CHAPTER 71: PHATHOM BONDS

The steaming hot water washed over my body, scalding for just a moment. It hissed at its contact with my icy skin, cooling completely to warmth within seconds.

The hot water did nothing to dent the perpetual cold that held me captive. I gritted my teeth, knocking my head back so the scalding stream could attempt to warm my face. I needed something to burn.

Even if it was me.

Her words played over in my head like a cursed record I could not escape from.

"He is unlike anyone I have..."

My jaw locked, teeth grinding enough to hurt.

"He is incredible..."

I didn’t even need to look into those bright eyes to know she meant every word about this stranger. While I was still dubious of him—his goals, his motives—Lilith had believed in him completely.

But that wasn’t odd. It was expected.

Lilith Brooks, a victim of every circumstance around her birth, her life, her family. Her conception was shrouded in sorrow and greeted with horror and dread. Her life, no less tragic—wrought with the hatred of those from whom she should have received love. Repugnance had been her norm; kindness, a luxury.

Only to be used as a cash cow in adulthood by those she still could not bear to watch suffer, despite all they had done to her. Empathy mingled with self-reproach, the driving force behind everything she became. Empathy born of the overwhelming need to give what no one had ever given her.

Love had always been her rebellion.

She could not bitter, angry, or stoic.

Love was a shield and a sword.

So of course she saw the good in a stranger because of his bizzare, momentary kindness.

For someone to stand before her, to bear even a modicum of pain that was meant for her, would always be enough. So it was no surprise she felt the way she did toward this man.

Yet here I was—cold and bothered.

The shower usually calmed me, relieved the tension I carried through every interaction, every decision, every day of ruling thirteen packs. Not tonight. Tonight, every muscle remained coiled, waiting, aching.

And I knew why.

The memory of her skin under my hands. The way she’d gasped when I touched her. The soft swell of her breasts when she’d turned around, hardened nipples visible through her bra, her body responding to the cold I couldn’t control.

She’d trusted me enough to turn around, to be vulnerable, to let me touch her.

And I—

I was hard.

Painfully so. I knew this was far from the norm. I was many things, but not a creature of lust. Unless it was the time of the month when not only my body but my soul craved a mate, a bond to anchor me, a warm body, a beating heart. Only then, during the peak of my rut, did I ever lose myself enough to be a servant to those urges.

But that was still two weeks away.

Yet my hand moved before I could stop it.

I held my breath as I dragged my hand over my length. Slow. Controlled. Even in this, I wouldn’t lose myself. But then her voice filled my mind—that nervous rambling, the way she always tried to fill the silence like she was afraid of what might exist in the quiet between us.

"He’s so patient and kind and sweet—"

My grip tightened. I stroked faster. Her whimpers came back to me—the soft sounds she’d tried to suppress when my fingers pressed into bruised flesh. Pain, and something else. Something she didn’t understand yet. But I did.

The bond hummed between us even now. Even with distance and walls and her confusion, I felt her presence like a phantom touch.

"He is unlike anyone I have—"

I gritted my teeth, my pace quickening despite every attempt at restraint. Not him. Not anyone.

Mine.

Moya

.

The word echoed through the bond before I could stop it.

The memory of her skin, her hip beneath my palm, the way she’d shivered—not from cold, but from me.

"Fuck," I growled, head falling forward, water streaming over my shoulders.

My hand moved faster now, chasing the release I’d been fighting since the moment she turned and looked at me with those wide golden eyes.

Oh, Lilith.

Release hit like ice shattering. Sharp. Overwhelming. For a moment, everything went white.

Then nothing but the sound of water and my own ragged breathing.

I braced one hand against the tile, chest heaving. The hot water poured over me, but it still couldn’t warm me. Couldn’t touch the cold that lived in my bones. But for a moment—just a moment—I’d felt something other than ice. Her.

I straightened slowly, turning off the water with more force than necessary. This changed nothing. She would still have to be bonded to me to stand against Kustav. And in three weeks, Veronique would try to kill her. I had no time for this—for jealousy—for whatever this was.

I dried off mechanically, dressed in silence, and returned to my office. There was work to do. But first, I needed answers about whatever this thing was that had been tormenting me since the interrupted engagement.

The ring of my office landline filled the quiet with its familiar thrum. I had a feeling I was about to get the answers I sought.

I picked up the call, the voice of the head Zeta filtering through the receiver.

"Good evening, High Alpha," he greeted, his voice as youthful as I remembered from my own youth. He was an aged man, just like the rest of the Zeta elders.

"Evening, Elder Erwin," I replied. "I take it you got my message."

"Yes, son," he said, the endearment slipping out.

I didn’t correct him as I usually would. "So?" I asked instead.

A sigh. "It is quite simple what has been going on here, son."

I waited. Elder Erwin always had a flair for the dramatic, even when he knew I could hear him breathing down his neck through the phone.

"The incomplete bond that you initiated during the wedding is still active. Maybe not to its full potential, nor in the conventional way—but it remains. You are aware of how strong bonds are in our world."