Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
The following morning, Summer spent time in the library, ostensibly researching supernatural bonds but actually trying to process the devastating revelation from the night before.
Every time she replayed Fabian’s phone conversation—the wolf is contained, the bond weakening process is nearly complete—her stomach clenched with fresh betrayal.
She’d allowed him to kiss her. More than kisses, hell she’d given herself to him completely. And all the while, he’d been holding Rowan prisoner somewhere, artificially severing the connection between them while playing the role of concerned benefactor.
The worst part was how believable his performance had been. The genuine care in his voice when he spoke about her abilities, the way he’d looked at her during dinner, even the conflict she’d sensed in him during their intimate moments—was any of his affection real?
Summer pulled another volume from the shelf, this one titled “Mystical Bonds and Their Severance.” The leather binding was worn smooth by centuries of handling, and she forced herself to focus on the dense technical text.
Mate bonds in werewolves are created through a complex interaction of magical energy, emotional connection, and physical proximity. The bond, once established, is considered permanent—an unbreakable link between souls.
Permanent. The very word mocked her from the page.
Her bond was now hushed. It had grown weaker every hour she spent at Le Sang—not fading, but severed.
Snuffed out as completely as it was the night of the Alpha challenge when she felt the bond being ripped away from her.
When she discovered Rowan was still alive despite the poison in his wounds, the bond reconnected.
It was faint since he voluntarily left her.
Yet every text she’d read insisted complete severance was impossible without death.
She continued reading, her medical studies enabling her to parse the complex magical theory. The formation of bonds, the resonance between compatible souls, the way supernatural energy flowed between bonded pairs. It was fascinating, but it didn’t explain what had happened to her and Rowan.
Summer moved to another section, pulling down volumes on bond manipulation. These texts were darker, their spines marked with warning symbols suggesting forbidden knowledge.
“While mate bonds resist external interference, prolonged exposure to opposing magical fields can destabilize the connection. Silver poisoning, blood magic, and systematic emotional trauma have all been documented as weakening factors.”
Weakening. Still not severing. Summer grasped the edges of the book, feeling frustration building in her chest. Her medical detective instinct was telling her she was missing something crucial.
She put the book down and returned to the shelves.
A book marked “Prohibited Supernatural Interventions - Vatican Archives, 1849” caught her attention, and she took it from the shelf, staggering under its weight.
She returned to the sofa and opened the volume.
The chapter on bond severance was clinical in its horror, detailing procedures used during the Inquisition to “free” supernatural beings from their connections before execution.
The methods described made her hands shake: prolonged silver exposure combined with ritualistic blood extraction and psychological conditioning. But one passage stopped her completely:
“The most effective severance requires the subject to believe the bond’s weakness is natural. Artificial manipulation can appear organic and thus ensures the victim cooperates in their own isolation, accepting the loss rather than fighting to restore the connection.”
Summer set the book down carefully, her heart hammering.
That was exactly what had happened to her.
The bond weakening gradually, Fabian was there to comfort her through each loss, until its complete silence felt like an inevitable conclusion rather than a deliberate attack.
Her absent-minded hand touched the scar on her neck.
It was a little sore after catching the washcloth on it, and she decided to put something on it later.
She thought of her mother’s journals, now crammed into one of her rapidly packed bags in her room. She’d stuffed it under soiled underwear after grabbing it back from the library the night before.
Sybil had visions before she died—warnings about a “pale lord” that the young Summer’s father had dismissed as fever dreams brought on by her headaches and sight problems, all leading to the rupturing brain aneurysm which finally stole her life.
But what if they weren’t dreams at all? What if her mother had seen this coming, had tried to warn her?
Summer gathered the books she’d been reading, her hands still trembling with the weight of the tomes and the understanding in their pages. She needed to check her mother’s journals, needed to know if Sybil had left her any guidance for navigating this nightmare.
Her room felt different today—less of a sanctuary and more like a beautiful prison cell. Summer set her duffle bag on the bed and pulled out the box of her mother’s belongings. The leather journal was on top, its pages worn soft with years of use.
She flipped through tarot readings and prophetic sketches, past entries about friends asking for readings and cosmic patterns, until she found the writings from her mother’s final weeks.
The handwriting grew shakier as the illness progressed, and bright lights were impossible for her mother to endure, but the message became increasingly urgent:
Seven of Swords. Again. Always the same card when I ask about Summer’s future.
Deception, theft, someone stealing what belongs to her while she watches.
But she doesn’t see—he’s too beautiful, too helpful.
Above all, ma chérie, he is too seductive.
Do not let the pale lord with his pretty words and golden cage seduce you and turn your fear of him to love.
Summer’s vision blurred with tears. Her mother had known. Had seen exactly what was coming and tried to warn her, but Summer had been too young, not medically schooled as she was now, and too convinced by her father that her mother’s prophecies were just fever-induced confusion.
She read on, her mother’s warnings becoming more specific:
The bond will feel broken, but it isn’t. He will make you believe the wolf has abandoned you, to accept the connection was never real. Don’t believe him, baby girl. Some lies are so beautiful they feel like truth, but they’re still lies.
Further down the page, dated just days before Sybil’s death:
Knight of Pentacles for the wolf. Steady, loyal, reliable. He will return, baby girl. He always does. That’s who he is—the man who comes back, no matter how far he has to travel. If he leaves, it’s to protect you, not to abandon you. Trust that. Trust him.
Summer pressed her palm against her mother’s words, feeling grief and gratitude in equal measure.
Sybil had seen it all—Fabian’s manipulation, Rowan’s forced departure, even the artificial severing of their bond.
And she’d left these warnings, knowing Summer would need them when the beautiful lies became too convincing.
The final entry was barely legible, her mother’s hand shaking so badly the words were almost unreadable:
Don’t let him clip your wings. Don’t let him convince you his golden prison is home.
The pale lord collects beautiful things, but beauty in a cage always withers and dies.
Look at what he’s done to me. The truth is always there if you look past the pretty lies.
Trust your instincts, Summer. You’re stronger than he knows.
Summer closed the journal carefully, holding it against her chest as tears finally spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Mama,” she whispered. “I should have listened. I should have believed you.”
She knew how Fabian had manipulated the women in her family and had done so for centuries. She was not the first, but dammit, she was going to be the last.
For the time being, grief over her mother could wait. Right now, she needed to think, to plan, to figure out how to use this knowledge without revealing she knew the truth.
She wandered to the window, hoping a breath of the autumnal air would clear her racing thoughts.
Movement in the courtyard below caught her eye.
Summer watched Fabian emerge from the house into the evening light.
He wasn’t alone—a tall figure in motorcycle leathers hid in the shadows near the fountain, his back half turned to her window.
Summer’s breath caught. Even at a distance, without seeing his face, the man’s posture felt familiar. Aggressive, cocky, the sort of dominance display she’d learned to recognize during her time with the pack.
Fabian and the leather-clad man spoke briefly, Fabian’s gestures sharp with instruction rather than his usual elegant composure. There was no warmth in his body language, no charm—just cold efficiency as he gave what looked like orders.
As the man turned to leave, moonlight caught the back of his leather cutaway. Pack colors, the distinctive wolf design was unmistakable. She knew those colors, had seen them worn with pride at the pack house. She’d seen Rowan, Marcus, and Maurice wear those colors.
It could only be one person.
Axel Mouton.
The motorcycle boots with their heavy soles echoed on the flagstones as he disappeared through the courtyard gate, and Summer finally understood with perfect, terrible clarity: Fabian hadn’t simply taken advantage of her isolation. Together with Axel Mouton, he’d orchestrated it from the beginning.
It was all carefully constructed: the Alpha challenge had seemed like pack politics; Rowan’s exile had felt like abandonment.
Her desperate need for sanctuary. All of it was designed to deliver her into Fabian’s hands, keeping her in a beautiful trap, while keeping her mate imprisoned somewhere else.
Summer froze at the window, watching Fabian return to the house alone.
“Ouch!” she slapped her hand on her neck, convinced she’d been stung, but when she withdrew her hand, no dead insect lay on her palm. She peered out the window, but the vampire was nowhere to be seen.
Her mind raced through the implications of what she was now seeing; connecting pieces she’d been too isolated to see clearly.
Axel’s sudden challenge after months of uneasy truce.
The poison on his claws made Rowan’s defeat possible.
The convenient timing, leaving her trapped in a cabin while her mate fought for his life—it was all a ploy so both wolf and vampire got what they wanted.
When Fabian later appeared at her father’s house, it felt like salvation just when she was most vulnerable, most desperate, most willing to accept his version of reality because the truth was too painful to face.
She turned away from the window, her mother’s journal still clutched in her hands. Sybil had been right about everything: the pale lord, the golden cage, the beautiful lies masquerading as truth. But she’d also been right about something else: Summer was stronger than Fabian knew.
Summer carefully tucked the journal into her bag along with the Vatican text on bond severance. Physical evidence. Proof she wasn’t imagining anything, wasn’t being paranoid or ungrateful. Her mother’s warnings and her own research, combining medical knowledge with supernatural truth.
The golden cage was still beautiful, but she could see the bars clearly now. And more importantly, she was finally ready to start planning her escape.
Rowan was alive. He was being held somewhere, probably somewhere close by, while Fabian played the role of concerned protector. The bond between them wasn’t dead—it had been artificially severed, deliberately broken to keep them apart and make her dependent on her captor’s care.
When Fabian knocked on her door an hour later, Summer was ready.
“Come in,” she called, arranging her expression into something between grief and acceptance.
Fabian entered with his usual grace, carrying a silver tray with delicate china and what looked like evening tea. His pale eyes held genuine concern as he took in her position by the window.
“I thought you might need some comfort,” he said softly, setting the tray on the small table. “You’ve been researching all day. Such heavy subjects must be taking their toll.”
“They have been,” Summer admitted, letting truth color her words, hoping to mislead him. She gestured to the books stacked on her bed. “I’ve been learning about bond severance. About how connections can be artificially broken, especially if one partner wants it badly enough.”
Satisfaction seemed to flicker across Fabian’s face before he seemed to suppress his pleasure at her acceptance of his carefully constructed narrative. “And what have you learned?”
“I’ve been clinging to false hope.” Summer moved away from the window, accepting the cup of tea he offered. “The bond with Rowan feels broken because it is broken. He’s gone, and no amount of research will change that.”
The lie was bitter on her tongue, but she forced herself to meet Fabian’s eyes with what she hoped looked like weary acceptance rather than barely contained rage.
“I’m glad you’re beginning to see clearly,” Fabian said, his voice carrying gentle approval. His face wore the expression of someone whose manipulation was finally bearing fruit. “Clinging to what’s lost only prolongs your suffering.”
“Exactly.” Summer took a sip of tea, noting the subtle herbs meant to calm and perhaps cloud judgment slightly. She’d have to be careful about what she consumed here. “I think I’m finally ready to move forward. To accept what you’ve been trying to show me.”
Fabian’s smile was genuinely pleased, and for a moment Summer saw past the elegant fa?ade to the lonely creature beneath—someone so desperate for connection he’d built an empire of lies to keep her close.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” he said softly. “For you to see you deserve better than abandonment and broken promises.”
Summer nodded, letting him interpret her silence as agreement rather than the cold fury it actually contained. She would play his game, accept his care, let him think his manipulation had succeeded.
And all the while, she would plan. Research. Prepare.
You need to prepare yourself, Fabian Delacour, thought Summer, as you’re about to discover I am far more dangerous than you ever imagined.