Novel & Cerita The Bound And The Broken Reading Order

And yet… something pulsed beneath the silence. A second presence. Faint. Unfamiliar. Dark. --- Mael stood over me, pale and serene. “The bond is broken,” he said. I tried to speak but couldn’t. Blood dripped from my mouth. “It will return,” he added. “But changed. She will feel the echo of you… and something else. Something deeper.” I forced my throat to work. “What… did you do?” Mael’s smile was sad. “I only pulled the thread. The other end unraveled on its own.”

The words bled across the page: “Bride and fox, bound by ink. Obey…or perish.” The ground cracked open beneath their knees as ash rose like smoke around them. The maid’s voice returned, sharp and definitive. “Letters never sent are letters that bind you. If you read the last line…you belong to him forever.” Vincent held Camela close, shaking his head desperately. “Don’t do it! Don’t read it!” But the parchment flared up again as the last line burned itself into both halves.

“That this is what you wanted. That you’re happy. You’re not. I can see it.” I swallowed hard, my fingers tightening around the bouquet still clutched in my lap. The roses were already wilting, petals bruised from the day’s cruelty. “I didn’t choose this,” I whispered. A humorless laugh escaped him, sharp and bitter. “Neither did I.” And in that moment, I realized the truth: We were strangers bound by broken pieces. Two scarred souls forced into a union neither of us believed in. The question wasn’t whether we could survive it. It was whether we would destroy each other in the process.

I took my time reading, and another hour went by. On finishing the third book, I realised I hadn’t read them in the right order. It seemed Finding the One was the first book, followed by The Claiming Rites, and then Under the Red Moon. This was a trilogy that needed to be read in the right order. I stared closely at the books and found the numbers on them written on each book from one to three, just like I arranged them. These numbers were written on the drawn-out full moon on the bottle right of the book’s front page, and, being set beside each other in the formal order, the full moon glowed.

“Did you check around? Or even her book shelf or where she does magic? Chase nodded. “Yeah, I did… but I didn’t unders anything there.” I walked closer and check where she does her spells, her spell book was opened. I took a glance through and my eyes landed on a spell titled breaking unbroken bond. “Breaking unbroken bond?” I murmured frowning. “What does that mean?” Chase asked, standing me. “I’m not sure,” I replied, my fingers running over the words. “But it has to mean something. Maybe she was practicing her spells again.”

I read the line again, feeling a sense of anxiety creeping in. “In order for a bond to be broken, both parties need to accept the rejection,” my stomach knots as a lump forms in my throat. No, I’m sure it’s fine. Elio isn’t a wolf, so maybe it doesn’t work like that. I shove the book to the side and grab the one about monsters, frantically tearing through the pages until I find the section on demons.

I leaned closer. Reading more carefully now. Trying to understand every word. Every line. Every meaning. And then— My hand stilled. Because halfway down the page— It stopped. Not naturally. Not cleanly. Torn. The page had been ripped out. The rest of the spell— Gone. My chest tightened sharply. “No…” I flipped the page. Hoping. Expecting. But the next page— Was different. Not instructions. Not a continuation. Just a single line. Written boldly.

Shame wore me three garments at the same time as I remembered the dirty, shameless things I said to Nightbane. I exhaled and pressed my forehead against my knees. The plan was to have the soup with him and break the bond. Was going into heat one of the implications of breaking the bond? Damn it! The bond is definitely broken. I could look at him in the eyes now and feel nothing.

I wanted to be near things that comforted me and not stuck in this car. I collapsed in Brett's arms on the couch. He held me all night long while we waited for the sun to come up. He never dosed off, and Dan and Lissa never left our side. Lissa sat in the chair across from me, tears gracing her face while I silently mourned. My connection with Gray was different from Brett and Dan's, but there was a part of both of them in turmoil, too. But they didn't try to fix anything-they just offered their physical presence, and Brett never took away his touch. It was the only thing that kept me grounded.

The envelope felt heavier than it should as I opened it, scanning through the medical terminology until I found what I was looking for. My hands stilled as I read the results: “Probability of biological relationship: 0%” “Analysis complete. Subjects share no significant genetic markers consistent with family relationship. No biological connection detected.” The paper slipped from my fingers. Alyssa Skarsen was not Astrid, she wasn't related to my mate at all