Shattered Bonds: A Second Chance Mate - Chapter 81: Chapter 81

The Council was gone.
But their presence lingered.
Their scent—old parchment, stale incense, cold metal—still clung to the halls like mildew that refused to lift. Servants moved quietly, whispers trailing behind them. No one spoke of what happened aloud, but everyone felt it. The house had gone still. Suspended. Waiting.
I sat in the garden behind the estate, still barefoot from shifting. My body wrapped in a simple robe, my skin kissed by the late afternoon sun, yet I felt cold.
I could still hear Marsen’s words in my ears.
Magic has a price.
Francesco joined me in silence. He didn’t sit. Not at first. He just stood there, watching me with those storm-gray eyes of his, trying to read what I wasn’t saying.
When he finally lowered himself beside me, he didn’t speak right away. His shoulder brushed mine, grounding me.
“I would have torn them apart,” he said after a long stretch of silence. “If you hadn’t held your ground like that.”
I glanced at him. “You wouldn’t have. Not for them. Not now. You’re not that boy anymore.”
He exhaled a soft laugh. “You’re right. I’m worse.”
I smiled, faintly. “You’re stronger.”
Francesco turned to face me fully, reaching for my hand and curling it into his. His palm was warm and calloused, his grip steady, reassuring.
“They’ll come back,” I said, my voice soft. “They won’t stop watching. You know that, right?”
“I want them to watch,” he said. “I want the entire realm to watch.”
I tilted my head, unsure what he meant.
“I want them to see,” he continued, “what happens when they try to suppress a power that was never meant to be controlled by them. You were never meant to be hidden, Ellaine. And I…” He paused, searching my face. “I won’t let them twist you into something you’re not.”
His voice was raw with sincerity. It wrapped around my wounds like balm.
I didn’t realize I was crying until he reached up to brush a tear from my cheek.
“They didn’t scare me,” I whispered. “But they reminded me…”
He waited.
“They reminded me of the people who once told me I was nothing. Powerless. Broken.”
His jaw tightened. “You’re not.”
“I know that now,” I said, my voice steadier. “But some part of me still remembers what it was like to believe them. To be that girl who begged her mate not to reject her. To stand in front of a pack who turned their backs on her.”
Francesco cupped my cheek, his thumb gently tracing a path beneath my eye. “They don’t get to define you. And neither does your past.”
I nodded, swallowing the ache in my throat.
“But now they know,” he said. “They know what I’ve always known. You are not just a girl with a broken heart. You are a force. A mystery they can’t contain. And if they try…” His voice dropped to a low growl, “they’ll find out just how much I’m willing to burn for you.”
I leaned into his touch, his words settling into the deepest parts of me.
In him, I found safety.
But I also found fire.
And I wanted to burn with him.
After a long silence, I asked, “Do you think Marsen meant what he said? That magic always takes something back?”
Francesco’s jaw tightened. “He believes it. Because his power comes from fear, not understanding.”
“But if he’s right…”
“Then we’ll face it together.”
I stared at him, at the unflinching promise in his eyes.
He wasn’t just saying it. He meant it.
Even if Mika's power came with a cost—even if the White Moon magic had hidden prices written in stars and blood—he would stay.
I leaned my head against his shoulder. “Do you think my magic scares you?”
“No,” he said immediately. “What scares me is the thought of you ever hiding it.”
I smiled. “Then I won’t.”
We stayed like that for a long while, wrapped in silence, wrapped in each other. The soft hush of wind in the trees whispered above us, while golden sunlight spilled through the leaves, painting everything in hues of amber and rose gold.
I leaned into his side, his arm warm around my waist, his fingers resting just beneath the edge of my robe like a silent vow—mine.
It felt like the world had exhaled for a moment. Like the storm had passed and left something whole in its wake.
“I hated watching them look at you like that,” Francesco murmured, his voice low and rough against the shell of my ear.
I tilted my head, brushing my nose along his jaw. “I didn’t notice them once you stood beside me.”
He smiled faintly. “You weren’t supposed to carry that weight alone.”
“I didn’t,” I whispered, placing my hand over his heart. “You were there. Every step.”
The moment hung between us, warm and heavy with unspoken things. I turned my face up to his, and his eyes found mine—smoky gray, but clearer now, like all the shadows that had ever lived in him had made peace with my light.
He leaned closer, his breath brushing against my lips. “I would burn the world for you, Ellaine.”
I can’t help but smile “You already lit the match the moment you chose me,” I whispered back.
Then his mouth was on mine.
There was nothing hesitant about the kiss. No restraint. No apologies. His lips were warm and fierce, parting mine as his hand slid up my back, pulling me fully into him.
I melted under his touch, the robe slipping slightly down one shoulder, but neither of us cared. My hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, needing more—more of the man who saw me not as a curse, not as prophecy, but as his.
He shifted suddenly, rising to his knees and pulling me into his lap in one fluid, hungry motion. I gasped into his mouth as his hands gripped my hips, anchoring me against him. The heat between us crackled like lightning. My skin sang beneath his touch—every brush, every press, every breath a tether between us.
“You have no idea what it does to me,” he said, voice hoarse, lips grazing my throat, “to see you standing like that—untouchable, radiant, defiant. Mine.”
“I’m yours,” I breathed, arching into him as he kissed the hollow of my throat, his tongue flicking against my pulse. “But you’re also mine.”
He groaned, low and primal, as my fingers trailed down his chest, undoing the buttons of his shirt one by one. “Always,” he swore, capturing my mouth again, his kiss deepening with a hunger that sent heat spiraling low in my belly.
I could feel the tension in him—restraint at war with desire. He wanted to take me right there in the garden, beneath the open sky, where the moon would soon rise and see all of me. And goddess, I wanted him to.
I reached for the belt at my robe, loosening it slowly, watching his eyes darken as the silk slipped open. His breath caught. “Ellaine…”
“Make me forget them,” I whispered, voice trembling. “Make me remember what it’s like to feel wanted. Worshipped.”
He didn’t answer with words.
Francesco laid me back gently against the mossy stone bench, his mouth exploring my collarbone, my chest, my stomach, reverent and desperate. His hands mapped every inch of me like he was learning a sacred text—memorizing, cherishing.
And when he finally entered me, it wasn’t rough. It wasn’t rushed.
It was a claiming.
A ceremony of flesh and soul.
We moved together in slow, aching harmony, the garden around us spinning into nothing. His name was a prayer on my lips. Mine was a growl in his throat. Every thrust, every sigh, every whispered promise was fire and forgiveness and forever, folded into one.
When release came, it tore through me like a sunrise—shattering and gentle. I cried out into the crook of his neck, holding onto him like he was the only thing tethering me to the world.
He came seconds later, biting down softly on my shoulder, muffling a groan that sounded almost like my name.
And then we stayed like that—entwined, breathless, trembling. The sweat cooling on our skin. His forehead pressed to mine, his thumb stroking the curve of my waist as if afraid to let me go.
“I love you,” he said suddenly, voice breaking.
I froze.
And then I smiled.
“I know,” I whispered. “Because I feel it. Every time you look at me like I’m not broken.”
His breath caught. Then he kissed me again—softer this time.
Just lips against lips.
A promise.