All Chapters of Bound To The Ruthless Alpha: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

He stepped to the side, movements efficient and practiced, and crouched at the base of the pedestal. I heard the soft click of metal against metal, the whisper of a key finding its home in a lock. The restraint on my right wrist released with a sound like a sigh, and suddenly that arm was free, hanging loose and useless at my side.Then the other.My arms dropped like dead weight, like marionette strings cut by careless scissors.Pain shot through my shoulders immediately, a lightning bolt of agony as blood rushed back into compressed nerves and overstretched muscles. Pins and needles burned up my fingers, a thousand tiny knives dragging themselves across my skin from the inside.I winced. Gasped. Tried to move, to bring my arms forward, to cradle them against my chest."Don't," Karl said, and his voice was gentle but firm. "You'll fall."He was right.Without the restraints holding me up, without the artificial support of chains and

Karl didn't say a word as we walked. He held me carefully, like I was injured in ways that weren't immediately visible — not bleeding, not broken in any way that would show up on an X-ray, but damaged in some invisible way that only he could see.My face stayed buried in the edge of his cloak, hiding from the world and from the possibility that someone might witness this final humiliation. My body had gone past shivering now, past the involuntary responses that had marked the first phase of shock. This was the stillness that came after the storm. The part no one wants to sit with. The silence people turn away from because it reflects truths they don't want to acknowledge about what humans can do to each other.But he didn't turn.He didn't hurry past my brokenness or try to minimize it or pretend it was something other than what it was.He just carried me.Through corridors that felt like they went on forever, past doors that hid their own secrets, under arches that had seen too much

Karl doesn't look up as he walks, doesn't glance around to see if anyone's watching, doesn't act like he's doing something rebellious or brave or worthy of punishment.He walks like this is his job.Like rescuing broken things is something he's always done, something as natural as breathing or bleeding or any of the other involuntary functions that keep us alive despite our best efforts to destroy ourselves.And maybe it is.Maybe he's always been better at cleanup than I was, better at managing the aftermath of decisions I make in anger or spite or the cold calculation that passes for strategy in my world.Maybe that's why he's lasted so long at my side when others have fallen away, disappeared into exile or execution or the kind of quiet retirement that's really just another form of death.The back of my throat feels tight, constricted like someone's wrapped wire around my windpipe and is slowly, methodically tightening it.I swallo

Some mornings it came easier than others. Some mornings I could speak without my throat closing around the words. Today wasn't one of them. But Mira never made me feel like silence was failure.She moved toward the pot near the window, and I sat on the edge of the bed, watching the fire catch in the dark amber of her braid.The light turned her hair to burnished copper, and for a moment I was struck by how beautiful she was. Not in the way that drew attention or demanded admiration, but in the quiet way of someone who had made peace with themselves. I wondered what that felt like — that kind of settled certainty.I wondered if I would ever find it again.Kael was gone.But Mira?Mira was still here.Still bringing tea.Still washing my scars.Still seeing me.And for the first time since this marriage began, I wondered—Was silence worse than cruelty?Or was it the first breath before the next drowning?The question sat heavy in my chest as I watched steam rise from the teacup in my h

The fountain was marble, carved with figures I didn't recognize. Wolves, mostly. Hunters and hunted intertwined in ways that made it impossible to tell which was which. The water fell in steady streams, constant and soothing.Sometimes I stood there because the sound helped quiet the noise in my head. Sometimes because the spray felt clean against my face. Sometimes because staring at carved stone was easier than thinking about anything real.She just let me exist.And for the first time in this place, I did.Not as a symbol.Not as a bride.Not as an enemy's daughter.But as something else.Something unnamed.Something that belonged to me instead of to the people who had made decisions about my life without consulting me.It was stupid, I know.That kind of comfort is dangerous.It tricks the body into forgetting that survival is temporary.It dulls the edge you need to keep yourself alive.Comfort makes you soft. Makes you forget that the world is full of people who will hurt you if