Bound and Broken
1070 Words
Elle POV
I didn’t fight when Blake carried me back.
What would be the point?
His grip wasn’t cruel…
but it was unyielding, like stone molded by fire.
As if his hands themselves feared letting me slip away again.
When the room’s warmer air touched my skin, he exhaled shakily—relief, fury, and something else tangled together. He set me down onto the bed, but only long enough to reposition me.
Metal clinked.
Leather tightened.
He didn’t speak at first.
The silence itself felt like a warning.
My wrists were drawn above my head, fastened to something immovable. My ankles were secured apart—not harshly, not painfully, but with deliberate restraint.
Not punishment.
Not exactly.
Control.
Blake needed control.
His breathing was ragged; the curse pulsed off him like heat waves. I didn’t need sight to feel it pressing against my skin, climbing up my spine.
He had lost ground today.
And I couldn’t shake the thought that it was my fault.
When the last restraint clicked shut, he stopped moving. For a long, agonizing moment, he just stood near me, breathing like he’d been running.
Then—
A low, broken sound.
A growl, choked and trembling.
“Elle… don’t ever run again.”
I flinched.
His voice was wrong—warped by something deep and burning.
This was the curse.
The monster.
The part of him he swore to protect me from.
“Blake,” I whispered.
He inhaled sharply, as if my voice caused him physical pain.
“You shouldn’t talk right now,” he murmured. “Not when I’m like this.”
The bed dipped near my restrained arm. His fingers brushed a lock of hair from my cheek. Softly. Carefully. Terrifyingly tender.
But the tremor in his hand betrayed how close he was to breaking.
“I will stay,” he said. “Until you’re calm again.”
I’m not the one who needs calming, I wanted to say.
But I bit the words back.
His breath hitched like fire catching on dry leaves.
“Why did you leave the room?”
Because I was scared.
Because you were slipping.
Because I don’t know what I am to you.
But all I managed was a quiet:
“I thought… someone else was here.”
He stiffened.
“You heard them,” he said darkly. “And you ran. You—you were blind and alone and you still tried to escape.”
His hand closed around my wrist—not tight, but firm enough that I felt the strain running through his tendons.
“If they had found you—”
His voice cut off, cracking.
A harsh inhale.
Then:
“I can’t control it tonight.”
Not a warning.
A confession.
The air thickened as if the entire room drew breath and held it.
The curse was climbing him—like claws dragging down his spine. I felt it in the heat of his hands, the vibration in the mattress, the way his breath trembled between his teeth.
Little one…
The voice in my head returned—soft, but stronger now.
He’s at his limit.
I swallowed. “What do I do?”
You must keep him grounded… but do not provoke him.
“How?”
The voice only hummed, a soft rush like wind over grass.
Speak to me.
My wolf wanted me to talk to her.
Now.
While Blake was minutes from losing himself.
“I—I don’t know how,” I whispered.
You are already doing it.
She sounded amused.
Ask what you fear to ask. I will answer.
My hands strained against the restraints. “What… what am I?”
The wolf exhaled like a mother soothing a frightened child.
You are more than a wolf. More than a doll. You were born rare, born hunted. You survived a life meant to kill you.
A shiver ran down my spine.
He is not the monster you fear. He is the one fate bound to protect you.
I wanted to believe her.
Wanted to trust Blake.
But then—
The bed’s weight shifted violently.
Blake’s hands slammed to the mattress on either side of me—not touching me, but caging me in his heat.
His breath burned against my throat.
“Elle…”
Low. Broken. Strangled.
“Look at me.”
“I’m blind,” I whispered.
“That doesn’t matter,” he said.
Something in him cracked with those words.
The curse surged, pressing the air thick around us. His hand hovered near my face, trembling violently. Something hot dripped onto my cheek—tears, but from rage or fear I couldn’t tell.
“I need—”
He choked on the rest.
My wolf’s voice spoke sharply in my mind:
Do not let him think you fear him.
I steadied my breath. “Blake… I’m right here.”
His breath stuttered.
His forehead lowered until it touched mine—hot, burning, shaking. He wasn’t touching any restraint, any vulnerable part of me. Just my forehead.
A single point of contact.
A tether.
A lifeline.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice shredded. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—Elle, I’m—”
He cut himself off with a harsh growl, biting it back with visible effort.
He was losing.
Fast.
My wolf murmured, He will not harm you. But he fears he might.
I swallowed a tremor.
“Blake… breathe.”
He did.
A few deep, painful breaths.
But then—
A new sound.
A distant rumble.
A roar—far away in the fortress halls.
Another dragon.
Another presence.
A threat.
Blake stiffened completely.
His voice dropped to a near-silent whisper, laced with pure feral fury.
“Someone is here.”
My pulse spiked.
His hand slid down the restraint around my wrist.
Not to remove it.
To tighten it.
“Blake—”
“I’ll keep you alive,” he said. “No matter what I have to become.”
I felt it then—
the monster inside him rising.
Not toward me.
But for me.
He left the bed with a final, shaking inhale.
“Don’t move,” he said, though I had no choice.
“Don’t speak to anyone but me.”
The door opened.
Heat rushed in.
Then he was gone.
And the darkness I thought I feared…
was nothing compared to the silence he left behind.
- Writer
