Born By Moonlight by Krista Street
Chapter 24
~ WYATT ~
Blood pounded through my ears, and hope so sharp I could taste it on my tongue cut through the pain knifing at my heart.
Avery was screaming and screaming, her body convulsing, her nerves electrifying, but she was breathing. She was breathing after she’d died. “Avery! Gods, Avery!”
But she fought me. Her eyes had locked closed, her face screwed up in a mask of pain and anguish. I tried to hold on to her, tried to help her through whatever magic the alignment had birthed inside her, but her clawing hands kept fighting me.
“Avery, open your eyes. My love! Open your eyes!”
And then . . .
Silence.
Nicholas and I fell back as the world around my mate became as still as the emptiness between realms. A vacuum of sound and energy filled the field where my mate lay unresponsive.
A brief jolt of inexistence stopped everything.
Then . . . the world began turning again, that brief sense of everything being off ended.
Good gods, what was that? I dragged in a breath then lunged toward Avery.
I didn’t breathe as my gaze glued to her chest, searching for a sign of life in my mate.
Her chest lifted and dipped.
Then it rose again.
But her face remained blank, her eyes closed as her dark lashes rested on her cheeks.
A sob of gratitude overwhelmed me. I cradled her to me, her body still limp and unconscious, but her skin was no longer ice. Fire licked her limbs, warming her body and heating my hands. Electric jolts followed, zapping and singeing the air around her, but she breathed.
“Avery?” I said softly, achingly.
Her body arched, bucking in my grip. She shrieked again, the sound sharp enough to slash through death, yet her eyes remained closed. Pain clouded her face. Her nose scrunched up, her mouth opening in a silent cry.
I snarled, my hands going to her shoulders, intent on stopping whatever consumed her, but her body convulsed again as Nicholas’s eyes widened even more.
“What’s happening to her?” I asked him desperately.
He shook his head, his face a mask of disbelief. “She’s not dead. How is she not dead? We saw her die.”
But as much as the realization that Avery now lived made my heart pound with hope, it was quickly doused in icy dread.
Something was happening to my mate. Something very, very wrong. “Avery—”
Her eyes flashed open.
Light the color of violets shone from her irises. Heat rippled from her, rising from her skin like a fever ravaging her body. And then the purple light in her eyes faded away, her irises once again brown flecked with gold.
“Avery?” I croaked.
She didn’t respond, but the heat rising from her continued even though her cheeks weren’t red, and sweat didn’t line her brow. Awareness flickered in her pupils, a rupture of something coming alive.
My lips parted, and I hesitantly reached for her again. “Little Flower?”
But the second my hand made contact with hers, she flinched away.
She blinked, and it felt as if an eon of time passed between us in a millisecond.
I shook my head as the strange sensation washed through me and then vanished. But when I faced her again, my muscles bunched.
Fear had sprouted in her eyes, and that turbulent, stormy swirling violet light, a visual cacophony of confusion and power, flashed in her eyes again.
“Avery?” I whispered.
“Who are you?” she snarled. “Don’t touch me!”
My head snapped back. “Avery? It’s me. My love, it’s me. Wyatt.”
But she retreated more, skittering back a few feet among the wildflowers like an animal cornered by a predator.
My brow furrowed, my chest heaving. It felt as though I was drowning. I could barely catch my breath, but I needed to go to her, soothe her, comfort her through whatever terrible magic had rendered her dead and then whole.
I reached for her again and placed my hand on her arm.
She bared her teeth, hissing.
My hand flew back, an electric shock zapping my palm as her eyes clouded with distrust. That violet light in her eyes darkened, swirling into a hurricane of power. “I said, don’t touch me!”
I inched back. My heart felt like a galloping beast in my chest. For the love of all the Gods and realms, what in the universe is happening?
Nicholas and I shared wild-eyed looks.
“Avery?” the vampire said soothingly. His pupils dilated, power strumming from his gaze as his compulsion flowed from him in silky threads. “We’re not going to hurt you. We’re just trying to help, but we need you to remain calm.”
My breath sucked in that he dared compel my mate, but Avery hissed at him, too, and a wave of power burst from her into the vampire.
Nicholas flew back, the force rendering him flat on the grass.
“Stay away from me!” she commanded.
Her words thundered across the field, carrying the strength of a thousand men, an army of power and magic, and that same sense of fractured time cut through me again, as if everything stopped and then joltingly restarted.
My heart skipped.
In the distance, the cheering crowd had abruptly become silent. Bewildered expressions flashed across their distant features.
I shook my head, trying to dispel the strange effects of whatever had just occurred.
When I finally felt like I could breathe, I raised my hands, trying to appear nonthreatening. “Avery, my love, please,” I begged. “Let me help you.”
But my quiet plea only made her hiss more. She backed up again as she abruptly created a magical dome around herself. It sprang from the earth, sprouting from nature as Avery wrapped her arms around her torso, that fearful look strumming through her eyes.
I rocked back on my haunches as the shimmering barrier formed a protective cocoon around my mate. My heart beat harder.
Something wasn’t right. Avery looked at us like she didn’t know us, like she’d never seen us before.
“Avery,” I said softly, hoping my words would penetrate whatever magic she’d created around herself. “Do you know where you are? Do you know who you are?” I kept my distance, wariness filling me as the crackling magic hissed and smoked around her slim form. I’d never seen magic like that, had never felt anything like that.
If she’d heard me, she didn’t let on.
Nicholas carefully inched closer to me, his eyes never leaving my mate. His expression darkened, his jaw clenching. “She doesn’t remember us. She’s probably confused. Maybe the alignment robbed her of her memories because of how traumatic it was.”
I swallowed, my mouth going dry as I stared at my mate who assessed us with a distrustful look as she wrapped her limbs around herself, as though attempting to shield her person.
But she was my mate. Mine to protect.
Yet as my gaze drifted down her neck, down the smooth column of pale flesh and satin skin, my stomach dropped when I settled on the area near her collarbone.
Nothing marked her. The crescent moon shape was gone.
And that was when I realized what’d happened. Our bond had been cut when she died.
Death severed the mate bond among all mated couples.
Avery was no longer my bonded mate, not unless I claimed her again.
My shoulders collapsed under the weight of that knowledge.
Now my mate looked at me as though I were a stranger, yet her lilac scent still carried to me, penetrating the shield that surrounded her. It was stronger now, sweeter too—as ripe as a freshly picked lilac branch and as potent as a field of lilac trees—but it still smelled like her.
My mate was still there. She was still the Avery I knew and loved, yet now, she was so much stronger, and whatever had happened to her had destroyed her memories of who I was, but most importantly, of who she was.
A ragged breath shook my chest. I tilted my head, studying her as I sensed that something else had changed in her too. I could see it in the glint of her eye, the wary lilt of her stare.
She not only didn’t know me—didn’t know us—but whatever magic had been born inside her was too powerful for me to overcome. I couldn’t rescue her through her protective shield, not unless she let me.
“Well, this is certainly unexpected,” Nicholas stated. “How the hell do we get to her?”
My brow furrowed, my mouth tightening into a thin line. “I don’t know, but I do know we can’t unless she lets us.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
My nostrils flared. “She will, eventually she will. She’s still my mate. She’s still mine to cherish and protect. She just doesn’t remember.”
∞ ∞ ∞
Avery and Wyatt’s story continues in:
Hunted by Firelight, book three in the Supernatural Institute series.
Download now on Amazon!
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Hi there! Krista Street here. Thank you so much for reading Born by Moonlight! I absolutely loved writing this book and hope you enjoyed it. There’s so much to come for Avery and Wyatt, so I hope you enjoy the next installment!
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Krista Street
