Semua Bab Bound by Fangs and Blood: Bab 21 - Bab 30

ADAM I wore a hole in my carpet pacing. Back and forth, back and forth, ten steps to the window, ten steps back, counting my own helplessness. The elders thought they had me. Their laws, their traditions, their smug faces in that council chamber. They thought I'd choose the crown. That I'd bow like a good little king and let my mate hang for a crime she didn't commit. They didn't know me at all. Fuck their rules. Fuck their threats. Fuck all of it. The wolf rose up snarling, filling my chest with fire. They cage mate. They hurt mate. We burn it all down. Every tower, every law, every elder who dares stand between us and her. I grabbed my phone, hands shaking with rage I couldn't unleash. Not yet. Not until I had something to hit. Marcus answered on the second ring. "Alpha." "I need you to do something off the books." I kept my voice low, even though no one was listening. Even though the walls had ears in this place. "Something that could cost us both everything." Silence. Then:

ADAM The council chamber smelled like old wood and older blood. Pack law had been written in rooms like this, justice delivered with teeth and claws for centuries before humans invented courts. I sat in the audience, forced there by my own laws, and watched my mate face her executioners alone. Eve sat in the defendant's chair, looking small and terrified and nothing like the fierce healer who had argued with me, defied me, saved my pack. The elders arranged themselves in a semicircle, faces stern and judgmental, already convinced of her guilt before a word was spoken. I should have been at her side. Holding her hand. Shielding her with my body and my rank and my absolute certainty that she was innocent. Instead I sat in the third row like any common wolf, hands clenched so hard my knuckles turned white, knuckles I'd already split open punching walls in frustration. Wrong! Wrong! Should be protecting mate! Should be killing them all! The wolf howled inside me, battering against my c

THIRD POVAdam held Eve in his arms in his private quarters, finally feeling hopeful after weeks of despair, and when he kissed her forehead, she smiled for the first time in days because Sheila's testimony would change everything and tomorrow this nightmare would finally end."Mike will be exposed and you'll be free," Adam murmured against her hair, breathing in her honey-and-rain scent that had become his anchor, "and then we can finally just... be together."Mate safe soon, his wolf hummed contentedly, and then we claim properly, mark her, keep her forever.Eve pulled back just enough to meet his eyes, and her smile was small but real, a flower pushing through concrete, so when Marcus burst through the door without knocking, the intrusion felt like violence."Alpha! We have a problem!"Adam tensed but kept his arms around Eve, shielding her from whatever new disaster was coming. "What now?"Marcus didn't answer, just turned on the wall-mounted TV with shaking hands, and when Adam sa

LUCIANI pushed the car past ninety while highway lights blurred into gold and red streaks, and the engine screamed though Crystal slept beside me with her head against the window because she was exhausted from eighteen hours of driving, but she had insisted on coming even when I told her it was dangerous so now I gripped the steering wheel and tried not to think about how much time we were losing.Three months away felt like three years, and the Northern treaty had been necessary for securing allies and preventing war, but my wolf had been restless the entire time because I should have stayed and protected my brother and checked on the small vampire I had pulled from the forest, and Eve's face kept haunting me whenever I closed my eyes so I couldn't stop thinking about her terrified eyes when she bit me and the strange connection I felt that wasn't a mate bond but something else entirely.That connection felt protective and familiar, like I had known her before, but that was impossibl

ADAM Emergency lights cast everything in blood-red while screams echoed through the corridors, and my wolf roared to life because protect mate and protect pack were the only thoughts that mattered anymore. I pulled Eve behind me and shouted for everyone to stay close, but then the door burst open and one of my guards stumbled in covered in blood while he gasped that they were here. "Who?" I demanded while my fangs descended and my vision went red at the edges. "Vampires," he choked out, "dozens of them and they're attacking the hospital while looking for someone and asking for Eve." Eve's face went white beside me, and Lucian was already shifting to a defensive stance while he asked how many, and when the guard said at least twenty maybe more and that they were organized, I knew this wasn't a random attack because it was planned and coordinated and meant to divide us. "Crystal, get Sheila to the safe room in the basement," I ordered while my mind raced through options, "and Lucia