Chapter 68 68
LOIS
“He’s my mate,” I told Ezequiel, walking toward him.
“What did he do to you?” he asked, gripping my face. “What did that damn bloodsucker do to you?! I’m going to kill him!” he roared, trying to go for Aidan.
“Ezequiel! Please, do you really think this is the moment to fight? They have Emmanuel! Aidan is not the enemy,” I said, trying to calm him.
“He is the enemy if he tries to keep you,” he warned—and then he kissed me.
It was a hard kiss, claiming territory. I knew he was looking at Aidan while he kissed me. I knew that kiss wasn’t about affection. It was a message. A threat.
It was him saying, She’s mine. Not yours.
I pulled back from his lips and hit his shoulders, furious because I understood exactly why he’d done it.
“This isn’t a game!” I snapped. I hadn’t even had time to feel what it meant to have him back—after all this time separated, after everything. I hadn’t even had time to feel the relief of seeing him again, of knowing that what I felt was mutual, of realizing how deeply this bond with him mattered to me.
I’d missed him.
I’d needed him.
And now he was here again, and I couldn’t even stop to breathe and appreciate it.
He had marked me…
It hadn’t even taken him a second. I was his, and he was mine again.
I wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight as he let out a low growl in Aidan’s direction.
“We have to get out of here,” he whispered in my ear.
I stepped back, watching Aidan put the collar back on, his appearance shifting sharply. I started walking toward him, but Ezequiel grabbed my hips and yanked me against his body.
“If you get close to him, I’ll tear him apart, Lois,” he warned, his voice dark and threatening.
I closed my eyes, trying to sort through Aidan’s thoughts in my mind—but I couldn’t. They didn’t flow the way Emmanuel’s or Ezequiel’s did. With him, everything was noise. Scattered. Frantic.
Not clear at all.
More than thoughts… it was sensations. Images. Fragments.
Especially sensations.
I exhaled shakily as I felt Ezequiel trying to pull my focus back to him. I resisted, letting everything collide inside me—until I heard both men let out a raw, sharp cry.
Ezequiel let go of me. My eyes were still closed, but I knew both of them had fallen to the ground when everything collided.
It was like before—messy, overwhelming, disorienting.
“Get him out of my head!” Aidan shouted. “Get him out of my head!” he yelled again.
Ezequiel writhed on the floor but didn’t make a sound, didn’t complain—but I felt it. I felt exactly what hurt, exactly how hard it was to have Aidan inside his mind.
I opened my eyes—and both of them went quiet.
It was hard—mixing all of it together like that—so hard it took everything in me to control.
Different bonds that didn’t run on the same channel.
“If you fight again… I’ll do it again,” I said firmly, staring at each of them in turn. “All of that is inside my head. You can’t last five seconds in there, but all of it—all of it—is inside me! And it gets worse if you don’t stop fighting. Do you think it’s easy to handle?! Well, now you’ve seen it’s not! I want you to shut up and calm down. Because we need to leave this place and plan how we’re going to get Emmanuel back.”
“He’s not coming back with us, Lois,” Ezequiel said.
“Aidan isn’t going anywhere. Not without us. They know there was a vampire here—they’ll start looking for him soon. They can’t know it’s him, Ezequiel. Aidan stays with us now. He exposed himself as a vampire just to save me,” I said.
Ezequiel looked ready to argue, but I shook my head sharply for him to stop.
“This might all be a mistake. Maybe it’s temporary. I drank from him, he drank from me…” I said.
“You drank from him?! He gave you his blood?! How could you let him drink from you?” he demanded, outraged.
“I was dying! The only reason I’m standing right now is because of Aidan’s blood,” I explained. “Which is also why his life is in danger now.”
“And why did he drink from you?!” Ezequiel shot back.
That part… I kept to myself. I didn’t know how to explain it, or maybe I did—but Ezequiel wouldn’t like it, and I didn’t need more tension between them.
“Ezequiel, where can we go?” I asked.
He ran both hands through his hair, pushing it off his face.
“Emmanuel gave me instructions,” he said. “We have to leave now.”
Ezequiel moved decisively, though he still watched Aidan with distrust. The path ahead wasn’t going to be easy. Our alliance was fragile at best. But circumstances forced us to trust each other.
“Come on, Lois,” Ezequiel said, taking my hand and pulling me with him.
Aidan stood and walked behind us. I could feel him—his presence, his inner struggle, his effort to keep control. My connection with him was new and powerful, but confusing and overwhelming at the same time.
“Don’t look at her, don’t go near her, don’t touch her. That’s your warning,” Ezequiel said to Aidan.
Aidan stayed silent—completely silent.
Everything was happening in his head, and he was keeping it to himself.
For Aidan, this was too much.
He wasn’t a wolf. He had no idea how these bonds worked or how everything intertwined.
His mind had to be absolute chaos.
If I felt confused and overwhelmed…
I could only imagine what he was going through.