Chapter 3
The slam of the SUV door was deafening, sealing me in darkness lit only by the flash of gunfire outside. My chest heaved, fury and fear twisting together, making my voice raw when it finally tore free.
“You can’t just…” My hands pounded against his chest where he held me caged against him. “You can’t just throw me over your shoulder like a sack of flour! Let me go!”
His eyes burned like pale fire in the shadows, locked on me with a ferocity that stole the air from my lungs. “No.”
One word. Sharp, immovable and final.
“I need to go back,” I snapped, leaning forward. “My father might be in there. Do you hear me? He could be inside that building. You can’t just drag me away!”
His jaw clenched, the muscle feathering beneath pale skin. “That place would’ve eaten you alive,” he said flatly. “If your father’s inside, you’d only get yourself killed trying to reach him.”
“You don’t know that!” My voice cracked on the edge of fury and despair. Eight months of chasing ghosts of piecing scraps together, and now, when I was this close, this damn close…he was taking it from me.
“I know enough.” His hand slammed against the divider once, sharp enough to make me jump. “If Malakai’s inside, then it’s not a place for you. Not now. Not ever.”
I hated the way his words sank under my skin. I hated the way he said them, not like he was trying to scare me, but like he was stating a fact written in stone.
The door opened, cold air rushing in, and the man with burning ember eyes…Draugr, I caught someone call him, climbed inside. His shirt was stained dark, his blade still sheathed with blood. He didn’t speak, only gave the other man, the one who had stolen me, a sharp nod.
The SUV lurched forward, speeding through the streets until the chaos of the alley was left behind. My nails dug into my palms as I tried to steady my breathing, but it was useless.
I turned on him, fury lashing out because it was all I had left. “You don’t get to decide this for me. That was my lead. My father. You can’t just…”
His hand snapped out, fingers closing around my wrist with shocking precision. Not cruel, not bruising. But unyielding. His eyes, those impossible glacial shards, locked on mine.
“I can and I will,” he said, each word a steel bar. “Because you’re mine now. And if I let you walk back into that death trap, I’d be failing the one thing that already matters more than anything else.”
My chest squeezed. My breath stuttered. You’re Mine?
The words twisted through my head, sharp and terrifying and something else, something hotter.
The rest of the ride blurred, the silence thick except for Draugr’s quiet voice giving updates through his comms. My pulse never slowed, not when the SUV pulled into a gated drive, not when iron gates closed behind us like the jaws of a beast, not when a sprawling mansion rose from the night, lights glowing faintly through tall windows.
He didn’t give me a choice when the car stopped. He simply opened the door, reached in, and pulled me against his chest like I weighed nothing.
“Put me down!” I shouted, pounding against him, but he didn’t so much as flinch.
“No,” he said, the single syllable cutting through everything else.
And then we were inside, through grand doors, past guards who didn’t even blink at the sight of him carrying me, down hallways of dark wood and stone until he shouldered into a room and shut the door behind him.
He set me on my feet, but his hands didn’t leave me. They gripped my arms, firm, keeping me exactly where he wanted me.
“Listen to me,” he said, voice a low growl that raised goosebumps across my skin. “I’m not here to take your father from you. I’m here to keep you alive long enough to see him. But you need to understand what you’ve walked into.”
My throat tightened. “What are you talking about?”
His lips curled, not in a smile but something darker. His fangs…fangs…flashed in the low light.
The room spun. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”
“I’m not,” he said simply. “I’m a vampire. And you, whether you realize it or not, are mine.”
My breath caught. The word “mine” again, cutting into me, deeper than any chain. “What does that even mean?” I whispered, my voice shaking.
“It means no one touches you. No one hurts you. No one takes you. Not demons, not Malakai, not anyone.” His hand lifted, cold fingers brushing my jaw, and instead of pulling back, I froze, caught in the storm of him.
“It means you’re bound to me, the way I’m bound to you.
And tonight, I’m going to make sure you never forget it. ”
And before I could move, before I could argue or even think of the bomb he just dropped, his mouth was on mine…searing, claiming, unstoppable. My thoughts shattered, the fight bled out of me, leaving only heat and fire and the terrifying truth that I didn’t want him to stop.
When his fangs pierced my skin, sharp pain lanced through me, but it melted instantly into something that stole my breath, a rush of heat flooding my veins, burning away everything but him.
His fangs slid free from my skin with a slow, deliberate drag that made my whole body shudder. My pulse thundered in my ears, my breath coming in uneven bursts. His mouth stayed at my throat, cool lips brushing the puncture marks as if sealing them shut.
“My name,” he murmured against my skin, the words a low vibration that rolled down my spine, “is Volken.”
The name landed like a strike in my chest, heavy and inevitable. Volken. It fit him. It was cold steel and night air and the dangerous quiet of a predator right before it lunges.
His thumb tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his glacial eyes. “Now tell me yours,” he said softly, but there was no question in it. It was a command wrapped in velvet.
My lips parted, the word trembling out before I even realized I was speaking. “Runa.”
Something flickered in his eyes, it was dark, sharp, hungry as if my name wasn’t just a sound but a secret he’d been waiting to hear. “Runa,” he repeated, slow and reverent, like he was tasting it. “Mine.”
The word snapped through me again, sparking a heat low in my belly that had no business being there. My head spun, not just from the bite but from the impossible pull I felt toward him.
He was a vampire. A VAMPIRE. His fangs were still glinting faintly in the dim light, a predator’s mark, proof of everything I should have run from. And yet my body leaned toward him instead of away, my fingers itching to touch the lines of his face, to anchor myself in the cold strength of him.
What the hell is wrong with me? I thought, but even inside my own head the question rang hollow.
I’d just watched him move through shadows like he’d been carved out of them. I’d just felt his mouth on my throat. I should be terrified. Disgusted. I should be screaming.
But I wasn’t.
My pulse pounded in time with something heavier, something older, like his bite had woken something up in me I didn’t know existed. I was trembling, yes, but not with fear. With something reckless, dangerous. With want.
Volken’s hand slid up the back of my neck, his touch firm but not cruel, his eyes still on mine like he was reading every thought spilling through me. “I can feel it,” he murmured. “You’re fighting it, the bond between us, me. Don’t fight it, it’s pointless.”
“I…” My voice cracked. “I don’t even know what I’m feeling. I don’t know why…why I want…”
He leaned closer, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Because you’re mine now, Runa. And I’m yours. You don’t have to understand it yet.”
A shiver ran through me. My hands were still trembling, but I didn’t pull away. His words should’ve frightened me, but instead they sank deep, coiling like a secret I’d been waiting to hear my whole life.
And that terrified me more than anything.
Volken.
His name had my knees weakening, and as his arms locked around me, steady and unyielding, one thought drowned out everything else…I was his.
It wasn’t a choice. It wasn’t even a decision I could wrestle with. It slammed through me like a current, fire and ice twisting together in my veins, my pulse syncing to his in a rhythm I couldn’t escape.
Heat crawled over my skin, every nerve ending alive and sparking. My body felt alien and mine all at once, like I was being rewired from the inside. His gaze never left mine, and it wasn’t just a look, it was a tether, pulling, binding, sinking into places no chain ever could.
This must be the bond.
It was like I could feel him now, his hunger, his rage, his possessive fire curling around me. But threaded through it, terrifying and steady, was something else. Care. Safety.
The room blurred, my breath shallow, and when his mouth claimed mine again, the bond flared so violently I gasped against him. The kiss wasn’t soft, it was possession, his lips bruising mine, his tongue invading, taking. My legs buckled, but he caught me, his growl rumbling into my chest.
“Mine,” Volken rasped, the word vibrating against my lips. “And tonight, I show you exactly what that means.”
My protest died before it could form. My body leaned into him, desperate and traitorous, my heart slamming as if it already belonged to him.
He lifted me, carrying me with ease as though I weighed nothing, his mouth still devouring mine. When my back hit the bed, his weight followed, his hands already pulling at the clothes I’d worn, tearing at fabric with a ruthless impatience that had me gasping.
Every inch of me felt raw beneath his touch, like I’d been waiting for this moment without even knowing it.
When my clothes hit the floor, his sharp inhale dragged my attention to his eyes. They burned, pale and bright, as they swept over me. “Perfect,” he said, voice thick with hunger. “Every fucking inch of you. Mine to see. Mine to touch.”
Heat rushed through me, mortifying and electrifying, as his hand slid down my stomach, teasing the edge of my panties before ripping them away in one swift motion.
“Volken…” My voice cracked, but his mouth silenced me again, his tongue stroking mine as his hand pressed between my thighs. My hips arched helplessly, traitorously, into his touch.
“Already wet for me,” he growled, his thumb circling, his fingers sliding lower until I gasped and clutched at his shoulders.
I wanted to deny it, but the bond pulsed between us, tearing through any walls I had left. My body was his, completely, desperately.
He shed his clothes with ruthless efficiency, and when his body finally pressed against mine, my breath hitched. He was massive, all carved muscle and ink, his cock thick and heavy against my thigh. My stomach twisted with a mix of fear and anticipation.
“I can’t…” I whispered, but he caught my chin, forcing my gaze up.
“You can,” he said, voice low and commanding. “I’ll make sure you do. Slowly. Carefully. Until you take every inch of me. Until your body knows it belongs to me. You were made for me.”
His words should have frightened me. Instead, they drenched me in heat.
He slid inside me slowly, stretching me until I gasped, nails biting into his shoulders. He stilled, his breath ragged against my ear, his body shaking as he held back.
“Too much?” he asked, his voice raw with restraint.
I shook my head, even as my body burned with the stretch. “No… don’t stop.”
A feral growl tore from him, and he began to move, shallow at first, giving me time to adjust, his thumb stroking my clit until the burn turned to something else, something unbearable and perfect all at once.
“Volken,” I gasped, his name breaking apart on my tongue.
“That’s it,” he snarled, thrusting deeper, harder, until I cried out. “Say my name when you come. Say it so you never forget who owns this body.”
The pace built, his body pounding into mine, his lips bruising my throat, his fangs grazing but not biting.
Every thrust pulled me tighter into the bond, every stroke unravelling me, when his fangs finally sink into my neck I shattered, screaming his name, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing in the world.
And when he finally let himself go, spilling inside me with a guttural roar, he collapsed over me, his weight heavy, his breath ragged. His lips pressed against my temple, his words rough and reverent.
“We are one now, Runa. Body. Blood and Soul. From this night on you are mine and I am yours.”
And as my body trembled, my heart slammed, and my mind spun with the impossible truth of him, one thought burned hotter than all the rest.
God help me. I wanted to be his.