Page 36 of Bound to the Dreadlord

It clatters to the stone floor with a sharp metallic ring, the sound shattering the silence like a struck bell.

Veylan stirs.

I don’t have the luxury to think before his arm tightens, his grip securing before I can move away.

Before I can escape.

My breath lodges in my throat as his silver eyes crack open—unfocused, drowsy, but still sharp.

Still dangerous.

He doesn’t speak.

Doesn’t move.

Just lies there, his grip firm, his gaze searching.

As if he already knows what I almost did.

As if he was waiting for it.

The silence stretches, thick, suffocating.

He exhales, slow and deep.

His arm loosens and he lets me go.

I don’t move until his breathing evens out once more, his body relaxing against the sheets.

Not until I am sure he has slipped back into unconsciousness.

Only then do I shift, pressing my trembling fingers to my lips, something foreign and unbearable curling in my stomach.

16

VEYLAN

The fortress breathes with silence.

Not the silence of peace.

The kind that creeps too deep, too still, curling through the stone corridors like a whisper before a scream.

I sit in my chair, a book open in my lap, though my focus has long since drifted from the words inked across the pages.

She is asleep.

Across the chamber, beneath the heavy silken covers, Sera’s chest rises and falls in slow, measured rhythm.

It should not be.

Not after what happened last night.

Not after I felt her trembling fingers hover over my throat, steel catching moonlight, hesitation thick between us.

She could have done it.

Should have.

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