Page 91 of Bitten By Bloodmoon
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 youused to be. So you can’t find your one true love. Ah. Ridiculous to listen to you all whine like that’s a curse.Weare 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.
