Unnatural Bonds

[ POV: KAELIA BRYNN HALLOWAY ]

I stared down at the glossy magazine cover gripped between my fingers, where the high-definition portrait of Prince Caius Torin Dravos stared back with predatory stillness.

The imperial printing presses had spared no expense on this run. Heavy, silver-embossed lettering arched over his raven hair, blaring across the top margin: *THE CROWN CLAIMS ITS ANCHOR.* Beneath the headline sat the newly minted royal couple, framed against the marble colonnades of the High Fang capital. The imperial decree had already made its rounds through the school broadcast systems and district bulletins at dawn. Prince Caius had reached twenty human years a short while ago, and according to the ancient statutes written into the blood-laws of our realm, he was required to take the obsidian throne upon his twenty-first winter.

Only one condition stood between the prince and absolute dominion over our divided world. He needed his fated Sworn.

Now, according to the state-approved ink drying under my thumb, the miracle had arrived precisely on schedule. The prince had found her. The sacred bloodline was secured, the succession was guaranteed, and the high courts were practically weeping with manufactured joy.

I traced the edge of the paper, my jaw tightening as an instinctive suspicion stirred in my gut.

Something about the entire spectacle smelled like rot dressed up in silk.

In High Fang society, finding a mate was not a bureaucratic formality you checked off a ledger before an upcoming birthday. The history archives in the library were filled with records of ancient lords who spent half a millennium scouring the continents, crossing oceans and turning districts upside down, only to die without ever finding the counterpart to their blood. Among the High Fang nobility, the odds of encountering a true mate were legendary for being vanishingly small. Yet here was Prince Caius, the prized Tribrid weapon of the imperial house, producing a human mate with the casual convenience of pulling a coin from his sleeve just months before his coronation.

Everything looked too tidy. It moved too smoothly across the political board. It reminded me of a predator gliding under the surface of murky water, without a single ripple to warn the fish below.

I narrowed my eyes at the photograph, studying the royal pair side by side.

The girl beside him, Daphne Maris, wore a smile bright enough to blind an onlooker. She looked nineteen, draped in emerald velvet that spilled across the marble steps, her bare shoulders straight and her head held high. Her dark eyes sparkled with the raw thrill of someone who believed she had just won the universe. Beneath her polished slippers, the caption declared her awakened Strike: *Wielder of Storms.* She looked radiant, proud, and drunk on the sudden power handed to her by a genetic accident.

Prince Caius, on the other hand, looked like an executioner waiting for the signal to drop the axe.

There was no warmth in his face. Not a trace of pride softened the rigid line of his jaw. His bone structure was carved from pale granite, symmetrical and cruel, with cheekbones sharp enough to draw blood. Even in the flat print of a district news rag, the coiled power in his broad shoulders felt suffocating. He wore the high-collared dress uniform of the royal vanguard, dark wool trimmed with silver thread, standing beside his supposed mate without leaning a fraction of an inch in her direction. His eyes were cold, lifeless pits. If Daphne Maris was the anchor to his immortal soul, nobody had bothered to tell the prince. He looked at the lens as if he were staring at a line of traitors kneeling before a ditch.

I let out a quiet scoff, the sound brittle against the quiet hum of the corridor.

What a pathetic farce.

Human romance was built slowly, piece by fragile piece. You learned someone over burned dinners, awkward confessions, shared misery, and quiet mornings when the world left you alone. You chose to love them, and you chose to stay when things fell apart. It required patience, mutual vulnerability, and organic affection earned over years.

The High Fang had no use for patience. Their mating bonds were an entirely different beast. Their bonds were immediate, lethal, absolute, and biologically forced upon the nervous system. The moment an elite vampire laid eyes on his counterpart, a metaphysical leash snapped around their necks. It stripped away choice, replaced free will with a chemical compulsion, and called the resulting enslavement destiny.

Human district girls loved to sigh over the propaganda posters plastered across city squares. They whispered about eternal devotion, about fierce immortals who would burn the world to ash for their mortal halves, and they wrote terrible poetry about the glory of being chosen.

I called it high-born hogwash.

If their sacred bonds were truly the pinnacle of spiritual perfection, half the lords in the upper districts would not keep private rooms in the city pleasure houses. The high courts sang hymns about eternal loyalty by day and traded human bodies for entertainment by night. The entire concept of the Sworn was nothing more than a gilded collar designed to keep mortals compliant, pacified by the foolish dream that one day a prince might sweep them out of the dirt and place them on a dais.

I crushed the glossy cover in my fist, crumpling the prince's dead eyes into a tight ball of ruined paper.

Turning to my locker, I shoved the trash onto the bottom shelf beside my biology binders, grabbed my battered leather satchel, and slammed the metal door shut with a heavy rattle.

The noise had barely faded when a drawling voice cut through the quiet air.

"If it isn't little Miss Kaelia Brynn Halloway."

My stomach dipped with immediate irritation. Leaning his shoulder against the adjacent row of lockers was Corbin Belmont, lounging as if he owned the foundation beneath our feet.

He was the star athlete of Eclipse High, the captain of the Fanged League football squad, and the son of our school principal. Corbin carried every ounce of the effortless perfection common to his predatory kind. His skin was pale and unblemished, free of the scrapes and bruises that marked mortal skin. He had light cocoa eyes that flickered with constant, mocking humor, framed by unruly brown hair that fell across his forehead in styled disarray. The dark wool of his varsity jacket stretched across broad, athletic shoulders, displaying the silver crest of Eclipse High like a badge of divine right.

He was undeniably handsome in the way all vampires were crafted to be—a lethal trap designed by nature to draw prey within striking distance.

Corbin exuded the casual superiority of a wolf lying in a pen of domestic sheep. He had spent the last two months seeking my attention, hovering around my locker and intercepting my path between classes, treating my cold dismissals like an amusing puzzle he had not yet grown bored of solving.

I adjusted the wire frames of my glasses, looking straight ahead into the hallway without giving him the satisfaction of a second glance. "I do not have the time or the patience for you today, Belmont."

I slung my satchel over my shoulder and walked away, aiming for the double doors that led toward the eastern science wing.

Corbin did not miss a beat. He pushed off from the lockers with fluid grace, falling into step right beside me. He shoved his hands into his pockets, matching my hurried stride with a slow, gliding stroll that made a mockery of my effort.

"You wound me, Kaelia," he murmured, his voice dripping with easy amusement. "I came over here with the best intentions. A friendly morning greeting between classmates. Yet you look at me like I just set your house on fire."

I kept my eyes locked on the floor ahead, listening to the soft scuff of his designer sneakers keeping rhythm with my worn boots. "We are not friends, Corbin. We never have been, and we never will be. Go bother someone who actually wants you around."

"Now, why would I do that?" Corbin tilted his head, leaning slightly closer as we walked past a cluster of younger students who pressed themselves against the wall to give him a wide berth. "The other girls make it entirely too easy. They giggle if I glance their way. They trip over their own feet trying to hand me notes before morning practice. But you? You walk around this school looking like you want to drive an iron stake through my sternum."

I tightened my grip on the strap of my satchel. "Only because carrying iron in the halls is against school policy."

Corbin let out a rich, rolling laugh that drew heads from across the corridor. "There it is. That sharp little tongue of yours. You still harbor that bitter hatred for my kind, don't you?"

He turned his head toward me, parting his lips just enough to let his tongue swipe across the sharp tips of his elongated fangs. The white enamel caught the harsh fluorescent glare above us, gleaming like twin needles.

The sight made my skin prickle with cold disgust. Sharp teeth were not an ornament; they were weapons designed to puncture human flesh and drain the life out of our veins. Every vampire in this building carried the biological means to butcher the human students before fourth period, and the state expected us to sit across from them in history class and pretend we were equals.

I glanced sideways at him, letting my contempt show plain and unvarnished on my face. "I told you last week, Belmont. If someone backed me into a corner where death was the sole alternative, I would still choose wolves over vampires any day of the week."

Corbin's eyebrows shot up, his amusement deepening into a broad, insolent grin. "Wolves? Truly? Those filthy, flea-bitten beasts out in the border forests? You would pick a pack of mindless, hairy mutts over civilized company?"

"Civilized company is a strange label for a leech," I muttered, lengthening my stride as we approached the intersection of the main hall. "A werewolf might tear your throat out because you stepped onto his territory, but at least he does it with honesty. Wolves do not wear tailored coats, they do not pretend to be aristocrats, and they do not drain you dry while whispering lies about destiny."

Corbin clicked his tongue in mock disappointment. "Such harsh words for someone who looks so fragile. You really do not give us enough credit, sweetheart. A wolf is an animal driven by dirt and base instinct. They cannot offer you culture. They cannot offer you luxury. And more importantly, can a mangy dog do this?"

Before the final syllable had fully left his lips, the air in the corridor cracked with a sudden, violent displacement.

A gust of wind whipped across my face, snapping the loose strands of my curly hair into my eyes. The space beside me emptied in a fraction of a heartbeat.

My instincts screamed a second too late. I slammed the heels of my boots into the linoleum, pitching backward to stop myself from colliding chest-first into the solid wall of muscle that had materialized out of thin air directly in front of me.

Corbin stood less than six inches away.

His eyes gleamed with smug triumph, his chest steady, not a single breath out of place despite moving faster than the human eye could track. He looked down at me from his towering height, watching my pupils dilate with the instinctive panic of a mortal confronted by impossible speed.

My heart hammered against my ribs, the sound loud in my ears, but I clamped my teeth together and refused to let the gasp escape my mouth.

I took a sharp breath, planting my feet firmly on the floor, and looked up at him through my glasses. "Get out of my way."

"Make me," Corbin replied smoothly, his eyes flashing with challenge.

I stepped to the left, attempting to move around his broad frame. Corbin shifted his weight effortlessly, his shoulder gliding across my field of vision and cutting off the opening before I could take two steps.

I spun on my heel, darting toward the right side of the corridor where a group of human sophomores stood watching with wide, nervous eyes. Corbin blurred again, the air rushing across the floor as his body filled the gap, blocking my path with insulting precision.

"You are wasting your energy, Kaelia," he chuckled, stepping forward as I was forced to take a step back. "You know you cannot outrun me."

"I am not trying to outrun you," I snapped, taking another retreat as his towering frame closed the distance between us. "I am trying to go to class. Move your feet, Belmont, before I report you for harassment."

"Report me to whom?" Corbin asked, his grin widening with wicked delight as he matched me stride for stride, driving me backward down the narrow span of the corridor. "To the vice principal? He sits on my father's disciplinary committee. To my father himself? He would probably congratulate me on having good taste."

The sheer arrogance in his tone made my blood simmer. I took another hurried step back, desperate to put distance between his looming shadow and my face, but my shoulder blades slammed hard against the cold, unyielding steel of the hallway lockers.

The metal groaned behind me, sending a sharp vibration down my spine.

Before I could duck under his reach, Corbin raised both arms and slammed his flat palms against the lockers on either side of my head.

*CLANG.*

The impact echoed through the hallway like a gunshot. The few students lingering nearby immediately looked down at the floor, picking up their pace and scurrying away toward the cafeteria, eager to avoid being drawn into the orbit of the principal's son. Nobody intervened. Nobody ever stepped between a vampire and his mortal prey in the halls of Eclipse High.

I was trapped.

Corbin leaned forward, his heavy forearms forming an iron cage against the steel behind me. The space between our bodies vanished until I could feel the cold chill radiating from his pale skin. He smelled of crisp winter air, expensive cedarwood cologne, and the faint, underlying metallic tang of cold blood that no amount of scent could completely mask.

My jaw set hard, my teeth grinding together as I stared straight into his light cocoa eyes. My fingers slid into the right pocket of my jacket, curling tightly around the cold glass of the miniature test cylinders I always carried with me, ready to smash the compounds directly into his face if his fangs so much as twitched.

Corbin did not look at my pocket. He lowered his head slowly, tilting his chin until his mouth hovered barely an inch from the curve of my ear.

I felt the icy draft of his breath against my temple as he spoke, his voice dropping into a low, intimate murmur that vibrated straight through the cold steel at my back.

"You have a terrible attitude, little bird," he whispered, his lips curling into an insolent smirk against my skin. "You really do. But you are exceptionally pretty for a human."