All Chapters of Bound to the Alpha Who Killed Me: Chapter 71 - Chapter 79

CAINThe command doesn’t come like a voice.It comes like instinct.Like a reflex that doesn’t belong to me.The shared heart inside my chest tightens, not painfully, not violently, but with purpose. A squeeze. A directive. The same sensation I get when my wolf locks onto prey.Only this time.I am the weapon.Lyra gasps across from me, clutching her ribs.I feel it too.The Devourer doesn’t whisper.It orders.Kneel.My knees buckle.I slam one hand into the dirt to keep myself upright, muscles screaming in protest. My wolf snarls in confusion, trying to assert dominance, trying to reject the impulse——but the heart tightens again.Harder.Lyra cries out.Her pain spears straight through me, sharp and disorienting.“Cain—!” she gasps. “It’s—doing something—”I grit my teeth so hard my jaw cracks.“No,” I growl. “No. Don’t you dare—”The Devourer’s presence expands, heavy and absolute.Not a suggestion.Not persuasion.Authority.Kneel, it repeats.And my body—moves.Both knees hit t

CAINI take one step away from her.Just one.It feels like tearing muscle from bone.The heart inside my chest spasms—not pain, not yet, but shock. A sudden arrhythmia that makes my vision blur and my wolf snarl in confusion.Lyra gasps behind me.I don’t turn.I can’t.Because if I see her face when this happens, I don’t know if I’ll survive it.“Stay there,” I say hoarsely. “Just—don’t move.”My second step lands harder.The forest seems to tilt.The bond stretches—not like a cord, but like tissue. Living. Sensitive. Wrong. I feel it thinning between us, pulled too far, too fast.The heart stutters.Once.Twice.Then—pain.White-hot, blinding, detonating straight through my sternum like a blade punched inward.I drop to one knee with a roar I can’t stop.Lyra screams my name.And the Devourer—laughs.Ah.There it is.Distance.LYRAThe moment he steps away, something inside me tears.Not emotionally.Physically.My knees buckle. My lungs forget how to breathe. My vision tunnels, s

CAINObedience, I realize, isn’t submission.It’s predictability.The Devourer doesn’t want us broken, it wants us readable. Every time we panic, every time we cling or recoil without thinking, it feeds. Not just on emotion, but on certainty. Cause and effect. Stimulus and reward.So I stop reacting.I sit with Lyra, close enough that the bond doesn’t tighten, far enough that it doesn’t purr. Our shoulders touch, not pressed, not pulled away. Neutral.The heart beats.Once.Twice.No punishment.No pleasure.Just awareness.Lyra notices instantly. I feel the shift in her focus like a breeze changing direction.“It didn’t…” she murmurs. “It didn’t respond.”“No,” I say quietly. “Because we didn’t give it anything it could use.”The third thread hums, faintly displeased.Good.I test again.I don’t look at Lyra.Not away, elsewhere. I keep my body angled toward her, my breath synced with hers, but I let my attention drift to the forest. To the weight of the earth beneath us. To the smel

LYRAThe strangest part isn’t the emptiness.It’s the silence.I wake without the soft disorientation that used to follow sleep—the fading images, the emotional residue, the sense that something private had just brushed against me and slipped away. Now there’s nothing to shake off.No warmth.No fear.No half-remembered symbols clinging to my ribs.Just consciousness snapping cleanly into place, like a switch flipped by someone else’s hand.Cain notices immediately.“You didn’t drift back,” he murmurs. “Usually you linger for a second.”“I don’t have anywhere to linger from,” I say.The words sound calm. Reasonable.They scare me anyway.The heart between us beats slow and full, like something digesting. Not strained. Not hungry.Processing.I close my eyes experimentally.Nothing waits for me there.

LYRAThe forest doesn’t go back to normal.That’s the first lie my mind tries to tell me—that because the thing dissolved, because the air settled and the clicking stopped, we’re safe again.But absence leaves residue.I feel it like a pressure behind my thoughts, a subtle tension in the bond where something could be shaped again.Cain feels it too. I don’t need to look at him to know—his posture is too still, his attention too sharp.“That wasn’t restraint,” I say quietly. “That was rehearsal.”He nods once. “For us. Or for it.”The heart between us gives a slow, heavy beat.Neither answer comforts me.“What we did back there,” I continue, choosing each word with care, “we didn’t just prevent violence. We modeled behavior.”Cain exhales through his nose. “You think that makes us responsible for what comes next.”“I think,” I say, throat tight, “that if it learns ethics through us… then our failures become design flaws.”The Devourer listens.It always does.CAINMercy feels different