Novels by S.A Akinola

LYRAThe worst realization comes quietly.Not with pain.Not with fear.With clarity.The heart between us isn’t just reacting anymore.It’s observing.I feel it in the subtle adjustments—the way the pressure eases when Cain’s hand rests at my waist, the way it tightens when my thoughts drift too far from him. It isn’t punishing randomly.It’s measuring.“Cain,” I whisper, barely moving my lips. “Don’t… don’t pull away. Just—stay where you are.”He stiffens slightly, then stills. His breath evens out a fraction.The heart responds.Not with relief.With interest.I swallow. “It’s learning us.”His jaw tightens. “I know.”Because I feel it too—through him. His mind mapping sensations like terrain. Alpha instinct turning terror into strategy.The Devourer doesn’t interrupt.That scares me more than when it speaks.CAINPredators that talk too much are careless.This one isn’t.It let us hurt ourselves.It let us try to escape.Now it’s watching what we do next.I lower myself carefully,

CAINI take one step away from her.Just one.It feels like tearing muscle from bone.The heart inside my chest spasms—not pain, not yet, but shock. A sudden arrhythmia that makes my vision blur and my wolf snarl in confusion.Lyra gasps behind me.I don’t turn.I can’t.Because if I see her face when this happens, I don’t know if I’ll survive it.“Stay there,” I say hoarsely. “Just—don’t move.”My second step lands harder.The forest seems to tilt.The bond stretches—not like a cord, but like tissue. Living. Sensitive. Wrong. I feel it thinning between us, pulled too far, too fast.The heart stutters.Once.Twice.Then—pain.White-hot, blinding, detonating straight through my sternum like a blade punched inward.I drop to one knee with a roar I can’t stop.Lyra screams my name.And the Devourer—laughs.Ah.There it is.Distance.LYRAThe moment he steps away, something inside me tears.Not emotionally.Physically.My knees buckle. My lungs forget how to breathe. My vision tunnels, s

CAINThe heart beats.And then it leans.Not forward.Not toward Lyra.Toward something else.I feel it like a shift in gravity—subtle, unmistakable. The shared pulse inside my chest changes cadence, not faster or slower, but attentive. Like a predator catching scent.I freeze.Lyra feels it too. I know because her breath catches in the same instant mine does, because the bond tightens like a drawn wire.“Cain,” she whispers. “It’s… listening.”The forest answers with silence.Too much silence.Even the insects have gone still.The Devourer doesn’t speak. It doesn’t need to. The third thread hums with a low, satisfied resonance, as if to say watch.The heart beats again.Harder.And my head turns—without my permission.My gaze snaps to the treeline.My wolf surges, hackles rising, teeth aching

CAINThe command doesn’t come like a voice.It comes like instinct.Like a reflex that doesn’t belong to me.The shared heart inside my chest tightens, not painfully, not violently, but with purpose. A squeeze. A directive. The same sensation I get when my wolf locks onto prey.Only this time.I am the weapon.Lyra gasps across from me, clutching her ribs.I feel it too.The Devourer doesn’t whisper.It orders.Kneel.My knees buckle.I slam one hand into the dirt to keep myself upright, muscles screaming in protest. My wolf snarls in confusion, trying to assert dominance, trying to reject the impulse——but the heart tightens again.Harder.Lyra cries out.Her pain spears straight through me, sharp and disorienting.“Cain—!” she gasps. “It’s—doing something—”I grit my teeth so hard my jaw cracks.“No,” I growl. “No. Don’t you dare—”The Devourer’s presence expands, heavy and absolute.Not a suggestion.Not persuasion.Authority.Kneel, it repeats.And my body—moves.Both knees hit t

Cain POV The first thing I realize is this:The heartbeat inside my chest is not mine.It’s too light.Too quick.Too fragile—but also too fierce, like a spark held over gasoline.Lyra’s heart.Her rhythm.Her pulse.Beating beneath my ribs.I press a trembling hand to my sternum, and my wolf recoils in horror.This is wrong, it growls. This is wrong wrong wrong—But my human mind is worse.Because at the same time, I feel her panic.Her breath caught in her throat.Her confusion slamming like waves against her skull.Because the bond is no longer a bond.It’s a shared body split in two.“Cain—” Lyra whispers, voice shaking. “Is it… is it doing this?”I want to lie.I want to tell her it’s temporary, that I can fix it, that I can sever it, that she’s not trapped in my chest, inside my veins, bleeding through my pulse—But the Devourer purrs from the third thread:She was always meant to live inside someone.I merely chose you.I choke on a snarl.“Get out,” I whisper, low, lethal. “

The world goes silent the moment Lyra’s body slumps in my arms.Not slow.Not gentle.Not something I had any time to prepare for.One second she’s breathing—ragged, uneven, threaded with the Devourer’s whispers.The next—Her chest stills.Her eyes roll back.And the third thread, that writhing black filament between us, tightens like a noose.“No—no, no, no—Lyra—” My voice breaks as I pull her against me, the bond howling into a shriek inside my skull. I can’t hear anything beyond it. Not the forest. Not my own heartbeat. Not the pack’s distant calls.Just that thread.Pulling.Feeding.Trying to finish what it started.It wanted her.Now it wants her corpse.“Stay with me,” I choke, gripping her face, pressing my forehead to hers. “Stay—dammit, Lyra, don’t you dare—&rdq