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Chapter 45 — Bound and Bright
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2025-10-21 07:23:00The rope tightened with a hiss of leather, the sound loud in the hush of his den.
My wrists were already above my head, palms flat against the wall, my body stretched to the edge of balance.
Matrix’s breath ghosted over my ear. “Breathe.”
I did. The air smelled of him: smoke and cedar and rain waiting to fall.
He drew back just enough to look at me. The wolf was closer to the surface now — eyes gone deep, pupils blown, a flick of fang when his mouth curled. The calm man from the diner was gone. In his place stood the thing that had survived alleys and hunters and come to claim me.
“You asked for stars,” he said softly. “Let’s see if you can take them.”
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Shadows and First Blood Chapter 45 — Bound and Bright
The rope tightened with a hiss of leather, the sound loud in the hush of his den.My wrists were already above my head, palms flat against the wall, my body stretched to the edge of balance.Matrix’s breath ghosted over my ear. “Breathe.”I did. The air smelled of him: smoke and cedar and rain waiting to fall.He drew back just enough to look at me. The wolf was closer to the surface now — eyes gone deep, pupils blown, a flick of fang when his mouth curled. The calm man from the diner was gone. In his place stood the thing that had survived alleys and hunters and come to claim me.“You asked for stars,” he said softly. “Let’s see if you can take them.”
Shadows and First Blood Chapter 44 — Teeth Behind the Smile
The next time he asked, I didn’t say no.We’d gone through the motions—his quiet visits, the shelves holding still in his presence, my stubborn refusals softening by degree. But after Travis faded, after the shop whispered me into silence, saying yes felt less like surrender and more like admitting the truth I’d been circling for months: I wanted the noise.He showed up at closing, as if he already knew the answer I hadn’t given yet.“Dinner?” Matrix asked, leaning in the doorway. Not pushy. Not hesitant. Just certain.My body betrayed me before my mouth caught up. “Fine,” I muttered. “One dinner.”The restaurant was small, tucked into a side street that smelled of basil
Shadows and First Blood Chapter 43 — The Shape of Letting Go
The yes slipped out of me like a tired breath.Not dramatic. Not fireworks. Just the quiet answer a body gives when the ache of saying no has worn it raw.“Coffee,” I said at the counter, pretending it wasn’t a surrender. “One hour.”Matrix’s smile didn’t gloat. It warmed, low and steady, like a hand around a mug in winter. “One hour,” he agreed, as if he’d already built a life inside the space of those words.We chose the diner two blocks down—the one with cracked red vinyl and a neon sign that blinked OPEN like it was trying to convince itself. The bell over that door was brighter than the shop’s, shriller, and the air smelled like burnt sugar and the memory of bacon. He took the booth facing the door, which I
Shadows and First Blood Chapter 42 — Ghosts and Gravities
Months bled together the way nights do when you stop counting them.Winter folded into spring, and the city kept turning without asking permission. The hunters had gone quiet—too quiet—and the silence itself started to feel like a trap, one I couldn’t see the teeth of yet.Sammi and Jay had become a unit. At first it was a joke—her shoes turning up under his couch, his coffee mugs crowding her sink—but before I realized it, she’d moved across town. Now, their laughter lived in a space that wasn’t mine. And when I came home, the apartment echoed with too much air.Travis lingered, but he was thinning. His jokes came late, sometimes garbled, like radio static. When I looked for him in the mirror, sometimes I found only myself staring back.
Shadows and First Blood Chapter 41 — The Man Who Knew My Name
Morning cracked open like a bad lock—one hard twist and the city spilled through. O’Rourke & Finch breathed in the cold and sighed it out as dust. Mrs. Finch had left a note in tidy, unsentimental script: Errands. Back after four. Don’t let the travel guides unionize. —F.Mr. O’Rourke’s scrawl below it: Try to keep Poetry from feuding with Philosophy.So it was just me and Crown—the black cat who treated the front table like a throne and every customer like a subject on probation. The shop was louder when I was alone, the way empty houses groan to remind you you’re only renting them from time. Shelves ticked, a far bulb hummed, and somewhere in the back a stack of paperbacks shifted two inches to the left as if making room
Shadows and First Blood Chapter 40 — Ashes in the Jokes
The door to the apartment groaned like it was sick of me slamming it, but I couldn’t help it. My head was still buzzing from the bell above O’Rourke & Finch and the stranger’s steady smile.Sammi was on the couch, half-sprawled, legs dangling off one armrest, brush in hand, phone glowing in the other. She tossed both aside the moment she saw me. Jay sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, knees bent, elbows resting, something small and metal glinting in his hands. He was turning it over and over, quiet.“You look like someone spit in your blood bag,” Sammi said, raising an eyebrow.“More like someone spit in my face,” I muttered, shrugging off my jacket. I wanted to throw it at the coat hook but didn’t trust my aim. My pulse was still racing, my palms raw from cl
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