I chuckle.“There is no shutting Sylara up. That’s why she’s my beta.”
“You want to be free?”Ambrose asks.
“Hell no, I don’t trust myself around Lumi.”
“Good, I don’t either.”
“If Ambrose’s curse is going to be attempted by the end of the week, no matter what, then it doesn’t matter if Nyx is locked up or not. The curse will use any of us as a vessel. Which is whywe need to work in tandem, at least two people always guarding Lumi to ensure her safety. Nyx being caged just means he can’t help us get the vampires on our side in the war against the witches. It means he can’t help us figure out how to break the curses, which is idiotic since the strongest seer on the planet said he was the key to breaking at least two of the curses,” Sylara continues.
“Let him go, Ambrose. Then he can help us figure out a plan,” Lumi says.
“Don’t you dare let me out!” I yell so loudly they can all hear me. Not that I’d need to yell, they all have superhuman hearing. I could have joined the conversation at any time.
“Staying locked up won’t help anyone,” Sylara says.
“Letting me out ensures Lumi’s death at my hand. I’m staying right where I am,” I say back.
“I’ll do whatever Lumi wants me to do,” Ambrose says.
Fucking suck up. He just wants his mate to love and respect him again.
“If you let me out, I’ll spend whatever time I have left seducing her. If I’m destined to kill Lumi, I’m going to make sure she enjoys every second of this miserable life we have left. She’ll spend every waking moment in my bed riding my cock. I’ll worship every inch of her body, and that bond that you share, you’ll get to hear and feel everything. You’ll hear how I make her scream my name. She’ll forget you’re her mate. She’ll tell me she loves me and how she’d rather die than never have my cock again. I’ll make sure she dies mid-orgasm so she never has to feel pain. I’ll—”
“Enough,” Ambrose growls back.
I smirk.
“Your antics won’t work. I know what you’re doing. And it doesn’t change anything. I’ll do whatever Lumi tells me to. I’m not fucking this up again. I’m her mate. You are a complication.An infatuation who she enjoyed fucking. A tragedy waiting to happen in her life. No matter what happens, your life with her is over. Help her see that if you want to help her. Either way, I’m her future. You’re her past. I’m her mate, the one she’s destined for. I have eternity and the afterlife to make her fall in love with me again. Nothing you say is going to bother me,”Ambrose says.
“Good, you had me scared there for a bit that you weren’t going to fight for her. She needs you. She’s bound to you with the blood deal and the gods selecting her as your mate. Don’t fuck it up.”
Ambrose snorts, not acknowledging my words. But I vow then and now to do everything possible to make Lumi and Ambrose’s relationship work. To help her fall in love with him and forget me. I’m doomed. There is nothing she can do for me now.
“Release him,” Lumi says confidently from downstairs.
Fucking hell.
A second later, Ambrose’s magic lifts. The second it does, I move. One second, I’m upstairs in my bedroom, the next, I’m standing in front of her face-to-face, so close that a light wind would knock me into her.
Lumi doesn’t react. Her expression is neutral, as if she were expecting me to do this.
I lift my lips, revealing my sharp fangs, waiting for someone to stop me. For someone to realize the threat I am and kill me.
No one moves.
Not even Ambrose.
They all trust me. No one believes I’ll actually hurt her.
It’s a mistake.
One we’ll all live to regret.
“I’m not afraid of you, Nyx. No one is. We know the game you’re playing, and we’re not falling for it. We are going to find away to save you. Find a way to stop the curse from killing me. It’s only been a few hours. We aren’t ready to give up yet,” she says.
I tilt my head, angling my face over her ear. I lower my voice so that, despite the superhuman hearing in the room, I know she’s the only one who can hear me.
“You’re trying to save me to give me a lifetime of misery. Watching you with him for all of my life will destroy me worse than any curse will. You are my everything, Lumi. But no matter what, you’ll choose him to save me. Choose him to stop the curses and save the damn world. That’s who you are—selfless, strong, brave, relentless. You won’t choose me. You can’t choose me. Not in the end. The only way you save me from the suffering of a lifetime is to kill me now. It doesn’t have to be at your hand or someone you love, but let me go.”