Chapter 5 HALF VAMPIRE AND HALF WEREWOLF.

Ezra's pov.

Dorian finally released me.

I dropped, caught myself on one knee, and coughed until my throat stopped burning. My neck felt like it had been squeezed by something made of stone. Which, technically, it had.

I straightened up, and looked at him.

“You're lying,” I said.

All four of them looked at me.

Then Riven laughed. Caius shook his head slowly. Dorian turned away like I wasn't worth the energy. Even Lucien, who was the most composed of all of them, had something like disbelief in his face.

“I don't expect you to believe it, but you are the biggest monster here,” he eyed. “We are just feeding off something that shouldn't have been. You should've been killed, but we kept you. Earn your keep.”

“You disgust me,” I growled, my eyes blazing, jaw tight, and my fists clenched. I could feel a surge of energy flowing through me. Consuming me like fire. I didn't know what it was, but I knew it wanted to destroy everything around.

“Ezra,” Lucien's voice was calm. “Pack your things and come home.”

“I am not going anywhere,” I said. “And I'm human?”

“Was she?” Caius asked, mockingly.

“Don't even think about my mother,” I snapped, my breathing ragged.

Dorian stepped toward me. “Enough of this childish talk.” He dragged my hand.

I don't know what happened next.

One second he grabbed my arm, and the next second he flew across the room, hitting a locker.

The force was so strong that it left a body shaped dent on the locker.

“I. Am. Not. Your. Food!” I screamed, the previous surge flowing rapidly through my veins like a volcano erupting.

I had no idea what was happening. It was like something had taken over me. And I don't remember deciding to fight.

I just was.

Caius came at me first and I dropped under his swing without thinking, moving like my body already knew what to do before my brain caught up. I caught his arm and used his own momentum to send him into the lockers. The crash was enormous.

Riven was faster. He crossed the room in a blink and I barely turned in time, catching a hit to the shoulder that spun me sideways. But I didn't fall. I planted my feet and shoved back and he actually skidded.

Riven looked at his feet. Then at me.

I didn't wait for his surprise to end.

I moved on instinct. Everything felt hot and clear and fast. Something was seriously wrong with me. Something I could not control. My hands knew where to go. My feet found the right angle without me thinking about it.

Caius tried to flank me and I caught him with an elbow that sent him crashing into Dorian who had barely gotten up from the lockers.

For about thirty seconds, I was winning.

I was winning for the first time in my life.

But that joy didn't last.

They moved at once. All four came at me.

Lucien caught my wrist. Riven took my other arm. Dorian's hand went to my shoulder and Caius pressed me hard against the wall, forearm across my chest, all of them together and all at once.

The heat inside me spiked once more. I tried to break free, but they were stronger than me, and before I could process what was happening, something hit my chest hard.

My vision exploded with a bright light. I couldn't see anything, hear anything, feel anything for like two minutes.

Then slowly my senses returned.

My lungs were heaving. Sweat was running down my face. My arms felt like they had been wrung out.

The four of them weren't in much better shape.

They were scattered across the room, and the place looked like it had been hit by a hurricane.

I looked down at myself. I was naked, and covered with sweat.

I groaned weakly as I wrapped my hands around myself. I still have no idea what just happened.

Everything happened so fast and brutal.

The warmth that had exploded out of me hadn't felt like a power I had learned. It felt like something that had always been there and had simply run out of patience.

The room was silent except for breathing.

I stared at the ceiling.

The heat still moving, but different. Almost quiet. Like something was whispering a forbidden sin to me.

I pressed the back of my head against the cold floor and closed my eyes, trying to make sense of what just happened.

I refused to believe I was anything but human.

I exhaled.

Across the room, I heard one of them groan loudly.

I opened my eyes.

We looked at each other. All five of us. In the wreckage of a locker room with broken benches and dented metal walls. Four of the most powerful vampires alive, and me.

Something moved in the air.

I don't know how else to describe it. Like a frequency that suddenly aligned. Like something in the room recognised something and everything in my body recognised it back.

Lucien's face changed first. Subtle, but it changed.

Then Caius.

Then Riven.

Then Dorian.

I felt it too.

I didn't want to say it. But the word was already forming before I could stop it. We all said the same word at the same time.

A word neither of us should have said. Something neither of us should have felt. But we all did, and said the one word forbidden to whatever this relationship was.

“Mate.”

Fear, the kind that I have never before experienced, gripped my entire being. It crawled beneath my skin, wrapped icy fingers around my heart and squeezed until I could barely breathe.

This can't be.

There is no way I have been bonded to these vampires. It can't happen. I won't allow it. I refused to believe that after everything I had done to escape them, fate still found a way to drag me right back into their grasp.

No.

No, no, no.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

The heat...

God, the heat was unlike anything I had ever felt before. It spread through every inch of my body like liquid fire, burning beneath my skin while sweat poured down my back as though someone had dumped buckets of cold water over me. My breathing turned uneven. Every inhale felt too hot. Every exhale trembled from my lips.

I pressed a shaking hand against my chest, hoping to steady the frantic beating of my heart, but it only seemed to grow louder. Faster.

My pulse thundered in my ears.

It felt as though my own body had betrayed me.

And they just stood there.

Watching me.

The four of them remained frozen, their eyes fixed entirely on me as if I had suddenly grown another head. Not one of them spoke. Not one of them looked away. Their expressions mirrored the same disbelief that churned inside me, only theirs seemed buried beneath something deeper. Something almost... possessive.

Can they feel it?

Can they feel whatever this is?

My heat?

The bond?

The thought alone made panic claw higher into my throat.

"No..." I whispered, though I wasn't sure whether I was speaking to them or trying to convince myself.

I took a step backward.

Then another.

I needed to get away.

I had run away from home for this exact reason. I left behind everything I knew because I refused to become trapped in the world of vampires, refused to let my life be dictated by creatures I barely understood. I thought if I put enough distance between us, I'd finally be free.

Instead, they found me.

And now...

Now this.

I turned on my heel and tried to leave. I really did.

My legs obeyed for exactly one step before a strange force tightened somewhere deep inside my chest. A sharp ache ripped through me, stopping me in place. It wasn't pain exactly. It was something worse.

It felt like my soul itself was refusing to move.

I gasped, stumbling as I grabbed the nearest wall for support.

What is happening to me?

The room blurred for a brief second before my vision cleared again. My body screamed at me to run, but something else, something I couldn't explain, pulled me right back toward them.

Toward all four of them.

My stomach twisted.

Whatever had happened hadn't only affected me.

I could see it in their eyes now.

The shock.

The confusion.

The undeniable intensity with which they stared at me.

Something had changed between us.

Something irreversible.

And judging by the way none of us could seem to look away anymore, every single one of us knew it.