Bound by Blood and Fang

Chapter 8

Dimitri

Her light eyes almost matched the pale color of her hair as she stared at me with her full lips parted in clear surprise, clearly trying to make sense of what I’d just said.

"Kings?" she mutters under her breath, unable to speak louder than a whisper. "You’re both… you’re King Valecourt."

F*ck the way she breathed my name in that soft, slightly throaty way sends a jolt of excitement straight through me. My body hardens instantly. Not now. Not now. Last night was different; it meant her survival. The next time I make her mine will be a far cry from the rushed rutting in the dirt.

My bonded turns and looks over her shoulder at the wolf, who is still standing behind her. “And your King Calder.”

The mutt inclines his head, and I fight the urge to peek inside his head to see if he had the same reaction as I did. It's written all over his face.

When she faces me again, she looks a little paler than before. “Oh f*cking hell, do the Fates just hate me or something?”

A low snicker escaped me before I could stop it, and her gaze snapped back to mine and narrowed into tiny slits. “I would think the Fates favor you is more like it,” I said smoothly, “bonding you to two powerful kings.”

She shook her head hard, like she was trying to fling the thought away. When she stops, her expression shifts. Surprise twists into rage as it contorts her features. “That’s why both of you were so worried about completing the bond. Isn't it? You were worried about your own death, not mine.”

I felt the air shift around her — sharp, electric — and the mutt noticed it too, because he took half a step toward her.

“Neither of you cared what it did to me,” she spat, her voice rising, “only that you saved yourselves.” Her fist slammed into my chest, and I let her. “You selfish bastards.”

She cries out in pain as something strange happens. The threads twist painfully around my chest. Her small frame shook with the force of it, her breath coming in ragged bursts as she drove her fists into me like she could carve her fury into my ribs.

“YOU—DON’T—GET—TO—DECIDE—MY—FATE!”

Her voice cracked with rage, not weakness. She was furious, a storm in human form that carried the weight of everything she’d endured yesterday. Bane growled behind her like he was about to step in to defuse the situation, but I lifted a hand to silence him without looking away from her. She swung again with her good hand — her movements wild, uncoordinated, yet desperate to land another hit.

My fingers closed around her pulse, firm but not cruel. She jerked, trying to rip free, but I stepped into her, closing the distance she’d been fighting so hard to keep.

“Enough,” I said, my voice low. "You knew last night that completing the bond would do. Don't act as if you have forgotten that detail when you asked us to f*ck you."

She wasn't listening anymore. Her anger had taken over everything. She twisted, snarling, her free hand coming up for another strike — so I caught her waist with my other hand, making sure to keep my hold on it a little gentle and pulled her in against me.

Her breath hitched at the sudden proximity.

“Let me go!” she shouted, struggling against my hold while her nails dug into my wrists.

Pulling her in serves two purposes now. One, it kept her from hitting me and ultimately hurting herself even more in the process. And two, it gave me a chance to cover her in my scent because she f*cking reeked of him, and I wanted to erase as much of it as I possibly could.

If that meant using her anger to hold her close, then so be it. She was already pissed off. I held her steady as she continued to thrash, her heartbeat hammering against my chest, her scent tangled with Bane’s clothes and the remnants of the bond’s chaos. This wasn't about who had ownership over her. It was about balance, and right now, she was drowning in his scent, and it infuriated me.

Bane snarled, realizing what I was doing. His wolf hovered just beneath the surface — I saw it in the way his eyes darkened, and in the way his fingers curled into fists like he was ready to fight.

“How generous of you,” I snarled into his mind. “Dressing her in your things. Letting her sleep in your bed.”

Bane’s lips curled in disdain. “She’s MINE. Where else would she sleep?” He snarled back.

“Oh, I don’t know — maybe a separate room until she has time to come to terms with the fact that she is ours. Not just yours, Bane. Not just Vorian’s. Ours.” My voice sharpened. “She knows it was your room, by the way, and your clothing.”

My entire body vibrated with restrained fury, clicks coming from my throat in rapid succession as I glared at Bane. Pain suddenly exploded across my nose, snapping me out of our private argument. My vision goes dark for a millisecond before clearing. I can feel the distinct trickle of something wet coming from my nose.

She’d head‑butted me.

I hissed, then I caught her chin between my fingers and forced her to look at me. “You’re right, Love,” I said, and her body went still. “We are selfish monsters. And you can fight us all you want, but in the end, you are ours, and there is nothing you can do about it.”

✦

She hasn’t left her chamber since the confrontation this morning. Well, her new room, anyway. After realizing the little stunt that Bane and his mutt pulled when we first returned from the ritual grounds, by putting her in his room. He had undressed her and re-dressed her. The thought of him alone with her made me see red.

The memory alone makes something cold and vicious coil through my chest. My fangs still itch with the urge to tear the wolf apart all over again. I made damn sure that he understood that she had her own for the time being. He bitched about it but ultimately agreed when I refused to take no for an answer.

“Enter,” I say when there is a knock at the door — sharp, deliberate, familiar.

The door swings open to my own chamber, and my lieutenant steps inside, his cloak still dusted with snow from the courtyard. Cassian has been with me for nearly two centuries — long enough now to know when I’m mere seconds away from violence, and long enough to just not care about being caught in the crossfire.

He takes one look at my expression and snorts. “Impressive restraint in not killing your rival yet, my king.”

I glare as Cassian strolls further into the chamber, his hands clasped behind his back while his eyes sweep the space like he’s cataloging for threats. “You should have seen his face when our enforcers marched up his front steps. I thought he was going to shift on the spot. The growling. The posturing. The way he tried to stand between us and the door like a territorial dog guarding a bone,” Cassian continued dryly.

I just snorted in response. I could picture it clearly without even having to try very hard. My jaw tightens at his reference to my bonded. “She is not a bone.”

“No, I take it she’s not,” Cassian says, arching a brow as his expression shifts — still amused, but growing sharper. “So. Tell me how, in the seven hells, you ended up in a triad bond with a wolf? And not just any wolf, I might add— with that wolf?”

I exhaled slowly, forcing the tension out of my shoulders. “The ritual went wrong. Or right. Depending on how you interpret the Fates’ sense of humor in the matter.”

Cassian whistles low. “And the girl?”

“She survived the locking,” I sigh. “And the night, but she is refusing to leave her room now. She believes that Bane and I chose her deliberately. She is unaware of the true nature of the Heat's ritual.”

"You filled her in, though?"

I sigh and scrub my hand over my face and through my hair. "No. There have been some disputes to deal with, along with just keeping her in the f*cking packhouse for one."

He lifts his brow. He knows me far too well to realize that my less-than-pleasant demeanor at the moment has to do with something else. He doesn't even have to voice the question before my fangs press against my lower lip. “He put her in his bed last night. Dressed her in his clothes. Covered her in his scent.”

Cassian grins. “Ah. So that’s the source of that delightful spike in your bloodlust.”

I don’t dignify that with a response, though if he doesn't watch it, he will sate said bloodlust.

Cassian steps closer, his voice dropping. “What’s the plan, Dimitri? Because if you intend to kill the wolf, I need to know whether to start digging a grave and preparing for war.”

I meet his stare. "I don’t plan to kill him," I say through gritted teeth. "I can’t."

Cassian blinks. "Truly shocking. Since when does the statement I can't apply to you?"

“Since the Fates bond us to the same woman,” I continue, “But I will put him in his damn place if need be. She is mine just as much as she is his.”

Cassian’s grin turns wicked. “Now that sounds like the king I know.”

I swirl the contents of the tumbler in my hand, watching as the red liquid coats the sides, leaving a thin film of red. Even blood tastes different after tasting hers. It's blander and does nothing but make me crave hers even more. I lean back in my chair and watch as the flames lick up at the sides of the hearth.

"I do have one thing that I would like for you to look into while we are here," I say without looking up from the glass.

Cassian's spine straightens as he takes on a familiar serious expression. “Alright.”

"I want you to find out everything that you can about the girl. I want everything, as far back as you can go," I raised my head to see him eyeing me with suspicion.

“Okay, but may I ask why? Or even what it is that I should be looking for?” Cassian asks, brows pinched. “Her background could go in a dozen directions. Narrowing the scope a little more would help to weed through a bit more efficiently.”

I stare at the flames, contemplating just how much I am willing to share with him. Cassian has always been my most loyal soldier. He is the one that I trust with just about everything over the centuries that we have been together. But this is different. The consequences of putting trust in the wrong hands could end very badly for all involved if I'm right.

“Stick to family lines for now. Follow the blood.” I ended up telling him.

He nods. “What’s her name then so that I can get started?”

The simple question slaps me harder than the woman ever could herself. Sh*t. Cassian's laughter grates on my last nerve.

“Shut it before I rip your head off.”

His smirk widens at that. “You would do no such thing. Who else would tolerate you with my level of competency?”

I rise from my chair and head for the door, which he is still blocking. “Oh, maybe Dorian?” I say as I push past him, and I hear him chuckle.

“He’d last a year with your temper. You’d kill him before he even had a chance.”

“Yeah, well, you’re lucky that you’ve lasted this long. Don’t think that seniority makes you untouchable,” I reply as I rap my knuckles on the dark wooden door next to mine.

“Go away!” Her voice is muffled but unmistakably irritated on the other side of the door.

“Oh, I like her already,” Cassian whispers at my side, and I roll my eyes.

I knock again. This time, I can hear movement coming from the other side before the door is yanked open. And she stands there with her hands on her hips. Her scent hits me like a blow to the chest.

“What part of ‘go the f*ck away’ did you not get?” she snaps the second she sees me.

Cassian chokes on a laugh, trying and failing to keep his composure in front of her. But I barely hear him after that because, for the first time since the ritual, she isn’t half-conscious or terrified or bleeding. Nor is she drenched in Bane’s scent. For the first time, she is herself.

There’s a coiled tension in the way she stands, with her weight balanced on the balls of her feet like she’s prepared to either bolt for the exit or strike without warning. Her hair is loose, pale strands falling in uneven waves around her shoulders and catching the light from the sconces in the hall, making her hair look like spun silver.

Her eyes are what stop me.

Light—too light to belong in a world like ours. They burn with intelligence and temper. They are sharp and assessing, already cataloging threats and deciding how much damage she could do if this turns ugly. They aren’t the glassy, fever-bright eyes of heat or pain anymore.

They’re clear again, and if I had to guess, I would say that the pain in her wrist has completely subsided. She is currently glaring at me like I am the last person she wants to see right now. I probably am after the way I carted her in here for the last time when she tried to slip out of the house when she thought neither of us was aware.

There’s a faint shadow building beneath her eyes from exhaustion that she hasn’t yet had time to process. The thin line of stubborn resolve is still set into her mouth like she’s daring the world to try her again. She isn’t beautiful in the way court poets write about. She is beautiful in the way that storms are—untamed, inconvenient, and impossible to ignore.

I realized that I'd been staring at her for the past minute or two when Cassian cleared his throat pointedly beside me. Did he say something, and I missed it?

“I am Cassian, King Dimitri’s lieutenant,” he says as he bows at his waist before her. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms…?”

Her attention snaps to me instead of answering him like I wanted, and somehow this human’s gaze slices straight through me in a way that other vampires would dream of doing to cut their leader down to his knees.

“So, you’re using your lackeys to get information out of me because you forgot to ask before you made it clear that ‘I’m not going anywhere’? That’s rich, don’t you think?”

Cassian makes a strangled sound that is hard to cover up with a fake cough — half laugh, half disbelief.

She’s furious and unafraid as she calls out a king like he’s a misbehaving child. And gods help me… it makes me want to push my lieutenant out of the way, slam the door closed, and f*ck her until she understands just who she is speaking to. I let the mask that I have worn for years slip back into place, but something in her eyes sharpens, like she can see the crack in my composure widening right before her very eyes.