Page 51 of Bound to the Marak

Silence stretched between them like drawn wire.

“Before,” he said, “when I first brought you here, I asked you what you needed to be happy. You never answered me.”

“I didn’t know what to say,” Leonie replied. “I still don’t.”

He said nothing.

“But there’s one thing Idoknow I need.”

His jaw tightened.

“Tell me. I will do anything for you.”

She hesitated—then stepped forward, spine straight, voice steady. “When I was abducted from Earth—by the green aliens?—”

“The Dukkar,” he interrupted, his voice sharp, his eyes narrowing.

She nodded. “They took me without permission. Hurt me. Threw me into a cage. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I left behind my whole life. My world. And… my dog. His name is Alfie.”

His expression changed. For a moment, the facade cracked, and she saw something raw behind it. Rage. Pain.

“I didn’t know,” he said, voice low and dangerous.

“I didn’t think you did.”

The glow of the Inner Sanctum’s walls cast blue shadows across his face. The glowing markings on his skin, usually dim, flickered faintly with emotion.

“Where is he now?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “But if there’s any chance… if there’sanyway… I want him back.”

Karian’s eyes burned. “The Dukkar will answer for what they did to you. That I promise.”

“I don’t want revenge,” Leonie said. “I wantAlfie.”

He stepped toward her, towering, cloaked in power. And yet, when he reached her, he knelt—lowering his head in a gesture she didn’t understand.

“I will find him,” Karian said. “Your Alfie. I swear it by the blood of my kind.”

Leonie swallowed hard. The heat in her chest curled with something else now—something soft. Something dangerous.

Hope.

Thirty-Five

The chamber was quiet, save for the hum of distant water flowing through the living walls.

Karian stood motionless at the edge of his sanctum, the words she'd spoken still echoing inside him.

I want Alfie.

Such a simple request. Such a human request.

He should have anticipated it. He should have asked. Instead, he'd brought her here, wrapped her in silks and pleasure, as if those things could undo the trauma of being torn from everything she’d known. It shamed him. Not because she accused him, but because she hadn’t. She had merely asked—without fury, without threat.

She is not Majarin,he reminded himself.She is human. And she belonged to a world.

And yet, he had taken her.

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