Bound by Blood and Fang

Chapter 3

Alora

The forest was starting to feel like a maze that had been designed to break me and the others. Roots jutted out of the earth, snagging at my feet and scraping my skin raw. Every time I thought that I had made it somewhere safe, I would catch a glimpse of him closing in and have to keep moving.

My lungs burned with every breath I took, the cold air scraping against my throat, making me second-guess my decision a couple of times. My legs screamed even more in protest, the muscles threatening to give out completely from exertion, and the potion’s relentless effects that were still coiling beneath my skin.

It's getting worse. It's getting harder to fight my body's response, because I could hear him closing in on me. It wasn’t just the sound of his footsteps on the forest floor telling me that he was getting closer. No, it was the brush of leaves shifting behind me, too deliberate to be the wind. Sometimes it was the heavy exhale of his breath that I felt more than heard, warm enough to ghost across the back of my neck despite the freezing air.

The unnerving feeling crawled over my skin like a warning that he was close enough to touch me if he wanted to. Like he was right there toying with me, letting me think that I might actually outrun him. The whole time, he was simply letting me tire myself out.

“Still running, princess?” His voice slid through the darkness far more easily than I liked.

I bit back a curse and pushed my body even harder, ducking beneath a low-hanging branch as the forest tore at my dress. The sharp sting of my flesh-tearing made me hiss under my breath. My bare feet slapped against frozen earth, pain flaring sharp and bright with every step I took.

“You seem like a smart girl,” he called lazily, unhurried. “You know that you can’t hide from a wolf out here.” A deep growl rolled through the woods—not threatening but fully confident in his abilities. “I can smell you.”

His tone shifted, softening around the edges and causing the potion's effects to flare traitorously at the tone of his voice. My body responded despite every ounce of resistance that was coiled tight in my chest. My core was now slick with a pulsating need that was growing harder to ignore. I clenched my jaw, forcing my focus forward as panic slowly began to claw at my ribs.

Don’t listen to him.

Don’t slow down.

“You smell amazing, princess,” he continued, his voice closing in now. “This could be over if you just give yourself to me.”

My pulse lurched violently at his suggestion, a sickening mix of fear and want twisting low in my stomach. The potion clawed at my senses, urging me to respond, to yield, to turn toward the voice that hunted me. To just give in.

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, desperate for pain that would be sharp enough to drown out the growing need roaring through my veins. I stumbled again, barely catching myself before I hit the ground. My heart slammed against my ribs as I veered off my path, my instincts screaming for me to find cover.

“Or, we can keep playing this game. My beast loves a chase,” he murmured, sounding pleased with himself.

Just as I was starting to lose hope and grow desperate, I spotted it—a massive fallen tree, its trunk split and hollowed by age and rot. Without thinking, I dove behind it, pressing my back against the damp wood as I dragged air in shallow, desperate gulps. My hands shook as I clamped them over my mouth, willing my breathing to quiet, so I wouldn't be found.

The rot-sweet scent of the hollowed trunk filled my nose, clinging to the back of my throat. The forest fell into an eerie stillness. And for a moment, I prayed that the Fates had blessed me. That maybe he had shifted his focus to someone else. As awful as that sounds, I would be more than grateful if someone else happened to catch his attention right now.

My pulse roared in my ears, each beat loud enough to give me away for sure. Sweat cooled rapidly against my warm skin, the heat inside me still coiled tight and aching, demanding movement, release—anything but this stillness.

“Clever girl,” his voice came again, even closer this time and no longer teasing.

The Fates had not shown me mercy as I had hoped they had. He was still hunting me. I squeezed my eyes shut, every muscle in my body locked tight as I strained to listen past the pounding of my own heart. I pressed my legs together, subconsciously seeking some form of relief to ease the ache there.

Leaves crunched somewhere to my left—then to my right. He was circling me, cutting off every path the trees might have offered as an escape. He had been doing it the whole time, herding me to where he wanted me and just waiting for my body to give out. My vision blurred as a wave of need washed over me. It's getting stronger the longer I fight it. I bit down hard on my lip, tasting the coppery tang of blood as I forced myself to stay silent and find a way out of here.

Then something else brushes against my awareness. It wasn't the wolf that I feel now. No, this was different. This presence didn’t prowl or stalk me like a wolf. It didn’t announce itself or test the air to see my reaction. It simply watched—like a cold weight settling into the forest.

Its presence slid over the forest like a dark veil, smothering the sound. Even the trees seemed to recoil as it drew closer, their branches creaking softly as if bowing away from whatever had entered their domain. My skin prickled, as a shiver raced down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold now.

The wolf wasn’t the only monster hunting me now.

That realization slammed into me with enough force to steal my breath completely. I couldn’t afford to stay still— no matter how tired I was. Not with two predators closing in on me, one loud and relentless, the other silent and watching, biding its time before it strikes.

My legs trembled as I pushed myself off the forest floor, muscles screaming again in protest even as I forced them to obey. Pain flared sharp and hot through my calves, but I ignored it, darting out from behind the fallen tree and sprinting hard toward the faint break in the trees ahead that I had spotted.

A clearing.

If I could just get past him—if I could break from his line of sight, put open space between us—hope flared dangerously in my chest as the clearing got closer. I burst through the last line of brush only to skid to a stop.

The wolf was already there.

Wait? How? The questions swam in my mind, but neither of them got the chance to stick.

The wolf stood at the center of the clearing like he’d been waiting there for me all along, his broad shoulders relaxed, his posture loose and confident beneath the stream of moonlight filtering in through the break in the canopy. The soft silver glow caught in his dark hair and traced along the hard lines of his body, turning him into something carved of shadow and muscle.

His black eyes lock onto mine as a slow, dangerous smile curves his mouth. “Too predictable, princess,” he murmured.

I bared my teeth at him in annoyance. “You cheated. Personal magic isn't allowed during the heat.”

His brow arched, amused that I would call out the fact that he was clearly using his powers. “You ran, princess. I think a little personal magic use can be…overlooked in our case.”

The way he said 'our case' sent warning bells off in my mind. I spun my head around, eyeing the way I’d come. Could I make it out of the clearing before he reached me? How far could I get if he managed to somehow beat me here? My body is already about to give out on me as it is. How much more could it take?

“It’s pointless,” he growled, already guessing at where my thoughts were heading. “You know that already.”

Pointless, maybe.

But surrender was a hell of a lot worse.

“No,” I shot back, breath coming fast. “What’s pointless is you thinking I’ll just lie down for you.”

My hand moves to my thigh only to find the makeshift sheath empty. The dagger is gone. I must have lost it when I first attacked him with it. I dropped it after I ran the second time. I lifted my gaze to find him twirling the damn thing between his fingers, a look of amusement on his face.

“Looking for this?” he said, stopping the twirling and holding it between the pads of his fingers before he flicked his wrist.

The blade flew through the air. Well, I hadn't seen that coming. I flinched, bracing for the enviable pain that was sure to come. But there is nothing but the soft thwack of the tree right behind me. I opened my eyes to find the dagger buried in the tree at head level. Close enough that the vibration hummed through the bark.

Heat flooded my face — in fury, not fear. "And you chastised me for using powers when you..." he points out, "...my princess snuck a weapon into The Heat." He wags his finger at me and tsks, "Now, who broke the rules?"

I turned and ripped the dagger free from the bark with a grunt and leveled it at him, even as my hand shook.

“What an ass,” I muttered.

His smile widened. And that was when I knew — he wasn’t playing with me because he thought I was weak. He was playing because I was still fighting him.

A low chuckle rolled out of his chest. “Enjoying yourself?” I murmured, even as I raised the dagger and pointed it at him.

His eyes darkened as they raked down the length of my body. “Very much so.”

For a heartbeat, we just stared at one another, the silence taut as a drawn wire. Need still coiled tighter in my veins, the sickening burn blended with my pulse. My vision began to swim, and suddenly there were two of him standing before me. I shifted my weight. Why was the ground swaying so much? I forced the focus back into my limbs, praying that would cause the world to stop spinning. He was coming closer now, but I couldn't get my vision to focus on just him anymore.

I thought he was within range, and I swung my dagger in front of me. He twisted out of the way with infuriating ease, catching my wrist instead of the blade this time. The impact jarred all the way up my arm, pain blooming sharp and immediately in my elbow and shoulder as he wrenched it backward and behind my back.

“Too slow,” he murmured in my ear.

I snarled and kicked out, aiming for his knee. My leg buckled mid-strike, and the world tilted, the ground violently rushing towards me.

“It’s spiking,” he growled as he buried his head in the crook of my neck, and I didn't miss the desire that was laced through his voice.

I staggered forward out of his hold on me, my vision blurring even more at the edges, the clearing smearing into moonlight and shadow. Every nerve screamed through my body, pain and need tangling until I couldn’t separate them. I turned, reaching for anything that I could use to steady myself, desperate and now half-blinded by the potion.

I collide into something solid again, and arms wrap around me, pulling me into a wall of muscle. For half a second, I feared that I had just fallen straight into the wolf's arms again. But this body isn't warm like the wolves; there is no heat radiating from it. The skin is cool and causes my body to shiver at its touch. I breathed in a scent that was nothing like the wolf’s wild pine and smoke.

This scent was a clean, metallic-like scent like freshly forged metal and the iron scent of blood. I looked up, my vision still swimming, but meeting a pair of red eyes staring back at me from beneath the shadow of a dark hood. The eyes were glowing faintly like embers banked low in a hearth. A face that was sharp and beautiful in a way that made my stomach drop—too still, too composed, as if the chaos of the hunt had not even bothered to touch him at all was shadowed beneath the hood.

Vampire.

His body was cold—unnaturally so—like marble left out under moonlight. The chill sank straight through my skin, stealing the breath from my lungs. His grip tightened just enough around my waist to remind me I wasn’t going anywhere.

“I thought you almost had him,” the vampire said softly, his voice was smooth as silk and twice as dangerous. “Not many are brave enough to take on a werewolf like him, Love.”

The word love slides under my skin; it's intimate in a way that makes my pulse jump. And the pressure building inside of me from the potion threatened to explode right then and there. Behind me, the wolf’s presence loomed closer, his overbearing dominance pressing in like a physical thing around me. The vampire’s gaze flicked up and past me, toward the clearing, where I could feel the wolf stepping closer without having to look. The vampire's lips curved—not in a smile, but something far colder as he watched the wolf.

“She’s mine, leech. Find your own,” the wolf snarled.

I twisted in the vampire’s arms, a half-instinctive struggle—whether to stay upright or break free, I couldn’t tell anymore. My body betrayed me either way, muscles stuttering as the Heat surged again. His iron-hard arms locked around my waist, anchoring me in place as my breath hitched uselessly in my chest. His lip curled, and for a split second, white fangs flashed in the moonlight—sharp, unapologetic, and very real.

“The Fates,” he said calmly, “beg to differ.”

He lifted his right hand, and a red light flared to life. Thin glowing threads coiled around his fingers, crawling up his wrist before wrapping tightly around his forearm like living veins. The air hummed, and something inside me responded to the sight like a string being pulled taut toward him.

The vampire hissed, a sound that was torn from deep in his chest, and I turned my head just in time to see the wolf freeze in his tracks.

The vampire was cut off as the wolf's arm lifted involuntarily, the same red threads bursting into existence, winding around his skin in a perfect, mirrored pattern to the vampires. His eyes widened—not in fear, but in disbelief. I know the feeling. I am just as confused as they seem to be. Only, I am not sure if my lack of understanding is from the potion or something else.

“That’s not possible,” the vampire snarled, his cold composure finally cracking just a little to show how shocked he was.

The threads on his arm pulsed once.

Twice.

And somewhere between them, I felt it again. A sharp pull. Not toward just one of them.

But toward both.

White-hot fire seared up my arm, sharp enough to steal every ounce of air from my lungs. I lifted my arm on instinct—and I too froze with wide eyes. The same threads that were around their wrist were now coiling their way around my hand and up my arm. Smaller threads branch out from mine and appear to reach through the air toward both the wolf and the vampire.

The glow from the threads wasn’t just a light—it felt as if it were alive, breathing. The air thickened, vibrating with a sudden pressure that made my bones ache.

“No,” I breathed, unable to formulate anything but the single-worded objection.

I shook my head as I stood there, trapped between them, my breath coming fast and shallow, heat and cold now warring beneath my skin as the truth settled heavy and inescapable. I hadn’t escaped the hunt as my mother had hoped. I’d run straight into the center of it.

And now I am not sure if there is a way out of this.