Page 75 of Claimed In Darkness

That’s when everything is taken away.

That’s exactly what’s about to happen.

26

ZEPHIRAN

The moment the vault doors slam open, the space fractures.

A blast of magic surges through the air, raw and unrelenting, tearing through my veins like a goddamn branding iron.

It hammers into my chest, sinking claws deep, dragging me under.

My father’s spellwork clings to my skin like a second layer of flesh, suffocating, inescapable. I feel him.

His amusement.

His victory.

His fucking ownership.

I know, without a doubt—he planned this.

Naira moves before I do.

Her dagger flashes in the torchlight, stance shifting as she spins toward the entrance, instinct kicking in before thought.

She thinks the guards will storm in.

She expects a fight.

She doesn’t expect the shadows to move on their own.

The atmosphere thickens with evil, the darkness pulling inward, curling like ink through water, silent, unnatural.

The smell of charred magic and rotting silk floods my senses.

My pulse throbs.

I know that scent.

I have smelled it before.

On my father’s hands. On the stones of his throne room.

On the altar where he first bound me to this curse.

The realization is a sword to the gut.

I don’t have time to react before the shadows lunge.

They lash out like living things, wrapping around my limbs, dragging me backward, forcing me to my knees.

A searing spark of agony erupts through my body, my spine bowing under the sudden, unnatural weight.

That’s when I hear it again—his voice.

A whisper, curling from the shadows, thick with mockery and something worse.

---