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thrilled
publish date:
2026-04-30 02:02:28
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bound by deception trump card
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE — "Trump Card"Isabella's POVI saw him before he saw me.That was always the advantage — arriving at a read before the subject knew they were being read. Derek stood at the edge of the ballroom with a champagne flute in his hand and the specific stillness of a man who had stopped performing enjoyment and was simply standing inside his own thoughts.His eyes were fixed across the room.I followed the line of them.Ira.Of course.She was speaking to one of the overseas clients — laughing at something, her hand touching the man's arm briefly, the gold dress doing everything it had been designed to do. Completely unaware of Derek's gaze. Or performing unawareness — with Ira it was sometimes impossible to tell.I looked back at Derek.His jaw. The set of it. The way his hand had tightened on the champagne flute without his noticing.There it is.The specific expression of a man watching something he wants being wanted by someone else. Raw and unmanaged and completely
bound by deception marked
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR — "Marked"Irabella's POVThe ballroom received me like nothing had happened.That was the thing about parties — they were self-sustaining ecosystems. Remove two people from one for twenty minutes and the whole organism simply rerouted around the gap, filled it in, kept moving. Glasses refilled. Conversations rebuilt themselves. The music continued its indifferent rotation.I walked back in like I owned the floor.Head up. Shoulders back. The gold dress restored to its exact original position — smoothed, deliberate, not a fold out of place. My hair slightly less perfect than it had been. My lips slightly more so.I accepted a glass of champagne from a passing server.Took one sip.And felt it.The gaze.Not Daemon's — I knew the weight of his, had it mapped precisely by now. This was different. Sharper. The specific quality of a woman who had been watching a door and had just seen what walked back through it.I didn't look immediately.Let her look first. Let her d
bound by deception belong
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE — "Belong"Irabella's POVMy back hit the wall before I could breathe.The hallway swallowed the sound of the party — muffled bass, distant laughter, none of it real anymore. The only real thing was Daemon. Six feet of fury and want, caging me in, red bleeding into the gold of his eyes like something was burning behind them.He didn't kiss me.He dropped his mouth to my throat instead. Fangs dragged slow and deliberate over my pulse point — a promise, a warning — and his voice came out low and wrecked, scraped raw against my skin."How dare you let him touch you."One hand wrapped around my jaw. Forced my face up to his.I should have looked away. I didn't."Why do you care?" My voice came out steadier than I felt. Barely. "It's my body. I can do what I want with it." I held his burning gaze and twisted the knife. "Why don't you go back to your wife?"The sound that tore out of him wasn't human.It rattled through my ribs. Vibrated in my teeth. His eyes went full
bound by deception gold
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO — "Gold"Irabella's POVThe workers arrived at six.I had arranged everything the night before — the calls made, the orders placed, the specific vision mapped out in my head with the precision of a woman who had spent a career making other people's spaces communicate exactly what she needed them to communicate.By the time the house began its morning sounds I was already dressed and directing.Flowers. Gold and white. Running the full length of the entrance hall in arrangements that cost more than most people's monthly rent and were worth every cent. Crystal everywhere — catching the morning light, throwing it back in fragments across every surface. Tables dressed. Staff positioned. The kind of event infrastructure that communicated one thing above everything else.Power.I was standing at the base of the staircase checking the final arrangement when they came down.Isabella first. Then Daemon. Her hand in the crook of his arm — light, practiced, the specific placem
bound by deception discharge
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE — "Discharge"Isabella's POVThe car turned into the pack driveway and I saw them.All of them.Lined up on both sides — pack members, wolves, families, the entire hierarchy of this community arranged in two rows like a corridor built specifically for my return. Children in front. Elders behind. Every face turned toward the car with the specific expression of people who had been waiting and were glad the waiting was over.I looked at them through the window.And thought — pathetic.One snake. One stage. One calculated fall into the right pair of arms and every single one of them was out here in the cold morning air waiting to receive me like I'd come back from a war.It took so little.That was the thing about people — about packs, about communities, about humans and wolves and every creature that organized itself into groups and needed symbols to believe in. It took so little to become the symbol. One gesture. One moment of apparent sacrifice witnessed by enough ey
bound by deception wife
CHAPTER TWENTY — "Wife"Irabella's POVI pushed the door open.The room was small and white and arranged exactly the way I had constructed it in the hallway — his chair pulled close to the bed, his body angled toward her, the specific geography of a man who had not left and had not wanted to.Isabella's hand in both of his.Her head tilted toward his shoulder — not quite resting, just angled, just close enough to communicate the thing without requiring words. The picture of a woman fragile and grateful and completely dependent on the man beside her.She was neither fragile nor grateful.I knew that.I was the only person in this room who knew that.Daemon looked up when I entered.His eyes found mine across the white space and for one suspended second everything in the room went quiet — the monitors, the IV drip, the soft ambient noise of a hospital at night — everything going still the way it did when those eyes landed on me.My heart did the thing it always did.I locked it down imm
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