Page 72 of Bound to the Dreadlord

Her song wraps around my wounds like silk, and I know—she is saving me.

And I hate it that I need it because it is her.

That is far more dangerous than the bleeding.

The carriage rocks beneath us. The merchant guiding it has no idea who he carries.

Just two travelers, lost in the remnants of battle.

But Sera is not lost.

She sits with her hands folded in her lap, eyes staring at the moonlight slipping between the wooden slats of the carriage. Her expression is unreadable.

I watch her.

The way she breathes differently now. The way her shoulders no longer hunch with fear.

She is changing.

She looks at me then.

Those ocean-blue eyes.

I feel them, even before they land on my skin.

She has always looked at me with defiance.

Now, there is something else.

“You should sleep,” she murmurs.

Her voice is softer than I have ever heard it.

And it unsettles me.

Not because I fear her.

But because I do not.

Sleep does not come.

The scent of her hair lingers in the confined space, something warm, something that reminds me of salt and old stories.

She is close.

Too close.

And I cannot ignore it.

We are not captor and captive now.

Not in this moment.

Not in the stolen silence of the night, in the rocking cradle of the merchant’s cart.

Something else lives between us now.

Something inevitable.

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