CHAPTER 10 — THE BOND
1084 Words
The room felt too small.
Too quiet.
Too charged with the weight of what the stranger had just said.
Annabelle needed air.
Lucien needed control.
Neither got what they wanted.
Because the bond — the raw, pulsing thread between their souls — was tightening, coiling like a living thing, reacting to the truth that had just been spoken.
Complete the bond… or she dies.
Annabelle felt Lucien’s heartbeat slamming against her cheek as he held her. Hard. Wild. Unsteady in a way she had never felt from him before.
He wasn’t afraid for himself.
He was afraid for her.
“Lucien…” she whispered.
But he didn’t look at her.
His gaze was fixed on the stranger — a lethal, storming glare.
“If you’re lying,” Lucien growled, voice low and deadly, “I will tear your throat out.”
The stranger didn’t flinch.
“I wish I were.”
Annabelle felt Lucien’s arms tighten, pulling her closer, as if instinctively shielding her from fate itself.
“Get out,” Lucien ordered.
The stranger hesitated — but only for a moment.
He bowed his head in respect.
“To protect her, Alpha… you must accept what she is.”
Lucien bared his teeth.
“I don’t need your advice.”
But the stranger’s last look at Annabelle was filled with a sorrow so deep it made her shiver.
“Remember this,” he said softly.
“Power awakens through love… or death. Choose wisely.”
Then he vanished into the night.
The door hadn’t even clicked shut before Lucien turned, grabbed Annabelle’s face gently but urgently, and pressed his forehead to hers.
His breath was rough. Uneven.
“Annabelle,” he rasped.
“You are not going to die. I won’t allow it.”
Her fingers curled in his shirt.
“But if he’s right—”
“He might be,” Lucien cut in, his jaw tightening.
“Or he might be manipulating us. Using fear to force a bond you’re not ready for. I won’t—”
He broke off, chest heaving.
“—I won’t hurt you like that.”
She shook her head.
“Lucien, this isn’t hurting me. This is saving me.”
His eyes flashed silver — the wolf pushing forward, struggling against the turmoil ripping through him.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered harshly.
“A completed bond isn’t just a kiss. A promise. A touch.”
His voice lowered, rougher, more intimate.
“It’s everything. Soul to soul. Life to life.”
A beat.
“Body to body.”
Annabelle swallowed hard.
“I know.”
“No,” Lucien growled softly, pulling back just enough to look her in the eyes.
“You’re human. You’ve never completed a bond before. If I lose control—”
He stopped, fists clenching at her waist.
The fear in his eyes wasn’t fear of the bond.
It was fear of himself.
He was terrified of breaking her.
Annabelle lifted her trembling hands to his jaw.
“Lucien… I trust you.”
His eyes squeezed shut.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
“Don’t say that unless you mean it.”
“I do.”
Her voice cracked, but she didn’t look away.
“I trust you with my life. I trust you with my soul. I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever known.”
His breath shattered.
The wolf inside him surged.
And she felt it.
The bond — that invisible, electric current — pulsed hot between them, syncing their heartbeats, pulling them closer, fusing their breaths.
Lucien lowered his forehead to hers again.
“Annabelle…” His voice was breaking.
“I want you. I want you so badly it feels like torture.”
His hands traced her back, slow, trembling.
“But wanting you and taking you are two different things. Completing the bond is forever. There is no undoing it. No second choice. Your soul will belong to mine, and mine to yours.”
Her pulse thundered.
“I’m not afraid of forever,” she whispered.
“I’m afraid of losing you.”
A growl ripped from his chest.
Then he cupped her face fully, his thumb brushing her lips, his stare burning into her.
“You will not lose me.”
His voice was a vow.
A threat.
A promise etched into the bones of the world.
“The day you die…” he said quietly, “is the day I stop breathing.”
Annabelle’s heart twisted.
“Lucien—”
He kissed her.
Not a gentle kiss.
Not a hesitant one.
A claiming.
A desperate, soul-deep crash of lips that said everything he had tried to hide from her — all the fear, all the desire, all the devotion.
She melted into him with a soft breath, and the bond ignited.
A flash of heat.
A surge of light.
A pull so strong her knees buckled.
Lucien caught her instantly, lifting her off the ground, holding her against him like she belonged nowhere else in the world.
Her fingers tangled in his hair.
His breath trembled against her mouth.
The bond pulsed again — brighter, hotter, demanding completion.
He tore himself away just enough to press his lips to her cheek, her jaw, the corner of her mouth, whispering against her skin:
“Tell me to stop.”
She didn’t.
“Tell me you don’t want this.”
She couldn’t.
Her voice came out like a gasp, fragile but firm:
“I want you. All of you.”
Lucien’s restraint snapped — not in violence, but in surrender.
His hands gripped her hips, urgent and reverent at the same time.
“Then understand this,” he breathed, eyes glowing silver, wolf fully at the surface.
“Once we complete the bond… you’re mine.”
Her heartbeat stuttered.
“And you,” she whispered back,
“are mine.”
The bond roared between them — hot, alive, ancient.
Lucien’s lips crashed back onto hers, deeper, hungrier.
But before the moment could shatter into something irreversible, he pulled back again — barely — breathing hard.
“Annabelle…”
His thumb brushed her trembling lower lip.
“If we do this—
your transformation begins.”
She met his gaze, fear and courage warring inside her.
“Then stay with me,” she whispered.
“Don’t let me burn alone.”
Lucien’s eyes darkened with a promise more powerful than any spell.
“Never.”
The bond pulsed.
Bright.
Hot.
Alive.
Ready to complete.
- Writer
