She still loves me.
Fuck.
I thought she hated me. I thought she saw me for who I really am—a killer. I thought she had accepted her bond with Ambrose, and a flood of feelings hit her when she did. I thought…
Fuck.
Even my plan to make her hate me—using mind control to make her commit the one act that would destroy us both. I would never actually let her kill me, but making her believe I would force her to should have been enough for her to hate me forever. To her, that kind of control would be unforgivable.
I thought she’d finally understand how much danger she is in around me. How easily I could kill her against my will in the same way she didn’t have control when magic was pressuring her to kill me. But it backfired.
Lumi was pissed, but still, she didn’t hate me. I’m not sure if I can make her hate me, but I have to try. If not, I’ll end up killing her.
I don’t have to open my eyes to know exactly where I am. The smells are familiar; the soft bed beneath my back smells likea mixture of her and me, and given the covers pulled high over my head, sunlight is streaming into my room. I’m back in my bedroom.
I move an inch and feel magic gently stirring, stretching around me.
Ambrose’s magic.
His magic is locking me in this room. It might be my comfortable room, but there is no mistaking that I’m in a cage. I have no hope of breaking free, not that I want to.
I just don’t understand why we are here and not a million miles away from the Moonfire witches. If Lumi and Ambrose think the witches will respect the edges of my territory or fear the Bloodmoon pack, they’re wrong. Those witches will stop at nothing to break their curse. None of us is safe here.
Voices carry up the stairs, drawing me out of my own thoughts long enough to listen.
“Shouldn’t we be seeking other seers? Someone who might have answers on how we can break all the curses at once?” Riven asks.
“No,” Lumi and Ambrose answer at the same time.
“The witches aren’t to be trusted, and since all seers are witches, we’re on our own to figure out how to break the curses,” Lumi says.
“We should just kill them all. Then we’d have all the time in the world to figure out how to break our curses,” Brax says. He’s always the one to fight first and ask questions later.
“If we could kill all the witches, we would have already done that. No offense, Riven. All the offense to you, Ambrose. But it wouldn’t solve anything. Ambrose’s witch curse still means Lumi will die if we don’t undo it first,” Sylara says.
I smile, loving how protective she is of Lumi.
“We can’t stay here. The Moonlight pack members aren’t going to want to camp out in the Bloodmoon territory forever,” Emeric says.
“Well, as I’m still their alpha and I need us to stay here to protect my mate, they don’t have a choice. They’ll learn to get along well enough with the Bloodmoon pack and any vampires that are willing to help us,” Ambrose says.
“There will be no vampires willing to help protect Lumi, not now that they know she’s not Nyx’s mate and you’re going to break the curse for the witches, not the vampires,” Talonis says.
“You have to get the vampires to help us,”Ambrose suddenly says to me.
I laugh.“No way.”
“You’re their lord; they have to listen to you. And we need everyone we can get to help protect Lumi,”he snaps back.
“Doesn’t matter. My control of the vampires isn’t as absolute as it is with my own pack. They don’t respect me in the same way. Besides, I would never force them to do something like that, even to protect Lumi.”
“They’ll help us if we promise to break the curse for the vampires,” Lumi says.
The room is silent. My own heart is pounding through my chest. There is no way any of them can be considering her proposition. They are all just searching for the right words to remind her that if they don’t break the witch’s curse, then I’m going to kill her. That’s more important than me going savage and mad and killing a hundred humans out of bloodlust. I have faith that my vampire curse can be contained. They can keep me locked up forever if they refuse to kill me. But I know the other vampires will kill me eventually for it. They won’t want a savage as their lord.
I wait for someone to say that’s insane.
For someone to say the only choice is to break the witches’ curse, to break Ambrose’s curse.