All Chapters of Bound To Ruin: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

He didn’t pull out.Not when my body shook beneath him. Not when I gasped against his palm, pulse stuttering. Not when my legs trembled violently against the hold of the vines.He held me there—inside me—as if withdrawing would undo what he’d just carved into the marrow of me.He wasn’t done.And neither was the silence.He began again.Slow. Measured. Deeper this time.Each motion was deliberate—a lesson, a punishment, a vow. There was no rush to finish. He moved with the same terrifying patience as before, like he could do this until the end of time and never need more than the sound of my breath caught in my throat.He shifted the angle slightly, and something inside me snapped. A fresh wave of sensation made my back arch, muscles spasming with the raw stretch of him.I whimpered against his hand.He didn’t stop. He didn’t soften.His mouth brushed the place he’d bitten, tongue sliding over the mark with slow reverence."You will remember what I gave you," he murmured. "But more th

Heat clung to my skin before thought did. Steam filled my lungs in slow, dragging breaths. My limbs ached in stages—from the deep bruising of hips and throat to the raw, slick tenderness between my thighs. When my eyes blinked open, they saw only haze. Pale gold light rippled across a ceiling I didn’t recognize.The bathhouse.I was in the bathhouse. One of the smaller pools, by the looks of it. Stone-carved. Quiet. The water was warm—too warm. My hair floated like ink in the space around me. My body was limp, weightless, useless.I hadn’t been placed here for healing.I had been left.A flicker of betrayal pulsed under my skin, too faint to name but too sharp to ignore. The water around me, once sacred, now felt like a burial bath. The warmth leeched into my bones like it meant to soften me. Make me forget. Make me pliant.But I remembered.Voices echoed from behind a veil of steam."You should never have touched her like that," Eirseth’s voice cut sharply through the air, cold as a

I woke late. Not to noise. Not to touch. Just to light.Soft and pale, the morning glow filtered through the cracks in the stone ceiling, warming the walls with quiet gold. I was alone in my chamber. The silence was complete, but not hollow. Not oppressive. Just still.My body ached. A dull, healing ache, like bruises surrendering to time. Each movement felt tentative, like testing the shape of a body I was still remembering how to inhabit. I sat up slowly, stretching each joint with deliberate care. There was pain, yes—but it wasn’t sharp, wasn’t claiming. It was the kind that reminded me I had survived.The linens beneath me were wrinkled and slightly damp with sweat, but they smelled like me again. Not blood. Not stone. Just skin and breath. Something human. Something whole.I rose and dressed. Simple layers—soft, breathable, loose around the hips and thighs where the soreness lingered. Nothing binding. I braided my hair out of habit, my fingers deft and mechanical. Not for beauty.

I didn’t go back to Miren. I didn’t go anywhere familiar.I found a shadowed corner of the prison I hadn’t explored before—a forgotten alcove, empty but for dust and silence. I curled onto the stone floor, letting the cool seep into my spine, trying to slow the thundering of my pulse.My hands still shook. My throat was tight. But the worst of it was in my chest—a tremble that felt like mourning, like memory.Would she have walked away?The woman whose blood sings in my dreams—the one who loved them all. Would she have stepped back from him? From the heat? From the ache?I didn’t think so. I wasn’t her.And maybe I never could be.Sleep came hard and slow. Not because I fought it, but because it didn’t come gently. It dragged me under like a tide, pulling breath from my lungs and resistance from my bones.The dreams returned.Not soft. Not slow.They came in flashes—mouths and hands, breath and fangs. I moaned in sleep, twisting beneath phantom weight. It was like being unraveled one

I stood at the edge of Calyx’s wing for longer than I wanted to admit, one hand resting on the cold stone archway, heart lodged somewhere between shame and defiance. The door was cracked. Light spilled out—a soft, flickering amber glow, like he’d lit the lanterns even though he wasn’t waiting for anyone. Or maybe he was. Maybe some part of him always was.I stepped inside.He didn’t turn.Calyx stood at the window, arms folded behind his back, tension radiating from him in quiet pulses. His hair was loose, falling around his shoulders in gentle waves, but nothing about him looked soft. Not the way he held himself. Not the silence that coiled around him like armor.I opened my mouth to speak. Nothing came out.What was I even going to say? That I didn’t regret it? That I did? That I hadn’t chosen Eirseth over him, not really—just chosen something in a moment when my body needed to stop aching and my heart needed to stop floating?I took a breath. It caught halfway in my throat.“I didn