Bound to The Enemy of My Mate

The crinkle of parchment was the only sound in the room. Kael stood in

the doorway,the love letter crushed in his fist.

"So," his voice cut the silence between them.

"This was the plan? Use my name as a shield until you could run to him?"

He stepped inside,the door shutting with a soft, final click.

"Thane." the name felt like ash on his tongue.

Elira's spine went rigid. Her heart beat rapidly but her face a mask of

calmness.

"That letter was never sent."

"But it's written." He lifted the paper, displaying her crime.

"If it's hidden in a drawer, does that make the feelings dead?"

"He is nothing."

"Nothing?" A sharp, humorless laugh.

"I've been a soldier a long time. I know the difference between a note

and a baring of the soul."

He stepped closer, his scent---rage and pained betrayal washing over

her.The wolf inside stirred. Danger.

"You wrote about his scent. 'Rain after a fire.' He must be the

source of your...sanctuary?"He tilted his head, studying her like a

map.

She made a fist and held her breath.

"My grandfather was a hunter. He told me about that 'silence after the

hunt.'It's what wolves feel when the hunger is sated."

"It's poetry."

"Liar." He moved, a blur of motion.

His hand shot out, seizing her wrist. His thumb pressed down on her

racing pulse.His eyebrow raised.

"Your heart is beating like cornered prey."

"Because you scared me!"

She yanked, but his grip was iron.

"No." His eyes locked on hers, cold and assessing. "You're terrified of

what I'll find.Who is he?"

"He is none of your business."

"This marriage was a deal! You signed it for the land! You don't get

to own my past!"

The scream tore from her, raw and jagged, a sound that didn't belong in

a lady's bedchamber.

"I don't care. About the land. I care about this man. Should I go

to find him andgreet him directly?"

His voice sent a chill to her spine.

The thought sparked in her veins: he was going to hunt Thane.

"Don't you dare touch him!" She lunged, grabbing his arm, and something

deep in her chest snapped.

Kael froze, his eyes widening. He'd heard that sound before---in the

forests,from the throats of beasts.

"No, you couldn't be -" he whispered.

Fire erupted under her skin. Her vision sharpened, etching every tiny

scar on his cheek into her mind.Her hands, gripping his wrist, spasmed.

Her fingernails thickened,turning black and hard, lengthening into

curved points that dug into his leather bracer.

Kael looked down. He saw the claws.

He didn't panic. His soldier's calm was more terrifying than any

scream.His hand went instinctively to his belt for a dagger that wasn't

there.

"What are you-?" he breathed.

The wolf inside her panicked. The hunter is right in front of her, and

she just exposing her own secret.

With a shove that wasn't her own, she sent him flying. Kael, a man of

solid muscle,crashed into the far wall with a sickening crack of

plaster.He slid down, clutching his ribs, blood trickling from his

temple.

Elira stood panting, staring at her claws. The scent of his

blood---metallic,intoxicating---filled the air.

---

In the Blackwood

Thane jolted upright from a fitful sleep miles away from the Rennar's

mansion.His hand flying to his chest. A searing pain, followed by a

tidal wave of pure panic---

"Elira!!"

The bond, muted for years by the suppressant she took to appear human,

was screaming.It wasn't a gentle awakening. It was a scream of a

profound fear.

He was moving before he could think, shifting in a ripple of agony and

momentum.The wolf hit the ground running, a dark streak through the

trees,pulled toward the estate.

He skidded to a halt at the tree line, his sides heaving.

He saw torches and high walls . The Rennar's mansion from the woods.

The silhouettes of guards with silver-tipped arrows patrolling around

the huge building.

His instincts warred.

A memory of her laugh echoed in his skull. That free, unguarded laugh he

heard for the first time over his silly joke.It was so clear as if it

just happened yesterday.

Go to her, Save her! His mind demanded.

But his logic, a tracker's cold assessment, won. You are one. They are

many.You cannot protect her if you are dead.

A low, frustrated whine rattled in his throat. He had left a year ago .

Now she was there alone,in the wolf-hunter's den, because it was the

last place anyone would look for a wolf.He thought the suppressant

would keep her safe,hidden, even from their own bond. He thought it

could protect her from her wolfhunter fiance and prevent her from dying.

He had been wrong.

Now, her wolf was awake, and she was alone with him.

---

In the Bedchamber

Kael pushed himself up on one elbow, wiping blood from his eye. His gaze

was no longer that of a betrayed husband,but of the King's Lead Hunter.

"A hybrid," he said, the word final. "You're one of them."

Elira backed away, her claws scraping silk.

"I---?" Elira's voice was a distorted whisper. The word meant nothing

and everything.

"What... what am I? Hybrid?"

She stared at her hands---her claws. This wasn't her. This couldn't

be.

He moved into a defensive crouch, a stance designed to kill things like

her.

He studied her face---the genuine terror in her eyes, the confusion

contorting her half-changed features.The truth dawned on him: she

hadn't known.The shock of her own transformation curdled in her gut,

solidifying into a chilling understanding.

She was the very monster she'd been taught to fear.

"Stay back! I know what you are," her voice was a distorted growl. "You

kill us."

"I kill monsters that slaughter villagers." His eyes flicked to the

door,calculating the distance.

"Why did you agree to this?" she cried, the words tearing from a

throat that was no longer entirely human."Was this a trap from the

beginning?"

Kael halted as if struck. The hunter's calculation in his eyes

fractured,and for a breath, she saw only a man as lost as she was.

"I didn't know." He looked at the blood on his hand, then at her---his

wife,half-shifted into his sworn enemy.

"I don't know why I agreed. And I should have killed you right now."

The admission hung between them, raw and bleeding.

He should. The law demanded it. Every instinct screamed for it.

But he didn't.

He stepped to the door, pulled it shut. The heavy thud of wood, then

the metallicclick of the lock.

It wasn't a bedroom anymore. It was a cage.

From the woods, a long, mournful howl pierced the night. Thane is

calling for her.

"I'm here. I'm waiting. I haven't abandoned you."

Elira's head snapped toward the window. She never heard it before but

knew that sound.Her soul answered with a silent cry.

Kael, still leaning against the door, heard it too. His jaw tightened.

His voice roared as he called out of his wolfhunters.

"Find that wolf"