Page 19 of Bound to the Dreadlord

My stomach clenches. I did that.

I do not stay to watch.

I run.

The world is a blur of black and silver, of moonlight cutting through towering stone, of wind biting at my skin as I race toward the open gate. The night stretches ahead, endless, a whisper of freedom calling me forward…

A hand closes around my throat.

My body slams backward, the impact brutal, my breath vanishing in a single violent crush of power.

The world tilts, the sky shifts, and then?—

I am pinned against a pillar, trapped, a force so much stronger than me pressing against my chest, crushing the air from my lungs.

Then I see him.

Veylan.

His silver eyes gleam in the darkness, the eerie glow of the torches licking across the sharp angles of his face. The griparound my throat is unyielding, his fingers curling, pressing, his control absolute.

But that is not what makes the fear slice through me.

It is his rage.

The quiet, simmering kind—it doesn’t explode but burns slow, like a dagger sliding between ribs.

He is furious.

Not just at my escape.

At something else.

Something worse.

"You used it," he murmurs, voice smooth, measured—lethal.

My vision blurs, my pulse hammering against his hold, but he does not let go.

"You sang for them," he continues, tilting his head as if examining something disgusting beneath his grasp. "Not for me."

The words sink in and I realize this is not about the escape.

This is about him.

My stomach clenches, my fingers curling against his wrist, desperate for air, but he only tightens his hold, dragging me forward until his breath ghosts against my lips.

"Sing for me."

The command is silk-wrapped steel, dangerous in its softness.

I shake my head, the movement barely more than a tremor.

A flicker of something passes through his gaze. He leans in closer, and the heat of him is unbearable, wrong, suffocating in a way that has nothing to do with his grip.

"You belong to me," he murmurs.

The words scrape against something raw inside me.

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