All Chapters of Sinful Desires: Fatal bonds: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

The first cycle after my awakening was the hardest. The ancient heart beat, and the freeze came, and I stood at the cave entrance to meet it. The frost rushed toward me like a living thing, hungry and wild, still remembering that I had stolen from it. I opened my glacier and absorbed what I could. The rest tried to freeze me from the outside in. Icicles formed on my arms, my chest, my face. My breath turned to crystals that cut my lips. But I did not retreat. Aldric watched from inside the cave, his human hands gripping the stone wall. He wanted to help. I could see it in the tension of his shoulders, the way his weight shifted forward with every instinct telling him to protect. But he stayed back. He had promised. When the freeze ended, I collapsed to my knees. The frost in my core had grown again, but the cost was high. My fingers were blue, my lips cracked and bleeding. Aldric was beside me in an instant, wrapping his arms around me, pressing his warmth into my frozen skin. "Yo

We walked until the forest was nothing but a dark line on the horizon behind us. The grassland stretched ahead, endless and empty, the indigo sky pressing down like a lid. My legs ached. The frost in my core was quiet but heavy. Aldric walked beside me in silence, his long hair tangled with frost and dirt, his gold eyes fixed on some distant point I could not see. We needed to stop. The beast manual's knowledge was a storm in my mind, fragments of techniques and bloodline secrets swirling together without order. Aldric had absorbed the other half, but he had not spoken of what he had learned. His silence was not peaceful. It was the silence of a man trying not to drown. "There is a hollow ahead," I said, pointing to a dip in the grassland where the earth curved downward like a shallow bowl. "The jade shows it is sheltered from the wind. We can rest there." Aldric nodded. He did not speak. We climbed down into the hollow. The grass was tall here, reaching my waist, and the soil wa

The village appeared on the horizon like a bruise on the grassland. Low walls of packed earth surrounded clusters of wooden buildings, their roofs thatched with something that shimmered green under the morning light. Smoke rose from chimneys, thin and gray, carrying the smell of cooking meat. My stomach cramped at the scent. We had not eaten normal foods since the forest. Aldric walked beside me, her hand loose in mine. The shirt I had given her hung past her thighs, but her legs were bare, and her feet were wrapped in strips of fabric torn from my trousers. She looked small and fragile, nothing like the wolf who had torn apart snakes. Her gold eyes scanned the village with the same wariness, but without power behind it. "The jade says this village trades with cultivators," I said quietly. "They should be neutral. Not allies, neither enemies." Aldric's grip tightened on my hand. "Neutral does always mean safe." Nothing in this world was safe. I had learned that lesson in the fore

Two weeks. Fourteen days of walking, sleeping, fighting, and learning. The frost in my core became as familiar as my own heartbeat. The jade pendant guided us south, across grasslands, through shallow rivers, around the edges of forests that did not freeze, turns out not every part of the new world was perilous. The air was great. Despite the fact that Aldric and myself hadn't fully awakened our bloodlines, the spiritual energy was abundant. I cultivated by moonlight essence and Aldric absorbed spiritual energy but it didn't seem to affect his physique or help his situation.Each day brought new challenges. Each night brought new understanding.. and we conveniently forgot we were supposed to be Yao heirs. I learned to glide. It started as an accident. I was crossing a wide stream, the water cold against my boots, when I pushed frost from my feet to keep from slipping. The ice spread beneath me, and instead of breaking, it carried me. I slid across the surface, faster than walki

The wagon creaked on its remaining wheels, I walked beside the wagon with my hand on Tomas's sword, the frost coiled in my core like a sleeping serpent. Aldric walked on my other side, her blanket pulled tight against the morning chill. Elara had warned us that the trading post was neutral ground. Neither Yao nor Mo claimed it. Humans ran it, desperate humans who had fled from both sides and carved out a small pocket of survival. They sold information, supplies, and documents to anyone with coin. "They do not ask questions," Elara said. "And they do not remember faces. That is why they are still alive." Halek walked ahead of the wagon, his staff tapping the ground. His spiritual energy was weak, barely enough to light a candle, but his eyes were sharp. He had survived this long by seeing danger before it saw him. "We are being followed," he said quietly. I stopped. The frost in my core stirred. "Where?" "Behind the eastern ridge. Two of them. They have been tracking us s