Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 114617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Afraid.
It was that very reason that vampires played dirty, and didn’t face earth and sun wolf communities head-on. Instead, the bastards employed their favorite weapon of choice and poisoned their water supply with wolfsbane. I’d never forget the day Father and I traveled to Lehanna, a small sun wolf town near Uluru, and found hundreds of corpses rotting in the dirt.
My father vomited on sight. I had nightmares for weeks. And why? As far as we knew, those wolves had nothing to do with the Sydney vampires who poisoned them. They killed them just because they felt like it.
“Stay away from him.”
I came to, pulling out of the horrible memory. One of many horrible memories that made up my childhood. Sometimes I felt as if there weren’t any good memories in my head anymore. They’d all been poisoned too.
I looked up at Nyx. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t bother with the big, brown, innocent eyes,” he snapped. “Stay away from that bastard, or he’ll regret it.”
My brows climbed my forehead. “Well, that’s a surprising turnaround.”
Nyx’s face crumpled, and it was still as handsome as ever. His long hair fell over us both—trapping us in a cloud of sweet citrus-and-cedar shampoo. He cut himself shaving that morning. I could tell because his wolf healing closed the cut so fast, it left a tiny pinprick of blood behind.
“I thought you all wanted our bond to erode to nothing. What would achieve that better than me staying close to Mason?” I tipped back, whispering against his lips. “Very, very close.”
Nyx’s eyes flashed. “Careful,” he hissed, lips peeling back from his teeth.
I mock pouted. “Why should I be careful? I don’t want to be careful. My wolf’s been aching for some mating for a year now. Maybe I want to give her and you what you both want,” I said softly, rubbing my mouth against his snarling one. “One roll in the sack and the bond between us is that much closer to snapping.”
“Daciana,” he growled, using my name for the first time since ever.
“Say it.” My warm breath rolled over his bottom lip. “Say you don’t want me to touch Mason... because you want me to touch you.”
“I... I...” Nyx swallowed hard. “All right. Maybe... Maybe I’ll say it if you say something for me.”
I pressed the tiniest kiss to his lips, my wolf purring as he groaned. “Anything.”
“Say... pinata.”
“Wha—”
Something clamped my ankle and lifted me heels over head out of my chair. Before I could blink, I shot up through the air and my feet slammed against the ceiling. Body dangling, I shrieked as my vision cleared on the two wooden manacles pinning me upside down.
Raucous laughter assaulted my ears, drowning out my screeching and demands to be put back down.
Nyx smirked at me, his wolf’s eyes burning with equal parts hate and lust. “Get down yourself, Volana. You can phase right through that wood. What’s stopping you?”
“Nyx!”
“Oooh, that’s right,” he crowed, snapping his fingers. “You’d have to hit the ground solid, or you’d go right through the floor and wake up in hell. And a fall from that height is going to break something.”
Damn these fucking high ceilings! Who the hell said a wolf academy needed to be in a castle!
“Party’s back on, guys,” Nyx shouted, high-fiving Badr, Orion, Edric, Ava, and all the hooting alphas. “And I brought the games.”
Long, thick pinata sticks appeared in every one of their hands. Who was I kidding? They weren’t pinata sticks. They were fucking bats. I couldn’t help it, my eyes bugged.
“She’ll phase, so aim for the feet,” Nyx went on. “Direct hits get a prize.”
“Nyx, stop,” Paxton warned.
“What kind of prize?” Ava asked, twirling her bat as she planted herself front and center.
I saw Nyx’s upside-down smile. “What would you like?”
“Strip-pinata. Lose an article of clothing for every direct hit.”
“Because you haven’t seen my fates naked enough times!” I screeched.
Badr, Nyx, Edric, and Orion laughed in my face.
“She sounds jealous,” Badr drawled. “Stripping it is.
“Go.”
“Stop!” Paxton jumped in front of them. “All of you, calm the fuck down. You’re not beating anyone—”
Badr punched him dead in the face. Paxton went down like Jenga, crumpling on the floor—out cold.
“I said go.”
That was all the warning I got before Ava smashed the bat into my shoulder, ripping out a scream that echoed through the halls of Corvin Academy.
Just like that, they were on me—pummeling every inch of my body, and delighting that I gave them a nice, varied target.
I had no choice. I wanted to phase, but I couldn’t because of my clothes. Moon wolves found a way to make our clothes phase with us decades ago, but those were special clothes made of unique, magic-kissed thread.
They were clothes I didn’t have because I stole my entire wardrobe.
The only moon clothes I had were in the backpack I stashed away in the woods on the day I killed Castor, then took off. Running with my entire wardrobe was never going to be possible, and getting more moon wolf clothes while hiding out among the mundanes—also impossible.