Page 4 of Starlight Mates

It’s nearly sunrise by the time we turn onto an abandoned road, with a broken sign outside withcampwritten in Spanish on it. I sense the Nexus souls here immediately, like they are each playing their own drums, and I can feel the beat. Themeeting spot is in the middle of the forest, and it once must have been a children’s camp, but now it’s full of rickety buildings, broken parks and deserted boats pulled up on the edge of the lake. A few cars are pulled up with their lights on, shining on a group by the boats.

June and Mac climb out first, and I pull my hood tightly around me, tucking my hair in underneath so it can’t be seen, before getting out after Harry. Harry stays at my side as we head over, where there is a group of ten. Ten, that’s all that’s left.

Most of them are kids, but Beta Samuel is alive. Shame. He is a prick I’ve avoided for years. I’ve watched him from the shadows, and I know he isn’t a good man. He regularly cheats on his Nexus, which is a disgusting thing to do when your Nexus can feel you getting off with someone else once you’re bonded.

He comes over, looking between us and pushing Harry to the side. “Who is this? Did you bring a human with you?”

The disgust in his voice lingers as Mac tries to get in front of me, but it’s too late. A heavy wind blows my hood off, my hair falling out around my hoodie as I come face to face with the beta. His mouth parts as he stares at me, and I know he is perfectly aware of who I am. Shit. “Pretend you didn’t see me…please.”

He grabs my hand and before I can say a word, his power washes over me like a drug. Literally like a drug spreading across my body. Even my monster doesn’t get time to protect me because it is just as shocked. I slump into his waiting arms, hearing Mac and Harry shouting at Beta Samuel in my defence.

“This is Gwenieve Autumn, you fucking fool!” Beta Samuel snarls. “Everyone in the world has been looking for her! Do you know what you found? Do you know who her Nexus are?”

Beta Samuel doesn’t know I lived with Mac. Good. They might be safe. I fight the darkness pressing into my mind, pulling me under like a strong current in the sea. Please, this can’t be happening. I have to fight. I can’t be taken to them.I can’t let the monster have them. Please, please… “We’ll be allowed in the capital if we take her in. We will get the money and protection. She is a fucking golden ticket.”

Darkness sweeps me under, with one thought lingering in my head. I’m a ticket to hell, perhaps, because when they take me to the capital…they are risking my monster destroying everything.

Chapter

Two

Idon’t recognise the room I’m in. I’m lying in a small double four-poster bed, and I pat my body, noting that I’m still in the same clothes as before and uninjured. That fucking beta. I can’t believe I didn’t know about his powers or the fact he might know me. I knew he travelled, and that should have made me question going near him. I should have jumped out of the car before getting to the others. It was a stupid mistake, and now look where it has landed me. My eyes flash quickly around the small room. The bed is the focal point, and its white sheets are spotless and riddled with ridiculously fluffy cushions. There are two doors, and one has to be the way out.

I know it won’t be that simple, and my head spins as I rush off the bed and pull the nearest door open to find a small bathroom. The other one is locked. I grab the handle, pulling on it with all my strength, but it doesn’t budge an inch. My heart races as I pace in front of the door. How long have I been asleep? Where am I?

My Nexus is napping, still drugged up, and that’s the only good thing about this situation. Still, I feel it fighting to wake, and I know exactly why, even if I prefer living in denial. My Nexus perks up like a dog sensing a new treat, stretching andpurring in my chest. It doesn’t want to come out to cause chaos, for once, but because it senses something far worse.

I feel them too.

Our Nexus mates…they’re nearby.All of them.Nexus feel kind of like a drum that only other Nexus can hear, but it’s not like that with them. It’s like someone is screaming inside a tornado in my chest.Smack smack smack.One of them is closer than the others. I feel him, right before I hear stairs creaking and then heavy footsteps.

I rush to the other side of the room, rubbing my wrists. I don’t need to look to know two runes are painted on me. This power is legendary. Still, I look. The runes are pretty, the black stark against my tanned skin. The letterLbut more of a symbol than the actual letter, with flowers curled all around it. Roses, I think.

Where’s my bag? Fuck. It’s got my Nex dagger, the completely irreplaceable family heirloom from my father’s side that I’m bonded to. Nex daggers are random weapons that have their own magic when they are blessed by a Nexus priest in a ceremony, and I got lucky that I felt a calling to one in my father’s collection. The only other defence I have is my wolf, and it is definitely not coming out here when one of my mates is nearby. She will kill him. Or fuck him. Maybe both, and I’m not on board with that.

The rest of the room is plain. There is literally nothing else in here, no cabinets, nothing other than the wood floors and plain beige walls that only make me feel more trapped. I run to the bathroom, pull open the cabinets, finding nothing in there either except for a bottle of shampoo and toilet paper. I grab the shampoo bottle. It might be my only defence, and I flick the lid off just as I hear the door lock click.

I step back into the room just as a huge man walks in, shutting it behind him and leaning on the door. He’s tall,gorgeous, and he’s my Nexus mate. At least one of them. My Nexus groans in my chest, feeling more awake with every second that passes. My blood runs cold as I meet his eyes though. Eyes that are pure black. There’s not an ounce of colour in them. Everything from the pupils to the iris is solid black, but at least they match his hair, which is dark, long, and wavy around his forehead, curling round his ears. He wears casual but expensive clothes, just a black shirt and ridiculously tight sweatpants that only reveal how thick he is everywhere. Damn, those are nice thighs.

My monster wants to sit on them. I push it down—its horny thoughts, too. We don’t have a bond with them. We rejected them and they hate us.How could they not?

The way this one is glaring at me makes my heart shatter, though. “You’re shorter than we were told.”

I tighten my hand on the shampoo bottle behind my back. I can’t make my mouth work. I can’t form any kind of reply, so I shrug a shoulder.

His eyes swirl with darkness and his body tenses. “Nothing? That’s all you have to say to me. You’ve been gone five years! You rejected the bond!” When I still don’t talk, he shakes his head. “Are you really heartless enough to not even ask my name?”

“I don’t care.” I keep my voice flat as I lie. I care. I want to know his name. I want to know everything, but the closer we get, the more dangerous it is.

He doesn’t bother to hide the disgust lingering in his hostile tone. “That’s what you come out with? You don’t care?” His eyes flick to the wall, like he can’t stand to even look at me anymore. “Well, while you’ve been sunning it up in Spain and doing whatever the fuck you wanted, the rest of us here have been looking for you. Where the fuck have you been? Where are your parents, because they are listed as enemies to?—”

“Dead,” I snap, interrupting his rant.

There’s no sympathy in his eyes. “Good. They took you from us and deserved death.”

He is so cold, so empty, and I hate him. Gods, I hate him. “They didn’t take me from you! I’m not your property just because the Gods bound our souls together. I had every right to reject the bonds, and I did, and I left. How dare you say it’s good they’re dead?”

He watches me closely and smirks. He wanted a reaction, anything other than my cold attitude, and he got it. This one is dangerous. “It’s never good that a Nexus is dead, but I will never show grief for those who took you from us. Anyone that is in the middle of us is already dead.” He walks into the room, and I glance at the door, taking a step towards it. “Don’t you fucking try it, Gwen.”

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