Page 114 of Bitten By Bloodmoon
“I told you I was cursed. I didn’t put a spell on you. I didn’t realize until it was too late,” I say.
“You went to the witches, asking them to become one so you’d be the most powerful alpha in existence. So that you could find your mate. You knew what your curse was. You were so threatened by me and Raya that you forced me to kill her!”
Lumi reaches for Nyx, but then thinks better of it. She’s trying so hard to remain neutral in all of this. It’s important for her to hear the entire story before she chooses whose side she’s on.
“How did you become a witch?” Lumi asks.
“It wasn’t my choice. I was kidnapped by the Moonfire witches. When I woke up, I was a witch and had a deal with them. I didn’t ask for this life.”
“How did you become a vampire?” Lumi asks Nyx.
“Him—after I killed Raya, he hunted me down, drove me into a house of vampires, thinking they would kill me. But I survived. They turned me.”
“And then you killed my entire family and half my pack. You killed my father, my brother, and some of my closest friends. You killed without remorse. And you won’t stop killing. You blame me for Raya’s death when it wasn’t my fault she died. It was my curse that I didn’t know existed until she died. You even killed Rowena.”
“And I don’t regret a single death,” Nyx says.
Lumi shakes her head at both of us as she listens to us speaking and mutters under her breath. “Hating each other has all been a misunderstanding.”
She looks up, her gaze meeting mine. “Tell him—tell him what your witches curse is.”
“No.”
She gives me a look that says if I don’t, then she will. But I don’t want to make him feel any better. He killed everyone in retaliation. It won’t make him stop hating me.
“My witches’ curse is that when I fall in love with someone, they die. When I fell in love with Raya, she became destined to die. I don’t know why the curse chose you to carry it out. But the magic found you and forced you to be the one to kill her. But it wasmefalling in love with her that sparked the magic and stirred the curse. It’s why I’m so careful around Lumi because even though I believe she’s my mate, I can’t fall in love with her. If I fall in love with her, she’d die.”
“Why didn’t you tell me it was your curse that caused me to kill her?” Nyx growls, his rage overwhelming.
“Because by the time I had realized what had happened, you were already a vampire and had killed so many people in my life that I could never forgive you or myself. And when I told you it wasn’t me, it was a curse, even though I didn’t give you the details, you didn’t believe me. You thought I wanted you to kill Raya. I loved her.” My voice breaks.
Silence stretches between us before Nyx’s eyes go wide.
“You loved Rowena,” he says.
Chapter 33
Nyx
Ambrose is looking at me like I just kicked him in the nuts.
Lumi is nodding her head, like everything makes sense to her now.
“I killed Rowena, but it felt similar to when I killed Raya. It was an out-of-body experience. I thought with Rowena, it might have been because I was a vampire. Vampires like to kill. It’s a predatory instinct. But I killed her because you loved her.”
Ambrose looks from me to Lumi, like he’s going to have to explain himself. “I guess I did, but—”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me. I get it. I know you were trying to do everything you could not to love me, including forcing yourself to feel things about others.” Lumi has tears in her eyes. She wipes them away quickly before looking at me. “And it’s why you think of yourself as a killer.”
I don’t respond. My look tells her everything she needs to know.
Lumi slumps back in her chair, looking from me to Ambrose and then back again. I’m not sure if this conversation has changed her mind about who she’s choosing or who she thinks her mate is. But it solidified a lot of things for me.
I still hate Ambrose, although that hatred isn’t as warranted as I once thought. His curse really did cause me to kill Raya…
I suck back the tears, not ready to go there fully, to fully process what that means. I stand up with my drink still in hand and pace, already knowing the conclusion I’ve come to.
Fuck.
