Blood Bound
B***d Bound Chapter 4

WHO KNEW THIS WOULD be so difficult?

Maya glanced at the last white witch sprawled unconscious on the b***d-stained floor. Her lips pinched into a thin line.

All of her plans had come to an abrupt and screeching halt because of the sudden obstacle.

She was at a loss of what to do.

Albeit she knew this wasn’t going to be easy, she didn’t think her options would come down to testing the b***d herself.

But what other choice did she have? If she didn’t walk into the lion’s den, then who would?

Although Maya knew she had to do this, she couldn’t carelessly toss her life away just because of the Alpha’s goading.

What if he was lying straight through his teeth, trying to give her a taste of what those white witches did?

Maya wanted to refrain from doing anything impulsive, at least until she could think things through. But she didn’t have very much time. Every minute squandered was a continuous countdown to her failure, and she didn’t want to fail again.

Maya had waited over ten years already, continuously battling those stronger and wiser than her at each opportunity she had received and wasted. The deep scars lining her flesh acted like constant reminders of her past grievances, which she vowed to exact.

Maya didn’t dare to forget the bitter taste of her tears when she was left broken and bloody.

When they beat her down, she got back up.

When they destroyed all her carefully laid plans, she drafted new ones.

When they annihilated her only hope, she found a way to rekindle it.

Maya wasn’t a quitter. Even when she’d been beaten until she could barely see straight, she did not quit. Nor did she cry in front of them. Instead, she chose to lick her wounds in the silence of her cavern, waiting until she healed enough to start the scheming of her next attack.

But if she waited any longer, she was afraid she would have less of a chance to save her mother.

This ritual had to work.

It had to.

With renewed determination, Maya gritted her jaw and narrowed her eyes on the Cardinal Alpha’s relaxed form.

His eyes were closed, as if disinterested in the prospect of her turmoil, yet she knew he was only feigning it.

A predator like him would never let his defenses down. He was solely waiting for that one opportunity to show her what really happened to the lesser of two beings.

When her defenses faltered, he would take his revenge for the humiliation she had wrought by capturing him, imprisoning him, and bleeding him.

It was blatantly obvious he was playing with her, leading her blindly around like a cat would a mouse. But so what? So what if he was trying to play with her?

Maya scowled at the thought.

The worse thing that could happen was getting her mouth seared closed. She wasn’t scared of a little bit of pain if it meant successfully activating the ritual.

If she had been scared, she would have stopped attacking the Coven of Light years ago.

Maya’s slim fingers curled around the copper chalice, tracing the rim of the cup with her eyes. Calmly, she glanced at the deadly substance within its depths and decided to test his b***d herself. This was her last chance.

From the edge of the bookcase, the dove shifter couldn’t bear to watch, so she covered her eyes and gave a small screech of warning, yet her cautioning chirps were completely ignored.

Just a tiny bit shouldn’t hurt, Maya chided herself to push down the feeling of unease.

With a backward tip of her head, she brought the chalice to her mouth and took a cautious little sip. The liquid barely touched her skin when she pulled the cup away.

There was an odd tingle, electric and warm, plaguing the area where his b***d stained. It had initially shocked her, causing an unwarranted reaction, until she managed to reign in her edgy emotions.

For a minute there, Maya had thought her skin would start melting away and her vision would go black. But it hadn’t burned her the way it had the white witches. Though there was a strange tingling sensation, it did not hurt at all.

He spoke the truth, after all, she thought, carefully running her tongue along her lips to bring the thick and poignant substance into her mouth. It was spicy and metallic, laced with the tang of electricity, fairly palatable, and didn’t taste half as bad as she thought it would.

Swallowing the first few drops, the tingles continued to dance along the roof of her mouth, gradually warming her throat and stomach as it trickled down.

Maya tested another mouthful before drinking almost the entire remnants of his b***d.

So this is what power tastes like.

Careful, little sorceress. Any more and you will become drunk, he warned, a strange lilt coloring his voice.

Maya turned her head to him and studied his every move, suspicious and wary of his intent, but his eyes were still closed and his body was still relaxed.

Why was he trying to help her? What did he have to gain from doing so?

As if bothered by her adamant staring, he opened his eyes and stared right back at her, ensnaring her complete attention with his heated scrutiny.

Maya’s heart stuttered a beat, pounding viciously in her chest like a battle drum, and her body betrayed her with the beginnings of a tremble. She tried to keep her eyes on him, but found it increasingly hard.

When she couldn’t withstand the instinct to look away, she casually removed her gaze and turned her head back to her cup, downing the last drop.

Because of that, she never noticed the satisfied spark in his eyes when she drank all his b***d, when she stained her pretty little mouth with his life essence, when she stained her skin with his scent.

He was entirely pleased.

A Cheshire grin curled upon the Alpha’s lips.

His eyes persistently remained on her face, tracing her b***d-stained mouth with molten heat.

Before long, he watched the dark sorceress languidly lick her lips clean of his b***d, watched her little pink tongue slowly dance across her pouty lips.

She was totally unaware of his intentions to put it to good use.

Xavier’s b***d boiled within his veins, throbbing fiercely as the lower half of his body roared to life from the beginnings of arousal.

She was the first to draw forth such a strong bodily reaction from him, and he didn’t expect any less of her. But despite the fact she could easily affect his emotions, his hardening flesh softened almost immediately at his command.

Xavier was a creature of control.

Every palpitation of his heart and every breath taken was tightly manipulated in the palms of his hands. Had he wanted his b***d to stop running, it would.

But then again, why would he do such a thing? Why would he make it harder for her to obtain his b***d and start the ritual?

There would be no fun in scaring her off before she managed to irreversibly chain herself to him.

Absolutely none.

The Cardinal Alpha’s feral smirk widened. He couldn’t wait to see how his sorceress would react when she finds out what kind of ritual she really activated.

AFTER THEY BOTH LEFT the cavern to head back to Maya’s hideout in the human realm, Everette casually said, I never did ask if you wanted to be buried or cremated.

At the strange question, Maya’s brow raised.

Buried. Though, I won’t be needing those services anytime soon, Maya responded. A daunting smirk bloomed on her lips.

That’s what they all say, Everette stated surreptitiously. I don’t know how long you will last messing with that ritual. It’s best to start preparations. You know…just in case.

By the time I finish the ritual, there won’t be much that can harm me, Maya assured.

Xavier Thaeos was a lot more powerful than any of those in the Coven of Light. If she could attain even half of his powers, the chance of beating them would be significantly higher.

Even if you finish the ritual, I doubt he will ‘share’ his powers with you for long, Everette said, glancing sideways at Maya’s smirking face.

The truth in Everette’s words could not be repudiated, and Maya’s mood soured in response.

Enough of that. Did you gather any information on my mother’s whereabouts? Maya asked, swiftly changing the subject.

Putting all jokes aside, Everette replied, I was told Lady Rylith was moved to Lake Avalon ten years ago.

Maya’s brows furrowed instantly. I thought we’d already searched there.

Over the course of thirteen years, Maya had searched high and low for her mother’s location. Every place under the Coven of Light’s control had been thoroughly foraged. Not even a rock was left unturned.

We weren’t searching in the right place. Everette paused dramatically. Because your mother is under the lake.

Maya’s face darkened at the notion of what that could possibly mean for her mother. With a hard clench of her jaw, she spoke sarcastically through the cracks of her teeth, How kind of them.

Lake Avalon was known amongst all creatures for its malicious inhabitants. Although it was surrounded by a beautiful forest, it was one of the most notoriously known places of the dead.

Long ago, it had once been a popular attraction surrounded by a village of human families, full of life and happiness. Until the Coven of Light found a use for it.

With the overwhelming amount of people they killed, they couldn’t contain the vengeful, haunted spirits with intricate spells or seals. And so, Lake Avalon was turned into a prison for all the malignant spirits and vehemently angry souls of those whose youth had been stolen. It was like a reflective mirror big enough to withhold all within its chilling depths, including demonic creatures born from rage and fury.

After the Coven of Light’s takeover, no one dared to live within a one-hundred-mile radius of it, in fear of being swallowed by the demonic spirits.

Since Lord Aldrich deemed it a just punishment for her betrayal, she was sent there to be the lake’s keeper, Everette informed. Her lips were stiffly pinched into a frown.

“Betrayal, Maya repeated, mockingly. A scornful expression formed on her face. If running from a man who raped her is considered a betrayal, then Aldrich White should have been left burning in the depths of hell.”

The dove shifter grimaced.

From what Everette knew, Lady Rylith had been betrothed to Lord Aldrich at a fairly young age. While the old warlock was over one hundred years old, Lady Rylith was barely sixteen. He had been married over a handful of times, and Lady Rylith was to be his twenty-third wife. Due to his high status in the council, everyone deemed the pairing a perfect match, regardless of the massive age gap.

But Lady Rylith did not want to marry the warlock, not after having met Maya’s father, a necromancer shunned from the white witch community. The two had fallen in love shortly before Lady Rylith was forcefully engaged to Lord Aldrich.

When she’d wanted to break off the engagement, Lord Aldrich became angry and volatile. The argument led to Lady Rylith’s imprisonment within the Coven. Since Lady Rylith’s parents had been against her involvement with a necromancer, they had no qualms in helping Lord Aldrich imprison her.

Before Lady Rylith turned of age, Lord Aldrich had raped and impregnated her with Maya’s older half-sister, Avalyn. But after Lady Rylith gave birth, the Coven deemed her incapable of caring for her young and took Avalyn away. The newborn baby was soon placed under the care of Lord Aldrich.

Unable to get Avalyn back, Lady Rylith and Maya’s father managed to escape to the human realm.

Much later after their escape, Lady Rylith was pregnant again with Maya. The family of three lived in a small town called Qulhelm for over seven years. Although Maya’s parents wanted to get Avalyn back, they knew they weren’t strong enough to fight Lord Aldrich and didn’t want to risk having another baby taken from them.

So, while Maya was raised amongst the humans, Avalyn was raised within the Coven, under Aldrich’s strict tutelage. One was raised with love, while the other was raised with hatred.

But Maya’s happy family didn’t stay that way for very long. When Maya turned eight, the members of the Coven of Light came and accused her mother of breaking the Holy Law.

According to the law, white witches were holy creatures belonging to the light and necromancers were the darkness of evil. For Maya’s mother, a white witch, to conceive a child with a necromancer was blasphemy. And so, under Lord Aldrich’s leadership, Maya’s father was killed and her mother was given a severe sentence for breaking the laws governing her kind. Maya would have been killed too had it not been for Everette’s grandfather, Druid, who had saved her right in the nick of time.

Since then, Maya had been fighting with the Coven to get her mother back. But every attempt had ended in failure.