All Chapters of bound by deception: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

24 Chapters

stolen

Chapter OneI watched my twin sister try on my wedding dress.White lace. Delicate beading. The dress I'd dreamed about since I was twelve, back when I still believed in fairy tales and happy endings.Isabella twirled in front of the mirror, her pale face glowing with something I hadn't seen in years. Health. Happiness. Victory."It fits perfectly," Mom said, adjusting the veil. "Like it was made for you."It was made for me. My measurements. My deposit. My mate.But nobody cared about that."Irabella, stop lurking in the doorway." Dad didn't even look at me. "Come help your sister."I stepped into the room. My wolf clawed inside my chest, begging me to run. To fight. To do anything except stand here and watch this happen."The Alpha arrives in two hours," Mom said, smoothing Isabella's hair. "We need to make sure everything is perfect. Isabella, you remember what to say when he arrives?""I'll tell him I'm his mate." Isabella's voice was soft, practiced. Innocent. "That I've been wai

exile

Chapter TwoI told myself I wouldn't look.I stayed in my room. Sat on my bed. Stared at the wall.But then I heard his voice again, clearer now, coming from the foyer downstairs.My body moved on its own.I stood. Walked to my bedroom door. Opened it just a crack.Just one look. That's all. Just to see him once.I crept to the top of the staircase. The marble floor downstairs gleamed. My parents stood by the door, dressed in their best clothes. Isabella waited on the bottom step, wearing my dress, my veil, my future.And then he walked in.The bond hit me like a truck.My knees buckled. I grabbed the railing to keep from collapsing.Heat flooded my body. Every nerve ending lit up. My skin felt too tight. My wolf surged forward, stronger than she'd been in hours.MATE. MATE. GO TO HIM.He was tall. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. His presence filled the entire room, commanding and absolute.Alpha.Mine.I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The bond pulled at me, a physical ache in my chest

five years changed nothing

Chapter ThreeFive years later.The car stopped in front of the house I'd been exiled from.Nothing had changed.Same white columns. Same perfectly trimmed hedges. Same cold, lifeless mansion that never felt like home.I stepped out.My hair was longer now. Wine red. I'd dyed it the day after I left. A new color for a new life.Except my life hadn't been new. It had been survival.Five years of living on the outskirts of pack territory. Five years of working odd jobs. Five years of trying to forget the mate bond that never went away.The front door opened.Mom and Dad stood there. Waiting.Not Isabella.Of course not Isabella.She was married now. To my mate. Living her perfect Luna life while I rotted in exile.I walked toward them. My boots crunched on the gravel driveway.Mom's face was blank. Dad's was stone.No smiles. No relief that I was home safe.Just... nothing.I stopped in front of them. Gave a small smile that didn't reach my eyes."I'm back.""So we see," Dad said.I wal

feels different

Chapter FourI couldn't stay at the ball.Not with him looking at me like that. Not with the bond screaming in my chest every time our eyes met across the room.I told my parents I needed air. Didn't wait for permission.I slipped out of the ballroom. Walked down a hallway. Then another.The pack house had changed. New wings. New corridors. Nothing looked familiar.I turned a corner and stopped.This wasn't right. The hallway was dimmer here. Quieter. Private.I'd gone too far.I turned to go back.Footsteps echoed behind me.Heavy. Deliberate.My heart jumped into my throat.I turned slowly.Alpha Daemon stood at the end of the hallway.Alone.No Isabella. No guests. No witnesses.Just him.His eyes locked on mine. Dark. Intense.Predatory."You shouldn't be here," he said.His voice was low. Rough.But he was walking toward me.I took a step back. "I got lost. I was just leaving.""Stay."The word hit me like a physical force.Alpha command.My body obeyed before my brain could argu

bonds

Chapter FiveI woke up to sunlight burning through my curtains.My body ached. My lips still tingled from where he'd almost kissed me.Almost.I pressed my fingers to my mouth. Remembered the way he'd looked at me. The way his hands felt on my waist.The way he'd pulled away like I was poison.I sat up. Looked at the clock.Nine AM.I'd barely slept.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. Felt him. Heard his voice saying things he shouldn't say.I got up. Showered. Put on jeans and a simple shirt.Sprayed the perfume.The chemical smell made my stomach turn.I stared at myself in the mirror.Five years. Five years and nothing changed.I was still hiding. Still pretending. Still invisible.I went downstairs.Voices came from the dining room.Laughter.I stopped at the doorway.They were all there.Mom. Dad. Isabella. Daemon.Having breakfast like a happy family.Isabella was sitting next to Daemon. Her hand on his arm. Smiling up at him.He was looking at his plate. Jaw tight."Irabel

vanity

Chapter SixIsabella sat at her vanity.The mirror showed a woman who had everything. A powerful husband. A pack that worshipped her. A life built exactly the way she wanted it.She should be satisfied.She wasn't.Her phone was in her hand. She'd been gripping it for twenty minutes. Her knuckles were white.She kept seeing it. The way Daemon looked at Irabella at the ball. That split second before he caught himself. That flicker in his eyes that Isabella had never once seen when he looked at her.Recognition.She set the phone down carefully on the vanity. Picked up her brush. Started pulling it through her hair.Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.Her reflection stared back at her. Calm. Composed.Inside her head it was a different story.What if he figures it out.The thought had been circling since last night. Small at first. Easy to dismiss. But it kept coming back, each time a little louder.What if his wolf already knows. What if that look at the ball was the beginning of something. What i

sleep was a joke

Sleep was a joke I'd been staring at the ceiling for three hours, counting cracks in the plaster like they meant something. Like if I found the right pattern, my brain would finally shut up.It wouldn't.My wolf had been restless since dinner. Since I'd made the decision not to go down. I'd stood at the top of the stairs, heard his voice carry up from the dining room — just his voice, one sentence, something mundane about pack borders — and my wolf had surged so hard my knees buckled.I'd gone back to my room.Told myself I wasn't hungry.My stomach had been calling me a liar ever since.2:04 AM.Everyone was asleep. The house had gone quiet an hour ago — no footsteps, no low murmur of conversation, nothing. Just the kind of dark silence that only exists in the middle of the night when a house stops pretending to be warm.I swung my legs over the side of the bed.Didn't bother changing.Why would I? It was two in the morning. The house was dead. I'd be down and back

dengerious obsession

Isabella's POVI came down for water.That's all. Just water.The house was dark and quiet and mine. No staff hovering. No pack members watching my face for cues. No performance required. Just me and the silence at two in the morning, moving through my own home in bare feet.Except it wasn't my home anymore.I don't know when I stopped thinking of it that way. Somewhere between month four and month seven, maybe. Somewhere in the stretch of nights when Daemon would come to bed and turn away without a word and I'd lie there in the dark counting the inches between us like they meant something.I pushed open the kitchen door.And stopped.The refrigerator light cut through the dark like a spotlight and she was standing in it.Irabella.That nightgown. That nothing of a nightgown, white and thin, the kind of thing you wear when you think no one will ever see you. And Daemon — my husband, my Alpha, the man who hadn't looked at me in eleven months — had her wrists pinned above her head again

dark desire

Chapter EightIrabella's POVIsabella's threat still hung in the air after the door clicked shut.I sat there.Let it settle.Then something shifted in my chest. Something that had been coiled tight and small for a very long time slowly straightened up.What's the worst she can do.Exile me again? I survived that. Humiliate me in front of a pack that already hated me? Done. Take something else that belonged to me?She'd already taken everything worth taking.My hands unclenched. I looked at them. Steady.I was done being scared of Isabella. Done rearranging myself around her moods and her threats and the particular way she smiled right before she destroyed something.I hadn't come back here for Daemon. That was the truth. I'd come back because my exile ended and I had nowhere else and I was tired of running from a life that was technically mine.And I'd tried. I had genuinely tried to stay away from him. Skipped dinner. Kept to my room. Took different hallways.Apparently the universe

a suitor

Chapter NineIrabella's POVNobody moved for three full seconds after my mother's invitation landed.Then Daemon stepped into the living room and the whole atmosphere shifted the way it always did when he walked into a space. Like the room rearranged itself around him without being asked.He sat.My father straightened in his armchair. My mother smoothed her skirt and reached for the bell to call for fresh tea. Isabella unfolded herself from the far wall and crossed the room and sat beside him — close, her hand finding his forearm, fingers curling around it like she was staking a flag in the ground.I sat in the chair furthest from him.Back straight. Phone face down in my lap. Smile in place.Fine. I could do this. Twenty minutes. Thirty at most. Polite conversation, family performance, get through it and leave.My wolf had a different opinion.She was pressed up against the inside of my chest like she wanted to break through it. That pull — that constant low dragging pull — was ten

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