Page 4 of Bound to the Dreadlord

"Your name."

"Sera."

Sera. A delicate name. One that should belong to someone easily broken. But there is something in her gaze that says she will not break for me.

It will be a pleasure proving her wrong.

"Sing."

Her body goes rigid, breath catching.

"My lord?—"

The hesitation in my title makes my fingers twitch with the urge to remind her who owns her now.

"Sing," I repeat, my voice carrying a command, the expectation of obedience.

She takes a shallow breath. Then, a sound unlike anything I have ever heard fills the chamber.

It is not music. It issorcery.

A hum, low and trembling at first, but as she lets the melody unfurl, I feel it.

My thoughts splinter. My limbs feel weighted, my breath shallow. Power laces every note, not raw like blood magic but smooth, insidious, slipping into the cracks of my mind like silk and steel entwined.

I hate it.I want it.

Her voice curls around my bones, sinking deep, whispering to something I do not recognize within myself.

I do not like what it finds there.

I move before I realize I’ve done it, standing so abruptly that she stops, her breath hitching.

The spell breaks.

I hear the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.

I inhale sharply through my nose, furious.

"Enough."

She gasps, stumbling back, as if suddenly realizing what she has done. She should be afraid.

She will be afraid.

I descend the steps of my throne, moving toward her. The guards shift but do not interfere. They know better.

I stop before her, so close that I can hear the unsteady rhythm of her breath. The scent of her—salt, something crisp like cold water—clings to her skin, foreign and infuriating.

I should kill her.

Instead, I lift her chin with a single finger, forcing her to meet my gaze.

"What are you?" I murmur.

She shivers. "A slave, my lord."

Lie.

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