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Lahat ng Kabanata ng Bound Wolf, Burning Heart: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

61 Kabanata

Embers Under the Skin

**Chapter One**The wolfsbane always burned worst at dawn.It seeped into my veins like ice and fire braided together, numbing my limbs while setting something furious alight deep inside my chest. I woke before the alarm, curled tight beneath thin sheets, teeth clenched to keep from making a sound. The Blackwood house was already stirring—pots clanged downstairs, a door slammed, boots crossed the hall. Morning meant work.I pressed my palm flat against my sternum and breathed the way I’d taught myself over the years. Slow. Controlled. Human.Whatever lived beneath my skin responded with a dull, aching throb.*Quiet,* I begged it silently, though I didn’t know who—or what—I was speaking to. The wolf had never answered me. Not once in eighteen years.Sunlight crept through the narrow window, catching in my hair where it spilled across the pillow in a riot of fire-red curls. I hated my hair. It was too wild, too noticeable. Too much like everything else about me that never quite fit. Aga

The Howl That Chased Us

**Chapter Two**The howl came again.Closer this time.It ripped through the forest like a living thing, low and powerful, vibrating through the soles of my feet and straight into my bones. Every instinct I had—what little of it I trusted—screamed danger.Ember’s hand clamped around my wrist. Her eyes flashed amber.“Run,” she hissed.I didn’t argue.We tore away from the riverbank, breath tearing from our lungs as we plunged into the trees. Branches lashed my arms and tangled in my hair, ripping free curls from their tie. The forest floor was uneven, roots clawing at my boots as if trying to drag me down. Behind us, the howl rolled again, closer still.Rogue.The word slammed through my thoughts, sharp and cold. Rogues were unpredictable, savage things—wolves without packs, without laws. They killed without reason and took pleasure in fear. Packs warned their young about them the way humans warned children about monsters.My chest burned as the wolfsbane fought me, slowing my limbs,

Chains That Look Like Home

**Chapter Three**The wolfsbane tasted stronger that night.I knew the moment the cup touched my lips. Bitter and sharp, it burned all the way down, spreading cold through my veins as if it were trying to extinguish the fire Ember had helped me notice. Elena watched me drink with careful satisfaction, arms folded, mouth set in a thin line.“Good,” she said. “You were acting strangely today.”I lowered the empty cup and kept my eyes down. “Yes, ma’am.”“Strangely,” she repeated, stepping closer. Her fingers caught my chin, forcing my face up. Her eyes searched mine—snow-blue against her calculating brown. “Wolves notice changes. You’d do well to remember your place.”Something inside me snarled.It was faint, muffled by the wolfsbane, but it was there. A pulse of heat, a flash of defiance that made my spine straighten despite myself.“Yes, ma’am,” I said again, more carefully this time.She released me with a shove. “Get to work.”I scrubbed floors until my hands ached, folded laundry

Quiet Things That Break Slowly

**Chapter Four**The howl faded without another sound.No thunder of paws. No shattered boundary stones. Just the echo lingering in the air like a held breath that no one dared release.For a long moment, no one moved.I lay curled on the ground where they had dragged me inside, cheek pressed against the cool stone floor of the back hall. My body trembled—not violently, not dramatically—but with the kind of exhaustion that seeped into bone and stayed there. The fire inside me had retreated, not gone, just… waiting. Like embers banked beneath ash.“Elena,” Marcus said finally, his voice low and tight. “Take her to her room.”“I will not have her infecting the pack with hysteria,” Elena snapped back. “You heard that howl. Rogues are getting bold.”“That was not a rogue,” Ember said.Every head snapped toward her.She stood near the doorway, fists clenched at her sides, eyes bright but steady. Brave, foolish Ember—always stepping forward when she should step back.“You don’t know that,”

The Shape of Silence

**Chapter Five**The pack settled into an uneasy quiet over the next few days.It wasn’t spoken aloud—nothing ever was—but I felt it in the way conversations stopped when I entered a room, in the way wolves lingered closer to the boundary stones during patrols, in the way Elena watched me as if I were a glass left too near the edge of a table.I returned to my duties the morning after the howl, though my body protested every movement. The wolfsbane kept me slow and hazy, my limbs heavy, my thoughts dulled at the edges. Still, something beneath the fog remained awake. Not loud. Not demanding.Aware.I scrubbed the kitchen counters while Lydia laughed in the sitting room, her voice light and unburdened. She had always been like that—effortlessly part of the pack, her presence unquestioned. When she passed me in the hallway, our shoulders brushed.She recoiled as if shocked.“Watch it,” she snapped, staring at me with narrowed eyes.“Sorry,” I murmured automatically, stepping aside.She

Lessons in Shadows

**Chapter Six**The days after Ember’s warning moved like wet smoke—slow, suffocating, and impossible to grasp.The house operated in its usual rhythm. Dawn brought the clang of dishes, the scrape of brooms, and the sharp voice of Elena reminding me to “stay in line.” Marcus moved through the halls with quiet authority, his presence a constant reminder that the life I’d been handed was never mine. Lydia’s laughter drifted through the walls like a bell I wasn’t allowed to hear, sharp and melodic, an echo of something that could have been mine if I had been the right child.Yet the wolf inside me was restless.I felt her now, faintly, a whisper against the edges of my awareness, nudging, testing, pressing against the wolfsbane that chained her. It wasn’t roar or growl—it was something quieter, a pull at the core of me that whispered, *I am here. You are not alone.*I walked to the river that afternoon, my boots soft against the wet soil. The forest seemed unchanged, serene, yet every ru

What the Body Remembers

**Chapter Seven**The pack began watching me openly after that.Not in the obvious way—no guards at my door, no shouted accusations—but in the subtle, suffocating way wolves did when something no longer fit. Conversations quieted when I entered shared spaces. Patrols passed closer to the house than before. Even the air felt different, thick with unspoken judgment.I kept my head down.That part, at least, I knew how to do.The wolfsbane dulled everything, but it no longer erased it. The heat inside me had learned how to wait. It lingered beneath the haze, a steady presence I could almost trace if I focused hard enough. It didn’t push against the suppression the way it had during the howl. Instead, it adapted.So did I.I learned the rhythms of the house more precisely—when Elena’s temper ran thin, when Marcus was most likely to be gone, when Lydia practiced shifts with the other young wolves and left the back corridors empty. I moved quietly, efficiently, like I always had, but now th

The Weight of Being Seen

**Chapter Eight**The meeting hall smelled like tension and old wood.I knew that before I stepped inside—not because of scent alone, but because the air felt tight, stretched thin like cloth pulled too far. Wolves filled the room in loose clusters, their voices low, careful. Some glanced at me openly. Others pretended not to.For the first time, I didn’t look away.I stood near the wall as I always had, hands folded, posture unobtrusive. But inside, something had shifted. The heat was quiet, banked low, but steady. It didn’t flinch under the weight of attention.Marcus called the meeting to order with a sharp rap of his knuckles against the table.“We’ve had disturbances near the boundary,” he said, voice carrying easily. “Unidentified movement. A howl several nights ago.”A murmur rippled through the room.My shoulders tightened despite myself.“We will be increasing patrols,” Marcus continued. “No one leaves the inner grounds without permission. Especially at night.”His gaze slid

The Cost of Staying Quiet

**Chapter Nine**The pack’s departure came two mornings later.I watched from the edge of the inner grounds as Marcus, Elena, Lydia, and several patrol leaders gathered their supplies. The air buzzed with restrained energy—wolves preparing to step into another Alpha’s territory always carried a certain tension. It wasn’t fear so much as awareness of hierarchy, of being watched by power greater than your own.I stood apart, hands folded loosely in front of me.“You’ll keep to the house,” Elena said sharply without looking at me. “No wandering. No unnecessary movement.”“Yes, ma’am.”Her gaze flicked to me then, sharp and assessing. “If anything happens while we’re gone, you are not to involve yourself. You will wait.”I nodded again.They left shortly after, their scents fading down the main path until the pack grounds felt strangely hollow. Fewer voices. Fewer footsteps. Less pressure.The absence was noticeable.So was the freedom.Not the kind that came from open gates or crossed bo

Fractures Beneath the Surface

**Chapter Ten**The pack settled into an uneasy rhythm after Marcus and Elena’s return.Nothing was said outright. No accusations were made. But the tension threaded through every interaction, tightening with each passing day. Patrols doubled. Wolves lingered longer near the boundary. Conversations stopped when I entered a room.I noticed everything.Not because I was searching for it—but because my senses no longer dulled themselves to survive.Elena watched me constantly now. Not openly, not with confrontation, but with the kind of attention that catalogued details: how I moved, how I listened, how my posture changed when certain wolves passed by. I returned to my chores with deliberate calm, refusing to give her anything sharp to seize.Inside, the heat remained steady. Patient. Waiting.The wolfsbane tea appeared stronger.I tasted it the first morning it changed—bitter enough to sting the back of my tongue,

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