Bound by Blood and Fang

Chapter 14

Dimitri (continued)

Silas leads the way back through the corridor, his boots striking against the stone floor with clipped, purposeful steps. Reluctantly, I follow just a few paces behind out of curiosity. That's all I tell myself.

The house feels different now. Like, there was a pressure that was brewing on the other side of the house that was about to crest at any moment. The air is cooler and tinged with the faint scent of the old stone and pine of the structure. The torches along the walls flicker a little as we pass, their flames casting long shadows while they sway with our passing.

Though the bond grows stronger within me with every step deeper into the wolves' packhouse I go. The bonds threads cinch in tighter around my wrist as we turn down one of the narrow hallways that leads to a set of offices, and the moment we do, her scent hits me.

It’s not the same overwhelming, suffocating version of her heat from earlier. Not the heat‑drunk haze that nearly drove both kings to madness just hours ago. Now, it is softer. Threaded with herbs and something faintly bitter slides under my skin before I have a chance to brace for it.

My breath stutters just as my pace slows enough for Silas to glance back at me when he realizes that I have completely stopped following him. Her scent is coming from a cracked door at the other end of the hall. There is a faint glow spilling out around the edges, warm and golden against the cold stone floor. The air shifts again as if a lightning bolt just cracked through the space.

The urge to go to her is still there, but the strength that the bond used earlier is now more subdued. It's still there, just ebbing gently instead of violently like before, and somehow that change rattles me far more than the intense version ever could.

Silas clears his throat, and I drag my attention back to the beta wolf. His eyes were watching me carefully, like he was waiting to see if I was going to sprint down the hall after her.

“I take it you can tell the difference?” he asks suddenly.

I don’t need a mirror to know my eyes are blazing red now. So, I am not just making this up in my head. Her scent really is different.

“What did you do?” I snarl.

The beta rolls his eyes but continues to watch me carefully. “Jenny has a remedy that helps cool the heat for humans,” he says without looking away. He raises a hand, palm forward. “And whatever threat that is about to roll off your tongue, save it.”

He turns and heads inside the room to his left without another word.

I don't move, not right away. A part of me wanted to run to make sure that she was okay. That whatever the Betas bonded gave her wasn't poisoned or something. This weird feeling washes over me, and I find it entirely too difficult to think straight. What if something happens to her from this remedy?

“F*cking fates,” I growl, following after him.

I close the door with more force than necessary, causing the entire wall to shudder, and the distinct sound of something inside the frame cracking sharply. I probably just broke his door.

Silas’s office is smaller than Bane’s — but only in the way a blade is smaller than a broadsword. It’s compact. Efficient. It's built for a purpose, not for display.

There is a heavy wooden desk that dominates the center of the room. Its surface is scarred with years of use. Not decorative scars — but functional ones. Knife marks. Map pins. The edge is worn smooth where his hands must rest when he leans over it. There are papers stacked in neat, disciplined piles on both ends, each weighed down by smooth river stones.

I let my gaze travel across the rest of the space. Books line the wall near the windows, their spines cracked in almost every one of them. I let my head roll to the side when my eyes landed on the yellowed paper hanging behind him. There is a large map of the entire kingdom pinned to the wall, sitting directly behind the desk. It’s marked with multiple colored threads and metal tacks.

The sharp scent of ink and wolf fills my nose as I tilt my head while observing the pin's placement. There are several placed along the border of their territory and mine. Small clusters of three and four pins are grouped together every couple of inches.

Now that is odd.

I take a mental picture of the map and file it away for later.

Right now, I want to know what the hell this mutt’s bonded gave mine to ease her heat.

“There is only one thing that truly eases a human's heat,” I say coldly, stepping closer to the desk, “and you know that. So tell me what your bonded has given mine.”

Silas’s jaw tightens in annoyance as he props his hip on the edge of his desk. He is not fazed one bit by the anger that is pouring off me right now. If I were back in my court in Sanguivar, the entire court would have backed away as quickly as they could.

“I swear I might not be able to kill Bane now, but that does not afford you the same luxury,” I roar when he doesn't immediately reveal the truth.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You two are more difficult than any other freshly bonded male,” he snaps finally.

Difficult?

I show this mutt difficult.

“That’s because a Triad is far different from the bond that you have. Now answer my f*cking question before Bane finds himself Betaless.”

Silas rises to his feet again and circles just behind his desk like he is deciding on how much he wants to tell me to make sure that I don't indeed try to kill him. “Jenny has been working ever since we bonded to find something to help the humans,” he says evenly. “She says it isn't right that we keep them in the dark about what's happening, and despite my objections, she has managed to produce a remedy that lessens the human female's discomfort during prolonged heats.”

I scoff, my annoyance with all these wolves and their damn meddling bleeding its way into our bond. It's not bad enough that I'm now tied to Bane through her, but now everyone thinks they get to step in and change the way things have been done for centuries.

I've been around since the Heat first began. And things have almost remained the same, and there have been no complaints. Well, none that mattered anyway.

“Does Bane know that your bonded has given ours something that's supposed to alter her heat?”

At his silence, I know I have my answer. I'm sure it is another reason why Silas pushed for Bane to take a run. “Didn’t think so.”

"Look, I know that it is abnormal, but she has had marginal success with the others. Alora seemed to be taking the heat far harder than the others. Probably has something to do with the fact that it's a triad. Do you want her to continue to suffer more?"

No, but I still don't like the fact that all these wolves are meddling with her.

The door is thrown open in the next second.

The sound of the door hitting the wall cracks through the office like a gunshot, the wood rebounding hard enough to rattle the maps on the wall. The corners of the papers on Silas' desk flutter in the sudden gust of air. Her intoxicating storm scent washes over me in the next, and the bond flares to life anew. Still softer, but at least I can still feel it.

I turned around to find my very angry bonded standing in the middle of the doorway of Silas’office.

The soft grey cotton dress she was wearing billowed out around her legs like she had run here. Her pale hair hangs loosely around her shoulders, her eyes blazing bright with something sharp and terrifyingly lucid. Whatever Jenny gave her did indeed worked enough to strip her haze away—only to leave nothing behind but pure rage.

Her chest rises and falls once.

Twice.

Then her legs carried her across the room in quick, fluid strides that mesmerized me more than I would care to admit. I am so lost in watching the way she floats across the floor that I don't even have time to register the way she is trembling with anger before her hand connects with my face.

The sound of skin on skin is sharp and cracks through the room like a bolt of lightning.

My head snaps to the side from the force of her hit, and for a split second the entire room goes deathly quiet. The taste of blood blooms across my tongue, and slowly I run it over the points of my teeth as they ache to make her pay for what she just did.

My body responds even with her fuming in front of me. Clouds of steam are all but pouring out of her ears as she glares her grey daggers up at me. From across the room, Silas swears under his breath, but Alora doesn’t bother looking in his direction.

Her gaze stays locked on mine.

“You,” she says, her voice shaking with restraint. “You arrogant, secret-keeping, manipulative a**hole.”

Ah.

So this is how this is going to go.

I let my gaze travel over to the beta, and he visibly tries to hide his smirk.

“Love, I am a vampire, manipulative a**hole is my normal.” I lift my brow when she slaps at my chest this time. Her fingers would sting against my skin if it weren't for my shirt.

“Don’t. Call. Me. That,” she snarls back at me while jabbing her finger in my chest. “You stood there,” she goes on, voice rising now, “and let me believe the worst of this was over with the bond in place. You let me think the heat would fade, and when it didn't, neither one of you bothered to say anything.”

Her voice breaks a little.

“You should have told me.”

I straighten my back so that I am now towering over her, reminding her that I am the one in charge here and not her. My anger is flaring now that my surprise has worn off. I close the distance between us, leaving nothing but a breath of space between our bodies.

“And would you have listened?” I snap back, letting my fangs flash in the process. I can see their reflection in her dark pupils. “You were already halfway out the door the next morning. And if I had to bet, I would say the thought hasn't left your mind once yet.”

Her lips part.

Good.

That landed.

Her thoughts are practically screaming it at me now.

“Do you really think telling you that the heat would end sooner with a conception would’ve made a difference?” I continued, my voice was as sharp as a blade. “You would’ve bolted even faster.”

“Then it should have been my choice,” she fires back. Her hands pushing against my chest.

“I hate to break this to you, Love,” I started, letting my voice drop to a sinister level. “I told you that night that there was no other choices. Now there is no changing what the Fates have decided.”

“F*ck what the Fates say,” she declares loudly and full of anger.

She means it, I know she does. I can hear it in the way her words ricochet through her own head, but there is far more that she is hiding in that pretty little head of hers. And as much as I would like to just throw her over my shoulder and carry her kicking and screaming to my room right now, I realize that swaying my bonded is going to take a bit more tact than brute force.

I lower my voice, letting it curl around her like smoke.

“You think you’re the only one fighting this? Give me time, Love. I’ll have you choosing me on purpose.”

Her eyes widen — just a fraction — but it’s enough. Her pulse flutters at the base of her throat, a quick, betraying rhythm that hits my senses like a strike of lightning. The faintest hitch in her breath follows, so small she probably doesn’t even realize she made it.

But I do.

Oh, I do.

My fangs ache, a slow, hungry throb that has nothing to do with heat and everything to do with the woman before me. The bond hums, simmering with an awareness that coils through my chest.

She’s furious.

She’s terrified.

She’s fighting me with everything she has.

And her body still reacts.

Not to the bond.

Not to fate.

To me.

A slow, deliberate smile curls at the corner of my mouth — the kind that always precedes very bad decisions on my part.

She doesn’t even realize she’s already leaning toward me, just a hair, drawn in despite herself. Her pupils are blown wide, her scent sharp with anger and something else she’d rather die than admit.

The scent of her desire permeates the office.

Absolutely perfect.

Because, for the first time since this bond snapped into place, I can fully see the path forward — not with brute force, not with dominance, not with inevitability.

Choice.

Or at least the illusion of it.

If she wants to believe, she has one in all this, well...

I’ll let her.

And I’ll use every second of it to make sure that when she finally reaches for someone…

…it’s me.