All Chapters of BOUGHT BY THE BEAST: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

I sat on the edge of the mattress for an hour, the note clutched in my hand until the paper was damp with my sweat.Midnight. Training grounds. Come alone. I looked at the clock on the nightstand. Eleven-fifteen. Caspian hadn't come back to the room yet, and part of me was praying he wouldn't. If he stayed in Morgessa’s study or slept on the sofa in the sitting room, I could slip out the bathroom window and get the answers I was starving for. I needed to know what was happening to him. I needed to know if I was losing my mind or if the man I loved was actually being erased. I stood up and moved toward the bathroom, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm. I had just reached for the door handle when the heavy oak door of the suite clicked open. I froze. Caspian walked in, and the air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. He didn't look at me. He didn't say a word. He just started stripping off his clothes with a heavy, mechanical exhaustion that made my chest ache. He looked pale, th

I walked into the Council chamber with my head held high and a heart made of ice.I took my seat beside Caspian, smoothing the dark fabric of my skirt with hands that didn't tremble. I didn't look at him. I didn't lean toward him. I didn't brush my fingers against the arm of his chair the way I used to when I needed grounding. If he wanted distance, he was going to get it. I looked across the glass table. Morgessa was already seated, her green eyes tracking my entrance with that same, infuriatingly patient smile. She was wearing a dress the color of fresh blood, a delicate silver chain resting exactly over her collarbone, positioned to draw the eye downward. She looked at me, then looked at Caspian, her smile widening just a fraction. I felt the urge to reach across the table and shatter every piece of glass in the room, but my wolf stayed quiet. The raw, electric surge of power that had blown the lights in the library was buried deep today, replaced by a cold, calculating stillnes

I had been training with Theron for six days when Caspian finally noticed the marks.Six mornings of dragging myself out of bed before the sun rose, six mornings of crossing the courtyard in the grey half-light while the guards pretended not to watch. Six mornings of Theron handing me a practice sword and beating me into the dirt until my muscles screamed and my palms split open and my body felt like it had been put through a machine designed to break things down into smaller pieces. I loved every second of it. Not because I was getting good. I wasn't, not yet. Theron told me daily that my footwork was sloppy, my guard was too high, and my tendency to lead with my emotions instead of my brain was going to get me killed in any real fight. He wasn't gentle about it either. He hit me hard enough to leave welts, tripped me hard enough to leave bruises, and once knocked the wind out of me so completely I lay in the dirt for two full minutes convinced I was dying. But I got up. Every sing

I sat on the bathroom floor for an hour, turning the emerald earring over in my fingers.It was beautiful. Delicate. The kind of thing a woman wears when she wants to be noticed but not accused of trying. The silver setting was warm from being in my fist, and no matter how many times I brought it to my nose, I could only smell one thing on it. Caspian. Not Morgessa's lavender. Not her metallic magic. Just cedar and rain and the warm, dark scent of the man who was supposed to be mine. Which meant it had been close to his skin for a while. In his pocket. Against his chest. Maybe pressed into his palm during one of those long afternoons in her study while they reviewed security reports and she leaned close enough to brush her shoulder against his arm. I wanted to throw it against the wall. I wanted to crush it under my heel and grind it into the marble until there was nothing left but silver dust. Instead, I wrapped it in a tissue and tucked it into the inner pocket of my jacket, righ

I started my days in the dirt and ended them in Seraphine's chair.Every morning, Theron beat the weakness out of my body. Every evening, Seraphine began the slower, harder work of waking up whatever was sleeping in my blood. The first lesson was not what I expected. I walked into her rooms after dinner, the leather-bound book tucked under my arm, expecting some kind of ritual or meditation or at least a dramatic speech about the power of my ancestors. Instead, Seraphine was sitting in her chair with a glass of wine, looking at me like I was late for an appointment I didn't know I had. "Sit," she said. I sat. "Close your eyes." I closed them. "Now tell me what you hear." I listened. The ticking of a clock on her mantle. The faint hum of the heating system in the walls. My own breathing and the steady thud of my heartbeat. "I hear a clock," I said. "The heating. My pulse." "What else?" I concentrated harder. The sounds of the mansion filtered in slowly, muffled by the thick w