Blood Bound
B***d Bound Chapter 11

INSIDE A DIMLY LIT office, two Alphas sat across from each other as the b***d moon filtered in from the large Palladian window to the front of them.

On one side sat Alpha Xavier Thaeos, swirling a cup of red wine between his thumb and index finger, with a small smirk imprinted almost permanently on his lips.

On the opposite side sat Alpha Deimos Ventrie, the Eastern Cardinal Alpha, known for his strict ruling and unforgiving ways.

“It’s a rather dangerous ritual your mate is playing with, Xavier,” Alpha Deimos stated, thrumming his fingers rhythmically against the mahogany table, with a small curl of his lips.

His features were sharp and defined, laced with a sternness of authority that could easily be detected at first glance.

With hair the color of sun rays and eyes a beautiful shade of icy blue, he glanced over at Xavier, who was lazily reclined in the leather chair, and said, “If you’re not careful, you both will be burned.”

Xavier raised the cup of red wine to his lips, barely letting the substance touch his mouth, and smiled mysteriously.

“My mate is a stubborn little thing. Anything she wants to do, no one can stop her. Kind of like your mate, Deimos,” Xavier drawled. “By the way, how is your teenage spitfire doing?

Not giving you any troubles or running away with that boyfriend of hers—is she?”

Deimos scowled darkly in contempt at the word “boyfriend” and stated, “She hasn’t tried anything, not since I had to bail her out of jail a couple of weeks ago.”

A Cheshire grin curled on Xavier’s lips, and he noted the deep furrow on his good friend’s brows.

It was good to know he wasn’t the only one with a problematic mate, because that meant they were equally screwed.

What better way to celebrate friendship than to suffer together?

“Don’t try to change the subject,” Deimos quipped, tall nose wrinkling at the searing scent of dark magic and freshly spilled b***d surrounding the golden-eyed Alpha. “I can smell the dark magic suffocating you. If your mate doesn’t show up—”

“Maya will show up,” Xavier announced promptly, eyes narrowing on the glass of b***d stationed near the open window. “And if she doesn’t…then I will go to her.”

Xavier’s b***d boiled in response to the thought, trembling hands almost shattering the crystalline glass of wine in his grip. But he forcefully controlled the predatory instinct to track, chase, and catch his mate.

He refused to give in.

“How romantic,” Deimos droned amusedly, pausing to mock the Southern Lord whose bravery was borderline insanity at this point. “Well then, I wish you the best of luck.”

As Xavier set down his finished cup, the initial, tantalizing scent of spring blossoms was blown into the room, directly to his enhanced senses.

Immediately, a pleased smirk gathered on the corner of his lips.

Alpha Deimos raised a brow in question, until he scented the familiar dark magic laced indefinitely into the scent of spring blossoms and green tea.

Without a doubt, he knew this must be the highly anticipated dark sorceress.

The stern Eastern Alpha got out of his chair and said, “Now that your guest of honor has arrived, I will see myself out.”

Xavier waved him off and grinned wickedly as one thought completely filled his mind: his mate was coming.

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The shadows of a long-limbed tree cast upon Maya’s pixie face in dark patterns. Her hair fluttered aimlessly around her face and blended with the light expelled by the b***d moon. `

Maya had trudged two hundred miles away from her apartment to the forest on the outskirts of the Southern Lands.

With each step, her black magic expelled in bits and pieces, aiding her in the search for the cunning Alpha whose b***d was a trail left behind for her to follow.

The ecstatic scent was driving her forward, along with the bond forged by the wicked ritual.

It held her by the throat and had grown rampant like uncontrollable weeds in the wild.

As she struggled to control the bond, it surrounded her in a cocoon of magic that was as fortified as cement blocks and weaved like billions of threads all around her.

It was pulling her in one direction—his.

Although Maya was haggard from the effects of the addiction, that didn’t stop her feet from stumbling over themselves in a hurry to acquire more speed.

At this point, nothing could stop her from hunting down her prey like any creature of the night.

Maya inhaled slowly, tasting the air again for the satisfying trail of ecstasy leading her to him, and lifted her head to stare at the clear night sky.

Because the moon was currently the color of b***d, the dim lighting provided would not have been enough to guide her path.

But since she had attained the Alpha’s enhanced senses, she currently had the skill to see clearly, sharply in the dark, without the use of dark magic.

Just as Maya breached the Cardinal Alpha’s territory in the Southern Land, her delayed thought process managed to belatedly pick up the bit of information her usually lucid mind would have already noticed.

How was she able to walk straight into his territory without alerting any guards? Why hadn’t anyone noticed or attacked?

The entire area was deathly silent and there was no one around, almost as if they knew she was coming and had opted to ignore her presence.

Perhaps, Xavier Thaeos was anticipating her intrusion and had cleared the way for her.

Of course, he would.

Maya’s dainty brows knitted together. Her green eyes glowed brilliantly, hauntingly in the darkened night, while a deep frown pulled at the corners of her red lips, dramatically darkening her pretty face.

As she traveled through the vast land, past several sections of houses and big apartment-like buildings, she came to a halt right outside of a cream-colored villa standing three stories tall and spanning several meters wide.

At the front door stood a set of guards, seemingly oblivious to the fact she was standing several feet away from them. The burly males remained moderately still, as if they were telling her to walk right through the front doors. But Maya didn’t intend to do that.

With a hefty bit of her black magic, she disappeared from outside the villa and reappeared inside of its pristine depths.

As she regained her footing and opened her eyes, Maya found herself in a long, winding hallway that was eerily quiet and dimly lit with a pale light.

Her breath came out in heavy and uneven pants, and her heart pounded erratically in her chest, pulsing faster and faster the closer she got to her target.

Maya’s bare feet tapped against the cold marble of the all-too-lavish hall inside the Alpha’s home, resounding harrowingly in response and announcing her encroachment within the white walls. She trudged on, feeling the painful symptoms of withdrawal lessen with each step.

After a short while, Maya took a sharp turn to the left and met a set of oak doors.

If her senses were correct, the cunning Alpha was right inside this room, waiting for her intrusion like when he had waited for her to barrel into his trap at the hotel.

Maya greedily inhaled his heady scent as it seeped out through the cracks of the doors and fluttered teasingly to her nose.

She reached out a trembling hand and curled her delicate fingers around the crystalline knob. Before she could turn the handle, the door swung open on its own accord, causing her breath to hitch in her throat and her heart to skip a beat.

Standing only five feet away was Xavier Thaeos, with thick b***d pooling from his wrist in dark ropes that twined together from one end to the other. Within seconds, Maya found herself, once again, kneeling at his feet as her body moved faster than her mind.

“I was starting to wonder how long you could fight off the call,” the handsome Alpha drawled, watching her drop to her knees in front of him with a pleased expression on his face.

Xavier peered down at her from above, analyzing her pale face, disheveled red hair, and trembling hands. He noticed the partially wet spot on her nightgown had matted on her well- proportioned breasts in what seemed to be a mixture of green tea and water.

From where he stood, he could see the little indentations of her hard nipples poking through the thin fabric, without a bra to protect them from his heated gaze.

His eyes darkened.

“Welcome back, little sorceress,” he murmured, predatory eyes staring her down.

Maya didn’t hear a word he said. Her gaze was trained solely on the strands of red dripping down his arms and forming a small puddle on the marble floor.

Though she tried to fight off the call of his b***d, she had pitifully lost. Her instincts made her bow her head and believe everything would be sated by the slightest sip.

Before long, her mouth attached to his long fingers and her tongue swirled around the tapered appendages, trying to catch every drop into her mouth.

Maya’s thick lashes fluttered as ecstasy coursed through her veins and centered on her core in pleasurable pulses. But before her vision could become a misty haze, she pulled away from the tantalizing droplets and drew up the last of her magic, conjuring a weapon into her left hand.

With a silver dagger infused with mercury hidden behind her back, she lifted her arm and mercilessly aimed the lethal blade at the unsuspecting Alpha’s chest.

Maya would have cut his throat if he hadn’t been a werewolf with regenerative abilities.

Since she had read through all the scrolls about werewolves, she knew the only ways to permanently kill him would be to remove his heart from his body or cut his head cleanly off from his shoulders.

With her current lack of focus and inconsistent strength, she couldn’t attempt to remove his head without leaving too many of her weak spots open. So her only option was to go for his heart since it was a closer reach.

If she could remove the organ from his body, he would be as good as dead.

Although this seemed like a difficult feat to accomplish, Maya was willing to try. After all, she was desperate and didn’t want to be bound to him in such an extensive way.

And if that plan failed, she had one last plan. A rather dangerous but foolproof plan.

A wide, feral grin promptly graced her lips as her dagger cut through the first layer of his thin shirt. Maya exerted more force and pressure on the weapon, leaning forward with her entire body weight.

Just when she thought she had succeeded, Xavier Thaeos pushed her back before the sharp weapon could dig into his skin and through his chest cavity. He then smacked the dagger out of her hand, and it fell aimlessly on the marble floor with several metallic clangs.

Complete silence ensued.