Page 17 of Bound to Enemy (Wolf Billionaire #3)

CHAPTER 17

ALESSANDRA

I stood in the face of the rogue, the crimson eyes boring into mine with laser focus.

I felt like I had stared into these eyes before. The evil in them was familiar, but the wolf was one I could not recognize.

We were in the deep forest of a land I also didn't recognize, but I felt like I had been here before too. It was a strange sensation, almost like déjà vu.

"Hello, old friend." The wolf stared at me, its mouth unmoving, but the voice had definitely come from it. "You have grown well, little pup."

"What in the world? How was that even possible?" Telepathic communication was reserved for only mates. "Get out of my head!"

The wolf took a step toward me. "Don't be afraid, little one. I'm not going to hurt you, yet."

I tried to turn so I could run, but my feet remained glued to the floor. I tugged at my legs, but they were stuck as well.

My heart roared in my chest as the panic set in. What the hell was going on?

"You can't run for long, little one. I'm coming for the stone and your people." Then the wolf lunged for me, his mouth clamping down on my shoulder, and the pain that radiated from it was acid to flesh.

"No!" I fell to the floor, the wolf standing on top of me. Its teeth sank deeper into my skin with each passing second until it finally hit bone. "Ah!"

Agony. It was a white-hot kind of pain that drained the very life out of you.

Loud beeping filled my ears, and distant shouts filtered in with it.

"Alessandra? Ale?!" I couldn't make out whose voice that belonged to, but it drew me away from where I lay on the forest floor with the wolf.

My eyes rolled into the back of my head, blood pooled from my shoulder, and my heart struggled against the heaviness that pressed down on my chest.

Was I dying? Was this the end?

The seconds ticked by, and the pain didn't subside. It moved through my body, coating every muscle and nerve it touched. It was a pain I would have traded death for.

"Ale!"

A sharp, shooting pain hit my chest like a freight train. My eyes snapped open, and my back arched off of the hospital bed I was lying on. A harsh light from above blinded me, completely obscuring my vision. I thrashed around, the fire in my body spreading with every beat of my heart.

A loud ringing filled my ears, drowning out the words that were coming from beside me. I felt a hand clasp into mine. I didn't need to look to know that the person who gripped my hand was my husband. The soothing tingles radiated from my palm and shot up my arm, cooling the burn.

"Ale," I heard his voice through the ringing, but it was very faint. "Ale, it's me. It's okay, I got you."

The fire moved from every muscle fiber all the way to the surface of my bone. It was a kind of pain that could only be described as pure agony. I had no sense of which way was up and which was down. My entire equilibrium was thrown off, and my system went into overdrive. There was a scorching red-hot fire in my brain, the gray matter in my soft flesh melting by the second.

I ground my teeth together to keep the rippling scream from leaving my lips. I didn't want to scare him or anyone else who was in the room. The more I kept still, the less panic there would be. But it was getting harder to hold onto the silence with each passing second.

This was poison, and if my knowledge served me correctly, it was an ancient kind of poison—vermillion.

Unconsciousness. Burning sensation from the inside of the body. Disconnect between wolf and human.

It was used as a battle weapon when wanting to weaken your enemy before the full strike.

There was only one known cure for such a poison, and it grew on the mountainside in my old pack lands, miles and miles away from here.

Without the antidote, I was mere hours away from death. The vermillion would work its way toward the tie between my wolf and I and sever it. Once the disconnect happened, I would lose the supernatural ability to heal, and I would be but a sitting duck against this poison.

No matter how hard I tried to reach for my wolf, she remained hidden from me. The bond was already weakening us, and it was only a matter of time at this point.

I knew all of this, but I doubt other wolves did. I had spent a great deal of my life learning about poisons and natural weapons that could be used against the rogues.

Death was knocking at my door, and I would soon be forced to get up to answer its call.

I did think about how I would die. I had figured maybe my road would end on the battlefield fighting for my people. Or I had hoped that maybe I would be old and grey next to the love of my life and surrounded by my pups and their pups. But I didn't expect this.

"Don't just stand there like fucking idiots, help her! Her body is heating up like crazy, she is covered in red rash." I could hear the panic and the desolation in his voice. "Save my wife."

That was the first time I had ever heard him address me like that, and it may have very well been my last.

"The antidote is too far, alpha. The luna will not be able to wait that long."

I was going to die.

I started to think of all the things I had done in this life and all the things I hadn't done. I had been so focused on my position as my father's heir that I didn't think to live my life. I had never been in love. I had never woken up early and enjoyed the sunset. I had never allowed myself a full day to relax. I was simply moving through life mechanically. I had been a programmed robot moving through life and not truly experiencing it.

"Alpha, look at her hand," a voice I could not recognize said in the distance. "Your touch is calming her. You need to mark her."

What?

Silence filled the room for a moment. The mark of a mate was like branding that you carried for the rest of your life. But it wasn't only that. The mark was to make your bond ironclad. It was a different kind of intimacy that broke down any barriers that you had with your mate.

"Your touch is calming her fire. Look at her skin," the unfamiliar voice said. "Your mark will give her your print. It could save her and help her fight off the poison and bring her back to us."

There had been some cases where others were immune to the vermillion. It was a rare case, and the majority of the time they carried a gene that allowed them to fend it off.

"I...I can't..." I understood his hesitation. Marking someone needed their consent. It was a life-changing choice that would alter the very makeup of my system.

"If you don't mark her, she will die, alpha."

More silence.

He was stuck in an impossible position here. If it had been me in his shoes, I would have been stuck on what to do. On one hand, he could save my life, but on another, he was taking away my freedom of choice.

"She may never forgive me."

"And if she dies, she will not have the luxury of not forgiving you." This time it was Jason's voice that broke through the thickness of the pain. "Mark her, please!"

The desperation in his voice made my heart soften. He sounded scared, and I could only imagine what memories seeing me like this were bringing him. His mother died of a similar poison, and he had to watch her writhe in pain as she battled for breath.

"Please. Please." Jason's voice drew closer. "You can tell her it was me. You can tell her that I forced you to. Just...save her, please."

Silence fell over the room. I bit down on my tongue, trying to keep the screams from escaping my lips.

I felt a hand come to the side of my neck, and then I felt the cooling effect that had been on my hand. His scent filled my senses. The scent alone was enough to calm some of the fire that was within me.

I felt the press of his lips against my cheek, and then he traveled down to the other side of my neck. His hot breath fanned the side of my face.

He was going to mark me.

"Forgive me," he said against my skin.

I felt the tips of his fangs on my soft skin. Then ever so slowly, the pierce from the puncture radiated all along my neck. I wanted to recoil from his touch, but his large hand held me in place. But just as quickly as the pain came, it all subsided, and the pleasure moved through my blood. The feeling was strange; it was a sense of pleasure and pain.

But that wasn't the only thing I noticed; the fire that had been scorching me slowly quelled the longer he stayed embedded in me. As my blood moved throughout my entire body, I felt the fire grow lower and lower until finally I felt nothing.

My body eased against him, and my heart rate dropped slightly. I blinked, and the world above me came into focus. His scent became even stronger, and my wolf moved around in the back of my mind, making herself known.

'There you are, girl.'

Daxton released his teeth from my neck and pulled out of my flesh. He stared down at me with those water-filled eyes of his. His eyebrows were pulled together in worry, but he still managed to form a small smile on his lips.

"You okay, Ale?"

I didn't even have the strength to nod my head. So I just stared up at him and leaned into his palm, which now caressed my cheek.

"You scared me." I had never heard his voice sound so...low before. It was coated in thick emotion that robbed it of its volume.

"S-sorry." It was with great agony that I managed to get the words out at all. "Tired."

My body felt like it had run three full marathons in a row. The fatigue drew me deeper and deeper into sleep, but my eyes fought against it.

"Rest, Ale. I'll be right here when you wake up."

"O-okay." I allowed the weight of my lids to close my eyes as the darkness lulled me into a deep sleep.

I had cheated death; I could only hope that she remained a stranger for a little while longer.

The next time I opened my eyes, I found my husband by my bedside with his head down and sleeping soundly. The sun streamed in through the window, casting a gentle glow into the room. The warmth from the morning spread all throughout the room, kissing my skin and showcasing the beauty of the new day.

There was a bandage over my inner arm where a needle had been placed, and there was another on the back of my left hand. But other than those two, I didn't see anything out of place on my body.

I arched my back off the bed and clicked my spine, releasing the tension that had riddled my body.

For the first time in years, I felt like I had rested a full night. It was kind of shocking considering the hell I had gone through with the poison.

I looked down at my husband, who was sleeping soundly at my side. I had no idea how long he had been at my side, but I could see the shallow dark circles that decorated his under-eyes.

I resisted the urge to reach out and caress his soft locks. My wolf stirred, making her presence known in my mind.

Okay, good. It looked like everything was working perfectly the way that it was meant to. I could hear the distant chirping of the birds in the background and the laughter of pups playing in the backgrounds.

I turned my head to the side, and that was when I felt the subtle ache on the side of my neck.

Oh right, he had marked me.

With slight hesitation, I reached my fingers to the tender flesh. I flinched when I felt the instant pain that radiated from the wound. I had no idea how it looked, but from the tingles that I felt from just the mildest of touches, I could tell that it was very real.

My mate had marked me.

This meant more than the consummation. This symbolized a spiritual connection that would bind us in the life after this.

I waited for the rush of anger and regret to flood my system, but it never came. I was feeling something, but what that something was, I wasn't quite sure. I just knew that I wasn't angry with him.

"You're awake," his thick voice drew me from my inner thoughts and moved my head to the side to look at him. My green eyes collided with his blue ones, and my heart stopped dead in my chest. "Hi."

Little tiny flutters erupted in my belly, and my mind moved at a million miles a minute. "Hi."

The world fell away and time stood still. The rest of the world didn't exist outside of the small bubble we had created. It was just me and him.

The last time we had talked face to face, I had tears in my eyes and I was recovering from a nightmare. I had been so embarrassed that I couldn't look into his eyes.

His face was devastatingly handsome as it always had been. His blue eyes swam with worry and concern as they moved up and down my body to make sure that I wasn't hurt anywhere.

He looked disheveled. His hair looked like he had been running his hand through it over and over again. His jaw was decorated with short stubble and his eyes showed off those under-eye bags of his.

"Are you okay?" His voice was barely above a whisper but in the thick of the silence, it vibrated against the walls of the room.

The lump in my throat prohibited me from speaking. So instead, I simply nodded my head.

He straightened his back and looked me dead in the eye. From the tension that riddled his shoulders and the locked jaw, I could tell that he was stressed about something. "You must hate me."

"Why would I hate you?" I managed to get the words out of my mouth.

His eyes darted to the side of my neck and then back up again to meet my gaze. "You were dying, the healers said that the only way to save you was to mark you. I didn't know what else to do so I just..."

His words trailed off, casting us back into the thick silence.

"I'm so sorry, Alessandra." He looked away, shame painting every corner of his face. "I just knew I needed to save you but even then I took the choice away from you and I imposed myself on you. The mark is extremely intimate and should be done with consent. I am truly sorry."

The emotion that moved through his words floored me. I had never seen this side to him. The gentleness, the care, and the consideration. It was night and day compared to the man I had met only a few short weeks ago. That Daxton had been callous and would have never thought twice when he needed to superimpose himself on me.

My heart swelled with emotion. I had no idea if it was the mark, the bond, or my own feelings, but something compelled me to reach for his hand and bring it to my lips.

My actions startled him but he didn't pull away. He simply watched me kiss every single one of his knuckles softly before I pressed the back of his hand to my chest and looked at him with gratitude and appreciation.

"My heart is still beating because of you, Daxton Vale. You saved my life." I pressed my lips on top of his knuckles again. "I don't hate you. Hate is the last thing I feel toward you right now."

His eyes melted and the joy that radiated in them was so infectious I could feel it hitting my own body.

"You don't hate me?"

"No," I shook my head. "I don't think I ever hated you, Daxton, especially now."

I didn't hate him, but I still didn't know what these new feelings were and if they were mine or if they were all due to the mark on my neck.