by Cate Corvin
“I don’t know what to tell her.” Locke took a deep breath and released it. “Is it hopeless, or did I try the wrong path? The underside is a labyrinth and I remember none of it.”
Roman’s chest rumbled. My fur raised along my spine, my stomach flopping. We’d run so far, I no longer felt Bambi’s emotions through the bond. It was still too new to reach across such a distance.
We spent the day pacing anxiously and taking shifts to rest, riding out the sunlight in the shaft. Fifteen hours in, I wondered if this was how students felt before succumbing to insanity in the Hole. The only relief was that my lover’s vampire was back to normal, and I wouldn’t need to explain myself for his sudden death.
When evening fell and the faintest hint of a fresh breeze flowed through the tunnel, Locke finally rose to his feet, sending dried flakes of blood spinning to the floor.
Roman got to his feet and shook himself, and we loped back out into the nighttime forest. It still smelled like warm sunshine and brand-new leaves. Roman looked back once at the mine shaft, letting out another low whine and lowering his head.
I hadn’t liked the smell either. But who cared? We were leaving now.
We no longer needed to herd a crazed Locke, but it still took hours to return home. What had seemed like only minutes when we were focused on hunting and herding dragged much longer when all I could do was lope alone with my thoughts.
We were a mile from Cimmerian when Lu’s emotions suddenly blasted back through our bond.
Roman and I cringed in unison and howled when the depth of her rage and fear sizzled through our minds.
“Do you hear that?” Locke asked, frowning over his shoulder.
I burst into a volley of snarls, my mind filled with Lu’s pain.
Footsteps were approaching from behind us.
At the same time, Locke froze, his knees softening and shoulders dropping into the predatory stance of a hunting vampire.
Roman and I flanked him, our lips pulled back over our teeth.
I was so surprised by our hanger-on I almost lost my aggression, everything but the remnants of my mate’s cry for help blasted from my mind.
It was Cadogan Brand, amber-eyed and hissing, coated in dirt and blood.
My brother’s snarls vibrated through the air.
“I don’t understand you,” Locke snapped, his voice lowering into a guttural slur, but Cad hissed again, locking eyes with our vampire.
Locke stared back, still and silent.
What the fuck was happening?
He turned on Roman and my twin almost moved too late to save himself. He sprinted into the forest, the vampire’s teeth narrowly missing his neck.
I lunged for Cad, but he was too fast, and ran back into the darkness towards the mine.
Locke was chasing Roman towards the wall, and the need to save my twin and find my mate overcame my better sense. Cad’s death could wait.
Roman bolted toward the stand of fallen trees we used as a bridge, his paws breaking through the branches and leaving hot, pungent blood behind.
Not even the fresh smell was enough to cover what the breeze brought to our noses: Lu’s scent, the fresh, warm smell of woodsmoke and flowers, the salt of tears.
She was outside, right in the line of a mindless vampire.
I clawed up the fallen trees, panting and leaving my own blood behind, but I didn’t care. If Locke got to her first…
They ripped through the forest and I followed the spoor of Roman’s blood, my muscles screaming as I tore through the undergrowth like a cannonball. Then my paws sank into the soft give of a manicured lawn.
She was at the edge of the rose garden, tinged with moonlight. Both a wolf and a vampire raced for her, one drawn by blood and the other by desperation to shield her.
I was too late. I was too fucking late, too far behind them.
My paws shrieked but I didn’t stop. The vampire was almost there.
Lu’s alarm flashed through our bond as Locke struck, but there was no pain, no horror or hurt.
Roman skidded to a halt, ripping a deep groove in the lawn.
Lu smelled like copper and death and grief, wearing a stained white dress, tears pouring down her face. She strode onto the lawn and Roman and I surrounded her, standing between her and the vampire.
He held a woman in his arms, but it wasn’t Lu. I could’ve died of relief. It wasn’t my mate. That’s all that mattered.
Lu was quivering, the scent of her fear overwhelming the blood. “Don’t do this, Locke. It’s not you.”
Red hair caught the moonlight. Daphne Vega shivered in Locke’s arms, her mouth stretched open in a silent scream, but only a thready whisper leaked out. Her hands were frozen in claw-like shapes at her sides.
He snarled, running his tongue over the pounding heartbeat in her carotid artery.
“I have faith in you, remember? We all do. We know you don’t want to be feral.” She held her hands out, taking a slow step towards the vampire and Daphne. “Just let her go and you won’t have another death on your conscience.”
The irises of Locke’s eyes were eaten away to a sliver. He was almost fully in the thrall of bloodlust now.
“Please.” She drew in a quavering breath, almost choking as more tears flowed. “I need you, Elijah Locke. I need you more than ever right now. Let her go and come back to yourself. I’m your thrall. I’m the one you need, too.”
Lu held out her wrist, and I thanked god he’d released venom. The wounds were ragged but healed. She hadn’t been suffering.
“You marked me. I’m yours, and you’re mine.”
Locke’s eyes were focused on Lu, even though his fangs indented Daphne’s skin, threatening to break the flesh.
“You know my blood, Locke.” Somehow Bambi managed to keep her voice soothing, even though he was only moments from draining Daphne. “Come to me.”
She raised her wrist to her lips, and for a crazy moment I thought she was going to bite herself and turn this into a suicide mission, but she only kissed the ragged scars.
Locke shivered, his grip on Daphne loosening.
“See? A thrall-mark. You shouldn’t be feeding on other women, Locke. I know you’re not that kind of man.” A current of bitterness ran under her tone.
What fucking insanity had we missed?
She kissed the mark again and Locke raised his head. Two pink spots remained on Daphne’s neck and she trembled uncontrollably.
Kiss by kiss, Lu slowly managed to lure him into dropping Daphne.
The vampire crawled forward on all fours, collapsing into the grass with a gasp. “Lucrezia.” He panted, fingers curling and digging into the dirt. “I fear I’m going mad.”
“No, Locke. We’ll stop this.” Lucrezia ran her fingers over his scalp and naked shoulders with loving caresses. “The madness isn’t you; it’s the other vampires in your mind.”
Roman stalked around them and nudged Daphne’s shoulder with his nose.
The redhead scuttled backwards, red blotches high on her cheekbones and gasping for air, her eyes fixed on Locke as my twin guarded her.
Every sense told me the danger was past for now. I let the wolf slip away, pulled my familiar human face back on and scrambled to Bambi.
“What the hell happened?”
She looked up at me, the tears on her face stained silver by the moon, exhaustion and terror and a deep, consuming love written on every line of her face as she stroked Locke’s back.
“I’m one of them, Shane. I belong to Giltglass now.”
My emotions felt like they were underwater, unable to process what I was hearing.
“Is that why you’re crying?” I wiped a stream of tears from her cheek. “We love you no matter what, Lu. Covens can be changed. We’ll leave tonight-”
She let out a small, hiccupping sob. “We can’t go. I signed their grimoire and-” She made a face, but her mouth seemed frozen, neck muscles straining. Lu finally gave up with a grimace.
A geas. Someone
had laid a geas on her to prevent her from speaking about something, and I was sure that someone was our bitch of a Headmistress.
Fury erupted in my chest like a volcano. “I’ll kill her.”
Her gray eyes flashed up at me. “No. You can’t. I’m not crying about that. I… Dominic’s not with us anymore.” The sound of her teeth grinding was audible. Her lips pulled back in anger. “Bloom has him in the palm of her hand. But we’re not going anywhere, and we’re not killing Gilt. Yet.”
Lu’s smile sent a shiver down my spine, the smile of someone who was broken and put back together in jagged ways. Her misery and sharp resolve prickled through our bond.
“We’re taking everything they love first.”
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Read Kissed by Midnight, Book 3 of the Cimmerian Cage Trilogy!
When darkness descends, secrets come to light…
Just when I thought I could be happy in the walls of the Cage with my four dark protectors, everything crumbled beneath my feet. Three of them have marked me. Two are bound to my soul. And one has been lying from the day we met.
With Locke’s grip on sanity slowly unraveling, the Frosts taken over by their fiercely territorial natures, and Dominic’s unrelenting thirst for revenge, it’s all I can do to hold us together.
Because it’s time to take the fight to the darkness and burn out the corruption with wildfire. And if we make it out alive… Cimmerian will be ours.
Kissed by Midnight is the third and final novel in a steamy, medium-burn academy reverse harem romance trilogy. No choosing, no cheating- only unbridled passion and emotional angst in a haunted gothic mansion! Mature readers only.
