Page 1 of Bound to the Marak

One

Leonie stared up at the sky, her breath catching in her throat. It was the kind of dusk that made the world feel hollow—clouds thick and low, painted the color of old bruises, tinged with the last dying embers of sunlight. The horizon burned faint orange, but the rest of the world was sinking into steel grey.

A damp wind slid across the field, curling through the tall grass like cold fingers brushing her skin. She tugged her jacket tighter and gave the leash a soft pull.

“Come on, Alfie. It’s getting late.”

Alfie, her white Maltese Terrier, was nose-deep in a clump of flattened grass, tail wagging lazily. He was always stubborn at the worst moments. She tried again—firmer this time—and he finally relented, trotting up beside her with a soft huff. His ears twitched at the rising wind.

They walked together along the path that edged the field, a line of trees ahead silhouetted like jagged sentinels. The grass rustled louder now, hissing in waves. Leonie glanced up again, a strange unease unfurling in her chest.

There was somethingwrongwith the sky.

The air had gone strange. Thicker. Charged. Her skin prickled with static, as if the world was holding its breath.

And then?—

The heavens cracked open.

A bolt of white light tore across the sky with no warning, no thunderclap—just an explosion of brilliance so bright it burned into her retinas. She stumbled, throwing an arm over her eyes. Alfie barked, frantic, yanking against the leash.

The hum followed.

It wasn’t sound—it was sensation. A low, vibrating pressure that drilled into her bones, into her skull, like her body was being shaken apart from the inside. The leash slipped from her fingers.

“Alfie!” she cried, turning—just in time to see him backing away, tail between his legs, barking at the air.

Then everythingtwisted.

Reality tore at the seams. The field warped—stretching, bending, spinning in on itself. Her knees buckled. The ground fell away. Her scream died before it could leave her throat.

She was weightless. Untethered.

Her body floated in a sea of blinding white, every atom buzzing. Her senses blurred. Sight bled into sound. Gravity ceased to exist. There was only that terriblehum, and the feeling that something massive and merciless was watching her.

And then?—

Black.

* * *

She awoke to cold.

An aching, nauseating cold that settled in her bones and made her teeth clench.

Her head throbbed. Her mouth was dry. She tried to move, but her limbs felt slow, disconnected. Her cheek was pressed to a coarse, gritty surface—cool and unfamiliar, like damp concrete left too long in the dark.

She forced herself upright with a groan. The motion made her vision blur.

"Alfie?"

The word cracked from her throat, barely more than a whisper.

Silence.

She blinked, trying to see. The light was dim, cast from blue panels that glowed faintly from the corners of a curved ceiling. Metal? She couldn't tell. The room—or chamber—was vast, too smooth and seamless to be man-made.

And she was in acage.

---