Bound to love |BxB|

Chapter 4

Peyton's POV
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I rubbed my tired eyes, hastily covering the bright daylight that climbed into my room through the one window next to my bed; for a second tricking me to believe that I had turned as blind as a bat. But after furiously blinking and trying to identify the most familiar artefacts in my surroundings, I slowly started to distinguish the front door right on the opposite side of where I was laying, shut and locked like every single night.

On both sides of it, there were tall vines and other sprawling plants, giving a hint of colour to the otherwise brownish decoration: the leather armchair between two immense paintings, the desk beside my bed, and the large cabinets filled with either my clothes or other necessities. The plants and paintings were pretty much everywhere, keeping company especially to the number of lamps and windows around my bed.

Though, my most meaningful possession was the bookshelf clinging to my bedframe, squeezed between the wall and my mattress. As depressing as it sounded, it was pretty much the only thing that I had ever shared a whole night with. Stuck to my side, dozens of hours spent staring at the books' different-sized and coloured titles on their spines.

Some of them had even become a part of my dreams.

Nothing stirred me up as did a controversial novel about the world far forgotten in our history, or excited me like fairytales about fire-spitting dragons that were on a mission to save the universe– or hot, steamy romances between forbidden lovers. Stories were my escape from realism.

So there I had been once again, from sunset until dawn, stuck in my own fantasies. Far from this place, but not far enough to exclude the room right next to me.

Usually I didn't have a specific person or a narrative in my mind, but this time, all I could think of was the owner of those flawlessly coiled, golden curls. For a time after another, I had imagined how they'd feel on my fingers, even when I'd said to myself that I only made things twice as worse.

But would they be soft, as soft as the fine sand on the beaches, flowing through my fingers like air– and would they bounce back into their shape, overlooking all the ways I would twist and twirl them?

I just... I couldn't stop thinking about him.

Couldn't stop thinking how I wanted to barge into that room, confess to him our mate bond, and watch him fall into my lap, chanting how he had been looking for me for years; desperate to embrace me and tell me that everything was going to be okay.

I wanted to believe he was waiting for my claim.

But the other voice in my head, the one with at least a sprinkle of reason, knew I was only hurting myself. He would never accept me, not even if yesterday's first impression wasn't enough to scare him away.

I was too damaged, too numb and too far buried in my own nightmares. It hadn't been that bad when he had closed on me, those marauding eyes making me forget everything and anything about the pain in my heart; the ache that had spread all over my body.

Maybe for a moment, he had made me forget that I wasn't Peyton Diétrich, I wasn't a failure of a Royal, nor was I the little boy who had been tortured and nearly beaten to death at fifteen. But as soon as his spell, or whatever that was, had vanished— I could once again see myself through everyone else's eyes.

I wanted him, but I couldn't get him, no matter how the bond was scorching me, trying to make me cross the threaded bridge that was connecting us. I nearly couldn't resist it, not to even mention if he would be in the same room with me.

One look, one word, one touch.

I would do anything to stop this heart-wrenching misery, even if my road would come to an end right there and then. I just wanted to feel loved for a second.