Chapter Sixteen
Nita stared up at the stars, fighting the nausea rolling through her stomach. She had returned to the Shaman’s cabin at nightfall to find him sitting around a fire and murmuring something in the old language.
He’d given her a foul-smelling concoction that had rendered her unconscious. She’d awoken some time later, nude and strapped to a table near the fire.
Voices surrounded her, chanting words that she couldn’t understand in her drugged state.
The Shaman’s face suddenly appeared in her line of sight. “I have petitioned the spirits on your behalf. Your fate is now in their hands, my child.”
“What is going to happen to me?” Nita slurred, blinking to clear her vision. Her heart felt as if it were going to explode at any moment.
“You must stay strong,” the Shaman told her, his voice fading into the background as the chanting grew louder. “For death will come for you, and in his mouth will be daggers of blood, the blood of our ancestors. Call out to them, that they may heap mercy upon your soul.”
A blade slid across her wrist, wrenching a hiss from her throat.
The chanting grew louder as the knife opened her other wrist as well.
Nita’s terrified gaze scanned the painted faces of the men and women dancing around her, their voices melding together to become one horrific hum.
She was going to die, of that she had no doubt.
Vlad’s face floated through her mind, hauntingly beautiful with his pale blue eyes and full lips.
How could she think of him at a time like this? she wondered, fighting the panic rising in her chest. He was the reason she’d been forced in this position to start with.
“Nita…” Vlad’s voice whispered in the dark, beckoning her.
“Vlad?” If Nita lived to be a thousand, she would never understand why she answered his call. Of course when it came to the Impaler, nothing she did made sense.
The burning in her wrists began to numb, but nothing compared to the feeling of cold now seeping into her body.
“Once you have bled out,” the Shaman informed her, leaning in close to her ear. “Your blood will be replenished by a warrior chosen to be your mate. If the spirits deem you worthy, you will bear the warrior many sons.”
Nita’s heart nearly stopped at the Shaman’s words. If she came out of this alive, she would be mated to the one they choose to give her blood.
She attempted to shake her head, her mouth opening to plead with the Shaman not to do this. But no sound came forth.
Her breathing began to slow, as did her heartbeat. Nita fought with everything she had, to no avail. With chills racking her nude frame, her body grew numb, and the darkness threatened to overtake her.
“Do not fight it,” the Shaman insisted. “It is the only way.”
Miles Castro suddenly appeared next to the Shaman. “We were destined to be mated from birth, my love.”
“No,” Nita managed to wheeze, tears welling up in her eyes. She would rather die than be mated to a man she didn’t love.
Miles reached up and stroked her hair. “Once my blood flows through your veins, you will be mine until death. I will give you strong sons and daughters, and our sons will lead the Kiana, long after we are gone.”
Nita stared up at Miles Castro’s face, attempting to convey with her eyes what her voice couldn’t say.
Miles softly kissed her lips before dragging his mouth to her ear. “You will stay alive, or your mother will pay for your sins.”
Nita began to fight in earnest. Castro had just threatened her mother’s life if Nita didn’t survive.
Miles clucked his tongue. “Do not resist, my mate. You will only make things harder for yourself. Save your strength for the battle yet to come.”
A scream abruptly rent the night, and then another. Blood sprayed across Nita’s face as she fought to hold her eyes open, straining to catch a glimpse of the hooded man now spinning through her midst, slicing throats and breaking necks with the speed of a funnel cloud.
Miles snarled, his face contorted with rage. He shifted into wolf form and disappeared into the night.
Bones crunched in the distance, and sounds of fighting could be heard over the pounding of Nita’s ever-weakening heart.
A wolf sailed over the table she lay on, his fur brushing against her skin, only to cry out as his head was ripped from his body.
Nita lay there helplessly as the robed figure slaughtered the handful of pack members participating in the ritual.
He stopped before the Shaman, gripping the old man’s neck and lifting him off his feet. “If she dies, I will come back to this place with an army, until every member of your pack is dead. Both young and old.”
There was no mistaking the voice beneath that cloak. Vlad had come for her.
Nita’s heavy eyelids drifted shut against her will. Her heartbeat slowed to a crawl and darkness overtook her.