BloodBound

Chapter Five – Evelyn

The academy’s hallways at dusk were a labyrinth, long stretches of stone and silence broken only by flickering wall lamps. I told myself I wasn’t running, only walking faster than usual, but my lungs betrayed me. Each breath dragged fire into my chest.

Damon’s words in the library still clung to my skin.

You interest me.

I should have laughed, rolled my eyes, called it arrogance. But his gaze had been sharp, steady, searching, and I hated how much it unsettled me.

More than that, I hated the weight that followed me now.

Lucian.

I didn’t have to glance behind me to know. My body knew. The pull in the air, the scrape of footsteps timed too perfectly with mine. He hadn’t spoken, hadn’t revealed himself, but every nerve screamed his presence.

I cut through a side corridor, desperate to shake him, and found myself before the old stairwell. The doors hung slightly crooked, the hinges rusted with age, but the steps themselves spiraled upward into shadow. No students came here; it was a forgotten place. Perfect.

I slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind me, pressing my back against the cold stone. My pulse thundered in my throat.

For three heartbeats, I thought maybe I’d lost him.

Then the door creaked open.

Lucian Draxen filled the doorway like a storm made flesh. His blazer hung loose, tie still undone, shirt collar sharp against the pale column of his throat. He didn’t rush. He stepped inside slowly, the way a predator does when he knows the prey has nowhere to run.

The door shut with a low groan.

I flattened against the wall, fists curling tight. “Are you following me?”

His eyes—black at the edges, gold in the center when the light caught—dragged down the length of me. He didn’t blink. “You ran,” he said simply, voice low enough to scrape my bones. “What did you think I would do?”

“I wasn’t running from you.” My voice cracked anyway.

A humorless smirk curved his mouth. He closed the space between us with measured steps until his body loomed only inches from mine, his shadow swallowing me whole. “Lie better.”

The stairwell was narrow, the air thick. He leaned one hand against the wall beside my head, caging me in. The other ghosted near my hip but didn’t touch, a threat and a promise in one.

“You let him speak to you.” His words burned hotter than his closeness.

I swallowed, Damon’s silver eyes flashing in my mind. “What does it matter to you?”

Lucian’s jaw tightened. “Because it does.”

“You don’t own me.”

He leaned closer, so near that his breath brushed my cheek. “Don’t I?”

Heat shot through me so violently my knees nearly buckled. I pressed my palms flat against the wall, refusing to let him see me falter. “You can’t just… just stalk me, corner me, and—”

His other hand slammed against the wall by my head, caging me completely. His voice dropped to a whisper against my ear. “Watch me.”

My chest heaved. Anger tangled with something darker, something traitorous. My body was betraying me again—the shiver, the rush of blood, the pull toward him instead of away.

“You’re insane,” I hissed.

His lips brushed the shell of my ear—not a kiss, not even a touch, but close enough that fire spread through my veins. “Obsessed,” he corrected. “Don’t confuse the two.”

I jerked my head aside, forcing distance. “And what happens when obsession burns out, huh? What’s left of the girl caught in it?”

Finally, his gaze softened, just enough to slice deeper than anger ever could. “Nothing burns out when it’s carved into bone.”

I couldn’t breathe. He didn’t kiss me, didn’t even touch me beyond the cage of his arms, but it was worse than if he had. Because I wanted him to. God help me, some part of me wanted.

I shoved against his chest, hard. It didn’t move him an inch, but the defiance lit something dangerous in his eyes.

“Stay away from me,” I said, voice trembling.

His smirk returned, sharp as broken glass. “Say it again when you stop shaking.”

And then he stepped back, releasing me from the prison of his body. The absence was just as suffocating.

Before I could gather myself, he turned and strode out, the door creaking shut behind him.

My back slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold step, gasping like I’d survived drowning. Except I hadn’t survived anything.

I was already sinking.

---

Lucian

I should have killed him.

The thought coiled like venom in my chest as I stalked away from the stairwell. Damon Veyron, with his polished shoes and silver eyes and casual arrogance, had dared to speak to her. Had dared to look at Evelyn as if she were… available.

As if she weren’t already mine.

She didn’t know it yet. But she would.

The memory of her pinned against the stairwell wall burned behind my eyelids. The heat of her breath, the wild hammer of her pulse, the way she tried to shove me back with more fire than fear. She was infuriating, reckless, stubborn—and God, I craved every inch of her.

I could have kissed her. I wanted to. My mouth had hovered a breath away from her skin, my body screaming to take what already belonged to me.

But no. Not yet.

Kissing her now would have been too easy. She would have pretended afterward that she hadn’t wanted it, that I’d stolen something. I wasn’t interested in theft. I wanted surrender. I wanted her fury melted into submission, her voice breaking not with defiance but with need.

I wanted her begging.

So I left her shaking, left her with the ghost of my breath on her skin and the certainty that she would feel me even when I wasn’t there. Because that was the truth: I was in her blood now. No running, no hiding.

Damon thought he could circle her, thought he could play intrigue. Let him try. Let him smile and watch and test his luck.

In the end, Evelyn would see. Damon was a distraction, a flicker of curiosity. I was the fire that would consume her.

And when she finally admitted it, when she finally gave in, there would be no going back.

She was already mine.