Page 59 of Moon Kissed

“There’s more beer in the kitchen and we can get more speakers from our rooms. You.” He gestured to Dre. “Summon up some boards to cover the windows. I’ll get the music. The fish will get the beer.”

Paxton roared up. “I’m not—!”

“You.” Mason pointed right at Nia. “Come on. You’re getting the beer.”

Nia blinked at him. “Um, actually, I’m not. I want no part in this. I’m doing my homework and minding my—”

“Get the beer!”

Nia toppled her chair jumping to her feet. She bolted out the door so fast, she blew my notebook off my desk. Her wolf charged off to do the alpha’s bidding.

Mason loped off after her while Dre’s wood power fashioned wooden planks over the busted windows, and wooden stakes to hold them in place. Believe it or not, earth wolves were the most dangerous enemy against the vampires. Well, them and sun wolves. Between summoning scorching sunlight to turn them to dust, or stakes to drive through their dead hearts—sun and earth wolves made vampires feel something most of them hadn’t felt in centuries—

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,veryclose.”

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 sinceever.

“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 theair 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.”

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