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The Shape of a Line

Penulis: S.A Akinola
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-12-27 02:44:24

LYRA

The line doesn’t vanish when the threat does.

That’s the lie I catch myself almost believing, that because the construct is gone, because Cain’s breathing evens and the forest stops holding itself taut, we can return to what we were before.

But lines don’t dissolve.

They persist.

They shape how everything after must move.

I feel it in the bond first, not as pain, not even as distance, but as resistance. Where emotion once flowed smoothly between us, there’s now a slight drag. Like running a hand over wood and catching on a grain that wasn’t there before.

Cain feels it too. I don’t need to ask.

He’s too careful now.

“Are you—” he starts, then stops himself. Rephrases. “Do you feel… intact?”

The question costs him something.

I answer honestly. “I feel… defined.”

That seems to hurt him more.

The heart between us beats steady, neutral. Watching.

Learning.

I close my eyes, not to rest, not to dream, but to check the inside of myself the way one checks a wound after the bleeding stops.
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  • Bound to the Alpha Who Killed Me   The Shape of the Hunt

    CAINThe city exhales behind us.Not relief.Intent.You can feel the difference when pursuit has been authorized—not shouted, not panicked, but approved. Footsteps gain rhythm. Routes close quietly. The hunt stops being personal and becomes infrastructural.“They’ll seal the lower wards first,” I say as we cut through a service corridor veined with old glyphwork. “Then the river bridges.”Lyra keeps pace beside me, breath steady, attention split between the present street and whatever undercurrent the Hollow is tracking beneath it.“They’re not rushing,” she murmurs. “They’re waiting for alignment.”I nod grimly.“They want permission to be cruel.”That’s when violence becomes efficient.LYRAThe Hollow is restless—not hungry, not reactive.Alert.It keeps brushing against thresholds in the city’s memory, places where names were erased cleanly enough that no one remembers they’re missing. Those absences glow now like coals beneath ash.“They’re activating old enforcement channels,” I

  • Bound to the Alpha Who Killed Me   The City Chooses Its Monster

    LYRAThe city does not wait for proof.That’s the second truth I learn.By the time the towers come back into view, the air has already changed—not with panic, but with organization. Fear has found language. Rumor has found structure.People aren’t asking what happened.They’re asking who to blame.I feel it before I hear it, the way attention snags on my skin, the way whispers bend around my silhouette like wind around a blade. The Hollow hums faintly in my chest, unsettled but alert.“They’re talking,” I murmur.Cain’s jaw tightens. “About you.”“Yes.”Not us.Me.That distinction matters.CAINThey’re setting the story before we arrive.I recognize the signs: guards posted where there were none yesterday, council messengers moving too quickly to be improvising, the way civilians pull children closer without knowing why.Narrative containment.It always starts this way.“Stay close,” I say quietly.Lyra doesn’t bristle.She doesn’t comply either.She simply walks beside me—present,

  • Bound to the Alpha Who Killed Me   The Devourer Makes an Offer

    LYRAThe Devourer does not announce itself.That’s how I know it’s learned.We’re barely beyond the outer path when the air changes, not colder, not heavier, just… attentive. Like something has leaned closer without touching.Cain feels it a second after I do. His steps slow. His spine tightens.“You feel that,” I murmur.“Yes.”He doesn’t ask what it is.Good.The Hollow is quiet inside me, not absent, not withdrawn.Watching.That’s when the voice arrives.Not in my head.Between us.You are wasting leverage.I stop walking.Cain does too, immediately, instinctively, half-turning toward me, scanning the treeline, the roots, the shadowed rise of stone ahead.“Devourer,” he says flatly.Alpha, it replies, almost indulgent. Or are we pretending that title still matters?I feel it press, not against my mind, but against the space around my choices. Like a hand hovering near my shoulder, never quite landing.You could have owned that square, it continues. You chose departure instead.“I

  • Bound to the Alpha Who Killed Me   Marked Is Not Chosen

    LYRAThey don’t touch me.That’s the first thing I notice as the guards close in.They circle.They signal.They tighten formation.But none of them reach for me.Fear has recalibrated their instincts. I’m no longer a person to restrain—I’m a variable.Marked things don’t get handled casually.Cain shifts in front of me without looking back. Not possessive. Not dramatic.Deliberate.A line drawn without ceremony.“You will stand down,” he says.No Alpha command.No roar.Just certainty.The guards hesitate anyway—because fear doesn’t erase training. It complicates it.“She’s compromised,” an elder snaps. “We don’t know what she’ll trigger next.”I feel the Hollow stir—not defensive, not offended.Observant.“I don’t trigger,” I say hoarsely. “I transmit.”That lands worse.Murmurs ripple through the square—panic wearing the language of reason.Cain’s shoulders square.CAINThis is where power usually answers fear.This is where an Alpha asserts hierarchy, dominance, threat.I don’t.B

  • Bound to the Alpha Who Killed Me   The Hollow Does Not Negotiate

    LYRAThe Hollow does not wait for permission.That’s the first truth I learn when it happens.Not in ritual.Not in solitude.Not in the careful space I promised myself I would choose.It happens in the open.The square is crowded—wolves pressed shoulder to shoulder, voices overlapping, tension still humming from the council’s fracture. Memory has made everyone restless. Names once buried now hover at the edges of conversation like ghosts no one wants to acknowledge aloud.Cain walks beside me, close enough that our arms brush with each step. Not claiming. Not guarding.Present.I think—foolishly—that matters.Then the ground drops.Not physically. Not enough for anyone else to stumble.Just enough for me.A pressure locks around my spine, sharp and absolute, like invisible hands finding bone and saying here.I gasp.The world doesn’t blur.It opens.Sound folds inward. Every heartbeat in the square becomes audible—too many, too fast. Beneath them, another rhythm asserts itself, older

  • Bound to the Alpha Who Killed Me   The Shape of the Price

    CAINThe world does not wait for decisions.It never has.By the time we reach the outer paths—where the city’s influence thins and the land breathes without permission—I feel it shift.Not the Hollow.Something sharper.Closer.Lyra halts mid-step, breath catching like she’s struck a wall only she can see.“Cain,” she says.I’m already moving.The bond flares—not warm, not violent, but strained, like a rope pulled taut between two anchors drifting apart.The Devourer does not announce itself.It never wastes spectacle where timing will suffice.LYRAIt comes sideways.That’s the only way I can describe it.Not through the Hollow, not through the bond—but through the absence between them.A pressure inversion. A silence where there should be continuity.The Devourer slips into the gap left by indecision.You hesitate, it murmurs—not aloud, not inside my head, but threaded through the place where certainty should live.That is where I thrive.I stagger—not because it hurts.Because it

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