Page 21 of Forbidden Wolf

She chatted about her classmates, and the boy who was helping her with her science project. She didn’t belong in this world, but there was nothing any of us could do to stop the inevitable. All we could do was try to fix her at the end of twenty years.

“What was it like with Sam?” she asked unexpectedly. “How did you know that you loved him?”

An image of Levi fluttered through my head. “It’s the little things, pipsqueak. The way his fingertips find yours when you’re together, how he looks at you as if you’re the most precious thing in his world. The fact that a flock of butterflies erupt into flight in your stomach when he approaches you.”

“Wow,” Kimber said. “You sound as if you still love him.”

A smile flitted across my lips and my heart contracted. “You never forget your first love, so choose someone worthy of that title.”

We ended our conversation not long after that and I crept outside to the garden courtyard of the castle, to watch the last remnants of the moon before it disappeared for another day. Levi had made me promise that every time I looked at the moon, I’d remember him. I didn’t need to because he’d left his fingerprints all over my heart.

On the outside, I looked normal, pretending that nothing had changed in my world. Inside, I was a cascading turmoil of emotions that would destroy me. I was the sacrifice to keep Kimber safe. I’d seen the bruises on Sabine’s body after she spent the night with Castus. Her mother sent her to him to garner favour in our world of complicated politics. He used her until she returned with a vacant look in her eyes, flinching every time someone touched her. It took her six months to return to some semblance of the girl she’d been before her visit to our leader.

At eight that evening, I rapped on his door. It swung open to reveal his cold smile of ownership, his dark gaze roaming over me in possession. My stomach clenched in revulsion.

“Come in, Tasha.” His fingers trailed down my arm as I walked in past him.

Every part of me screamed to run, but this was the fate of every vampire on the base, both male and female. We had to serve and produce offspring to strengthen our covens. It was the vampire way that had spanned countless generations.

He didn’t stop in his main office area, instead guiding me to a bedroom down the corridor that was decorated in shades of red. There was no doubt in my mind after seeing Sabine’s body it was to hide the blood of his lovers. Castus was a biter even though vampire blood had no nutrition to other vampires. Levi taught me biting wasn’t about feeding but dominance.

“I’ve waited for this moment, my dear. Unzip your suit.”

My trembling fingers pulled down the zip at the front of my catsuit.

Connect to another soul far from that room…Levi’s words from so long ago echoed in my head. It was just my body; Castus would never touch my soul or my mind. I searched for anything out there I could connect with. The image of Levi’s black wolf entered my head and I curled up beside him, hugging his warmth.

Castus tugged my catsuit down to my waist, his inhalation of breath and his cool fingers moving over my flesh made goosebumps rise on my skin. Not the good kind.

His hands reached my hips to push my suit past my waist.

The base alarms sounded, red lights flashing. Castus cursed, his hands curling into balls.

Quickly, I slipped back into my catsuit, zipping it up to my neck. “Permission to join my unit?”

“Granted,” he snapped, his eyes following me out of the room.

The alarms went off because our enemy was at the door. I could die today in battle and it would still be a better conclusion than what had been waiting for me.

Grabbing two swords in the hallway, I ran toward to entrance hall and the vampires gathering there.

“Our primary units are under attack. All comms are down, so we’re going in hard and fast and blind,” Our commander Cooper shouted from the door as he pushed troops fully armed out to the waiting transport.

My unit rarely engaged in fighting, and I’d hoped to keep it that way. Today was a day of broken ideals.

“Shit, Tasha, we’re not normally involved in this.” Sabine appeared at my side, her face pinched with worry.

I strapped a blaster to each leg, a sword in the scabbard running down my back. A soldier handed us earpieces. We carried thin hoods and gloves in a leg pocket of our suit to help protect us from the sun if we got caught outside when the sun came up.

My unit assembled at the door to outside, all of us ready to be flown into battle.

Cooper eyed us all.

“Ready?” he asked.

My back straightened and I cracked my head from side to side. Comms sounded in my ear as they tried to navigate all the units into the red zone. Adrenalin spiked through my blood and all my vampire instincts went onto high alert.

“Give them hell out there,” Cooper said. “It’s a beautiful day to die.”

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