Page 45 of Bitten By Bloodmoon
Ambrose
“What happened?” Emeric asks as I stand before him and the rest of the Moonlight pack and the entire Moonfire coven. There is no hiding the truth from any of them. Without me even speaking, they can see that I failed in bringing back my mate.
“I reject the bond. You aren’t my mate!”
“I reject the bond. You aren’t my mate!”
“I reject the bond. You aren’t my mate!”
Those words won’t stop playing in my head. They have become my own nightmare song being played exclusively for me. For the entire time I ran back, I’ve been analyzing her words. Her body language. Everything that happened. And I still don’t know that truth.Were they really her words? Her thoughts? Or were they Nyx’s words that he forced her to speak with his mind control?
I don’t have the answer, but if there is even a chance that Nyx is the cause of her words, then I have to do whatever it takes to break her free of him.
She’s still my mate. Even if she rejected me. Hates me. Wants me dead. Nothing has changed.
Silence spreads through the clearing where everyone is gathered around me, but my mind is still spinning. Still haunted by her never-ending words.
“I reject the bond. You aren’t my mate!”
“I reject the bond. You aren’t my mate!”
“I reject the bond. You aren’t my mate!”
I reach for that connection with her, tentatively, afraid that if I tug on it too hard, it will completely unravel and sever the remaining fragile twine. My heart stops beating as I close my eyes and try to find her in my head. That’s the only way to know for sure if her words are true or if Nyx controlled her.
A cool, snowy trail of snowflakes drifts along the edges of my mind, flickering like a fleeting winter flurry. I follow the soft snowflakes that are slow to fall…one…two…three…each one falls so slowly that I’m not sure the next one will fall at all. But I follow them one by one in my brain. I follow each chilly flake that brings me closer and closer to my answer.
Suddenly, the snowflakes pick up speed, falling faster and faster in my head. My mind runs along the path that has started to freeze over. Colder and colder, I keep pushing, knowing exactly what I’m going to find when I reach the end.
Her.
Lumi—snow.
She’s still there. She hasn’t severed the connection. It’s just lighter than before. But I feel her presence as strong as ever. I only allow myself a moment in her head. Just a moment to ensure she’s okay and that I shouldn’t send the entire pack and coven to Nyx’s doorstep to immediately save her despite the unstoppable war it would create.
She holds a quiet sadness in her mind, but beneath it, I feel an undeniable strength that refuses to break. Suddenly, a bitingcold sweeps through me. She’s trying to push everything and everyone out.
I pull back, letting her be for the moment.
I want to go to her, get her back. But I can’t, not without fixing what I broke first.
“Lumi is safe, for now. Nyx believes she’s his mate, so he won’t hurt her. And Lumi is strong enough to protect herself and gather information against our enemy while she is there,” I answer Emeric. “I plan on helping her escape before the next full moon. Nyx is wrong; he’s just trying to hurt me like he has before. Lumi and I still plan to break the curse on the next full moon.”
Emeric smiles, but it’s a half smile. He was expecting me to return with Lumi and a dead Nyx after what he did to Rowena. I wish I had, too.
“Isolde, I need to speak to you in private.”
She raises an eyebrow at me, but says, “Of course.”
I motion to Emeric to join us.
“Where the hell is Lumi?” Kael asks, jumping in front of me as I lead Isolde and Emeric toward my house.
“She’s with Nyx and his pack.”
“His pack or his vampires?”
“Whoever keeps him company as of late.”
