Page 32 of Bound to the Marak

Safe.

That’s what he’d said.

"You are safe now. I give you my word."

She wanted to believe him. Desperately.

Because it would be easier to accept this place—this opulence, this captivity—if she could believe she wasn’t in danger. That her captor wasn’t also her protector. That she could trust him. Even if only a little.

He hadn’t hurt her. Not once. He had kept his distance. He hadn’t punished her for her anger, nor mocked her for her fear. And when he’d removed his mask, she had felt... chosen. As though he had offered her something sacred.

His face.

His trust.

That had meant something. Hadn’t it?

And still, she couldn’t forget the power in his body. In the sleek precision of his movements. In the way his tentacles had shifted around him like silent weapons. He had returned from battle still humming with violence—she could feel it in him, held barely in check.

And yet he had stood before her... vulnerable.

The duality unsettled her.

She lay back slowly, curling her knees toward her chest on the too-soft bed. The room’s lights dimmed in gentle pulses, casting shifting shadows across the smooth, curved walls. The ceiling above shimmered faintly like a dome of water, and she stared up at it, feeling smaller than she’d ever felt in her life.

“I have to stay sharp,” she whispered aloud, voice hoarse.

Because she didn’t know what he really wanted from her.

Because she didn’t know how long her resolve would last.

Because even now, what frightened her more than anything was this simple, haunting truth:

She wasn’t sure she wanted to run.

And that made her feel less like a captive… and more like something dangerous was waking up inside her.

Something she wasn’t ready to face.

Eighteen

The landing had been a blur.

Leonie barely remembered the descent—only flashes of strange sounds and the shuddering of the ship’s bones. She’d been released from the restraints by then, but her limbs had remained frozen, her mind too full of what had just passed between them—Karian’s face, his voice, the feel of his hand brushing her skin.

After that, there had been movement. Doors opening. The hush of corridors. She hadn’t known they were landing until the gravity shifted and her stomach gave that sickening lurch. The ship had touched down without a sound.

And then the doors opened to reveal a different world entirely.

Night on Luxar was like stepping into a dream.

She hadn’t known what to expect—red skies, black oceans, jagged cliffs lit by twin suns. But this... this was something else entirely. The air was cool and crisp, laced with salt, and it wrapped around her like silk. The sky above was impossibly vast, a velvet canvas scattered with thousands of stars, more than she'd ever seen in London. Two moons hung above the horizon—one silver and brilliant, the other a pale, ghostly blue.

And all of it was silent. Majestic. Unnerving.

She walked slowly beside Karian down the ramp of the Velthra. The ship still pulsed faintly beneath her slippered feet, as though breathing out the last of its journey. The cool metal hummed in her bones.

Karian didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

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