No Escape From Destiny (18 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Anstice was thoroughly confused now.

“No one’s going anywhere until someone tells me what is going on.” She actually stomped her foot like a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum. That made
Adrian
turn around and face them.

“
Nikkos
will explain everything to you. I have to go.” He turned to walk away from them again.

“Oh no you don’t. You stop right there, and don’t you dare walk out on us.”

Anstice was pissed off again. It seemed like every time something was going good, fate would throw another obstacle at them.
Nikkos
carried Anstice over to stand in front of
Adrian
before he carefully placed her on her feet. He placed one hand on both sides of
Adrian
’s jaw and forced him to look at him. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. We’ll figure it out, I promise. She belongs to both of us.”

He sealed his promise with a scorching kiss that went on until Anstice cleared her throat to get their attention. Looking back and forth between the two of them, she pleaded, “Will someone
please
tell me what is going on?”

They both took one of her hands, which scared the hell out of her. She was just getting over the fact that something was going on inside her, and now there was something else she was going to have to deal with.

Adrian was the one that spoke up. “Mates can hear each other’s thoughts and communicate without speaking out loud. Since you could hear what
Nikkos
was thinking, we now know that you are truly his mate and not mine.”

Nikkos
protested, “We don’t know that yet.”

Adrian rolled his eyes. “Well, she can’t hear my thoughts, and she can yours, so that pretty much clears up any questions that we had.”

Anstice spoke up. “You mean you weren’t sure I was your mate? Why have you been telling me for a week that we were? Have you been lying to me and just hoping or what?”

She knew they could hear the hurt in her voice. “No, baby, we knew that you were our mate. We just thought that we couldn’t hear each other’s thoughts because you are human. It doesn’t matter anyway. Something else must be going on. You belong to both of us, not just me.
Adrian
, try to tell her something.”

Adrian
locked eyes with her, and she prayed to god that she would hear him. She could tell he was trying really hard to make her hear him.

Nikkos
broke their concentration. “Baby, did you hear him?”

There were tears in her eyes when she shook her head. She heard
Nikkos
think, “
Oh gods, what are we going to do. We can’t lose him, but he’ll leave if he thinks she’s only mine. Why is this happening now?”

She knew the males would take this seriously if they couldn’t come up with a reason this was happening. “Okay, let’s take a step back and look at this from all angles.”

When she had both of their attention, she continued. “Okay, tell me exactly how this works.”

Nikkos
told her, “True mates can communicate in their minds without speaking.”

“I know, but you just thought, ‘Why is this happening now?’ When should it have happened?”

“The first time we exchanged blood.”

She thought about that for a minute. “Well, that explains it then. We didn’t technically exchange blood the first time, right? You gave me blood by IV, but you didn’t take any of mine. I didn’t technically drink your blood, more than a mouthful from
Adrian
after he was feeding, before today.”

Now it was
Adrian
’s turn to lift her off her feet and kiss her all over while saying, “Thank you, little one, thank you, thank you, thank you. Please, gods, let this be true.”

Nikkos
wrapped his arms around both of them and kissed
Adrian
’s neck, and she heard him whisper in his ear, “See, babe, I told you there was a reason. We all belong together, and there will be nothing that will separate us. Now why don’t we go back to
our
room and prove she’s yours, too.”

Adrian
looked scared again and must have known the answer but still asked. “How do you plan on doing that?”

“Feed, of course.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“It will work, I know it. She belongs to both of us. So let’s go get you both fed, shall we?”

The door to the gym opened, and Mikhaila stood in the doorway.

“You may want to wait a while to do that.”

Adrian and
Nikkos
both reached for a towel to cover their mates at the same time.
Nikkos
replied, “No offense, but we need to get this over with. So unless someone is dead or dying, it will have to wait.”

Mikhaila blocked their way. “You really need to listen to me before you go through with what you’re planning. The blood tests came back on Damian, and Lucian has been doing some research on human mates of our kind.”

The pensive look at
Mikhaila’s
face froze them all in place. Anstice swayed a little, but both of the males were there to steady her until she could stand on her own again.
Nikkos
, always having to be in charge, spoke first. “Let us get dressed and we’ll meet you in the den to talk about whatever you found.”

“Okay, but
do not
make another blood exchange with her until you hear what Lucian found. Trust me, you need to hear it before you go any further with this.”

“It doesn’t matter what he found. She
is
our mate and nothing anyone can say will change that,”
Nikkos
spit out between clenched teeth.

“I’m not saying that she isn’t your mate. I’m just saying please hear him out before you exchange blood with her again,” Mikhaila pleaded.

Adrian spoke impatiently. “Just tell us what he found and get it over with.”

“He has all the research. I don’t have it.”

“I don’t care about all of it. You obviously know something. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here warning us not to exchange blood. So just spit it out,”
Adrian
replied through gritted teeth.

Mikhaila shook her head and looked at her feet. Anstice didn’t think she was going to answer, but she whispered, “Humans
can
be turned.”

The temperature dropped, and Anstice shivered. She knew the temperature change was
Nikkos’s
fury. Anstice had noticed that the waves of ice that came off him happened whenever something angered him.
Adrian
clearly felt it, too, and wrapped his arms around her tighter, warming her body.
Nikkos’s
jaw was clenched so tight they could hear his teeth grinding together. When he opened his mouth to speak, his fangs were sharp and as long as daggers.

Anstice had never seen him this angry and stepped closer to
Adrian
. When
Nikkos’s
head snapped toward her, his fangs instantly retracted a little, and he placed one hand on her cheek. “Baby, please don’t ever be afraid of me. I will
never
hurt you. I just don’t know what to think of all this.” He looked to Mikhaila. “Why did we never know of this before?”

“Lucian found the information in an extremely ancient text of our history. Like I said, I don’t know all of the specifics, but from what Lucian told me, there is a history of one of us mating with a human and turning them. Apparently, it takes three blood exchanges, and she has already had two.” She looked toward
Adrian
. “So if you do the exchange to prove she is your mate, that will make three, and she may be turned.”

Anstice finally spoke. “We’ve already discussed this. I’ve only had one exchange. The one tonight with
Nikkos
. The first night he gave blood by IV, and he didn’t feed from me first, so it wasn’t an exchange.”

“That is partially right. But you also fed from Damian last night.

“But he didn’t feed from me, so it wasn’t an exchange.”

“Well, that is where Damian’s blood tests come in.” She looked
Nikkos
squarely in the eyes. “He is your brother. You share twenty-five percent DNA. So his blood may be close enough to yours that when you fed from her, and she fed from him, it probably counted as an exchange. Then from what I heard you saying about proving you’re mates, I’m assuming you gave her more blood not that long ago?”

Nikkos
nodded.

“It hadn’t been that long since you fed from her, and you took a lot of blood, so her drinking both your blood and Damian’s may be enough to count as two exchanges. I’m not sure, as the research didn’t really say if the exchanges had to be within a certain amount of time or even the same person. All it said was three blood exchanges. Possibly not even exchanges. Maybe they only have to drink our blood three times. We just don’t know yet. So again, I beg you, do not exchange more blood with her until I can do some blood work and see if anything more has changed with her body.” The last was directed toward
Adrian
.

Now it was
Nikkos’s
turn to sway on his feet. Anstice wrapped her arms around his waist, and
Adrian
quickly moved to his other side and held him up.

“How can he be my brother?”

“We’re not sure, but from the records we have of your family, you share a mother but not a father.”

“Does he know yet? Have you told him?”

“No, I wanted to tell you first. See what you wanted to do. Besides, I thought he may take the news better from you than me.”

Nikkos
shook his head as if trying to clear the confusion. “Let us go shower. Find Damian, and meet us in the den in about half an hour.”

Mikhaila nodded her head and started from the room.
Nikkos
stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, turning her back to face him. “Mikhaila, thank you, and I’m sorry I snapped at you. It was not appropriate to take my anger out on you. None of this is your fault, and you didn’t need me to treat you with disrespect.” He knelt in front of her and brought her knuckles to his mouth. With a brush of his lips he said, “Please forgive me.”

Mikhaila looked like she was in shock. She grasped
Nikkos’s
arms and tried to get him to stand. “Please,
Kyrios,
get up. You should never kneel before me like this.”

“Oh, but I should. I disrespected you, and this is the only place I should be for that.”

Of course Marcus took this moment in time to come and look for his mate.

“
Kyrios,
what is going on, and why are you kneeling in front of my mate?”

He didn’t look angry like Anstice thought he would at another male with his mate like this. He looked dumbfounded. She didn’t want to interrupt, so she would wait until they were alone to ask
Nikkos
or Adrian for an explanation of Marcus’s behavior.

Nikkos
looked from Mikhaila to Marcus and back again. “I disrespected her, and I’m asking for an apology.”

“What exactly did you do to disrespect her?”

Now there was the anger she was expecting.

Mikhaila spoke up. “Nothing, my love, it was just a misunderstanding.”

Of course
Nikkos
wouldn’t let that go. “I yelled at her.”