The Vampire’s Hybrid / Book Four ✔️

Shock.

The feeling that everyone feels and yet is something that feels foreign when it happens. It’s unexplainable, unimaginable, and here she was, wrapped up in Prince Lucas’s arms with her lips against him. He was so desperate, so hungry, that she felt herself moan at the new sensation.

Shane never felt like this. Shane never felt like home, but with Lucas, he felt like home to her in those mare seconds that her mind was fogged with only the thoughts of their connection.

And what a connection it was. It was explosive, it was gut-wrenching and it was pure undying love. Feelings that she had never felt before and as she felt herself sink into his touch, his hold, she felt herself gasp back to reality and push him away.

Both of their eyes widened once they parted, his hands lingering in the air after being on her face. Ava could still feel the sparks, she could still feel his touch and as she stared into his dark eyes, she knew he could feel it too.

It was all too much, everything was too much for her as she took a step back and then another. Her heart raced in her throat before she bolted. The faint distant call of her brother, Cole and now, Lucas followed behind her but she blocked them out. All she could feel was the shame of what she had done, the judgemental stares of her pack members and the Midnight Pack. She could feel the rage of her Alpha and she knew at any moment, she would be the next to die tonight if she didn’t run now.

Ava didn’t know where she was going, she allowed her instincts to take control as she picked up her skirt and tried to run as fast as she could. She should have shifted, she wanted to shift but she knew that she would eventually be caught and she wasn’t planning on being dragged back to the pack, naked.

Magic was against pack rules. Magic was forbidden and that was why her parents were no longer alive today. Her mother was a witch, living in the middle of the woods and helped look after the children of the Fae. Her life was peaceful until one day, an injured wolf appeared and it was her job to nurse him back to health. They learnt then that they were mates and that their love was forbidden but they still decided to love and cherish each other in secret. Then, Eugene came and made things… complicated. He possessed no power like their mother so their father took Eugene to the pack and stated that he was an abandoned child that was left to die. Their Alpha believed the lie and allowed Eugene to be raised as a wolf in the pack. Four years later, Ava was born and only stirred more trouble as she possessed strong abilities that neither her mother nor her father could comprehend. The Fae tried to cover it up, they tried to help but when their cabin was ambushed and her mother was slaughtered in front of Ava, things changed. Her father was hanged and Eugene was left to care for Ava in hopes that she would keep her abilities secret but they both knew that it wouldn’t last.

Like their parents, they both had dreams of grandeur and so, that led to now. Twenty years after their deaths and twenty years since Eugene became an unwilling father. Twenty years of hiding and pretending that she couldn’t possess such evil just for it to be destroyed in seconds.

Ava was lucky that day, they assumed she was another lost child like Eugene but sometimes, she wondered if her Alpha knew. She was never allowed to ask nor was she ever allowed to speak to him about it. She wasn’t allowed to know his name but there were some days that she would catch him watching her and had a deep gut feeling that he knew and was purposely keeping her around for something that she didn’t want to know about.

Her lungs burned once she cleared the opening of the trees and found herself back around the riverside which caused her life to alter. There sat the old cabin that was crumbling away and for a moment, she almost ran into it but she knew better and decided to turn her attention towards the water. If she could just make it across then she would have four hours’ worth of walking before she was on Fae lands and hopefully, she doesn’t run into a mutant or two along the way. Ava has never faced one, she has only heard of stories since the shift but she learnt one crucial thing and that was, they were not something to mess with.

She balled her dress up around her knees and she started to make her way across the river. This river was deep and something that inevitably ended in death if she messed up but right now, her death by drowning was the least of her concerns.

“AVA!”

She jumped, her head turning behind her to see Lucas running towards her. She didn’t know how he had caught up with her so quickly, maybe it was vampire speed but she wished that he had just stayed where she left him. It was easier if he didn’t see what she was and what he was now connected to.

“Ava, wait!”

She felt her voice get lodged into her throat as she tried to move faster but her foot got caught on a stone and she tripped. Her chest and face now soaked as he came up beside her and tried to help her stand. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to kiss you. I just…I was so surprised and I knew…there is no excuse.”

His rambling made her heart stutter in her chest. He didn’t know, he didn’t know that she was about to be killed for being a witch and as she heard the oncoming rumbling of the warriors and her Alpha, she wondered how much she could say now to make him reject her.

“Please, Ava. Say something. Anything!”

She closed her eyes, allowing the water to flow around her legs as she felt herself give up. He wasn’t going to let her cross and now that she was about to be hanged, she had nowhere to run. “I’m not running from you.”

Ava heard his breath hitch while the water rushed past them. “Everything is okay, they will understand.”

She shook her head. “Witchcraft is forbidden. Anyone who possesses it is executed on the spot and because….because I just killed Beta Shane from the Midnight Pack, both packs are going to tear me to shreds.”

His silence was all she needed to hear as she looked up and met his gaze. Ava didn’t want to do it, she felt the pain inside her chest as she opened her mouth and went to say the one line she never wanted to say but Lucas seemed to have known and cut her off. “Don’t! Don’t you dear reject me!”

She felt her lip tremble as she looked away and stared down at the water, her tears falling into the flowing current and she wished then that she had made it to the deepest part and was floating with them. “I have no other choice!”

“Yes, you do!” He stated with a slight growl before she felt him take hold of her forearm and pull her up to stand. He stood over her so protectively that she felt herself shiver and take in his touch. “I will never let them take you. I just found you, I have been wanting to find you for so fucking long and while I had to watch everyone else around me find their happiness, I was left on my own and I had to pretend that everything was okay but nothing was okay. All I have ever wanted was you, you are my purpose and no fucking rule is ever going to stop me from finally having you.”

She could barely see him through her tears as he cupped her face again and spoke. Every word was from the heart and he made sure that she could feel his pain, his need to finally have a mate to call his own and she understood. She understood his need because she wanted the same thing. “They will kill me.”

“I won’t let them.”

The swirling anger in his soft brown eyes made her believe him. He would burn this whole island down if that meant that she would still be alive and unharmed. The pounding stopped, and the gaze of her pack members broke her away from Lucas’s eyes and into the eyes of her Alpha. Warriors surrounded them and as she felt Lucas push her to stand behind him, she knew then that this war was going to be a hell of a lot more complicated than she thought.

He wasn’t going to let her die and from the two approaching men who stood beside him to protect her as well, they weren’t going to let her die either.