Blood Bound- Book 1 of the Bonded Series- Complete

Chapter 3

“Where am I?” she asked her voice sounding groggy and weak.  

“Your home, my sweet” Leo replied pulling himself from the shadows.  He stepped closer to the bed so that he was standing in front of her.  He only wanted to reassure her that she was in fact safe.  

“Home?” Shelby replied with alarm starting to creep up her spine.  Her eyes met with the dark stranger who had moved into her line of vision.  His movements were so graceful as if he had floated to her on a billowy cloud of air.  

“Yes, home“ Leo answered her very matter of factly.  He pinned her with his stare and wanted nothing more to pull her up to him and feel her body pressed up against his.  The need was clawing inside him so ferociously that he had to fist his hands by his sides in order to keep his  cool façade.

“This is not my home” Shelby quickly bit out the retort.  The handsome man that stood in front of her exuded a powerful menacing aura around him.  It unsettled her but yet she had this bizarre desire to go to this imposing stranger.  To have him circle his arms around her frame and hold her against his chest so that she could sink into him.  

Shelby had to advert her gaze from those midnight black orbs that seemed to be see staring down to the very bottomless depths of her soul.  It was unnerving to say the least.  

“My sweet, you are  mistaken.  This is your home now.  Mi casa es su casa” he spoke the words casually with outstretched hands in demonstration.  

Shelby was already shaking her head in denial. “No.” she said with firm resolve.  “You must be mistaken, I live…” and she stopped to think, pressing her hands to her temples as the memories came rushing back to her with such a speed that her breath was pushed clean out of her.  The accident, his voice, that same dark tone that melted over her, the dreams, her Knight.

 “You-” she said accusingly.  “You were the one that..” and stopped when Leo nodded his head in affirmation.  

“Yes, my sweet.  I am indeed the one.” Leo spoke softly, surely.  He had touched her mind and knew her thoughts.  Seen the images that she remembered as a small girl and felt the jarring of her sudden recognition.

Shelby went to pull herself off the bed, “This is too much” she said more to herself than anyone else.  She started to pace back and forth across the large room trying to come to grips with the fact that this man, the one stranger who has starred in her dreams night after night for the last eleven years was really and truly standing here in front of her.  How did he find me?  How did he know where I was? The thoughts erroneously flitted through her head as she continued to pace back and forth.

Leo couldn’t help but to continue reading her mind, touching her thoughts.  She was like a drug to him, a living breathing temptation that he had to be with in some shape or another.  Through the years he had settled with simple telepathy.  Touching her mind; assuring himself that she was safe and well.  “I’ve always known where you are my sweet.  Not a day has gone by that I have not known where you were or whom you were with.  I made a promise to you and I fully intend to keep it.”  

He said the words as if it was a normal every day thing.  Not some type of freakish anomaly that was seriously starting to set Shelby at unease.  None of this was making any sense to her, the return of her Knight or the fact that he brought here.  To his home.

“Who are you?” she barely whispered the words again.  Her voice was so small that she didn’t think he had her.  Shelby knew exactly who he was, she could feel him deep in the marrow of her bones and that scared the living bejeesus out of her.  How did one have such a connection with a person that she hardly knows?  She needed assurance, she needed him to tell her again.