All Chapters of Bound By The Missing Hours: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Danny watched in horror as Peter transformed before his eyes. A dark, fibrous mass quickly enveloped his skin; the sound of the bones breaking, reforming, and fusing together filled the air and assaulted Danny's ears. Danny could not comprehend what he was seeing and hearing. One moment a normal human was running towards him, now a primal fear filled Danny's body.A primal instinct, inbuilt and shouting very loudly at Danny to either run away as fast as he could or to just completely deny what his eyes were telling him was happening. Alex watched Danny closely, ready to step in and grab Danny if he did fall, but instead, he could only see the horror and fright in Danny's eyes, suddenly wondering if he had maybe taken everything too far too soon.The sight of Danny trembling in fear wracked Alex's nerves, making him have an internal battle with himself. He knew that he needed Danny to believe what he said and to come to terms with the truth fast, but maybe, just maybe, he had taken it

Alex seized Danny’s hand, his grip a paradoxical blend of rough desperation and protective tenderness. He didn't want to bruise the skin, but the terror of losing him outweighed the need for gentleness.“Deal with him!” Alex’s voice tore through the trees, a command aimed at the guards. He didn't look back to see if they obeyed; he only cared about putting enough distance between Danny and the monster behind them. He needed pack warriors, and he needed them now.The rogue was no ordinary exile. It was a creature forged for a singular, terrifying purpose: to hunt the Marked One. And that target was Danny—the one person who should have had the answers, yet was currently stumbling behind Alex on unsteady feet, his world tilting on its axis.Seeker? Marked? Scented? The words looped through Danny’s mind like a broken record, mocking his ignorance. What exactly was happening to him? One moment he was a person; the next, he was a prize in a game he didn't even know was being played.As Alex

Inside the study, the air was thick with the scent of old leather and parchment. Alex finally let go, pacing the length of the room like a caged animal before turning to face Danny."You want to know what's going on?" Alex’s voice was lower now, stripped of the command he used for his guards, but it still vibrated with a dangerous intensity. "You’re Scented, Danny. In our world, a person's scent is their identity, their history, their status. But yours... yours is different. It’s pure, but it’s vocal.""Vocal?" Danny whispered, leaning against the edge of a heavy desk to keep his legs from shaking. "My smell has a voice now?""It tells a story you don't even know yet," Alex said, stopping his pacing to stand directly in front of him. "A Mark is a soul-tether. It means you were born to be the other half of someone powerful. Usually, that scent is dormant until the bond is sealed. But your Mark is 'bleeding.' It’s active, it&

Down in the tactical room, the air was thick with the scent of old parchment and the electric hum of high-end surveillance equipment. Alex stood before a wall of monitors, his eyes tracing the thermal signatures that marked the perimeter of his territory. Even with the physical distance between them, he could still feel the phantom echo of Danny’s grief in his chest—a dull, rhythmic ache that refused to subside.The feeling sat like a stone in Alex’s heart, weighted down further by the crushing knowledge that he was the architect of this misery. Within the span of a few hours, he had stood before Danny, torn his reality apart, and forced him into a world he wasn't prepared for.While his intentions had been rooted in protection, the execution had been reckless. It was only now, watching the static on the screens, that the gravity of his mistake began to dawn on him. He had seen the light leave Danny’s eyes; he had watched him turn into a hollow

 Two miles north of the packs gilded gates, the air was colder, stripped of the silver-laced protection that warmed the Alpha’s inner sanctum. Here, the Whispering Woods earned their name. The wind whistled through the jagged pines like a low, mournful flute, carrying with it the scent of wet fur and iron.Three wolves crouched in the dense undergrowth of the western ridge, their forms nearly invisible against the grey shale and rotting moss. These weren't the sleek, well-fed guardians of Alex’s pack. These were North Scouts—leathery, scarred, and driven by a hunger that went beyond the stomach.The largest of them, a brindle-coated beast with a notched ear, shifted back into his human form with a series of sickening cracks. He pulled a rough deerskin cloak over his shoulders and spat into the dirt. This was Varick, the lead tracker for the North High-Alpha."The wards have changed," Varick rasped, his voice sounding like gravel being crushed.