Page 38 of Bound to the Dreadlord

I am not the only one fighting and one of them slipped past me.

I hear her gasp.

I spin.

Rage consumes me.

The final assassin stands over the bed, a blade pressed against Sera’s throat.

She is awake.

Her eyes are wide, breath frozen in her lungs as cold steel presses against delicate skin.

A rush of pure, unfiltered wrath surges through me.

He dares.

The moment his grip shifts, I move.

The world narrows.

The distance between us vanishes.

I grab the assassin by the back of the head and drive his skull into the stone wall.

He stumbles.

He falters.

And I tear him apart.

The first strike shatters his ribs. The second crushes his windpipe.

The third is only for me.

For daring.

For touching what is mine.

For trying to take what I have not decided to break yet.

His body crumples to the floor, useless, ruined.

The dagger he held against her throat falls from his fingers.

I barely hear the sound of it hitting the ground.

She is still there.

Still staring at me.

Still breathing.

My chest heaves, blood slick along my forearms, my own pulse pounding, deafening, savage.

I turn to her, silver meeting blue.

She should be shaking.

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