Page 24 of Bound to the Dreadlord

Veylan cannot know.

Whatever is waking inside me, whatever I am—it is dangerous.

If he realizes it, I will never leave this place alive.

12

VEYLAN

The war chamber hums with the low crackle of burning oil lamps, the dim light casting jagged shadows across the map-strewn table. The stench of blood and steel lingers, remnants of the last execution still clinging to the stones.

My brothers stand in a loose circle around the table, their presence coiled with unspoken tension. Not one of us trusts the others.

And our father?

Hazeran Drazharel watches us like wolves on a leash, waiting to see which one of us will snap first.

He reclines, long fingers curled over the carved arms of his chair, his silver eyes glittering with something sharp, something cold. The golden sigils carved into his obsidian skin shimmer beneath the dim torchlight, remnants of old power—dark, unyielding, permanent.

His gaze settles on me.

"You killed a noble in my hall." His voice is silk over a blade, amusement curling through the edges, but I hear the weight beneath it. A test. A warning.

I do not flinch.

"He forgot his place."

Suffocating silence follows the statement.

Maelrik, the second-born, leans against the far wall, arms folded, smirking like a man who thinks he will one day sit in my place. His crimson hair falls over one shoulder in thick braids, his skin marred with ritual scars—offerings to the blood magic he worships.

"Since when do you care what the lesser nobles say?" he muses, tilting his head. "It was just a human girl, wasn’t it?"

A flicker of something vile rises in me, too fast, too violent, too telling.

I do not let it show.

Vaedros, the third-born, chuckles from across the room, lounging in his chair as though this conversation amuses him more than it should.

"Not just any human," he murmurs, his voice smooth, calculating. "The one you’ve hidden away in your chambers, locked behind doors even our spies cannot breach."

The room shifts, their gazes pressing as if they’re waiting for me to surrender.

The tension coils deeper.

I roll my shoulders, slow, deliberate, reminding them who leads this house.

"She is nothing," I say flatly. "A pet. A curiosity."

Hazeran exhales, a mockery of patience.

"Is she?"

I meet his gaze and I feel it.

The probing of his mind. The way he does not need magic to strip me bare, to sift through my weaknesses and find the thing I do not want him to see.

He has always been like this. Peeling us open with nothing but silence, waiting to see what bleeds first.

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