Bloodbound: The Alliance
Chapter 39 - 43

Chapter 39: Chapter 43

His hands are braced on the frame. His eyes are two black holes that suck me into the abysmal abyss that never ceases to end, dragging me into a darkness that swallows thought and breath itself.. His powerful stare is a palpable grip, not even needing to touch me to evoke a maelstrom of emotions—feelings that I fear most.

I throw myself against the door to push it close. He slams one mere hand on the door, driving it open, my feet skidding back. Botan bursts inside, sending me staggering back. He closes the door behind him coolly. Fear pulses through me, awakening panic and my breaths fall short and shallow.

"How... how are you here right now? How did you find me?"

He stares back at me with silent intensity. A dark look eclipsing his face the way clouds pass over the moon. Botan’s eyes never leave mine, his expression frighteningly unreadable.

"Colton Vacheron enlisted the aid of a private defense contractor to hire his security team. All ex-military. Colton hired him, but he works for me. That’s how I always know where you are. And how I also know you’ll always be well-protected. But even knowing that... I had to make sure you were safe for myself. I’m not used to having you so far out of my sight for so long."

I gawk back at him. The chill penetrates deep to the bone. He crosses his arms, thick cords of muscle rippling, his eyes outlining my features, slowly.

"You shouldn’t have done it," I breathe, tears forming behind my eyes. "You shouldn’t have."

He takes me in with predatory eyes. And I know he knows what I’m referring to.

"What do you want me to say?"

Frustrated tears fall. "Oh my—"

"I didn’t force you to tell me what happened. You told me on your own free will." A fierce look burning in his eyes. "You told me... knowing full well what I was capable of."

Shock kicks my jaw loose. "I never knew that you would mutilate—castrate him. I didn’t tell you that for some sick revenge. I told you because I felt safe to—a mistake I won’t ever repeat again!"

Rage sets his dark eyes aflame, alight like black fire. "What he did... What I did. It wasn’t revenge, it was retribution. He took what didn’t belong to him—so I took his hands. And he sought to desecrate you. That’s why I relieved him of his manhood, because he was no man." His eyes smolder with hellfire. "Death is too good for a sick fuck like him. I wanted him to live with that constant agony, but he died of shock shortly after."

He glances at my hands. I look down at my thumb frantically rubbing over my old scar. I wring out my hands, a tightness straining in my chest like something is compressing my airways close. I swivel around, clutching my heaving chest, dread incinerating each breath. In moments, I’m cast under a great shadow. He rests his hands on my bare shoulders—His touch burns and chills all at once, searing into my skin while leaving an icy trail of goosebumps in its wake. It’s a sensation both intoxicating and unsettling, as though his very presence threatens to consume me, yet draws me closer. The heat of him pulses through the cold, a promise of danger wrapped in desire, and with every breath, I can feel the storm of it—the pull between warmth and darkness, between passion and destruction.

"The only thing I regret was not being there to stop him myself."

"And I loathe him." I turn my face to glance back at him. "But you can’t just slaughter anyone who hurts me. An animal like him was meant to be caged. But now he’s dead... and now his death is on me, too."

He comes devastatingly close, binding our breaths.

"It’s not." His hands glide slowly down my arms, each touch like the scorching kiss of dragon’s breath on my skin. It’s a burning ache, dark and intimate as though his very touch claims me, branding me with the weight of his desire—caught between the heat of his touch and the shadows that linger behind it. His arms coil around my waist, my backside pressed against his front, feeling a growing bulge poking into me from behind.

"I’m not going to lie to you. There is no measure of cruelty I wouldn’t cross to protect what’s mine."

"Who said I was ever yours?"

"You’re right... then I will make you mine in every way you never thought was possible." he whispers, his words murmur across my skin, relishing in the tingling sensation. "What you are and what you embody deserves me to be venerated. Something no man could ever earn. Especially one like me."

My eyes find the gilded mirror across the room. I see our reflection. Under his adoring stare, his mesmeric gaze wholly focused on me with a sense of familiarity like I’m someone he knew, but still has a desperate desire to know more of.

"Who am I to you?"

His fingers graze my skin before he swipes the one strap of my dress off my shoulder. My eyes flutter close, reveling in the incomparable and exotic sensations that heat me from the inside. Botan buries his face in the crook of my neck and plants an insatiable kiss on the hollow of my neck, his lips making a path to the tip of my collarbone. I try to move, but his siege is unbreakable. I rotate rigidly to look up at him, his gaze all-consuming. My eyes slip to his alluring, full lips. My sense scatters, jumbling my thoughts as my mind gropes for coherent words.

"Who am I to you?"

"Everything," he breathes.

Euphoria streaks through me like a comet. I try to evict the feeling, but it’s like trying to contain air.

"Impossible. You barely know me—you think you know me because you’ve watched me from a distance? Which I can’t begin to understand why?"

"I know you more deeply than you dare to remember."

"Remember?" My eyes overwhelm its sockets. "How long have you known me for... how long have you been watching me?"

A strong muscle emerges in his jaw, so sharp it might pierce through his skin. He releases me, backing away and taking his warmth with him.

"Botan?"

"Years."

"Why?"

He shakes his head stiffly. "I can’t tell you, not yet. What I choose to reveal and what I must keep hidden is for your protection, the very reason my life exists—the purpose that binds me to this path and to you." He meets gaze with a steely eyed look. "It was selfish of me to insert myself into your life. I can endure an absurd amount of pain, but... seeing you with someone else was... excruciating. But if you want me out of your life, I will leave without a trace."

The thought of his eternal absence is like something sharp in my heart.

"Really, you would just... walk away? Just like that?"

"Your happiness is mine." A battle in his eyes. "I will do whatever pleases you, even if it agonizes me. Though it won’t stop me from watching over you, even if it’s from the shadows, as long as you’re safe. That is all-important—you are all-important."

I squirm suddenly, folding my arms across my chest, restless, angsty like my body want’s nothing more than to just surrender myself to him whole-heartedly. Reason hanging on its barest thread.

"When you held me in that basement. You held a gun to my head, remember?"

He looks away like I struck him.

"Your men, they asked me about who I was in contact with. Did you find out who?"

His gaze finds mine. He concedes a curt nod.

I free an explosive sigh. "Are you the reason I can’t get a hold of him?"

He doesn’t answer. An impenetrable mask constructing itself over his face.

"Please, tell me you haven’t hurt him."

Wisps of ink drip over his forehead. His hand roves through his hair, pushing back the raven waves.

"He’s alive," he states, like the good news ends there. "For now. There’s a reason Haru wanted him taken care of."

"You killed his daughter."

"I didn’t. I warned Haru against it, but he sent for an expert anyway to rig the bomb that was meant for him. He is hellbent on taking down Haru and even though he was fired from the department, he has influential friends in the bureau and with high-ranking intelligence officials. He’s a high-level threat. And currently, your father is in his way. If Simon hurts him; he hurts you. Which means I take his head."

Fresh terror rears up inside of me. "Botan. Please."

He glares back at me, any semblance of warmth in his eyes evaporating. "You’re the only reason he’s still alive. But that won’t last long. If Haru wants him dead; he’s already dead."

I go up to him quickly, desperately. "Botan... please. When I get back, I can talk to him. I’ll convince him to drop it. Please, let me talk to him. I have to try—I’m the reason he has gotten so close."

Botan grinds his jaw and nods tersely.

"Thank you, I promise I’ll make it up to you," I say without thinking."

His gaze lifts, eyes smoldering like a dark forge. "Yeah?" He takes one arm around me, roping me to him. "And how do you plan on doing that?"

Submerged in the scent of his cologne, the smell alone hones my senses so all I can focus on is him. I poke his chest, trailing a long, languishing line down to his pants, watching his lips part.

"Perhaps..." I trace the inner hem of his black trousers teasingly. "I’ll buy you a card that says, thank you for not killing this one, too."

Awe transforms his face as a rare soul-quenching smile splits his face.

"Funny."

I break into a grin. Several knocks on the door. My smile falls.

I shoot a glance at the door.

"Avie, you in there?" Kelsey.

I look back at Botan. He sends me an exasperated nod.

I walk over to the door, adjusting my strap and quickly musing my hair. I pause to take a readying breath before I open it, fixing on a surprised smile. Kelsey smiles sloppily at me, bleary-eyed with a drink in her hand almost the size of her head. She charges inside, and I step away to avoid a collision.

"There you are," she says, venturing inside whilst swiveling around. "Wow, this room is insane. But hella cold."

I close the door, and I walk back inside to see that he’s gone. The sliding door that leads to the private deck is ajar. I scamper to it, poking my head through to see it’s vacant. I turn my face heavenward, my eyes bulging out as I spill out of the sliding door. Botan latches onto the railing of the upper deck above the suite. He vaults over it and turns around, cresting the brink. The moon behind him, his skin soaking in its delicate light and yet his darkness reigns. He moves—dissolving into the black. Gone.

"Avaraaa?"

I come back inside, sliding the door closed.

"Where’s Vance?" I go to her to snatch the drink from her grasp. "I told him to check on you."

She goes for her drink, but I swat her hand away.

"I was avoiding him, duh."

I look back at her, my brows creasing. She stumbles in her heels and she points at me.

"Don’t." She swallows visibly, her eyelids heavy. "Don’t look at me with that, with that judgment."

"What—"

"I’m so sick of it, acting like you’re so perfect, like you could do no wrong."

Her words impale me like a blade, running me through.

"But we know the truth, don’t we, Mrs Vacheron?"

I come back to her to guide her to the bed. "Kels, you’re drunk—"

She shoves me away sluggishly. "Don’t. Don’t do that," she whines, a hairline crack in her voice. "Let’s not even start with you wanting to screw the guy threatening your family. I know you’re messing around with Landen whilst you’re supposed to be with Vance. Even though it’s fake, Vance took a real vow to you."

Anger erases my empathy. "Oh yeah? What about him and my best friend? You guys were out all night and when you came back in the morning. You two never said a word."

"Neither did you and Landen! And nothing happened between us." Curtains of curls frame her face. "Nothing. We came late because we fell asleep. We danced, Avara. We drank, but... that was it. We didn’t do anything. Can you say the same?"

"I don’t have feelings for Landen."

She nods theatrically. "Oh, I know. Cause you’re too busy feeling the guy who works for the man who put you in this situation, and endangered you and your family. That’s messed up. You’re so messed up."