Bound by Blood and Fang

Chapter 11

Alora

Two days.

Two days of being trapped in this room with nothing but my own traitorous body for company. I have paced the floor until the boards creaked in protest under my weight. I’ve tried breathing exercises. I’ve even tried a cold water bath in the hope that it would extinguish the fire that was burning in me.

I’ve tried burying myself under blankets in the hopes of smothering it out. I’ve even tried lying still, sitting still, being still.

None of it helps.

The heat keeps building anyway — slow, relentless, a tension coiling low in my stomach and spreading through my limbs like wildfire. Every time I think I’m okay, that I can breathe again, it surges back to life, sharper, hungrier, and even more demanding than it was before.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and breathe through my teeth, trying to ignore it.

Get it together. Get it together.

But my body doesn’t listen. Why would it? It hasn’t listened to me since the ritual.

It hasn’t listened since them.

I had the maids bring in several different herbs last night. The ones that I knew I needed for teas, so that I was protected in case this damned heat continued even longer. I couldn't risk falling too lax in taking them. That would be an absolute catastrophe.

The bond pulses again — a sharp tug beneath my ribs to my core — and I grit my teeth against the wave of sensation that follows. It’s not pain. It’s not pleasure. It’s something in between, something that makes my breath catch and my skin feel like it is far too tight.

Anticipation.

Like my body is laughing at me, holding out and just waiting for the moment that my will fractures.

I’ve been ignoring it for two days.

Ignoring them for two days.

But now… now it is all I can feel. I can feel them.

Both of them.

Just on the other side of the wall.

Their presences press against the edges of my awareness like storm fronts closing in. The vampire’s cold, ancient steadiness. The wolf’s hot, restless fury. Two opposite forces, both pulling at the same fraying thread inside me, demanding recognition.

My pulse stutters.

My knees weaken.

“No,” I whispered to myself, pacing again. “Not now. Not again.”

But the bond doesn’t care what I want. It tightens — sharp, sudden — like someone yanking a cord tied around my heart. I stumbled forward, catching myself on the dark dresser. My breath comes too fast, too shallow now, and the room feels far smaller than it did a moment ago, like the walls are slowly inching closer, and the air has grown thick enough to choke on.

Two days of restraint crumble the moment they’re both this close — the moment their energies collide through the wall — something inside me cracks. And it is nearly impossible to resist. A tremor runs through me, violent and uncontrollable. My fingers dig into the wood of the dresser while my vision blurs at the edges.

“Stop,” I hissed to the Fates, praying they might have mercy on me. “Stop, stop, stop—”

The bond surges again, harder this time, like a scream inside my chest, almost like it is mocking my pleas. I gasp — a sharp, involuntary sound — and the moment it leaves my mouth, I feel it.

A ripple.

A pull.

And then a flare of answering energy from the other side of the wall.

They felt that.

They felt me.

Panic spikes through me. I stumble backwards, hitting the wall, and sliding down until I’m sitting on the floor with my knees pulled up against my chest, trying to breathe through the rising tide of need inside of me. My skin is hot to the touch, even to my own hands.

“No,” I whispered again, my voice shaking. “Don’t come in here. Don’t—”

But it’s too late.

Bootsteps thunder from the room next to mine as two sets rush for the door.

Fast.

Hard.

Unstoppable.

The bond pulses one last time — a desperate, panicked cry that I didn’t mean to send — and then—

My door explodes inward.

Wood splinters everywhere, and the frame shudders as it gives in to the force from the other side. And suddenly the room is full of them — two storms colliding in the doorway, two shadows swallowing the light.

For a heartbeat, I can’t breathe as my body ignites at the sight of the two of them standing in the ruined doorway.

King Valecourt is the first shape my hazy eyes latch onto.

The edges of him blur, his outline warping in the heat that is twisting through my vision. His bronze eyes burn with a red glow that makes my pulse flutter. Strands of his hair have come loose from their tie and frame his face in a rather attractive manner of messiness. His shirt hangs open at the throat again, his chest rising and falling too fast for someone who’s supposed to be dead. The firelight catches the sharp lines of his jaw, turning him into something regal and dangerous and unbearably bright.

He definitely looks like a king carved from night right now.

And then there is the Werewolf king— Alpha Calder— he stands there beside Valecourt. All heat and broad muscle that barely contains a violence that feels like it is simmering just beneath the surface. His shoulders fill the doorway, his chest heaving, his eyes swirling with a darkness that means his wolf is right beneath the surface.

Their combined presence hits me like a physical force, hot and overwhelming, making the air feel too thick to swallow. A shot of electricity races down my spine, settling low and heavy between my legs. Sweat beads across my skin in a thin sheen that does nothing to cool my heated skin.

Damn it. Why is this still happening?

I force my vision to focus and watch as their nostrils flare as my scent hits them full force. Just like it did the night of the ritual. The same overpowering pull that overtook them.

A growl rips through the room.

I don’t know whose it is.

Maybe both.

The heat inside me spikes, blinding and suffocating, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block them out, trying to block everything out. It feels like the magic is crawling just below my skin, and the thought of clawing it out is at the forefront of my mind. Anything to make this stop.

Anything that doesn't involve the very heated looks in my bonded's eyes at the moment.

They both move at the same time, and something inside me snaps, and I snarl.

“No!”

They freeze and stare at me with matching confused looks on their faces. Like they can't fathom how I could possibly tell them no in my current state.

"Alora," Alpha Calder’s voice is sharp and dangerous. “You can't keep going like this. You’ve been refusing help for days, and now things are progressing past a point to where you can't.”

“The mutt is right, love,” King Valecourt adds, stepping forward. “You can’t keep living in constant pain. Let us help you. Like the other night.”

The vampire moves past the wolf, his movements smooth and inhumanly fast. His hands cup my face before I could react; his cool skin was a brief, blessed relief against the burning beneath mine. I take a deep breath and raise my eyes to meet his.

“I said no.” I yank my face from his hands, and the pain instantly intensifies.

“Stop being stubborn and let us help you,” Alpha Calder growls as he scoops me up from the ground and pins me to his chest.

“You don't need to be so rough with her right now, Bane. For Fate's sake, she’s in f*cking pain,” the vampire snaps.

“Which is exactly why she should stop resisting and let us help.”

I swear I can't stand the way they talk about me, like I am not even in the room. Like, somehow they have this right to decide what is best for me without bothering to consider my feelings on the matter. Let alone that the only time these two seem to agree on anything is when my body is screaming for the both of them.

The rest of the time, they want to rip one another apart.

The air in the room shifts. Growing thick, electric, and vibrating with too much need and nowhere for it to go. Alpha Calder’s arms flex around me, his grip firm and possessive. His breath is hot against the crook of my neck as he nuzzles my throat. His scent crashes over me — pine and smoke —making my body heat even more and scream for something I refuse to give it.

The vampire stands just out of reach.

Still.

King Valecourt’s jaw is clenched so tight I can hear the faint grind of his teeth. His hands curl slowly at his sides, fingers flexing like he’s bracing against the invisible pull. His eyes burn — not with hunger alone, but with restraint. With an effort to stay where he is.

The bond tugs at him unrelentingly anyway. I feel it yank through my chest, sharp and insistent, trying to drag him closer. Trying to close the distance that I’m so desperately trying to hold onto.

“Alora,” the alpha growls, his voice rough, fraying at the edges. “You don’t understand what’s happening to you.”

“I understand enough,” I snap, my voice shaking as I tried to wiggle my arms free from his grasp. “Put me down.”

He doesn’t listen.

It's just like that night. Like something has come over him, something instinctive and overpowering, and there is nothing that I can do or say that will make him stop. His hold tightens instead, his wolf surging forward, crowding my space, his presence pressing down on me like a lead weight. My skin burns where he touches me, every nerve ending screaming in need, while my mind screams back in protest.

“I can stop this,” he insists, his nose trailing along my jaw to my ear. “I can fix it.”

“No.” My voice cracks into something feral.

Something dark and sinister flashes across his face — anger, frustration, with a twinge of fear twisted into something sharp and dangerous. Valecourt exhales slowly, like he’s forcing himself not to move. “She’s telling you no, Bane. You should listen to her,” he says quietly.

The wolf’s head snaps toward him. “Stay out of this.”

“For once,” the vampire hisses coolly, “I’m trying to.”

The bond surges again — violent, desperate for what it wants— and this time it drags a sound from both of them. A low growl from Bane. A sharp inhale from Valecourt. My vision swims as desire floods my veins, the blood roaring so loud in my ears that it drowns out my thoughts. My body jerks despite my mind's refusal to give in, betraying me, reacting to forces I can’t control.

“No,” I gasp, panic clawing up my throat. “Stop—please—”

Bane moves, pressing my back against the wall, pressing himself between my thighs. I feel him already hard, and I snarl at him through the pleasure that shoots up my spine.

“ENOUGH.”

A voice roars from the shattered remains of my doorway. A man I’ve never seen before steps inside — tall, broad‑shouldered, radiating heat that marks him unmistakably as a wolf.

Alpha Calder whirls around, his lips pulling into a snarl. The newcomer doesn’t flinch at the King's aggression. He grabs Alpha Calder — not cautiously, not deferentially, but with the authority of someone who knows exactly what this alpha is capable of, and knows how to handle him.

“Get your hands off me, Beta,” Alpha Calder roars, struggling against his hold.

My body sags against the wall with a small twinge of relief, my breathing coming in shallow pants as I try to remain in control of my own body.

“No,” the Beta growls back, shoving him toward the door. “You’re done. Now.”

Alpha Calder continues to fight him — not to hurt, but to resist — his muscles straining, the fury pouring off him in suffocating waves and filling every corner of this room. The walls rattle with each roar that comes from his chest as he is pushed closer to the door. The floor creaks beneath their weight.

The Beta plants his feet and forces the alpha King back, using leverage and years of experience and the kind of strength that only comes from knowing your alpha better than he knows himself.

At the same moment, another presence moves into the room. One that I had not noticed.

A female, no more than a few years older than me, appears in front of me. I can't see her face at this angle, but the way she holds herself tells me she isn't afraid to get her hands dirty. She has strategically placed herself between the Vampire King and me, just as it appears the last of his restraints snap.

Valecourt’s gaze drops to her slowly, red eyes narrowing, power rolling just beneath his skin.

She doesn’t flinch.

Doesn’t bow.

Doesn’t even look impressed.

She lifts her chin and glares at the vampire. “Do I look like I’m scared of you, bat boy?”

For a heartbeat, the world holds its breath.

Then Valecourt… stops.

The bond tugs at him again — furious and demanding — but he locks it down, shoulders stiff, jaw tight. His eyes flick past her to me, something unreadable flashing through them before he steps back.

Behind him, Alpha Calder roars in pure rage as his beta shoves him fully into the hallway.

“LET GO OF ME!” he bellows.

The Beta hauls the Alpha King away bodily, the sound of boots pounding and snarled curses echoing down the corridor, something crashes in the distance— maybe a table. I am sure there will be shattered furniture along with a few staggeringly placed holes when morning comes.

“You would be wise to walk out of here while you still can,” the female growls, her voice shifting darker.

King Valecourt sneers at the female, then disappears through the shattered remnants of the door, and silence crashes around me.

The female turns to me then, her expression sharp but steady. Her warm brown eyes quickly assess me like she is looking for any physical marks. Besides a couple of bruises from the Alpha from where he gripped my waist, I should be fine.

Only if the need inside of me would dissipate, that would be fantastic.

“Are you okay?” she asks, already crouching in front of me like she expects the answer to be no.

I swallow hard.

“I… I don’t know.”

She nods once, like that’s exactly what she expected. Then she glanced toward the door Valecourt disappeared through.

“Bonded's always think they can fix everything with their d***s,” she says, shaking her head in clear disappointment. “Come, I have something that should help take the edge off for now.”