Page 39 of Chained By the Alpha (Claimed Duet #1)
· Cleo ·
The moment Lydia’s face hits the brick, blood sprays, dark and wet against the wall. Her body crumples like paper, and a broken sound escapes her lips.
“Wha—” she gasps, voice gurgling through blood.
“Never speak of her again,” I growl, my voice no longer human.
I don’t know where it comes from— something inside me has snapped. Rage pours out, blinding and hot. There’s something else—something not me—rising to the surface. An instinct. A beast.
My nails sharpen into claws.
Lydia tries to scramble away, but I’m faster. My hand lashes out, claws raking across her face. Fabric tears. Skin splits. She screams—sharp, panicked—and still I don’t stop. My fists pound down on her as blood pours from her face, her hands useless as she tries to cover it.
“Stop this, Cleo!” one of the guards yells, grabbing me from behind. His arms lock around my waist, dragging me back.
The world snaps back into focus.
Lydia lies sprawled, blood seeping through her fingers. Her sobs fill the hallway.
“Get off me!” I snarl, still shaking with fury.
“Lydia!” Maya’s voice cracks, rushing to her side.
“Look what you did!” Maya shouts, eyes wide with horror.
“Me?” I bark, chest heaving. “She brought this on herself!”
“Enough, Cleo.” The guard’s voice is tight, his grip firm. “Calm down. Or we’ll have to call your father.”
His name hits me like a slap—cold and hard. Everything goes still.
My hands tremble. Claws still extended. Lydia’s blood coats my fingertips. And the weight of what I’ve just done begins to settle in my bones.
I blink, trying to clear the red haze from my vision, and I finally see her—Lydia, crumpled against the wall, her face a mask of blood-red agony.
“You’re going to pay for that, Cleo,” she gasps between sobs, her eyes bright with unshed tears and hatred. Her threat slices through the last wisps of rage within me, leaving a cold, hollow space in its wake realizing what I’ve done.
“Go cry to my father, Lydia. Make sure you tell him what you said, though!” The words call back at her as I keep walking.
Upon reaching safety, I shove the door open and slip through, slamming it shut behind me. The guards, those watchful hawks, remain outside, their presence a reminder of the gilded cage I’m trapped in.
Before I can sigh in relief, a hand clamps over my mouth, silencing the scream that instinctively rises.
My elbow shoots back, connecting with a wall of muscle—a familiar firmness that halts my panic.
“Gotta do better than that, love,” Zayn’s voice rumbles against my ear, his laughter a low vibration.
“Zayn!” I gasp out his name, spinning in his grasp, my hands splayed against the hard planes of his chest. His gray eyes dance with mischief, a spark of wildness that mirrors the tumultuous storm within me.
“Missed me?” He smirks, the arrogance that so defines Alpha Zayn Holt written all over his infuriatingly handsome face.
“Like a thorn in my side.” Even as I say it, my body betrays me, leaning into his touch, craving the heat of his skin on mine.
“Is that why your heart’s racing? Or just the adrenaline of smacking Lydia about?” He chuckles as his thumb strokes my cheek, wiping away an invisible smear of her blood. “You heard?”
“Someone live streamed it,” he tells me. Great, my father is going to hand me my ass.
I jab a finger toward the door, my pulse racing with a mix of alarm and excitement. “You shouldn’t be here,” I hiss, acutely aware of the danger his presence poses.
“Relax, Cleo.” He closes the distance between us in two easy strides. His smirk widens, and there’s a predatory glint in his eye that both alarms and thrills me. “They won’t hear a thing. And talking was never on the agenda.”
Before I can muster another protest, his hands are cradling my face, thumbs stroking my cheeks with a tenderness that contradicts his brazen nature. Then, he’s leaning down, his lips mere inches from mine, and I’m caught in the gravitational pull of his kiss as his lips brush mine.
My fingers tangle in the fabric of Zayn’s shirt, pulling him closer as our kiss deepens.
The world outside—the whispers, the guards, Lydia—dissolves into nothingness.
There’s just Zayn and his delicious scent.
My hands, driven by a desire that feels bone-deep, slip beneath his shirt, craving the warmth of his skin against mine.
“Easy, love,” he murmurs against my lips, his voice a deep rumble that resonates within me. He takes my wrists gently but firmly, easing my hands out from under his shirt. “Soon.”
I want to protest, to pull him back to me and lose myself in the heat of his embrace, yet the reality of my situation presses in.
“You can’t stay here,” I whisper, my words laced with an urgency that mirrors the frantic beating of my heart.
My gaze darts to the door, half expecting it to burst open and my world to shatter into chaos.
Zayn’s gray eyes lock onto mine, steady and unshakable. “Let them try to take me away,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-smile that does dangerous things to my resolve.
“Zayn, this isn’t a joke.If they find you here…”
“Shh,” he soothes, brushing a thumb across my cheek. “They won’t. You worry too much.”
I let out a shaky breath, leaning into his touch despite myself. His confidence is infectious, but it’s a fleeting balm. The stakes are too high, the risks too great. Zayn is so close, his scent enveloping me and his hands on my skin.
“Zayn…” I begin, the rest of my warning dies on my lips as he leans in, capturing my mouth once more with an urgency that leaves no room for words.
Every part of me screams to push him away, to protect us both from the fallout that would surely follow— however the sire bond, the magnetic pull between us, makes resistance near impossible.
As his hands roam over my body, every touch ignites a fire that threatens to consume me. It’s reckless, it’s dangerous—it’s everything I’ve been warned to avoid. And yet, I don’t want him to stop.
I grab his wrists, trying to pull him away from me. The heat of his skin seeps into mine, urging me to forget everything except the here and now. “Zayn, seriously. If they catch you in here…”
He just laughs, a deep sound that only deepens my desperation, worried my father’s enforcers will hear him. It’s a laugh that knows no fear, no consequence. “What’s your guard gonna do, come submit to me?” His eyes dance with mischief, and I picture the scene.
“Stop joking.” I glance nervously at the door even though I know it’s solidly shut. “No, they catch you, they’ll tell my father.” My voice trembles.
His hands, which moments ago had been mapping the terrain of my body, pause against my ribs.
His eyes lock onto mine, the golden flecks in them igniting with something fierce, something defiant.
“And I told you, I don’t fear your father, so you shouldn’t, either,” he replies confidently, his thumb tracing the curve of my hip bone.
The words that spill from my lips next come out laced with a cold dread. “He threatened to give my pack to Lydia,” I confess, the fear evident in my voice. The very thought coils in my stomach, making me feel queasy, knowing she would have her filthy paws on my mother’s pack.
“That’s my mother’s pack!” I remind him.
Zayn’s expression hardens, the playfulness that danced in his eyes a moment ago now gone.
He pulls me closer, his breath hot against my ear.
“I know, Cleo. Let him give it to her if he so chooses. You’ll get it back; you only have to challenge her for it. ” He lets me go, falling onto my bed.
“By challenging her?”
“See, you’re stressing over nothing. Now, get here,” he commands softly, patting the bed beside him.
“Why are you even here?”
“I missed you. Isn’t it obvious?” he says, pulling me down to straddle his lap.
“It hasn’t even been half a day,” I deadpan.
“And even that is too long,” he chuckles, his lips finding my neck.
Zayn’s lips trace a fiery path down my neck, igniting a trail of desire that pools deep within me.
His hands are everywhere, deft and commanding, coaxing moans from my lips which he does his best to muffle.
The world outside my bedroom fades away— into the electric touch of the man I’m tangled with on my crappy rumpled dorm sheets.
Zayn shoves me back on the bed, his eyes flickering as he moves over the top of me.
Swift and harsh reality crashes back to both of us when my phone blares its insistent ring, slicing through the haze. Zayn pauses and my head turns to the side where my bag is. I push on his chest, and he growls at the interruption, reluctantly he allows me to get up and grab it.
Climbing out of my bed I snatch it from where it rests on my bag and books. My heart sinks; I know without looking who it will be. With a heavy sigh, I glance at Zayn and he takes that opportunity to pull me back onto his lap so I am straddling him.
“Don’t answer it,” he groans, his lips moving toward mine. I press my finger gently against Zayn’s full lips, pausing him mid-kiss. He glances up, eyebrows knit in annoyance at the interruption.
“Hold on,” I whisper, holding up the vibrating device between us so he can see Dad’s name flashing on the screen.
“Your timing sucks, Joseph,” Zayn mutters under his breath and I glare at him telling him to shut up before pressing answer. “Hey, Dad?”
“Where are you?” he doesn’t even give me a chance to answer. “You need to be at pack training. Now,” his voice is curt, brooking no argument.
“Seriously? Now?” I pull away from Zayn, but he grabs my hips holding me in place. “Can’t it wait?”
“No, Cleo, it can’t. I am sick of this tiff between you and Lydia,” Dad growls through the phone, his Alpha tone seeping through the line.
“Maybe if Lydia hadn’t called Mom a whore—” I start, my voice rising with anger.
He hasn’t even heard my side of the story and is making assumptions already.