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2026-05-05 06:02:09
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bound by deception DEREK'S TERMS"
CHAPTER FIFTY — "DEREK'S TERMS"Irabella's POVDerek came to the house two days after the dinner, and he didn't knock so much as announce himself — three even raps, the sound of a man who had never once in his life needed to wonder whether a door would open for him.I let him in myself.The staff had learned, in the last week, to make themselves scarce whenever his name came up on the household schedule, and I understood why the moment I saw him standing on the step in the fading light — broad-shouldered, dressed down for once in dark grey that still somehow managed to look deliberate, his expression unreadable in the specific way of a man who had come to conduct business and wanted the room cleared before he started."Irabella.""Derek." I stepped back to let him through. "I wasn't expecting you.""I know." He moved past me into the front room without waiting to be invited further, the easy confidence of someone who had already decided this conversation belonged to him. "That's rathe
bound by deception THE ANNOUNCEMENT"
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE — "THE ANNOUNCEMENT"Irabella's POVThe invitation arrived on cream cardstock with gold foil lettering, and I knew before I'd finished reading it that it was a trap dressed as a party.A Celebration of Family — Hosted by Luna Isabella.My hands didn't shake when I read it. That surprised me more than the invitation itself did. Somewhere in the last week I had run out of the specific kind of fear that used to live in my chest whenever my sister's name was attached to an event — replaced it with something quieter, colder, more like the way you feel watching weather roll in from a distance. You couldn't stop it. You could only decide how you were going to stand in it.I stood in the doorway of my room a long time before I put the dress on.Deep blue. My own choice, not hers — small rebellion, the only one available to me tonight. I'd bought it two years ago in a market three towns over, back when I still let myself imagine a version of my life that didn't orbit my sist
bound by deception WHAT HE ALREADY KNEW"
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT — "WHAT HE ALREADY KNEW"Daemon's POVHe had been Alpha for eleven years, and in eleven years he had learned exactly one thing about himself that mattered more than the rest: he did not react in the moment he understood something. He reacted three moves later, when the person who had lied to him had already decided the lie was safe.That was the only reason his face had held in Whitmore's office.That was the only reason he had walked out instead of speaking.He crossed the hallway to the window at the far end and stood there with his back to the glass, arms folded, breathing the way he'd trained himself to breathe when his wolf wanted to put a hand through drywall. Slow. Even. Nothing in his face that a passing nurse could read as anything other than a husband processing good news.Good news.The bond marker had matched. Isabella was his mate. Five years of marriage confirmed at a cellular level by a man with a medical license and a reagent that could not lie.It
bound by deception Blood"
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN — "Blood"Irabella's POVThe doctor's office smelled the same as it always did.Antiseptic. Paper. The specific quiet of a room built to hold difficult things and say nothing about them afterward.We sat in a row — Daemon to my left, Isabella to my right, the space between all three of us carrying five years of weight that no chair arrangement could make comfortable. Dr. Whitmore moved around his desk with the composed efficiency of a man who had prepared for this appointment and was determined to give nothing away.Whatever Isabella had on him sat in the room like a fourth presence.I felt it without being able to name it — something off in the set of his shoulders, the way his hands were slightly too deliberate, the specific quality of a man performing neutrality rather than inhabiting it.My wolf noticed it before I consciously did.Something is wrong."The process is straightforward." Whitmore set two vials on the desk, a small tray, a reagent he uncapped with
bound by deception Blood
Chapter 47: BloodThe room smelled like antiseptic trying to cover something older, something copper and patient, the kind of smell that lives in walls no matter how many times you scrub them. I sat with my hands folded so no one would see them shake, and across from me Isabella sat like a queen already crowned, spine straight, chin tilted, a woman arriving at a destination rather than waiting for one.Dr. Whitmore's hands didn't shake. That was the first wrong thing. A man about to deliver the truth of a mate bond should carry some tremor of human uncertainty. His were steady as scalpel work, and he would not look at Isabella — not once, not even by accident.That was the second wrong thing."Isabella first," he said, and the needle slid into her arm without so much as a flinch from her, because pain has never touched Isabella the way it touches the rest of us. She watched Daemon while her blood filled the vial, dark and unhurried, and I watched her watch him — memorizing the shape o
bound by deception NEVER YOUR DAUGHTER"
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX — "NEVER YOUR DAUGHTER"Irabella's POVDaemon walked out first.The door closed behind him and the room changed immediately — the air shifting, the last buffer between me and my parents gone, the specific quality of a space that had just lost the only person in it with the power to make anyone behave.My mother's hand closed around my arm before the click of the latch had finished.Hard. Immediate. The grip that didn't ask, that had never once in twenty-six years asked — that simply took, because taking had always been the language she used with me and she saw no reason to learn another."Did you tell him."Not a question. An accusation wearing the shape of one, her voice low and furious, the fury of a woman who had already decided on the verdict and was simply going through the procedural motion of asking."You ungrateful child." Her grip tightened. I felt the bones of my arm compress and said nothing. "How could you do this to your sister. After everything we've —
bound by deception five years changed nothing
Chapter ThreeFive years later.The car stopped in front of the house I'd been exiled from.Nothing had changed.Same white columns. Same perfectly trimmed hedges. Same cold, lifeless mansion that never felt like home.I stepped out.My hair was longer now. Wine red. I'd dyed it the day after I lef
bound by deception the sneak
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN — "The Snake"Isabella's POVI saw everything.Daemon's arm. Her back against his chest. His mouth on her neck like she was something that belonged to him — like five years of my life, my position, my carefully constructed world meant nothing the moment Irabella walked into a room
bound by deception bonds
Chapter FiveI woke up to sunlight burning through my curtains.My body ached. My lips still tingled from where he'd almost kissed me.Almost.I pressed my fingers to my mouth. Remembered the way he'd looked at me. The way his hands felt on my waist.The way he'd pulled away like I was poison.I sa
bound by deception feels different
Chapter FourI couldn't stay at the ball.Not with him looking at me like that. Not with the bond screaming in my chest every time our eyes met across the room.I told my parents I needed air. Didn't wait for permission.I slipped out of the ballroom. Walked down a hallway. Then another.The pack h
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