Page 53 of Bound to the Dreadlord

“You’re late.” My voice is flat, controlled.

She does not answer.

She does not lower her gaze.

And that… that is a mistake.

I step forward. She stiffens, but does not step back.

Another mistake.

"Where were you?"

Silence.

Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak immediately.

I study her, cataloging the shift in her breathing, the hesitation in her limbs.

She is keeping something from me.

That alone is enough to bring the storm inside me roaring to the surface.

"You are mine, Sera." The words leave me slow, deliberate. "I have given you more freedom than any human in this house, and you repay me by disappearing?"

Her throat moves in a swallow.

"I was in the library."

Her tone is level, but there is something too careful in her delivery.

She is lying.

And she is not good at it.

I tilt my head, eyes narrowing. "Did you find something…interesting?"

A crack forms in her composure.

Something flickers across her face.

It is so quick, so fleeting, that if I had not been watching her so closely, I would have missed it.

"Do you believe in prophecies, Dreadlord?"

The shift in topic is deliberate.

A ploy. A trap.

I know this.

And yet—I react anyway.

My muscles lock, jaw tightening.

Her breath shudders, as if she notices.

She takes a step closer, something daring in the way she meets my gaze. "I heard something," she says softly, "about a woman who could destroy a great house. With her voice."

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