunging for the wolf’s neck.

He side steps me easily enough before getting a bite of his own into my shoulder.

I whimper before Sylara hits the male hard enough that he runs away scared.

I give her a thank-you nod, and we both glance toward the woods. Together, we start running, leading the Moonlight pack toward the woods where the vampires are. But the witches are prepared for this move, and we hit a hard, invisible wall yards before the edge of the woods.

Fuck.

“The witches put up a wall. We can’t lead them into the woods. What do we do now?” I ask Nyx.

Yelps and whimpers ring out all around me as my friends are injured.

We are far outnumbered. But we are the better fighters, so even with the witches hitting us with their magic, we are still holding our own.

The lack of bodies on the ground tells me that no one has been killed yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

Panic rises in me in hard strokes. I won’t be able to live with myself if anyone dies because I wouldn’t go with Ambrose. He’s not going to hurt me. Or kill me. He wouldn’t even force me to complete the marking ceremony.

I’m just pissed at him. I’m so angry, but if it could save lives, that’s what matters.

“You promised,” Nyx shouts at me, and I realize he and Ambrose are locked in an intense battle. My heart hammers in my chest every time the two of them fight because…

“I won’t kill him. And he won’t kill me,” Ambrose says.

“You both hate each other so much that if given the chance, I know you will,” I snap back, running to them. I have to stop them. They need to fight others, not each other.

“We won’t kill each other,” Nyx promises.

“But we will end this,” Ambrose says.

I’m so far away and yet so close at the same time.

Other shifters try to grab me, but the Bloodmoon pack members are prepared and fight them off before they even touch me.

I’m running full speed to where Nyx and Ambrose have moved far to one side of the field.

They are only fighting in their shifter forms. Neither is wasting time shifting to their witch or vampire forms.

I run faster, feeling like my time is running out.

I don’t know what either of them is going to do to try to end this.

All either of them has promised is that they won’t kill the other.

There leaves a lot of room for other damage to occur.

I don’t know the extent of why the two hate each other, but it certainly runs deeper than I will ever understand.

I don’t have a choice but to intervene, as I have before. I take a deep breath, prepared to jump between them when a blast of magic hits me hard, freezing my body in place.

It feels like a boa constrictor is slowly squeezing me, coiling all the way around my body from my ankles all the way up to my chest. Slowly, the breath begins to leave my body until it’s hard to breathe.

My breaths become shallow, and my heartbeat is forced to beat in long, steady beats to push enough blood through my body.

“Isolde,” I send out to Nyx, but the single word bounces off a shield and then back to me. She’s blocking my ability to communicate.

I try again, this time with Ambrose. “Isolde! I can’t move. I can barely breathe!”

All of my words are thrown back at me. Both of the guys are too focused on each other to notice what Isolde is doing to me.

Suddenly, she’s by my side, smirking down at me like she’s going to enjoy the torture she’s about to inflict on me.

“You’re the chosen one. The snow wolf—protected by the gods themselves. But I wonder…” She taps her finger against her cheek before excruciating pain explodes in my head.

I want to crumple to the ground, grab onto my head, and curl in on myself to try and ease the pain.

I want to do something, anything, to make it stop.

But I’m forced to stand silently by while she tortures my mind.

If anyone looked at me, they’d have no idea what was happening to me.

My connection to Nyx and Ambrose has been blocked, so they don’t even realize what’s happening to me.

“You think that’s pain, you have no idea what pain is. You have no idea why I need you to break the curse for the witches so badly, do you? No idea the lengths the witches will go to ensure that you break it for us. We even granted a wolf a witch’s power to ensure that the curse is broken.”

She lets me into her mind, and I get a glimpse of the pain she’s in.

I scream. Gods, do I scream. The pain is unsurvivable. I must be dying. She’s killing me.

Just as fast as it starts, the pain stops.

I pant, trying to get my breathing under control. “You have no idea. Each witch endures more pain every second than you endure in a lifetime.” She glances over where the vampires pace in the shadows, wanting to fight but being unable to.

“You have no idea the pain they endure, either. You don’t understand the gods’ wrath against us.

The wolf shifters have it easy. So you can’t have babies.

So you aren’t as strong as you used to be.

So you can’t find your one true love. Ah.

Ridiculous to listen to you all whine like that’s a curse.

We are cursed. Every time I use my powers, it’s like I’m being burned alive.

My powers are growing weaker because using them hurts.

Not to mention, each witch was cursed with an individual curse.

One to kill us one by one in the slowest, most torturous way. ”

I don’t know what the witches did for the gods to curse them so, but I’m not sure anyone deserves that pain.

Not even Isolde. For a moment, Isolde connects me to her thoughts, her memories, her pain, and fires each one at me like a bullet, until I can barely keep up with the images she’s sending me.

More cries leave my body as each new wave of pain washes through me.

Ambrose’s head snaps in my direction as he finally notices that Isolde has me. I’m seconds away from her transporting me to hold me hostage until the next full moon. I can see him try to talk to me, then get frustrated when he realizes he can’t.

I try to swallow, but it’s difficult to even push my own saliva down my throat with how tight Isolde’s magical grip is on me. She hates me. The only reason I’m alive is to break the curse. After that, I don’t care what alliance Ambrose has with her; she’ll kill me.

What are you going to do, Ambrose?

Nyx still hasn’t noticed what’s happening to me, or if he has, it doesn’t stop him from continuing to fight Ambrose.

He attacks Ambrose like I’ve watched him do countless times, but there is something different about this strike of his paw against Ambrose’s side.

It hits different, deeper, a more crucial spot.

Ambrose cries out in pain as his body quickly shifts from wolf to human as he lies on his back. Nyx grabs Ambrose by the neck and quickly carries him into the shadows before shifting himself. The vampires surround him quickly.

In a heartbeat, the witches have circled me and Isolde, where I’m still held frozen, unable to even blink without Isolde letting me.

The shifters haven’t moved, but I don’t hear any growls or snarls. It’s as if time has stopped; the fight has slowed.

“I’ll trade you Ambrose for Lumi,” Nyx says to Isolde from the shadows in his vampire form.

“No. You want us to leave without killing any of you, then we leave with both,” Isolde says.

“Ambrose is dying. If he doesn’t get a healer to work on him soon, he’ll die,” Nyx says.

“Lies, he...” Isolde’s voice stops as she listens to Ambrose’s heartbeat slowing. His breath is becoming even more labored than mine.

She squeezes me tighter with her magic until I feel my ribs breaking.

I try to scream, and this time, she lets me. My cry pierces my own ears, but I can’t stop it.

“Let her go. Take Ambrose and leave,” Nyx says firmly, like he’s giving an alpha command. But I can hear the hint of fear in the undertone of his voice, even if our connection is no longer there.

Isolde squeezes again, forcing more painful howls from me. Tears fall hard, fast down my cheek. I’m trembling from the pain as my voice rings out through the silence. More ribs are broken, and my entire body will be bruised, I’m sure of it.

“Come and get her, killer,” Isolde says.

I’m falling. For a second, it feels like flying, but just as fast as I’m thrown upward, my body is descending at a rapid pace. I shouldn’t be falling. My feet were just on the ground. But I am. Isolde must have thrown me, used me as bait for Nyx.

The ground is coming at me fast. Fuck, this is going to hurt my already broken body.

I hit.

Arms cushion my fall as best as they can, but all it does is cause him pain too, as we both hit the ground with a large thump.

Tears are burning my eyes as they mix with my sweat. I can’t see. I’m human again, as is Nyx. I don’t know how he’s here as the sun seems to be blasting us both. But that doesn’t matter right now.

“You’re safe. They’re gone,” he whispers.