I Spent Five years In Prison For My Mate, Hr Spent Them Planning His Wedding

THE BOND

I knew something was different about Christabella Vincent the moment Brenda brought her into my hall. She looked half-dead. Thin wrists, sunken cheeks, faded clothing hanging from her frame like a flag on a windless day. But her eyes burned. Steady and fierce, tracking every exit and every wolf in the room before she allowed herself to sit.

I have led rogues for seven years. I recognized fighters by instinct. Survivors by their posture. Leaders by the way a room shifted when they entered it.

This woman made the entire hall feel smaller.

I gave her space because that was what she needed. Food, shelter, rest. Nothing more. Damien's letters from the Compound described her in terms bordering on reverence, and my brother did not give admiration lightly.

Weeks passed and Christabella transformed. Not into someone new, but back into whoever she was before Nicholas Mitchell buried her alive. She trained my wolves with precision that humbled Brenda. She spoke in strategy meetings with intelligence that startled even Innocent Williams during his visits. She sat across from me at meals debating territorial alliances with such conviction that I found myself leaning forward to catch every word.

I kept my distance. Not because I wanted to but because I recognized the fragility beneath her armor, the way she flinched when someone raised a voice unexpectedly, the way she ate quickly as if the food might vanish. Those were prison marks. I would not add to her burdens by pressing my presence where it was not invited.

But my wolf disagreed. My wolf noticed her scent the first evening and would not stop noticing. Smoke and winter berries and something unnamed that made my pulse climb whenever she stood within arm's reach. I told my wolf to be silent. He rarely obeyed.

In the evening after Nicholas appeared at our border, Christabella returned from that confrontation looking very calm, but I saw the tremor in her fingers as she walked past me. I wanted to follow. I wanted to ask. I did neither because she earned the right to process her battles privately.

She joined me at the head table for dinner as usual. We ate in silence for a while. Then she spoke.

"He will come back with more than words next time."

"I know," I said.

"You should not be involved in this. It is my fight."

I set my fork down and looked at her directly. "You live in my territory. Your enemies become mine the moment you accepted that cabin."

"I did not ask for protection."

"You did not. I am offering it regardless."

Her jaw clenched…stubborn, proud but most especially beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with soft features or polished appearance. Beautiful because every scar on her body represented a battle she won alone.

"Christabella," I said. "Accepting help is not a weakness."

"The last person I trusted used my loyalty as a weapon against me."

Those words landed in my chest and stayed there. I understood them. My own parents were murdered by a pack that claimed alliance with us. Trust killed them. I spent years building walls identical to hers.

"I am not him," I said.

She looked at me with sincerity in her eyes, searched my face the way she searched everyone and everything, hunting for the lie, the angle, the hidden agenda. I let her search cos I had nothing to conceal.

"No," she whispered. "You are not."

That was all. She returned to eating. We finished dinner. She stood and walked toward the door.

I should have let her go.

Instead I spoke. "The patrol report from sector nine needs review. Stay and work through it with me."

She paused to consider then turned back and sat beside me as I spread maps across the table. We leaned over territory lines and debated weak points in our northern defense. Voices rose. Her palm struck the table when I dismissed her suggestion about doubling the river guard.

"You are being reckless. That river crossing is exposed and you know it."

"I am being strategic. Resources are finite and the eastern pass requires more attention."

"Eastern pass is a distraction. If Nicholas moves on us, he comes through the river. Trust me, I know how Greyvale wolves think."

She turned to leave, frustrated. Instinct seized me. I grabbed her wrist.

The world detonated.

Heat ripped through my arm, up my shoulder, across my entire chest. My wolf surged forward so violently that my vision blurred gold at the edges. Every cell in my body screamed one word and that word was MINE….Mate.

I dropped her wrist like it branded me.

Christabella stared at me with wide eyes, her chest heaving, her free hand pressed over her heart. She felt it too. Her pupils were blown. Her lips parted. A flush crept up her neck.

Neither of us spoke. The hall was empty now, only firelight flickering across the maps between us. My wolf howled inside me, demanding closeness, demanding touch. I clenched every muscle in my body to remain still.

Seconds stretched. Then Christabella took one step backward. Then another.

"N…o..o..o," she screamed. Quiet; shaking. "Not again. I cannot do this again."

She bolted from the hall.

I stood alone with my wolf raging and my fist pressed against the table so hard the wood groaned under my knuckles. The bond pulsed in my chest, alive and fierce and completely uninvited.

I did not sleep that night. I paced my room like an animal, fighting the pull to go to her cabin, to knock, to beg her to let me in. I refused to become a man who chased a woman who said no.

She did not emerge the next morning. Or the one after.

On the third day, I placed a tray at her door. Bread, broth, dried fruit. Beside it, I left a note: "I will not chase you. I will not demand anything. But I am here when you are ready. No pressure; no timeline; only patience."

I walked away.

My wolf raged.

I kept walking.

Because Christabella Vincent had been cage

d by one mate already. I would cut off my own hand before I became another prison for her.