Page 150 of Bound to the Dreadlord

She doesn’t vanish.

My throat tightens as I take another step forward. The echo of my boots sounds too loud, too real.

She turns.

And the second her eyes meet mine, I know—this isn’t a dream.

It’s her.

Sera.

She stands in the ruins of what used to be my father’s throne room, where the banners of House Drazharel once hung in victory, where the war still lingers in the broken stone and bloodstained floors.

She looks different.

Stronger.

The way she holds herself—shoulders squared, chin lifted, fire flickering beneath her skin like an untamed beast—tells me she is no longer a girl trying to survive.

She has become something else entirely.

She is no longer prey.

And yet, when her gaze finds mine, I see it—the wound I left in her, the betrayal carved deep.

That has not changed. I have not changed.

I crave to touch her, ache for it. I could. My body urges me to.

Every part of me wants to reach for her, pull her against me, prove to myself that she is real.

But I don’t. I let her choose.

For once, I do not take.

I do not demand. I do not tell her to come to me.

She has had enough of being told what to do. Enough of being used.

So I stand there, unmoving, waiting for whatever judgment she will give me.

I deserve it.

Sera steps forward, and I brace myself for her fury. For the slap across my face. For the scream that will echo through the ruins.

But it does not come.

Instead, she stops just before me. Close enough that I could reach out if I dared, but far enough that she is still untouchable.

She stares at me and I am rendered speechless. Words can’t articulate the things I want to say.

I was prepared for her rage.

But this quiet, aching silence that drowns me whole—this is worse.

She still looks at me the same. Like I am the only thing that ever truly hurt her. Like I am still the wound that never closed.

And yet—she came back. She’s here, despite it all.

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