Page 57 of Bound to the Dreadlord

It should have been disgust. It should have been rage.

But it wasn’t and it scares the hell out of me.

Suddenly, hands appear on me.

A rough palm clamps over my mouth, cutting off my breath.

My eyes snap open. Panic detonates.

I thrash, wild, my limbs jerking as I struggle. A sharp voice hisses in my ear.

“Hold her.”

There are hands everywhere. Gripping. Binding. Too strong.

A cloth is shoved against my lips, damp, sickly sweet.

I try not to breathe it in. I fight.

One of them grunts when I twist, my knee ramming into something solid. Someone curses, a snarl of frustration, and a hand strikes across my cheek.

Pain flares white-hot, snapping my head sideways. My vision lurches.

My body betrays me.

Breath shudders in, too sharp, too deep.

The world begins to spin.

The room fractures at the edges.

Darkness pulls me under.

Cold.

That is the first thing I register.

A deep, aching kind of chill that settles into my bones.

Then there’s the weight.

Something heavy presses against my wrists, my ankles. Metal. Chains.

I try to move. The sound of rusted iron scrapes against stone.

My breath stirs dust in the shadows.

I am not in my room anymore.

Underground.

The word slides through my mind, sluggish, heavy. Like a curse.

The stench of damp stone thickens the air. Old water. Mold. Something rancid, festering.

I blink, my vision adjusting to the dim glow of lanterns flickering along the walls.

This is not House Drazharel.

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