Chapter Ten
My breath hitches in my throat as I look back and forth between the vampire and my mate. I can feel sweat beginning to prick at my upper lip due to my nervousness. How do I explain the fact that I had encountered a vampire? It would make him lose trust in me. Vampires and werewolves were not to mingle. I could just imagine all the thoughts that would cross his mind and the hostility that would root him. I needed him to trust me for me to figure out what was wrong with his side of the mate bond.
My mind is racking through lies and excuses, eyes wide with anxiety, looking at the vampire in slight desperateness. He looks at me his face calm, eyes constricting as he looks between me and Adonis, in scrutiny. Adonis is glaring at the vampire rather than at me.
My mouth closes and opens like a fish. The vampire speaks, looking straight at Adonis, "Who are you?"
"I am the Alpha of the Crescents." He projects his dominance out. The vampire looks a little surprised and he takes one last look between me and Adonis, a glimpse of anger flashing through his eyes. His fangs look like they've elongated slightly. My face pales.
"Are you his mate?" He spits out the last word, as if it was rotten. I look at the vampire, my breath still caught in my throat. Should I say the truth or not? If Adonis said no and I said yes, it would just turn into a huge pile of conflict and confusion.
"No, she's not." Adonis says. I turn my head so fast, to glare at him that it gives me whiplash. So, he can't admit that I'm his mate, but he needed me around. What was I to him? His pet?
It's as if my body had been simmering for a long time and something had just been unlocked and now I was overflowing with heat.
All I can see is red and my wolf wants to break free and rip his face to shreds. Wait... what? He was my mate... I'm confused at my own thoughts at the rampage that I wanted to unleash. A wild, feral part of me wants to reign over my body but I fight it, internally.
My whole body is shaking, and I can barely see what's in front of me. I am fighting with myself. I can feel Adonis touching me, asking me what's wrong as I almost sink to my knees. For the first time ever, I see fear flash through the big bad Alpha's eyes. Pain curls within my gut and it all feels like I was shifting again for the first time. It's the same pain that engulfed me when my bones had snapped and shortened for the first time.
The bond between me and Adonis and the closeness of his body to mine manages to just make me feel sick. It just fuels my anger, making my chest constrict. The blood in my veins convulses and I can feel it begin to possess my body. My nails lengthen, my claws making an appearance. My red vision can only make sense of a wolf touching me, not realising that it was my own mate, who is trying to find out what was wrong. And before he even realises or before I can come back to my senses, I sink my claws deep in his stomach, the addictive fresh scent of blood making my senses tingle.
I felt so alive.
But it doesn't last long, not even as long as a few seconds because with one quick move, I'm out, like a light being switched off and my vision goes dark.
***
The first thing that hits me as soon as my eyes open is my weak body feeling drained. My bones feel delicate and all the energy from my body feels like it's been sucked from every crevice. I am exhausted. My limbs are heavy as fatigue is settled in them. It took a lot of energy to move my head to try to figure out where I was.
I'm lying on a single bed, in a small white washed room. Grogginess occupies my entire body and as soon as I find the energy to move my hands, I look at my right hand, feeling even more confused. Why was I shackled? A thick metal handcuff is around my wrist, which is cuffed to the side of the bed. I move it around, staring at in bewilderment. How did that get there? Wait... why was I even in this room?
What had happened? Did I do something? I try to rack my brain, to think, but it's like my thoughts are blocked, which frustrates me. What had gone wrong?
I shake my hand and try to pull the handcuffs off but when it doesn't even move, I use a lot of my wolf strength to pull the side that is cuffed to the bed, breaking off some of the wood. My wrist is still shackled but I could now move my hand. I use my left hand to pass it over my hair, moving it away from my face.
I groan as I stretch my limbs, small bursts of energy filling me up. I get up from the bed, curiosity getting the best of me as I leave the small room. The small room is a linked to a larger room, which is more of a hall. There are hospital beds on each side of the room and there is a distinct smell of sterile idoform, a disinfectant.
I take in everything quickly, wondering why people had stopped in their tracks and were staring at me. They look at me with slight fear on their face and I almost flinch at the hostility and the weird looks I was receiving. I look at them all, trying to look for a familiar face to explain why I was handcuffed.
But my eyes land on a familiar figure lying on a hospital bed close. His frame is easy to identify; muscular and broad. I was accustomed to the shape of his arms and the veins that would jut out, which would generally distract me.
Adonis...
The light blue cotton shirt he is wearing is bloody, with definite holes that look like punctures that are close together. I walk up to his body, worried. What was I missing? Something must have happened. His definite addicting scent is mixed with blood, which smells coppery with a slight tinge of bitterness to it. The handcuffs that are still dangling from my wrist jingle as I walk. There are some doctors around that move out of my way when I come closer. I keep my eyes trained on his unfamiliar bloody shirt, a lump stuck in my throat.
My thoughts are jumbled, and I know that there is a large gap in my memory, which infuriates me to no end. Before I can get closer to find out what was wrong, a body moves in front of me, making my wolf release a snarl through my lips. Who was trying to stop me from getting to my mate?
I look to the person, in anger. It was the man I had met before, who Adonis had hugged. Aaron. I purse my lips, glaring at him, but he just sends me an intense, piercing gaze back.
"Move." My wolf growls out. I curl my lip as I snarl. How dare he stop me from getting to him?
"I can't let you get close." His body is tense as if he's waiting to stop me from causing a scene. He takes a small step forward and my eyes follow his every move. What was with the hostility?
"Why?" I ask, the urge for the gap in my memory to be filled overpowering me.
He looks at me as if I'm joking. "You did this." All the blood in my body feels like it's being drained, my face pale as I look at him in dread. No I didn't? I couldn't have... He was my mate. It was instilled in my genes and my blood not to hurt him. I look at him in speechlessness.
"I couldn't have. He's my mate." I look at his body, the bloody mess causing the lump in my throat to get bigger. Tears prick at the corners of my eye as the frustration of not knowing what had happened catches up to me. Aaron sees my response, his face softening but his body still tense.
He looks at me in resignation before nodding his head and moving to the side, letting me walk up to him. I look at the bloodied mess, worried. How did I do this when I don't even remember anything? I try to think of what could have caused this, going through what had happened after we got to the huge council building, but nothing comes to mind. The last thing I could remember is waiting for Adonis to return. How did I manage to just forget everything in between?
The tears that are sitting around the corners of my eyes are threatening to fall. I try to gulp the lump in my throat away, but my throat is dry, and guilt keeps pricking at me. I reluctantly, pull his shirt up, slowly, to see the extent of the injuries. My vision is slightly blurry as I look at his stomach. There are three faint punctures that are raw, red but closed. His healing abilities were definitely like nothing I had ever seen – quite exceptional. There is some dried blood around the circles, which is a dark red.
I blink a few times, surprised at how fast he had healed. My blinking causes a couple of tears to drop and run down my cheek, but I ignore it, passing my fingers over his wounds. The skin to skin contact makes my gut drop, a rush of energy passing through my fingertips and onto his skin. My fingers tingle, heating up. The raw, redness of his wound is now pink after my fingers have passed over it and I look at my hand in amazement.
What the heck was that? What was wrong with me?
I'm busy staring at my hand that I don't even notice my mate's eyes snapping open. In a split second, he shoots off the bed, ripping off a few wires that area attached to his arm, at the same time. My eyes widen with shock at how fast he had managed to get out of the bed.
Before I can even blink or wipe away the small tears that kept escaping, he steps forward, with a purpose. The hostility and lividness in his eyes makes me take a few steps back until my back hits a wall. There is something wild burning in the embers of his eyes. He was not happy with me and I wanted to get away from him.
His hand reaches out and before I can duck under his arm and move away, he places his hands on either side of the wall, trapping me between his arms. I gulp, my breaths heavy as they're released from my lips. The pure, musky scent from his body are like pheromones that make me look back and forth between his eyes and lips.
The intensity and anger in his eyes makes me want to play around and light a vigorous fire full of passion and heat. The thought of playing around has my stomach tightening in slight excitement. My body was always betraying me, responding like a whore, who itched to get her fix.
"Adonis. Don't hurt her, we need her." I can hear Aaron's voice over Adonis' shoulder and I, internally, shake my head at him. He wouldn't hurt me... would he? Then again, never in a million years would I have thought I had it in me to hurt him. But I did...
The guilt racks through my body as Adonis curls his upper lip and turns his head to give Aaron an angry snarl, as if he couldn't believe what he was saying. He turns to look back at me, his eyes trained on the final tear that hastens down my cheek. The storm in his eyes softens a little, one of his fingers coming forward to brush it away. The contact has me closing my eyes, my breath stuck in my chest.
"I'm going to ask you one last time. What are you?" The dominance in his tone almost has my knees shaking.
I answer him honestly, "I don't know what I am." There was no denying that I wasn't a regular shifter. I was good at evading an Alpha command, not really in tune with the pack. The only shifters that could evade an Alpha command were the lycans, who were old, very powerful and fairly non-existent. There was no way I'd meet any of them in my lifetime. And then there was the ordeal with the vampire that came to me in the forest and said I was his brother. That just made zero sense.
His lips purse in anger as the frustration rolls off him in waves. My hands reach out to touch him and relieve him off his stress but he backs away, running his hand through his hair, stiffly. "Fine. You won't tell me." He looks away from me and turns to a few strangers on the side. "Get her ready for the ceremony."
I immediately get defensive, "What ceremony?" He doesn't say anything, not even looking in my direction. I raise my voice, in anxiousness, repeating my words louder but I still don't get a response. A few hands grab ahold of my arms and my shoulders and I struggle against them, wanting to know what ceremony he was talking about. My fists punch whoever it was that was touching me but I am quickly surrounded and as quick as I can hear someone say, "Hold her down." A needle is prodded into my neck and I collapse on the floor, unconscious.
***
Hey guys... so this chapter was meant to be longer but I wanted to get something up before the week ended. Been v distracted this past week so sorry for the late update!
just hold on everything will start making more sense in the next five chapters
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