Page 81 of Bound

Cristof nodded sadly. “I have a son. He just turned two, loves Star Wars, and is the spitting image of the brother I haven’t spoken to in four years. I won’t allow him to be hunted down, made into a lab rat to be experimented on by human scientists, or left to die in the sun. There’s no one to protect him but me. We have the chance to secure a blood source that eliminates humans from the supply chain entirely, that allows us to finally know security, safety and freedom.”

“Blood source. You’re talking about people.”

“My sister was given the best schooling, raised as a member of the aristocracy. She had a very comfortable life.”

“Some choice. Anyone who wants agency over their own body, anyone who dares to refuse even once to be violated, will be thrown in a cell like Rowan was.” I felt my hands begin to shake, remembering the feeling of fingers, lips, teeth roaming my body. Being unable to push them away. Night after night, being violated in shackles in the dark. My body never mine to control. “You’ve already had one uprising. What makes you think the varewolves will be any different?”

“We’ve learned from our mistakes. The lower castes will come crawling back when they see the advantages their blood has to offer. Freedom from being trapped indoors, locked in centuries of eternal night. Freedom from ever having to watch their loved ones suffer and die from ALDD. Our civilization can finally thrive.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought of everything.” Slowly, I extracted a knife from the sheath at my back. “So out of curiosity, will you tell them the truth about what they are, or gaslight them so they grow up believing they’re going to die at any minute without all the blood transfusions like your sister?”

He nodded sadly. “How is Rowan?”

“Better off the farther she stays away from you,” a voice said from behind me.

I flicked a glance off to the right and saw Vlad standing in the open grass, skin ghostly pale in the moonlight. West stood beside him, face drawn. He took a tentative step towards me, eyes pleading.

“Hello, brother. It’s been too long.” Cristof smiled faintly, fangs glinting in the moonlight.

“Not long enough, apparently.”

“I wonder what your band of traitors would say if they knew you were really a member of the aristocracy, a prince of sacred blood, heir to the Vampire Nation before you threw it all away?”

“That I renounced my title as high dickhead of the uber pricks to join them? Let me just check the last ten dystopian fantasy novels I read to see how that one turns out.”

Police lights flickered at the bottom of the hill. I looked up to see an SUV coming towards us. Adrenaline slammed through my veins, my fingers tensing at the hilt of the knife.

“Toph,” West whispered, our link a twisted maelstrom of vines so snarled I wasn’t sure they could ever be unknotted. My heart had already been irrevocably claimed. But he made no move to influence me, no move to draw me back to him, even as I could feel it was shattering him. That night up on the cliffs had been his power, his magic, his choice. This time, he was leaving it up to me, even if whatever decision I made broke his heart.

And in that single tortured exhalation of my name, I saw the stack of used books I had piled on my end table waiting for him to read. I felt the remembered pressure of his fingers twined through mine at night, his lips pressed to the inside of my wrist. I pictured snarky texts and dragon-shaped cookies special ordered from Blair’s Bakery—jalapeno chocolate chip the last time, and unfairly delicious. From the very start, he’d wrapped himself around my heart and refused to let go. I saw a future stretching out before us, one with lazy weekends where he graded papers on the couch, wrote novels I couldn’t wait to read, and made fun of my driving (dickhead) as we searched for the best cheeseburger food truck in Central Texas. A simple life that was just enough for the two of us.

Love was fragile. Messy. Chaotic. Furious. It was the text fight at 1 a.m. over Dostoevsky you wound up settling stretched out across the length of a couch, his body hot and hungry over yours. It was driving an hour out of your way for a sack of fast food because the crazy little quirks that made the other person them made you light up inside. Love was knowing that no matter what, no matter if you were fighting or had said something stupid in the heat of the worst argument ever, they were the one person who would walk through fire to get to you when it counted.

I’d spent a lifetime walking away. Keeping my distance from kids at school who asked too many questions about my mom. From guys I dated who wanted more. After losing my grandfather and later, my mom, it had been easier to become a ghost, keep my head down, put up walls with anyone who tried to get too close. Kieran had been the one constant, the one person tethering me to something, even an imperfect something marred by fights over his using, months where he disappeared just like our mom had, something Caldwell could never understand, not with his huge family that gathered every weekend for Sunday afternoon barbecues where they snuck Brody’s dog treats and Dallas lorded over the grill. Like they had no idea how good they had it. Or how easily everything could all be snatched away.

“Toph,” West whispered again, asking me to stay, to choose a future with him rather than walk away. The night we met, it had been his power, his bond forcing my hand, his choice. This time it would have to be mine.

You can’t leave Kieran, a voice inside me screamed. Phoenix stared back at me, waiting. I blinked. Was he still fucking with my mind, even now? I didn’t know if my brother was still alive. Maybe he was gone. Maybe he’d been moved to a different prison. All I knew for certain was that nothing Phoenix Richards said could be trusted. And if I went with him now, I was not only throwing away my own future, but any chance we had of finding where Kieran really was.

I took a step back, watching Cristof dematerialize, Phoenix with him, and I knew in that moment it was what Kieran would have wanted, the future he’d sacrificed everything when we were kids to make sure I would one day see.

Fingers closed around mine. I gripped them back, the bond swirling with fierce golden light.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” West said urgently.

15

West

THE TICKER TAPE SCRAWLED ACROSS THE BOTTOM of the screen in a shade of yellow that should have been illegal at 5 a.m.

Unconfirmed reports of a gas leak at a university campus in Austin. Authorities are asking everyone to avoid the area until further notice. All questions are being deferred at this time to a press conference that will be held at—

“Urgh… that stings.”

I cringed under the bright row of vanity lights over the sink in my bathroom, trying not to flinch as Topher gently rinsed the last of the silver and wolfsbane from my wounds with saline.

“Sorry, last one.” Tilting my face up, he applied butterfly strips to my forehead. “There. All done.”