Blood Bound To My Enemy

CHAPTER FOUR

💐 CHAPTER FOUR 💐

I watched his face, hoping for hesitation, for some flicker of mercy. Instead, his expression remained cold as a winter stone.

“Yes.” The word hit like a physical blow. “Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to watch your blood spill as payment for what your mother did to my family…To me!”

My chest tightened, but I forced myself to hold his gaze. “Then why haven’t you? Better get it over with or…don’t tell me you want to drag out the torture to satisfy your weird cravings for vengeance?”

“I’m keeping you alive…Because you’re more useful to me that way.” He stood, moving to the window like a predator surveying his territory. “You have one chance to atone for your mother’s sins. One way to balance the scales.”

“I don’t understand.”

“A blood bond.” He turned back to face me, and the hatred in his eyes made me want to disappear. “Your magical essence will be transferred to me through an ancient ritual. It’s the only way to break the curse.”

Terror shot through me. I scrambled off the bed, my back hitting the stone wall. “No. There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t.”

“You can’t just—I won’t—”

“It’s cute how you think you have a choice.”

The casual cruelty in his voice stopped me cold. Looking at him—at the way he filled the doorway, blocking my only exit—reality crashed over me. I was trapped. Completely and utterly trapped.

“Please.” The word tasted like surrender. “I never asked for any of this. I had no part in what my mother did.”

“Your ignorance doesn’t absolve you of responsibility.” He moved closer, and I pressed harder against the wall, wishing I could sink into the stone. “Your mother destroyed my family. Now you’re going to help me save what’s left of it.”

My throat closed up. “What if it doesn’t work? What if the ritual fails?”

“Then you die having tried. Better than dying for nothing.”

I bit my lip to keep from crying. This couldn’t be happening. Yesterday I was worried about rent money and broken glass. Now I was facing some ancient ritual that might kill me.

I looked at Jaxon but all I got was a hard glare in return. His face was set, eyes cold as they shot daggers at me. He had made up his mind and nothing I say or do, would make a difference.

But how many nights have I stayed awake thinking about the boy cursed by my mother? What his fate was? How long have I lived with the guilt of the m******e led by my mother?

How many times have I prayed to the goddess for the souls of the innocents my mother murdered?

And now just like a dream I’ve met him - and I had the chance to cure him. To make him better.

He was right - this could be a good way to atone for the guilt I’ve carried for years.

“When is this happening?” I whispered.

“Now.”

He called out something I didn’t understand, and within minutes the room filled with people. An elderly man with kind eyes carried ceremonial supplies.

The beta who’d grabbed me in my apartment looked uncomfortable but determined. Two others I didn’t recognize flanked the door.

“Wait, I need time to—” I started.

“You’ve had twenty-three years to prepare for this moment. Time’s up.”

The elderly man—Henrik, Jaxon had called him—spread an ornate cloth on the floor. He placed a silver bowl in the center, its rim covered in symbols that seemed to writhe in the lamplight.

“The blood bond of life essence,” Henrik said, his voice taking on a formal tone that made my skin crawl. “Two souls joined by necessity, bound by magic older than memory.”

My breathing turned shallow. “I can’t do this.”

“You will.” Jaxon rolled up his sleeve, exposing a muscled forearm crossed with scars. “Because the alternative is watching my pack suffer for your mother’s cruelty.”

Henrik held out a ceremonial dagger. The blade gleamed sharp enough to cut shadows.

Jaxon took it without hesitation and drew it across his palm in one fluid motion. Dark blood welled up immediately, dripping into the silver bowl with soft plinking sounds.

“Your turn.” He held the dagger out to me.

I stared at the blood-slicked blade, my hands shaking. “I can’t.”

“Then I’ll do it for you.”

He reached for my hand, and I jerked back so hard I hit my head against the wall. “Don’t touch me.”

“Then take the blade.”

We stared at each other across the impossible distance between us. I looked for mercy in his storm-gray eyes and found only impatience. No way out. No other choice.

My fingers felt numb as I took the dagger. It was heavier than I’d expected, warm from his grip.

“Just a small cut,” Henrik said softly. “Enough to mix your essence with his.”

I held the blade above my palm, frozen. A tear slipped down my cheek despite my best efforts.

“Do it,” Jaxon commanded.

I pressed the edge to my skin and pulled it across in one quick motion. Pain flared, sharp and immediate. Blood beaded along the cut, brighter red than his somehow.

I held my hand over the bowl, watching my blood fall to mingle with his. The moment the two streams touched, the world exploded.

Power rushed through me like lightning, wild and consuming. The symbols on the bowl blazed to life, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat. Magic I’d never felt before coursed through my veins, ancient and hungry.

Henrik’s voice rose in a chant that hurt my ears, words in a language that bypassed my brain and spoke directly to my bones.

Then something inside me snapped into place.

The connection hit like being struck by lightning. Suddenly I could feel Jaxon’s heartbeat as clearly as my own, could taste his surprise and reluctant relief flooding through whatever invisible cord now stretched between us.

His emotions crashed into mine—hatred and gratitude warring in his chest, satisfaction that the ritual was working mixed with revulsion at being tied to me.

But underneath it all, something else. Something he was trying desperately to suppress.

The magical essence that had been locked away in my bloodline rushed out of me like water through a broken dam. I felt it flowing into him, wild and untamed, carrying pieces of my very self along with it.

The moment it was complete, he shoved me away so violently I stumbled.

“It’s done.” He wiped his hand on his jeans, not looking at me. “The bond is sealed.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling hollow and strange. Part of me was missing now, part of me was in him. And worse—part of him was in me.

“I can feel you,” I whispered.

His jaw tightened. “It’ll fade.”

But even as he said it, I knew he was lying. The connection between us thrummed like a live wire, impossible to ignore. I could sense his presence in my mind, foreign and unwelcome.

“Get her out of here,” he told Marcus without looking at me. “Find her somewhere to stay until we figure out the next steps.”

“Jaxon—” Henrik started.

“I said get her out.”

Marcus approached me carefully, like I might shatter. “Come on. Let’s find you some food and clean clothes.”

I looked back at Jaxon as Marcus guided me toward the door. He stood with his back to us, rigid and unmoving.

But through the bond, I could feel everything he was trying to hide.

The relief that he might actually live past thirty.

The self-loathing at being saved by his enemy’s daughter.

And underneath it all, a hunger that had nothing to do with vengeance and everything to do with the way lightning had struck when our blood touched.

He hated me.

But he wanted me too.

And now, thanks to the bond, I could feel it all.