Chapter 6
It was winning. The fucking bond was winning.
Hermione had fought it for days—pushed, clawed, denied—but it was winning.
She could feel it unraveling something inside her, weaving its way into the cracks she swore she didn’t have. It was in the way her body reacted before her mind could catch up. In the way her breathing changed when Fenrir got too close. In the way her fingers curled toward him instead of away.
It was in this moment—this terrible, shattering moment—when she slipped.
It had started as another fight.
Sharp words, daggered glares, the same battle they had been waging since the moment they were bound. But something shifted, something tilted, and now she was here—pinned between Fenrir and a tree, his breath hot against her throat, his fingers curled around her jaw.
“Say it,” he growled.
Hermione’s pulse thundered. “Let me go.”
Fenrir’s lips twitched. “Not that.”
His fingers flexed, tilting her chin up, forcing her to hold his gaze. Challenge me, his eyes said. Try to deny it.
Hermione gritted her teeth. “I hate you.”
Fenrir huffed a low, amused sound. “Try again.”
She wouldn’t.
She couldn’t.
Because she knew what he wanted, knew the game he was playing—and she refused to play it.
But the bond had other plans.
It surged between them, thick and smoldering, and Hermione’s body betrayed her in the smallest, most damning way.
She shivered.
Fenrir went still.
His grip on her jaw loosened, just slightly, just enough for his thumb to brush the corner of her mouth.
“Ah,” he murmured. “There it is.”
Hermione’s breath hitched.
No.
No, no, no—
But she didn’t move.
Didn’t wrench herself free, didn’t shove him away, didn’t do anything but stay, locked in place, as if the bond had stolen her ability to run.
Fenrir watched her, drank her in, his expression shifting from victory to something sharper, something curious.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for that?” he murmured.
Hermione’s fingers curled against the bark at her back. “Shut up.”
He chuckled, low and knowing. “Oh, you felt it, didn’t you?”
His hand slid lower, dragging the back of his knuckles down the column of her throat—slow, deliberate, a ghost of a touch that sent a traitorous heat curling in her stomach.
Hermione clenched her teeth. “Stop.”
Fenrir leaned in, lips brushing her ear. “Tell me to stop like you mean it.”
She should.
She should.
But her breath was shaking, and her body was betraying her, and the words stuck in her throat like something heavy, something dangerous.
Fenrir’s fingers slipped under her chin, tilting her face just enough—
And then, softer than she ever thought he was capable of, he brushed his lips against hers.
Not a kiss.
Not really.
Just the faintest, teasing whisper of contact. A taste. A warning.
Hermione sucked in a breath—sharp, startled—
And grabbed him.
Fisted her hands in his shirt, pulled, something. She didn’t know if it was a shove or a plea or a desperate attempt to take back control, but Fenrir laughed—a low, wicked sound against her mouth—
And then he was gone.
He stepped back, severing the contact, his hands raised in mock surrender, his smirk razor-sharp.
“There’s my girl,” he murmured.
Hermione burned.
With rage. With shame. With something twisting and terrible that she refused to name.
She had slipped.
And Fenrir had felt it.
He turned, lazily stretching like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t just won something, and started walking back toward their fire.
Hermione stood frozen against the tree, breath unsteady, hands shaking.
The bond was winning.
And she didn’t know if she could stop it.