Page 88 of Bound to the Dreadlord

They feel it.

My brothers smell it.

Maelrik smirks, lazy and sharp.

"Gone soft, have you?"

Vaedros exhales a laugh, sipping his wine."Imagine that. The Dreadlord, brought to his knees by a human."

Drathis says nothing, but his gaze is knowing. Too knowing.

Xalith, the brute, watches me with something like hunger. A wolf waiting for weakness to bleed.

"He won’t do it,"Xalith murmurs.

"Perhaps he cannot,"Maelrik muses.

Vaedros hums."Perhaps he does not want to."

The amusement is a knife against my patience.

Hazeran watches. Measuring.

Xalith steps forward, rolling his shoulders, flexing his fingers."I say we test him."

He doesn’t ask for permission.

He just lunges.

The fight is instant. Brutal.

Xalith doesn’t hold back. Neither do I.

The moment his blade swings, I meet it with my own. Steel shrieks against steel.

The world narrows. The voices fade.

Nothing exists but the fight.

Xalith is bigger, but I am faster.

He moves like a hammer, striking hard, relentless. I move like a storm, precise, unyielding.

His blade cuts too close. I turn. The steel misses by an inch.

I slam my elbow into his ribs. He grunts, staggers back, grinning.

"That all you have, brother?"

I don’t answer. I strike.

My blade finds his shoulder. Blood splashes the sand.

He snarls, retaliating.

I duck. My fist collides with his jaw.

He stumbles. Spits blood. Laughs.

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