The Crystal Moon Curse: Book 5: TAKEN

Chapter 9. Awake

QUILLA

A foreign but not unpleasant pulsing, coursing through my body, prickling under my skin, rouses me from the strange, unsettling dream I was having.

A dream where a beast of a male makes my body burn. Where his lips on my neck, his canines in my flesh singe me to my core. Pain and pleasure so real make me wake with a gasp to find sweat on my skin, throbbing between my thighs and shock as I clutch my neck and realize from the tingling beneath my fingertips that it was no dream at all.

“Holy fuck!” I sit up with a jolt looking around the strange room. My heart leaps in my chest with panic.

“Quilla, it’s okay, you are safe.”

I swivel my head to see the she-wolf from the tavern getting up off a chair and walking toward the bed I am on.

Neo. My mother.

Her eyes are filled with concern and caution as she approaches me. I look around the room which is small and tidy and scents of wolves.

“Where am I? What happened? That fucking lycan, he bit me!” confusion reigns as my thoughts try to reconcile the last thing I remember happening to me with where I am now.

“You are safe Quilla,” Neo repeats moving toward me as I swing my legs over the edge.

“We are at Arden Valley pack, not far from Karruk Clan lands. There is no easy way to tell you this. The lycan you speak of is your mate. You followed his scent and found him in the woods. He marked you and you passed out from the marking serum. He brought you here.”

I gasp, grabbing my neck and again feeling the tingling beneath my fingertips when I touch my skin, feeling a raised pattern underneath. I glance at Genesis, noting the mate mark on her nape, anger beginning to rise in me as I realize fully what has happened.

My mate marked me. Without my permission.

“He didn’t even ask me. I don’t even know his name. How could he just do that?” I may not know much about wolves but I know enough about mating that consent is required for a mark to be made on a mate. Shock reverberates through me at the insult to such a basic requirement of the mating process. He damn well assaulted me.

“Your mate’s name is Viggo. I’m so sorry Quilla. I will not even attempt to make excuses for what he did. He was wrong. Unfortunately what is done cannot be undone, but I have demanded that he release you into my care until you make a decision about your mate bond.” There is anger in her voice but it has nothing on the rage boiling in my blood.

I rise from the bed and stand before her. We are almost the same height, she being perhaps half an inch shorter than me.

“Where is he?” I snap between gritted teeth.

“Downstairs,” she responds flatly.

I don’t wait for anything further, pushing past her, opening the door, and throwing my nose in the air.

I have to hold back a groan as I catch his heady, smoky scent in the hallway which sends Kyra into a whimpering mess of hormones. The only thing keeping me from swooning at the delicious intoxication of his scent is the pure outrage boiling in my blood.

Following his scent with ease, I trek through the unfamiliar house with Neo behind me. Down two flights of stairs and straight into a spacious lounge, my senses narrow in on the three males standing in a semi-circle.

Their conversation halts as I storm in barely taking in my father Sebastian and the other male I don’t recognize. I focus on the tallest of them, the largest male in the room towering a full head over every other male.