Page 11 of Claim of Blood (Blood Bound #1)

Chapter Seven

Leo

Leo stayed where he was, pressed against Adam’s leg, his forehead still resting against the vampire’s knee.

He couldn’t bring himself to move—not yet.

The remnants of that ancient power still crackled through the air, making his skin tingle and his mark burn.

His fingers remained locked around Adam’s ankle, an anchor point in a world that had stopped making sense.

What had he just done?

The question echoed through his mind, competing with the memory of that overwhelming need to submit, to get closer, to... to belong. He’d crossed the council chamber floor on his hands and knees. He’d proclaimed himself Adam’s in front of the entire Council.

God. He’d meant it.

The steady stroke of fingers through his hair should have felt wrong. Should have made him pull away. Instead, he leaned into the touch, his racing thoughts gradually slowing with each pass of Adam’s hand.

“We could stage an accident,” Oren said, his voice cutting through the low hum of debate. “Make it appear as though he left the city. A crash on a back road. Remote. Final.”

Leo’s fingers clenched harder around Adam’s ankle, the words slicing through the haze that had wrapped around his thoughts. The idea of his family believing him dead should have filled him with panic.

But the first feeling that rose wasn’t fear.

It was doubt.

Who would come looking?

If Adam had killed him, he’d have served his purpose, wouldn’t he? The bait dangled. The trap sprung. A sacrifice already calculated into the cost. He could almost hear his uncle explaining it in clipped tones over dinner. “Necessary. Clean. Tactical.”

Felix might look. He’d try. He always tried. But would anyone else?

Leo swallowed hard. A strange, hollow ache bloomed in his chest—not fear, not grief, just... absence.

“No,” Adam said. His fingers didn’t pause in their slow, steady strokes through Leo’s hair. “That would only delay the inevitable. They would investigate. And grief makes hunters more dangerous, not less.”

Leo gave a little shiver at the certainty in his voice. Heat curled low in his belly, a pulse of raw want that made him press his face more firmly into Adam’s thigh, desperate to hide the sudden flush creeping up his neck.

His body shouldn’t react like this. Not to this.

But it was. And everyone in the room could smell it.

Adam’s hand tightened in his hair—a silent acknowledgment, or maybe a warning. Leo couldn’t tell, and the not knowing only made the heat worse.

“Then what?” Ilona demanded. “We cannot hide him forever. The moment they realize he’s missing—”

“They won’t find him,” Adam said.

Leo’s skin prickled with the weight of it, but this time the shiver felt different—a strange, aching sense of safety. That voice. That certainty. No one had ever spoken about him like that. Like he mattered. Like someone to be kept.

He didn’t know what that made him feel—safe? Owned? Grateful? Sick?

“You can’t know that,” Nathaniel said. “These aren’t ordinary hunters. They’re von Rothenburg. Old blood. Connected.”

“I’m aware,” Adam said, his voice sharp enough to silence the room.

The voices blurred after that into logistics and timing, destruction of evidence and wait-and-see strategies. Always waiting. Always surviving.

Leo tuned it out because it didn’t matter, not really. Not when Adam’s fingers were still threading through his hair, not when the bond pulsed in time with his heart, syncing with the heat in his spine. Every breath he took was full of Adam’s scent—warm, old, grounding.

Without breaking the rhythm of conversation, Adam shifted.

One hand left Leo’s scalp, trailing down to his bare shoulder, firm and guiding.

Leo allowed himself to be moved, his body pliant as Adam gently repositioned him.

Between Adam’s thighs now, his back resting against the curve of the ornate chair.

The vampire’s legs flanked his hips, warm despite everything Leo had been taught to believe.

He should have resisted. Should have pulled away, pushed back, done something.

Instead, he exhaled and let himself sink. Into the warmth. Into the presence. Into the bond that coiled tighter every time Adam touched him.

The voices blurred around him, no longer words so much as sound rising and falling like waves brushing the edges of thought. But one sentence cut through, clear and cool:

“We need to discuss the Solstice,” Emilia said.

Leo stirred faintly, cheek still pressed against Adam’s thigh. The word stirred something sharper than the others—the memory of Stefan’s voice. The Summer Solstice. Something will happen then.

The council’s tone shifted. Where the previous conversation had been sharp-edged with threat and strategy, this was something else. Purposeful. Like priests debating sacred rites.

He caught fragments in his haze: a ballroom, a celestial alignment, the coven preparing for a ritual. The pack coordinating patrol schedules.

His mind drifted to his family’s archives—shelves upon shelves of meticulously documented vampire lore. But that was just it. They were meticulously maintained, curated, edited.

Of course, they didn’t include this. Leo’s thoughts sharpened, bitter. They only ever showed him what he needed to believe in the cause, what he needed to stay loyal.

His family didn’t teach—they curated. Selected stories with surgical precision: tales of hunter bravery, glorious sacrifice, supernatural tyranny barely held at bay.

Every vampire account ended in horror, every shifter in carnage, every witch in corruption.

They fed him legends instead of truth, just enough history to make him obedient and just enough bloodshed to make him hate.

And he’d swallowed it all. Trusted it. Trusted them.

But nothing he’d seen since arriving in Porte du Coeur matched the stories. The vampires here weren’t monsters—they were builders, organizers, patrons. They had neighborhoods and marketplaces, furniture that seemed to hold memories.

The bitterness twisted in his gut, turning to nausea. What else had they lied about?

And what would they do if they knew what he was feeling now?

It was Felix who had found the discarded journals—the ones set aside for destruction. The ones that contradicted the narrative. Felix, who had hidden them away. Who’d let Leo read between the cracks.

And now he was here. Living proof that the story he’d been raised to follow wasn’t just flawed—it was fiction.

The bitterness lodged in his throat like a bone. But even that couldn’t drown out the heat pooling between his legs.

Another slow slide of cum escaped him, sticky against his skin. He bit the inside of his cheek to stifle a sound. His jeans were ruined—soaked through, obvious. No one had said anything. They didn’t need to.

He curled tighter, drawing his knees toward his chest, trying to fold himself into nothing. His face burned.

What would his family think of him now?

Their weapon. Their bait. Sitting like a supplicant at the feet of the very creature they’d sent him to monitor. Marked. Used. Leaking.

And worse... he hadn’t hated it.

No—worse than that. He’d wanted it. Begged for it. And he would do it again.

What would his family think if they knew he loved it?

The shame cracked something open in his chest, but the bond pulsed over it like warm silk, threading through the hollowness with dangerous comfort.

Adam had spoken to him since the claiming, but only when necessary—questions, commands, cool authority layered over intimate acts. And now? Nothing. Just his hand, sliding gently through Leo’s hair.

That touch said more than words ever had. It told Leo to stay, to be still and quiet, and his.

And somehow, that made it worse. Or maybe it made it better. Leo didn’t know anymore.

The rhythm of voices slowed, pausing long enough for Leo to register that something had shifted. Chairs scraped softly against the floor, followed by the rustle of fabric and the faint sound of footsteps retreating toward the hall.

“I’ll speak with my people about Solstice preparations,” Emilia said, her voice soft as smoke and just as impossible to ignore. She smiled, and Leo had the distinct feeling that when she spoke, the stars leaned in to listen.

“I’ll have my pack increase patrols,” Nathaniel added. His tone had softened. Not exactly warm, but no longer bristling. “We’ll make sure any hunters who get too curious find themselves... distracted.”

Their words echoed like they were being spoken in another room, through layers of cotton and fog. Had it been minutes? Hours? Time had become slippery. Leo couldn’t tell how long he’d been curled on the floor, couldn’t even remember if anyone had looked directly at him since the interrogation.

But now... he could feel them. Cruel. Measuring. Judging.

Their footsteps faded one by one until only Maja remained. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her—the weight of her presence behind Adam’s chair.

“It’s getting late,” she said. “We should get him settled.” Her gaze lingered, and he felt it like pressure on his skin. “Where will you be keeping him?”

“In a guest room,” Adam replied, his voice flat but final.

Leo barely had time to process the words before Adam’s hand shifted—trailing down the back of his neck until his thumb brushed the edge of the claim mark. The touch sent a jolt down his spine, nerves lighting up like wires under current. He shuddered—not from fear, but from something warmer.

Maja vanished with supernatural speed, presumably to prepare the rooms. Leo blinked at the space where she’d stood, as if the air itself had cut her out like a photo clipped from a page.

Then Adam moved.

The loss of contact was immediate. Leo felt it in the cold that rushed in where that hand had just been, in the emptiness at his side where warmth had lived for... God, how long had it been? He blinked up at Adam, dazed.

“Come,” Adam said gently, offering his hand. “It’s about a ten-minute walk at a human pace to the mansion.”