All Chapters of Bound by Blood and Betrayal : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Paige's POV Raymond’s words from the night before refused to leave my mind. ‘It’s starting,’ that low, haunted mutter lingered like smoke in my thoughts long after he left me trembling in the dark, sleep in its entirety had fled from me, for every time I closed my eyes I saw flames again, a gown flowing around my body, and a sea of bowed faces, and always, that same name whispered like a curse and a promise, ‘Avina.’By morning, I carried shadows beneath my eyes, though the maids fluttered around me with their usual attentiveness, fussing with my hair and laying out silks I never asked to wear, their chatter meant little, but my mind clung to something else entirely, a memory that had returned to me with startling clarity, I looked like I had gone into a trance, trying to remember clearly.That locked door, the one from days ago, when I dared to wander the mansion and test Raymond’s rules, the heavy, ancient wood, the iron lock glinting in the faint light of the hall, and the strange

Paige's POVThe air in the corridor still tasted of iron, thick and suffocating, as if it clung to the back of my throat with every breath. My steps echoed too loudly in the silence, even though I tried to keep them quiet, pressing my bare feet carefully against the cold stone floor, my heart wouldn’t settle, it kept lurching, as though it wanted to escape from my chest and hide somewhere I couldn’t reach.I had run, not from something that chased me, but from the weight of what I had just seen. The vision…or was it a memory?...still burned behind my eyes, twisting itself into my nerves, fire licking over stone, a shadow bending, a voice whispering my name like it had always belonged to me. Not Paige, not the girl I thought I was. Something else, something older, something that scared me even as it pulled me closer.I slipped into my room, shutting the door with care so it wouldn’t slam, my hands trembled as I pressed my back against the wood, closing my eyes to block out everything,

Paige's POVThe silence of the mansion wrapped around me like a velvet cloak, both suffocating and strangely intimate. After the storm of emotions Raymond had stirred in me the previous night, I thought the morning would bring relief, but instead it only sharpened the edges of my unease, there was something new now, a prickle across the back of my neck that hadn’t been there before, a sensation of being watched.At first, I tried to brush it off, this house was large, too large, with endless hallways that echoed with footsteps and whispers that weren’t always real. Maybe my nerves were still raw from my argument with Raymond, maybe my heart was still too tangled in the mess of everything that had unfolded between us. But as I moved through the day, that feeling shadowed me, sticking close no matter where I went.When I went to the library, reaching for a book I didn’t have the focus to read, I felt the shift of air behind the shelves as if someone ducked out of sight. When I crossed t

Paige's POVThe silence after the test was heavy, suffocating, as if the entire mansion itself was holding its breath, my lungs burned as though I had swallowed molten glass, and every nerve inside me screamed for release. I staggered backward, clutching my chest, trying to steady myself, but the air around me seemed to thrum with a strange rhythm that matched the pounding of my heart.At first, I thought it was only dizziness, the consequence of being pushed too hard. But then I saw it, faint trails of light racing beneath my skin. My veins, glowing softly like molten threads, lit up in places where my pulse struck hardest. I gasped and stumbled again, staring at my hands, horrified by the way my body no longer looked entirely mine. It was as if something ancient and violent was carving its way out of me.The whispers of the scientist who had been present for the test faded into a blur, his footsteps retreating hastily. Fear drove him from the room, fear

Raymond's POVThe silence of the manor lingered after Paige had gone to rest, a silence that stretched far too thin, as though the very air waited for me to make a decision I was not ready to make. I stood alone in the grand hall, the soft glow of moonlight spilling through the tall windows and scattering across the marble floor. The world outside seemed calm, but inside me was a storm I could not contain, every step I had taken to bring Paige into my world, every rule I had drawn to keep her close, had only deepened the gnawing ache in my chest.Her eyes still lingered in my memory, wide with confusion and something else she had yet to understand. I had spoken to her as though she were mine to command, mine to cage, yet even as I uttered those words I knew she was far more dangerous to me than any rival, far more tempting than any power I had ever chased. The danger did not lie in what she might become, but in what she was already stirring within me.I turned away from the hall and s