All Chapters of BOUGHT BY THE BEAST: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

I didn't sleep.I lay in the dark for hours, wrapped in the heavy warmth of Caspian’s body, watching that thin thread of black magic pulse on the other side of the room. It was patient, hovering near the edge of the leather couch like a predator waiting for its prey to move. Every time Caspian shifted in his sleep, the shadow would shiver, reaching out a fraction further before recoiling when it sensed my presence tangled with his. It was tied to his isolation. Morgessa had woven a spell that needed him alone to take root, and that realization made my blood run cold. By the time the first pale light of dawn began to bleed through the windows, the shadow had finally retreated, slithering back into the closet doorframe as if it had never been there at all. But I could still feel the oily residue of it against my senses. Caspian stirred beside me, his breathing changing as he surfaced from sleep. I felt the instant his mind sharpened, the bond flooding with his immediate awareness of m

I started that night.Caspian was downstairs meeting with Ezra about border security, a real meeting this time, and the suite was empty. I stood in front of the closet doorframe, the leather pouch open in my palm, staring at the spot where I knew the black ward was hiding. I couldn't see it with my eyes, but my wolf could feel it. It was a cold, oily pressure pulsing behind the wood like a heartbeat that didn't belong to anything living. I pinched a tiny amount of the Dead Marsh salt between my fingers. It was darker than regular salt, almost charcoal grey, and it felt warm against my skin in a way that made my First Moon blood hum with quiet approval. I crouched down and pressed the grains into the base of the doorframe, working them into the tiny gap between the wood and the floor where no one would ever think to look. The moment the salt touched the ward's anchor point, I felt the black energy flinch. It was a small, involuntary contraction, like a nerve jumping under a needle. S

The black ward died on the fourth night.I felt it go. A faint, cold exhale, like a fire going out in a distant room, and then nothing. The oily pressure behind the closet doorframe simply stopped existing. I lay in the dark for a long time afterward, waiting to feel relief. It didn't quite come. My wolf was still restless. She had been restless for two days now, pacing in my chest with a low, persistent agitation that I kept trying to attribute to stress or the intensity of the deception or the pressure of navigating court life in a Kingdom that barely tolerated my existence. All of those things were real. All of them were legitimate sources of anxiety. But my wolf wasn't anxious. She was watchful. And those were different things. I pressed my palm flat against Caspian's chest the way I had every night since we arrived at Thorncross, feeling the rhythm of his heartbeat against my skin. It was steady. Strong. Entirely normal. So, I told myself I was imagining things. The next mor

The rest of the day was a blur of empty corridors and locked doors.I didn't go down for lunch. I didn't attend the afternoon briefing. I stayed in our suite, pacing the length of the rug until my legs ached, trying to figure out how I was supposed to survive a Kingdom that hated me when the only man who was supposed to protect me had suddenly forgotten why he bothered. When Caspian finally returned, the sun had already set. The heavy door clicked shut behind him, and the sound made my pulse jump. I was sitting in the armchair by the window, a book open on my lap that I hadn't read a single page of. He took off his jacket and tossed it onto the sofa. He didn't look at me. He just started unbuttoning his shirt, his movements sharp and tired. "How were your meetings?" I asked, my voice tight. "Long." He pulled the shirt off, tossing it over the jacket. His back was to me, the familiar landscape of scars and muscle that I had traced with my lips just two nights ago. Now, it looked li

The days that followed were the loneliest of my life.Thorncross Keep was full of people, thousands of them, but I had never felt more invisible. Caspian moved through the mansion like I was furniture he had to walk around. In public, he was polite in a way that felt worse than cruelty because politeness from a man who used to devour you with his eyes is its own kind of violence. In private, the silence between us was so heavy I could feel it pressing on my chest like a physical weight. And he still came to the bed every night. The bond wouldn't let him stay away completely, the biological pull of the claim dragging him back to me like a chain. But he never held me. He never whispered my sweet nothings. He just lay on his side of the mattress, his back to me, and the two feet of cold sheets between us felt like a canyon. Sometimes in the middle of the night, he would reach for me. His hand would find my hip in the dark, his fingers digging into my skin, and I would feel the heat of