Prologue
“You live your whole life being told that one day you will meet the one that was made specifically for you. You live with this hope inside of you even as the darkness grows daily. To combat the darkness, you continually remind yourself there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But then you reach the end of the tunnel, and instead of seeing the light, you hit a brick wall. Not only do you hit the wall, but you slam into it with the force of a dump truck.” ~Finn
“What do you look like?” Lizzy asked the voice in her mind. She rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder, trying to stretch her neck. Lizzy had grown stiff sitting on the cold linoleum floor. Her captor hadn’t even bothered to lock her in a furnished room. She leaned with her back and head against the wall, trying to find a position that, if not comfortable, didn’t cause her muscles to ache. At some point, she had stopped counting the days. Vampires came and went, bringing food and escorting her to the bathroom. Time had little meaning when nothing changed, and no one would give her any information as to how long or why she was being held prisoner.
The worst part was she had come willingly. Looking back, she cursed herself for how stupid she had been, how easily she’d been manipulated. Now she knew the truth. Well, she knew some of the truth. The problem was the truth was too unbelievable to believe. Vampires, werewolves, hybrids, and true mates? Strange men speaking into her mind. I am so confused. Lizzy didn’t know what to believe.
“Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.” Finn’s voice intruded on her inner ramblings. Lizzy had forgotten she’d even asked him a question. Since she had regained consciousness, Lizzy’s thoughts were jumping all over the place.
“Seems like it,” she said. “But who knows how long I would have laid there on the gurney in that catatonic state if you hadn’t come along?”
What was happening to Lizzy was almost too strange to describe. Apparently, Finn, who claimed to be her true mate, was somehow bonded to her. And he had used that bond to break into her mind. Since he’d done so, Cain had been unable to put her back to sleep. No matter how many drugs his goofy scientist boy tried to put into her, Lizzy’s body fought off their effects. Finn told her he was using the mate bond to give her some of his strength. Lizzy couldn’t begin to understand how it worked, but this whole mate-bond thing was proving to be quite useful. Cain was pissed about it, which was the most advantageous benefit, and the memory of the vampire’s frustrated cursings caused her to smile.
“Has he come to see you again?” Finn’s voice was all growly. The sound in her mind made Lizzy smile, though after Cain’s first visit, Lizzy had been forced to figure out a way to block the wolf from her thoughts. As soon as Cain had entered her room, Finn had gone into a tizzy of epic proportions. Lizzy had found the tirade charming but also distracting. She hadn’t been able to concentrate with Finn screaming obscenities at the vampire, especially when only she could hear them. Maybe she shouldn’t get a kick out of the fact that this man she’d never met was so protective and jealous of her. But hey, what girl doesn’t want a man to be jealous of her? And not jealous as in “I own your body, and only I’m allowed to sell it” sort of way. But jealous in an “I want to protect you with my dying breath, and anyone who gets in the way of me doing that will die” sort of way. Maybe jealousy wasn’t exactly the best way to describe it. She lifted her hand and tapped her chin.
“Possessive, protective, and yes”—Finn chuckled—“maybe a little jealous.”
“A little?”
“He’s gotten to lay eyes on you more than once. And you were asleep when I saw you. So, I guess it is more than a little.”
“Hmm.” She nodded. “Well, I haven’t gotten to lay eyes on you even once. So, I’ll ask you again. What do you look like?”
Lizzy could feel Finn’s irritation at the question, but she didn’t understand it. Instead of pushing for an answer, she simply waited. A few minutes passed, and then the image of a man suddenly filled her mind—an attractive man. “Whoa.” Her brow rose even as she kept her eyes closed and focused on the image he was projecting into her mind. His hair was dark auburn, and he was rocking that messy but sexy look. His eyes were dark and rimmed in black, making him appear as if he was wearing eyeliner. Finn had a straight nose and an auburn beard and mustache that he wore close to his face, allowing her to see a strong jaw and thin lips. All in all, he was hot.
“It’s the last picture I saw of myself, that’s probably better than trying to describe myself to you.”
“Uh-huh.” She studied the image. Finn was standing beside a truck. He was muscular and tall but not massively large as she imagined werewolves to be courtesy of television and movies.
“I’m six feet. Not that tall among my kind.”
“Okay, ‘not that tall.’ I’m a foot shorter. Nice to meet you,” she said dryly. “You’ve kind of got a rocker vibe going on. Though the auburn hair wasn’t what I pictured, at least not from your voice. I was thinking burly lumberjack, and I pictured you a little older. The auburn hair makes me think of a penny. Not like an old rustic penny, but instead you’re more of a semi-new, still a little shiny penny.” What the hell was she going on about? A penny, Lizzy, really? Okay, so maybe his unexpected good looks were throwing her off her game. Not that she had any game.
“How old are you, Lizzy?”
Thankfully, he threw her a lifeline. “Uh, nineteen.” Relief flowed through the bond. Then she laughed hysterically. Maybe it was tasteless to laugh at this man who had pledged to love and protect her, but Lizzy was being held captive by a vampire because she apparently had werewolf blood flowing through her veins. At this point, how was she supposed to know how to act? “Were you worried that you were mated to jailbait?”
“No.” She felt a hint of hesitancy in his answer. “Our bond wouldn’t have connected if you weren’t of the appropriate age.”
She frowned. “Who determines the appropriate age? A couple hundred years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for someone my age to not only be married but have a house full of kids.”
“The Great Luna.” He said the name with reverence. “Our creator. She determines the time for a true-mate pair to join.”
Lizzy didn’t really know how she felt about that. Not because she didn’t believe there was some sort of creator out there, but if there was, then why hadn’t they cared about her? If there was someone—a God, this Great Luna, or whoever had apparently created her and Finn— who had destined them to be together like some great love story, then why had this Being allowed Lizzy to live through nineteen years of hell on earth to get to this point in her life? Lizzy took in the bare walls and dirty floor surrounding her and laughed out loud again. “What point in her life was she talking about?” she asked the empty room. “I’m not exactly living my best life here.” She laughed harder, almost hysterically, imagining all the crap she’d been through, everything she had survived, only to end up trapped in a six-by-six room, waiting for the king of all vampires to turn her into a werewolf-vampire hybrid. “Holy crap.” Lizzy huffed and grabbed her stomach. Her muscles clenched, partially from laughing and partially from hunger. She had refused the last two meals the vamps had offered her. “I guess I should be honored. Look at me. I’m special. Woo-hoo.” She rolled her eyes and slumped back against the wall.
“Why won’t you eat?” At least this time, he didn’t growl at her. Spoke too soon, she thought, as a snarl came through the bond.
“I’ve already told you. The food could be poisoned.”
She could practically feel him shaking his head. “And I’ve already told you, he wants you alive. He’s not going to poison you. Why would he poison you if he is planning on turning you into a hybrid? And if he wanted to kill you, he could obviously do it without poison.” A mixture of fear and rage came through the bond with Finn’s last statement.
“Even still, best not to take chances. He could change his mind at any minute and decide I’m better off dead. And yes, I’m always this hardheaded,” she said before he could ask her, because she knew he would. They’d talked so much since he’d woken her up that she felt like she knew what he was going to say. Or maybe it was because she could feel what he was feeling. Finn was like an open book. “So, Linc, how old are you?”
“Linc?”
The wariness in his voice made her smile. “Yeah, like Lincoln, cuz you’re a not-so-old penny. Remember?”
She felt his humor through the bond, which was what she’d wanted. Anything to keep him distracted. She’d realized Finn had a tendency to get cranky when he focused on things like her refusal to eat or her periodic visits from the vampire king.
