Bound by Blood and Fang

Chapter 7

Alora

The world slowly starts to trickle back in through the darkness, like a spring swelling as the last of the winter snow melts. It’s gentle at first — soft light bleeding through my cracked lids, the rays are thin and hesitant, as if they are too afraid to touch me.

Then comes a scent that makes my mouth water a little. It feels familiar in a way that makes heat coil in my belly and my pulse flutter instantly. Pine and smoke wraps round me like a thick, woolen blanket, making me want to snuggle deeper in the mattress. The feeling it gives me unnerves me far more than I care to admit right now.

My eyes slowly dragged open more to reveal the ceiling above me. It is stone, rough-hewn and dark, with beams that were carved by hands that didn’t care about beauty. Only strength. Only permanence. Thin slivers of daylight catch on the uneven surface, making it look older than time itself.

The bed I’m currently in is massive. Carved from dark wood with posts that are thick enough to hold up a ceiling. Heavy furs spill across the top, soft but suffocating me with their weight. The sheets beneath me are soft, a much better quality than the thin ones that I was used to.

Pain detonates through my entire body as I survey the rest of the room. My breath catches in my chest as the pain shoots through every nerve in my body. My ribs are sore like they have been crushed and pieced back together all wrong, making breathing a little more strenuous than it normally is. My thighs feel like they have lead weights wrapped around them, making it difficult to move them across the bed.

And my neck. Fates, it feels like someone has poured something flammable across the skin before setting it alight.

The pain burns deep into my marrow that is only drawn out by the ache between my legs — deep, insistent, and impossible to ignore. Realization snaps through me like the sharp edge of my dagger.

The potion.

The white dress.

The hunt.

The red threads.

The bond.

Being claimed.

Not by one …but two monsters.

Shit.

My heart slams against my ribs as panic begins to rise in my chest, and it feels as if it is pressing in from every direction. I shove my palms into the mattress, trying to sit up and breathe, trying to make sense of the world that feels too bright and too dark all at once. The room tilts, and my vision swims with tiny black dots from sitting up faster than my body was prepared to handle.

"How did I let this happen?" I asked aloud to the empty room even though I already knew the answer. The potion is how. It did exactly as my mother said it would.

As my vision finally clears, I take in more of the room that I am in. It's nothing like the small cottage that I grew up in. This room is enormous. The walls are made of stone, the kind that still holds the cold even in summer. There is a fireplace that sits just opposite the bed, its embers still glowing softly, casting a faint orange pulse across the thick rug that lies in front of it. It's woven in a blend of dark colors that blur together — burgundy, black, a deep forest green. It looks a lot like dried blood and moss in the limited light.

There is a table that stands near the window. It's cluttered with several things: a bowl of water, a folded cloth, a small vial of something amber‑colored, and a familiar-looking dagger with a black hilt and silver veins tracing along the length of the handle. The blade itself gleams even from a distance.

Checking my surroundings one last time to make sure that I'm indeed alone, I shift, my body protests every inch that I move, but I know that I can’t sit still for much longer. I need to move. To get out of here before either one of them knows that I am awake. The light from the curtains shifts slightly, and for half a heartbeat, I breathed in a sigh of relief. Daylight. It's daylight outside, so I won't have to stumble around in the dark trying to find my way out of this unfamiliar house.

My gaze snags on the dagger once again — my instinct tightening like a fist in my gut.

I don’t hesitate, and the moment that the room stops spinning enough for me to stand, I'm moving. My bare feet struck against the floor as I shoved myself off the bed and staggered for a moment as I regained my bearings. Pain shoots up through my legs, but I stagger forward anyway, toward the little table.

My fingers close around the hilt; the familiar weight of it in my hand is a small comfort. I turn searching for my garter, but it's nowhere to be found. Surprisingly—or not so surprisingly— I discover that I am wearing nothing but a soft, thin nightgown that will do absolutely nothing for me the moment that I step outside.

I am just about to begin to rummage through the dresser when my eyes land on a neatly folded stack of clothing sitting at the bottom of the bed. Dark. Simple, and if I'm lucky, they're clean.

I wobble my way over and snatch the top layer up. It's a long shirt, soft and oversized, and very clearly intended for a male. Oh well, I can't afford to be picky right now about what clothes I'm wearing. The sooner I can get out of here, the better. I drag the shirt over my head with shaking hands, shoving my hands through the arms. It smells like pine and smoke, like every other surface in the room.

Now that I am wearing something that won't let me freeze to death anymore, I place my blade in the waistband of the pants before making my way toward the door on the far side of the room. Its wooden planks are thick and reinforced with iron bands, and the handle looks like it had been forged to withstand a battering ram.

Every step I take, my body screams at me in protest, begging me to stop — but panic burns hotter in my chest. Staying is not an option. Disappointment and shame wash over me at the thought of the two marks upon my throat. The very thing my mother warned me not to let happen. And I failed spectacularly.

"Don't think about that now. Just focus on making it out of here first," I tell myself.

I used every ounce of my strength to pull the door open. It gives with a soft squeak to reveal a long stone corridor that is lit by flickering sconces along the walls. Outside, it's too quiet. Too empty. I hold on to the wall as I force my legs to carry me forward, my breath coming in shallow breaths, my heart hammering, growing louder with every step I take.

The door closed behind me with another squeak and the soft sound of the latch clicking into place a second later.

The corridor stretches ahead of me, the wooden boards are slightly uneven beneath my feet, and I have to make sure that I don't trip. Each step I take sends a jolt up my legs, but I grit my teeth and keep moving. The sconces flicker slightly as I pass, their shadows jumping across the walls like they’re trying to reach out and grab me.

A coldness seeps into the palms of my hands from the cold walls, making my body shudder. I stop as the hallway forks with two identical passages yawning open like a choice that I don’t have the time to ponder. My pulse spikes as I pick the path to the left because it feels marginally less suffocating than the other.

I force my body to move, fighting the urge to look over my shoulder every time I get the feeling of eyes boring into me from somewhere in the shadows. "Fates, please let me choose correctly."

The air shifts as I move deeper, growing colder, and tangled with something frightening. A faint sound echoes from somewhere down the other hallway. A door closing? A footstep? Or maybe it's just the house settling, and my mind is making up things just to scare me?

The corridor widens briefly into a small alcove with a narrow table and a vase of wilted flowers. I push past the table, and my vision begins to swim again as the bond threads pulse around my wrist suddenly. That scent of pine and smoke seems to grow stronger. And I stop and lift the fabric of the oversized shirt to my nose. The scent on it is softer, not as strong as what's in the air now.

My stomach twists. Sh*t, I need to hurry before it's too late. My pace quickens, and I am almost there. Almost to the door that I am certain will lead to the outside world. I turn another corner fully expecting to see it, only to slam straight into something solid.

No—correction— not something but someone.

I bounce back with a sudden gasp, pain jolting through my shoulders when a set of strong hands grabs a hold of my arms to keep me from falling.

“Hey,” the sound of his voice hits first—deep, rough, and threaded with something almost feral that causes my body to react before my mind has the chance to even catch up.

The wolf.

His scent envelops me, and my vision blurs as if the air itself is pulling me toward him. Pine and smoke? The same scent that filled the room wasn't just from the floorboards and the hearth. The scent was his. It had been his room I had just woken up in. And it was his clothing that I am wearing right now.

Something snaps inside me. I scream and lash out blindly, my nails raking across any bit of flesh that I can sink them into. “Don’t touch me!” I snarl at him, my body already twisting away and trying to break free from his hold.

“Don’t,” he growls simply, his voice rough, like he is fighting for control of himself.

My body wants to obey to stop, but my mind is still screaming at me to get as far as I can from him. “I said, let me, GO!” I yelled, and when that still didn't cause him to release me, I turned just enough to put a short amount of space between us, and I swung.

My fist connects with a sharp, satisfying crack, my knuckles screaming as they meet bone. There is definitely a broken bone or two, by the way my hand throbs. His head snaps to the side, and the impact of the hit echoes down the hall. Pulling my hand to my chest as pain races up my arm. The wolf staggers back half a step, shock flashing across his face before something darker surges to the surface. A small drop of blood beads at the corner of his mouth where my hit had split his lip.

It isn't what I was aiming for, but it worked well enough.

The air in the room changes instantly. It’s like a pressure slams down around us, sucking all the air out of the room. The wolf's pupils blow wide, black bleeding through the green as something inside him moves—paces, snarls, and presses against the surface of his skin trying to break free.

And then it does. He steps forward, reaching for me, and I step back. “I can’t let you leave.”

Rage flares so fast it steals my breath. “You don’t let me do anything. Now I said get out of my way.” I shoved at his chest, harder than I should have been able to. My strength, seemingly fueled by panic and adrenaline that allows me to push a six-foot-five werewolf out of my way. He rocks back on his heels once he realizes what just happened. His hands shoot out again, gripping my arms, holding me still. Holding me in place to keep me from running or from punching him in the face again.

“No,” I snarl, twisting against his hold. “Let. Me. Go.”

He doesn’t. His grip only clamps down harder, fingers digging into my muscles as his wolf pushes forward, crowding my senses.

"Mine," he growls.

I wrench my arm sideways, twisting my body with a force that surprises even me. His grip slips for half a second — but it is just enough. I slam my elbow into his ribs, and he grunts, loosening his hold, and I tear free. Pain shoots through my arm, making my hand throb even more. My feet hit the floor hard, stumbling, catching, pushing forward before he could grab me again. The room blurs around the edges, but the door at the far end stands out in sharp, desperate clarity.

Freedom. I lunge toward it, my breath ragged, heart pounding, and every nerve screaming at me to keep moving. Behind me, I hear the wolf curse under his breath — low, furious, and clearly startled, before the sound of boots pounding against the floor echos though the air.

“And where exactly do you think you’re going?” Another voice calls. It's smooth and sounds like it is very amused at what's happening, causing me to skid to a halt.

It's not the wolf's deep, gruff tone. No, this one is cold and methodical. I turn in the direction of the voice only to find the Vampire standing a few paces away, leaning casually against the stone archway like he’s been there the whole time watching the scene that just unfolded. His dark coat is immaculate, and his expression is calm while his eyes are glittering red in the low light.

He straightens to his full height as he crosses the foyer to stand directly in my path of escape.

“What, are you going to stop me too?” I hiss at him as my nails bite into the palm of my hand.

“You’re not wrong to want to run,” the vampire says mildly. “I would too, if I were in your place.”

“Great, glad we agree on something now, get out of my way.”

The corners of his mouth twitch like he is fighting not to smile. “You won't get far, Love,” he continues. “You step outside that door,” he adds, his tone almost gentle, “and someone will stop you. Not because they wish to harm you—but because they’ve been ordered to protect what is now considered… valuable to us.”

The wolf snarls behind me. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

The vampire doesn’t even bother to look at him; his gaze is trained solely on me like he can see right through me. “Why? Because is it not the truth?” He reaches out like he is going to touch my pale hair, but at the last moment, he thinks twice and drops his hand to his side. "Is she not valuable to you? Because she is to me."

My breath comes in fast, shallow breaths from the pain in my hand. “I’m not staying,” I manage, through gritted teeth, my voice shaking, but loud enough to cut through them both. “Not here. Not with either of you.”

I can hear the wolf as he shifts his weight behind me, like he is deciding whether it is wise to come near me again. It isn't, and thankfully, he doesn't try to move any closer.

“Princess…”

“Stop calling me that,” I snapped over my shoulder. “You don’t get to sound gentle after what you did. After what the heat took from me last night.”

I watched as his hands curled into fists at his sides, his jaw tightening as if the words physically struck him. For a moment, his face shifts, and I swear I see a flicker of emotion. Wow, I didn't think these monsters were capable of human sentiments. And maybe they aren't, and it is nothing, but my mind and the bond are simply playing tricks on me to make me lower my guard.

“You can fight this,” the vampire says quietly. “Scream. Run. Strike. None of that surprises me.”

My stomach twists at just how calm he sounds.

“But you should understand one thing, love,” he continues. “This bond does not care about your defiance. Or his protectiveness.” A pointed glance towards the wolf. “Or my patience.”

“You leave tonight,” The vampire finishes, “and the world outside these walls will be far crueler than the two kings that are currently trying not to tear each other apart for your sake.” He watches me carefully, and I feel like he is looking through my very soul. "Running won’t save you," he adds softly. “It didn't last night, and it isn't going to now.”

Silence stretches across the entryway as I stare at this monster like he has grown a third head.

Kings?

My chest burns as my body begins to tremble uncontrollably. I am not bonded to just any ol’ wolf or vampire.

I’m bonded to both the Kings of Elyndor.