Page 5 of Bound to the Dreadlord

What is she? I only know one thing with absolute certainty.

She is mine.

"You will not return to the pens," I tell her, and her brows draw together in brief confusion before realization dawns.

I am not sending her back.

I am claiming her.

I let my finger trail from her chin down the curve of her throat, feeling her pulse hammer wildly beneath my touch.

"From this moment forward," I say, my voice smooth, implacable, "you belong to me."

Her breath stutters.

I smile.

The fear in her eyes only makes me want her more.

3

SERA

The chains bite into my wrists, cold metal grinding against raw skin, but I do not dare shift. Any movement might be perceived as defiance, and I don’t know yet if defiance is something that will get me killed.

The dark elves who dragged me here don’t speak as they march me forward, their armored boots clicking in rhythmic precision against polished stone. The corridor is endless, stretching into a vast hall so immense that the very walls seem to exhale shadow. Black marble gleams under the flickering light of hundreds of torches, their flames casting elongated, twisting reflections on the glossy floors.

They’re leading me somewhere else. A change of settings outside the Dreadlord’s war chambers.

A hundred silver eyes presses against me, the cruelly elegant nobles of House Drazharel watching from raised platforms that encircle the room like a theater built for bloodshed. Some observe with idle interest, others with the sharp-edged smirks of creatures who have long since forgotten what it means to fear.

I am the spectacle tonight.

At the farthest end of the throne hall, seated upon an obsidian seat carved with writhing serpents and jagged runes of power, waits thethingthat now owns me.

Veylan Drazharel.

The Dreadlord.

His presence makes my skin crawl before my eyes even reach him. He is avoidin the center of all this grandeur, a figure draped in crimson and shadow, his lean frame exuding the kind of quiet, effortless power that makes the air itself feel heavier. His silver eyes—too pale, tooinhuman—fix on me the moment I am dragged forward, and I feel their weight like iron shackles.

No emotion. No interest. Justcalculation.

I swallow hard, my throat dry, my heart hammering so violently against my body that I wonder if he can hear it.

They force me onto my knees before him, my shackles clattering against the cold marble; followed by a silence that is thick enough to smother.

He does not speak at first.

He watches.

Long enough for the silence to stretch unbearably, long enough that my muscles begin to ache from how still I am holding myself.

"How long have you known?"

His voice is smooth, controlled, but there is an undercurrent beneath it—something dangerous lurking beneath the surface.

I lift my head just enough to meet his gaze. If it is bravery or stupidity that makes me do so, I don’t have any idea.

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