Twice Tempted: Between Two Alphas (Mia and Cameron)

Chapter 89

Chapter Eighty-Nine

Nala runs.

She pours on the speed and we race along the shoreline of the lake, toward the mountains that were in

my vision. I’ve been here before as a child. Healmsworth lands butt up against this vast stretch of

preserve. The memories are vague.

Time seems to ripple or maybe it’s just my consciousness.

The sights and smells are similar to my vision but not quite the same. The mountain is exact. The river.

The position of the stars overhead.

I run so fast my heart feels like it will burst out of my chest.

Please be safe.

Please be safe.

I round the bend and cut into the woods.

I smell it now. The familiar scents.

Death and old earth.

Blood.

Wolves.

I reach the clearing in the woods where this swatch of trees opens up in the valley. I stop so short my

hindquarters scrape the ground.

It’s carnage.

The wraiths are dead, spewn across the grassland like lifeless soldiers. The ones from my vision. Their

hearts ruptured exactly as I foresaw.

But behind them, many more wraiths battle.

I see Jace and Liam, Michail and Declan.

Cameron is in his lycan form. He fights with Cassian. They slash and bite, Cassian’s beauty is peeled

back to a feral creature, one more monster than man.

The brunette that had been spared…she rises.

Blood drips from her mouth. She approaches Cam’s blindside.

I don’t think.

I run and tackle her. My front claws dig into her shoulders and I hold her down. I snap and snarl at her

face, letting her know I could kill her–I will kill her. She goes for my eyes with nails as sharp as talons.

I shift back partially and head butt her.

The moment of shock helps me to restrain her.

When I glance at Cameron, he has Cassian pinned.

Cameron is winning.

He’s not in danger.

Cassian’s bleeding from the self-induced cut on his throat and from the many gashes and bites from

Cameron’s massive wolf.

I watch as Cam sinks his claws into Cassian’s chest.

There’s a brutal crack as the sternum and ribs split.

“No!” I shout. I don’t know why. The instinct boils up and I can’t contain it.

Cam’s attention is divided. He glances at me and it is all the distraction the vampire needs. Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Cassian rolls with Cam and slices his clawed fingers across Cam’s throat.

“Nooo!” I scream again.

Oh my gods, what have I done!?

Cam gurgles. He growls and brings up his hind legs, eviscerating the vampire before tossing him aside.

Both males lie on the ground. Bleeding out.

I hurl this changeling vampire aside and rush to Cam.

I slap my hand over his neck. “I’m here. You’re okay.” He’s not okay, not remotely. “Shift. Come on,

Conn. Push all the way through. We need to seal these arteries.”

Cam’s eyes are glowing gold and I know he wants to, but he’s losing so much blood.

“Now!” I demand. I am his Luna and Cameron is tied to me.

My body is weakening. My strength drains in time to the blood leaving Cam’s body.

We’re mated.

If Cam dies… there is a very good chance I will too.

“Cam, I need you. Your kids need you. This pack. Fight! Fight now, Cam. For me!”

I press my hand to his chest. The link we share, as mates, as whatever connection my bloodline allows

to go deeper, mind to mind. I connect us.

And through that link, I pour my energy.

My love.

My life.

“Please Cameron! Fight!”

His heart slows. I hold my breath, waiting for each beat, thinking it might be the last.

“No. No!”

I open my mind–my heart.

It’s like sinking beneath the water.

Darkness, flashes of light.

Nothing and everything all at once.

There’s a thump. Then another.

Cam draws a ragged breath and then his body gradually morphs. One second his skin is cold and

bloody beneath my hands, the next, I hug Conn’s huge head and smooth his fur.

There’s a hiss from not far beside me.

I gently lower Cam’s head to the ground and let my own lycan form break free.

Cassian’s body is mending. The ribs and muscles knitting together.

I kneel and thrust my hand into his chest.The muscles squeeze my wrist like a vice and the bones

splinter through my hand as his body tries to heel.

I sink my claws into this creature’s heart.

“I spared you,” I tell him.

I nearly cost my own mate his life in doing so.

“Call them off,” I tell him.

He smirks, then nods. His eyes flicker. One by one the remaining wraiths collapse into some kind of

suspended state.

It’s a truce… for now.

“What do you want, child?” Cassian asks.

Child… We look to be only a few years apart. But I know that means nothing. He’s ancient.

I ease my hand away from his heart.

His blood is so dark a red it’s nearly black. It drips from my fingertips.

The metallic scent is strong in the air.

Child…

The word sparks a thought that begins to take shape. Details coalesce around me.

The bloodline of Seers.

Save a life. Or take a life.

Even Cassian’s words in my vision: Blood is life.

“We have a child,” I tell this vampire.

Cameron growls. I ignore him.

“She’s ill and has been tainted by magic.”

I glance between this vampire and Cam. Around us, the fighting has stopped. The pack wolves close

in, watching and waiting. The wraiths are dead or subdued.

Only Cassian rises and his one changeling.

Cassian smiles slowly…