Bound by Blood (Bound by Desire #3)

Chapter 18: Zanna Rosa

Turning my head I see a small girl run up to the boy in my head and he catches her instantly, lifting her and spinning her around with a smile on his face that lights up places inside me I couldn't remember existing let alone know how to reach. Though when I reach for the image the feelings that rip through me feel stronger than the average Mate Bond between wolves and shake me to my core. Trapped as I am, I can see when the figure turns as if they can see me before the image ripples and changes, so the image is now of a mark. Or should I say a set of two marks?

One is the normal crescent moon-shaped Mate Mark but it's curved around what looks to me to be a vampire bite. Like the marks, I could see on both my mom and dad as well as uncle Ash and aunt Leila. What did it mean? Had they explained it before and I'd forgotten what it meant or was it something else entirely? The longer I looked at it the more I remembered Astra and Astrid's words from before, even if I didn't want to think they were real I couldn't shut out the words entirely.

What did they mean about Dana and me being bound into something we did not know about? And why did it feel like they weren't talking about being bound in a normal way but in a Bound, bound way? As in with a capital B like the Bonds between my parents and aunt and uncle. Was that the key? The source of what was happening to me that made me feel like I'd lost half of myself when the image of that other figure had faded from my mind. Letting me know that they were my mate. The person I'd been looking for that Lunae had decided was my match.

But who was he? Who was he and why did I feel like I knew where he was from but that it wasn't the Luna Moon since I knew all the members of my pack like the back of my hand and this mysterious figure wasn't in it. I knew as much. But then who was he and what pack did he belong to since when he'd turned to catch the little girl I'd seen the tip of a symbol on his shoulder, the brown difficult to see under his strong colouring, but visible nonetheless. A brown mark I didn't recognise but that part of me seemed to recognise instantly.

Looking again the image of the vision changes to show the symbol I think is what I could see tattooed as his pack mark on his left shoulder. It's the same brown as all wolf marks but the symbol is beautiful, at least to me. Composed of a bonfire under a full moon I feel like I should know the symbol but part of me, the conscious part, doesn't seem to remember it other than that it's for an important pack that's near to where mine stands. And that's difficult to do since I know the Luna Moon is one of the most prominent wolf packs aside from my aunt's old one, the River Fern pack.

So who was he? And why did I seem to be unable to control Lana around the memory of it where she's back to chasing her tail with the insistent yapping of the word MATE! MATE! MATE! Round and round like a broken record that seems to sing to places inside me that I didn't remember but that the image seems to reach. The image and the scent left behind of cinnamon mixed with nutmeg and wood smoke combined with the fleeting trace of cherry blossoms. His scent. One that seems to be branded into an intimate part of me that refuses to relinquish it even though I'd never seen this wolf in person.

And was that all he was? The scents of cherry blossom and woodsmoke may indicate that - the cherry blossom especially - but what about the other parts? The cinnamon and nutmeg. Was he a part witch? Vampire? Angel? Demon? Faery? Something else entirely? I'm not sure what part of me seems insistent on chasing this fantasy but it refuses to relinquish it the same way I can't seem to let go of.....

And that's when I woke up, gasping for breath with the pack mark I'd seen dancing behind my eyes as elusive as the fire in the image. Kneeling around where I'd fallen I can see my friends looking at me and Dana with confused and some outright fearful expressions where my cousin was also struggling to sit up with a dazed look in her dark midnight blue eyes, the gold flecks sparkling in and out of view where she confers with Midnight about whatever happened to her when she passed out that's got her so spooked she's gone incommunicado on the rest of us. Something odd for my spitfire cousin who normally can't be shut up.