Page 36 of Starlight Mates

He laughs at me like the weak little girl he thinks I am. “You were made to be mine, so we will get to that and have pretty little babies to lead the Vian. We’ll work out everything else now that you’re back at my side.”

A cold fury washes over me. I might not have been blessed with the best mate bonds in the world, but fuck am I going down like this. “I am not made to be yours. The Gods made a mistake binding us, but maybe they did it because they knew you were a monster and that I am one, too. They knew I could stop you.” I let my Nexus take over fully. I let her come out when I hid her before from him, and I shouldn’t have done back then. My hesitation got my parents killed. I won’t let it take anyone from me this time.

My Nexus fully takes over, shifting both my eyes to that pale grey colour, and grey fur starts sprouting all over my hands, my nails spreading into long black claws. A half shift so I can still speak. Severi pales as he watches me, stepping away to the crowd, who are getting their guns, swords and various other weapons out. Underneath my feet, all the ivy and moss that has grown through the cracked tiles of the warehouse drains of its colour, because whatever I touch drains of everything. Including its life. I can’t stop it when I shift. My Nexus will spread her power wide and leave the ones she wants to rip apart for fun.

Before I fully shift into my Nexus wolf, I look up at the stars once, and I pray to the Gods to keep my other mates alive if they come after me.

Chapter

Seventeen

FINNEGAN

“Ithink I finally found our mate,” I snarl into the phone. My Nexus is on a rampage and won’t be calmed until he has eyes on her. His obsession is like a teenager with a crush, and it’s getting on my nerves. Yes, she is fucking beautiful. Yes, we have this bond that makes me hard as a rock the moment I so much as walk past her, but she rejected us. Not only that, but she also ran away, and when we found her again, she had the nerve to act like we are the villains and not her. She is fucking lucky I’m coming after her at all.

Alek is on the other end of the phone with Onyx. Both of them checked out another possible sighting. Onyx puts me on speaker. “Where are you? Tell me and I’ll be there.”

Like I need him. “The warehouse, but don’t bother. There aren’t many Vian here, and it’s silent. They likely took her and left her when they realised she was powerless and not worth draining.”

Onyx’s clipped reply matches Alek’s growl. “Keep her safe for me, Finn. I want her safe.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I put the phone down and peek at the abandoned warehouse only a half an hour drive from Starlight.None of them should have let her go to that party in the first place when she was being hunted by Vian. I don’t know why they wanted her, but there are too many unanswered questions around Sun. For all I know, she could be on their side and spying on us. The city’s under lockdown, so at least it’s safe there until I’m back.

Onyx’s got things to worry about other than Sun. Something was happening with the Supreme Alpha and his daughter, who was missing from the attack. Her mate is gone, too. Rhodes was badly injured and was taken to the hospital. Hollis is losing his shit about his twin. Alek and Onyx need to find out what’s going on with our government, because that wasn’t the only bomb that was set off through the city, so that leaves me to focus on rescuing our mate. We all have our jobs, and the dozen texts I’m sent tell me no one is doing their job except for me right now.

They think with their hearts and not their brains as far as Sun is concerned. We all used to be one fucking messed up happy family until her perfect ass turned up and shook the boat. Alek said she was taken by one of them, some shit injected into her neck when he was attacked by a hundred odd Vian who knew how to slow him down. It was all planned. She was dragged away before he could get to her, and they literally vanished.

After a few minutes here, no guard or any Vian seems to run the perimeter, and I frown at the silence. I approach the warehouse with Nex guns in my hands, ready to shoot down any Vian in my path. I only stop when seeing a door slightly ajar and a river of blood pouring through the gap. “The fuck?”

I know my mate is alive. I can sense her alive and in here…so whose blood is this? I slide through the door and pause at the literal sea of fucking bodies everywhere. The Vian body parts are splattered on the walls, thrown around, all of them drained. In fact, everything is drained in here, from the colours of the walls to the moss on the tiles. There’s a tree with branches stretchedthrough the window, and now it’s grey and cracked, like the life has been sucked from it. Right in the middle, covered in blood, is a grey wolf the size of a car.

Sun.

She is pure grey and fierce, and magic is hovering in the air with a buzzing noise. Death. She is death. She shifts back, leaving her crouching in a pool of blood. I nearly fall to my knees and fucking bow like the mortal I am compared to her. My small, long-haired, gorgeous mate is covered head to toe in blood, but she has never looked more perfect. She’s slightly breathless, her eyes widening at the room, but she doesn’t scream or lose it like a normal person seeing a room of death and body parts. She holds a head in her hand, a literal fucking head, and throws it between us. She shrugs a slender shoulder. “They picked the wrong wolf to take.”

Blood rushes through my body to my cock. “Fuck, you’re perfect for me.”

She blinks in complete confusion and shock. Everything clicks together for me. I’ve been hunting her this whole time. She’s been the one going round the city, draining and killing. This is the same work as the person that killed the others. They’re all monsters, and they definitely deserved to die at her hand. They were lucky to have ever met her. If I knew what they were doing behind closed doors, I would have killed them myself so my mate didn’t have to bother. I’m really fucking impressed.

“You’re not horrified or scared of me?” she asks.

I walk through the blood and gore, right up to her. I fucked up so much, and I’m going to grovel until she accepts me. I sink my hands into her wet hair and kiss her, tasting the blood of our enemies in her mouth. I fucking love it. She freezes for a second before kissing me back, responsive as fuck. I want to do more to her. I want to strip her down in this warehouse and fuck her in the blood of all of our enemies. I really don’t care if some Godthinks I’m crazy or sinful for it. I only care about her. We can remake this world in blood if that’s what she wants it to look like. She’s my mate. I was an idiot to ever question that, and my Nexus was right. “Why did you run and reject us? The truth, Sun.”

“I’m a monster,” she whispers, tears making a clear line through the blood on her cheeks. “I’m a monster, Finn. My Nexus just kills, and she won’t stop. When I shift, I kill everything nearby. Everything from the flowers to humans. You’re not safe to be around me. No one is.”

Hearing those words, her explanation, a fucking roar slams into my chest. She thinks she’s a monster. We’ve been so cruel to her, all of us, and the whole time she’s been protecting us from her. “You are not a monster any more than we are. No more running. We face all of this together. Do you understand?”

“You can’t take me back to the city.” She touches my cheek. “I’ve always wanted you all, but I don’t want to kill. You should let me go. I’ll just run again to save you. I can deal with being alone.”

I smirk. “You’re mine, and anywhere you run, I’m going to be at your side from now on. I’m going to protect you; I promise you that.”

When the others learn the truth, they’ll want the same. Rhodes is already in love with her, and Onyx is just as obsessed, even if he doesn’t admit it. Alek, well, he will protect her, and I know that for certain. “Finn.” She whispers my name before passing out, probably using too much of her magic. I run my eyes over her body, looking for the injuries from the bomb but not finding any. If anything, she is flawless…and she should have broken bones or something from a house falling on her.

I pick her up into my arms, as she weighs practically nothing, and walk out through the spree of dead bodies to the outside. I put her into my car, strapping her in, before driving her back tothe city. I’m so deep in my thoughts, seeing the past in a whole new way, that I don’t bother answering my calls or anything before I park up at our house. I carry her inside and Onyx looks at us in shock. Some of the blood from her is on me, and she kind of does look dead in my arms. “She’s alive, and the blood isn’t hers. It’s a long story, but she is fucking amazing.”

“What the hell happened out there? I thought you hated her?” Alek asks, running his eyes over every inch of her for injuries he won’t find.

“I imagine he has found out the truth and lost his mind due to the bond.” Onyx’s father is waiting in the living room, and behind him is a row of Nexus guards. I turn to him, seeing the guns now facing me. I don’t have anything against Onyx’s father, but I never liked him, and now he is talking about my mate. He looks just like Onyx, only older and grey. “In your hands, you hold the murderer we’ve all been looking for. She killed the Supreme Alpha earlier on today, and then she set up that bomb as a way to try to escape.”

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