Page 31 of Marked By Moonlight
Run, run, run.
I run as the moon dips lower, moonlight fading away and giving rise to the sun just over the horizon.
I’m exhausted from running all night. My legs haven’t stopped for a moment since I saw the vampire. The sounds of my pursuers quieted hours ago, leaving only the soft breezes of the forest at night and now at dawn.
Still, I can’t stop. I’m not safe. And Ambrose’s command demands I keep going.
But I won’t find Emeric in this direction.Will he find me? Is he coming to get me?
I have no clue; my brain is mush. I just keep going and going.
“I had so much faith in you,” a woman’s voice stops me cold.
I snap my head around. “Isolde.”
She’s leaning against a tree, still in her white cloak with thick, luscious blond curls hanging down to nearly her waist. She looks young, early twenties, and yet there is a wisdom in her eyes that tells me she’s lived far beyond twenty years.
I don’t know much about witches. I don’t think they’re immortal like vampires, but maybe they live extended lives like wolf shifters do. I don’t know.
But I know I don’t trust Isolde.
“I can’t decide if I should kill you or pump you full of magic until you finally have the power to shift into a wolf.”
My eyebrows jump up. “You have the power to help me shift?”
She nods as if it’s obvious. She has the power to do pretty much whatever she fucking wants. “It would be painful—far more painful than if you figured it out for yourself. And you would lose control over your wolf—I would have that power.” She pauses. “Forever.”
My heart breaks. “No,” I whisper.
Her eyes shift into dark orbs, and I feel her power flowing through her. “I don’t have a choice. You are Ambrose’s mate. You are the key to breaking the curse—for all of us. I have to kill you and hope the gods give Ambrose another mate—one who isn’t as flawed as you. Or I force you to shift so Ambrose can mark you, break the curse, and then most likely kill you.”
My gaze shoots daggers in her direction. “So either way, I die.”
She shrugs. “Your sacrifice will save us all. I’m sure the gods will honor you in the afterlife.”
I growl and feel a shift inside me—an awakening that wasn’t there before.
Is she goading me into shifting? Or is her magic already working on me?
A howl pierces through the air, hitting me hard in the chest and forcing me to stop everything and wait.
Isolde, despite not being a shifter, stops and listens as well. A frown befalls her perfect face.
Ambrose and Emeric emerge from the forest in their wolf forms. A second later, both men are standing naked on two human legs. Emeric’s eyes drag over me in concern, as if he’s looking for any injuries. But Ambrose holds all his attention on Isolde and speaks to her.
“Leave. The sun has risen. We will have to wait until another full moon to complete the marking ceremony. You have no more use here, Isolde.”
She smiles in a flirtatious way at my man. “Of course. I’ll return on the next full moon.”
With a flash, she vanishes.
My eyes bulge.
“How?” my mouth gapes.
Emeric chuckles at my response. “I take it this was your first encounter with a witch?”
I nod, my mouth still gaping.
