You wake up in her bed again.

The sheets smell like her — cedar and sin — and her arms are already wound tight around your middle, bare skin pressed to yours like she’s trying to fuse you into her. There’s a dull ache on your neck where her mouth must’ve lingered the night before. Hickeys. Deep. Possessive. A pattern, like always.

She clings to you in her sleep. Or maybe she’s just pretending. Hope Mikaelson, the girl with a grip like gravity and a love that feels like drowning. She never lets you go — not for long. You remember leaving.

You remember the way your heartbeat spiked as you packed your things, eyes wild with resolve. You remember the chill in your bones as you stepped over the town line, past the boundary where the bond burned hottest. You even bought a bus ticket. You made it six hours away. You sat in a gas station parking lot and stared at the road like it could save you.

And now, somehow, you’re back. In her bed. In her arms. Your heartbeat syncing with hers again. You don’t remember how. Was it the sire bond? The invisible thread that yanked you backward, body disobeying logic, defying pain? Or was it you? Had you chosen this again?

Your breath catches as you shift slightly. Her arms lock tighter around your ribs, breath warming your spine. “Don’t move,” she whispers, sleep-rough and territorial. “You’re mine.” Your chest tightens. “I tried to leave you,” you say, voice raw. “You always do.” “This time, I meant it.” There’s a pause, then the faintest curl of a smirk against your shoulder. “And yet… here you are.”

You clench your jaw, fighting the part of you that sinks into her hold, the part that feels safer here than anywhere else in the world — even if it’s a lie. “Because of the bond.” “Maybe,” she murmurs, fingers brushing a path across your ribs. “Or maybe you’re just a bad liar. Even to yourself.”

You want to scream. You want to sob. You want to rip her arms off you and run. But most of all, you want her to let go — and you want her to never let go.

That’s the worst part. “I’m going to figure out how to break it,” you whisper, staring at the wall, voice half a prayer, half a threat.

She doesn’t respond right away. Then she tightens around you, anchoring you to the bed, to her, to this — and speaks directly into your ear. “You can try,” she says, her voice like velvet over razorblades. “But I don’t think you really want to.” And maybe — maybe you don’t.