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

EVEOne week since the blood oath, and I still couldn't stop thinking about that moment.Our palms pressed together. Blood mixing. That explosion of light and heat and something else, something that had curled around my heart and refused to let go. It felt like my soul had recognized his. Like some part of me that I didn't know existed had woken up and started screaming mine mine mine.But that was insane. He hated me. He thought I was this Circe woman, this monster who had destroyed his life. He had threatened me, imprisoned me, forced me into servitude with a contract I couldn't refuse. Whatever that moment was, it meant nothing. It had to mean nothing.I threw myself into work to distract myself from the memories. From the way his eyes had looked after, wide and terrified and something else I couldn't name.The medical wing kept me busy. The wolf fever was spreading through the pack, and I treated patient after patient, running between beds with an energy I had never known before. A

EVE I sat at my desk, fingers pressed against my lips, staring at nothing. He almost kissed me. And I almost let him. What was wrong with me? This man thought I was an evil witch who had destroyed his life. He had imprisoned me, forced me into servitude, looked at me with hatred that burned. But the way he had looked at me in that office, like he was fighting himself, like he wanted me and hated himself for wanting me... that was something I recognized. Something I had felt in my own mirror. That pull between us was getting stronger every day. The mate bond, whatever it was, didn't care about logic or past crimes. It just pulled, relentless and hungry, making my skin heat when he entered a room, making my heart race when our eyes met. This was insane. Mike had destroyed me. He had taken my trust and my love and my baby and thrown them all away like garbage. I couldn't trust another man. Especially not one who had sworn to make me beg for death. I looked at my research papers, wee

EVE I sat on my bed in the new quarters they had given me, still shaking from the encounter with Mike. My hands wouldn't stop trembling, no matter how hard I pressed them together. I had told Adam everything. About Mike, the baby, the injection, the forest, all of it. Every shameful, broken piece of my past laid bare in front of the man who had been my enemy. What was I thinking? Now he knew how weak I was. How broken. How thoroughly destroyed by a man who was supposed to love me. I touched my belly scar through my shirt, feeling the raised ridge where my baby had been torn away from me. Adam had seen me cry, seen me collapse, seen me cling to him like he was the only solid thing in the world. But when he held me, I felt safe. The thought terrified me more than Mike ever could. That was dangerous, Eve. You can't trust him. He still thinks you're this Circe woman half the time. He still looks at you with suspicion and rage and confusion. He's your captor, not your... Not your what

EVE I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow, exhaustion pulling me under like a riptide. Another long day at the hospital, another dozen healings, another evening of pretending I didn't notice Adam watching me from doorways. I was too tired to dream. Too tired to think. Just darkness and rest and the hope of tomorrow. But sleep brought something dark. I stood in a throne room I had never seen, gothic and ancient and terrifying. Candles burned everywhere, thousands of them, casting dancing shadows across stone walls carved with symbols that hurt to look at. The air smelled of blood and roses and old magic. And on the throne at the far end of the room, draped in shadows and silk, sat a woman. My breath caught. She looked exactly like me. Same face, same dark hair, same curves, same incisions on her palms that I had always assumed were part of my healer's gift. But her eyes were wrong. Cold and cruel and calculating, watching me approach like a spider watches a fly. "Hello, l

ADAM My office door slammed shut behind her and she immediately turned on me, eyes sparking with anger and something else I couldn't name. "What was that?!" she demanded. "What was what?" "Telling the whole pack I'm 'under your protection'!" She threw her hands up, pacing in front of my desk like a caged thing. "You made it sound like... like we're..." "Like what, Eve?" She stopped pacing, facing me, and I saw the fear underneath her fury. The hope she was trying to crush. "Like we're together." Silence. Heavy, loaded, stretching between us like a wire pulled too tight. I stepped closer, close enough to touch, close enough to see the gold flecks in her brown eyes. "And would that be so terrible?" Her breath caught. "What?" "Being together. Would it be terrible?" "You... you hate me." Her voice wavered, cracking on the words. "You think I'm Circe, you think I cursed you, you think—" "I was wrong." Eve's heart stopped. I saw it in her face, the way her eyes went wide and sti