Page 61 of Bound to the Dorm Elf
The words land like a gauntlet thrown in my face.
We stare each other down, the past crowding in from every angle — the endless drills, the cold assessments, the lessons beaten into me with sword and fist. I was forged to be his weapon, his extension. And I broke.
“You’ll have to kill me first,” I say.
He studies me for a long, terrible moment. Then he laughs — low, humorless. “Not yet. That would be… wasteful.”
He turns away like the conversation is already over, like I’m already his again. His warriors pivot with mechanical precision, the whole column beginning to march back toward the portal’s burning edge.
But just before the light swallows him, he looks over his shoulder. “You have one cycle, Rovax’thar. One. Then you will come to me — or I will come for you.”
The rift’s magic surges, rattling the air in my lungs, and then the sky stitches itself closed, leaving only the echo of his voice in my head and the faint scorch marks where they stood.
My hands are still curled into fists when Skylar reaches me. Her breath is quick, her eyes wide, but she doesn’t speak right away. She knows — from my face, from the way I can’t stop staring at the place where the portal was — that this wasn’t just an enemy.
It was my father.
And now, he knows exactly where I am.
The night is still ringing from the sound of his voice when I realize what’s about to happen.
The air between us is no longer just cold—it’s vibrating, humming with the kind of raw, dangerous magic that makes the fine hairs on my arms stand on end. His power coils in the space like a living thing, thick and suffocating, pressing at my ribs like it’s trying to get inside me.
We’ve been moving toward this moment for years. Not here, not on this ridiculous, fragile world—but in every sparring match that turned into a brawl, every public humiliation meant to keep me in my place, every quiet word of defiance I refused to swallow. This duel started long before the first stone of this campus was laid.
He knows it too. I can see it in the way his lips curl, slow and predatory.
He’s already picturing my defeat.
“Skylar,” I say, without taking my eyes off him. My voice is sharper than I intend, almost a growl. “Run.”
Her head snaps toward me, hair whipping in the icy wind. “What? No.”
The warriors behind him shift, their armor clinking like distant thunder. The sound echoes in my bones. I grit my teeth. “I’m not asking. You have to get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she fires back, stepping closer instead of away. Her breath fogs between us, mixing with mine, stubborn heat in her eyes. “You think I’m going to just run off while you facethatalone?” She jerks her chin toward my father like the word “monster” is sitting on her tongue.
The magic between us flares, and I can feel him watching this exchange with detached amusement, the way a predator might watch two smaller animals squabble before pouncing.
“This isn’t your fight,” I snap, trying to push her back with nothing more than my tone. My hands are itching for my blade, but I don’t dare look away from him to reach for it.
Her jaw tightens. “If he’s here for you, then it’s already my fight.”
I want to argue, to make her see the difference between the skirmishes we’ve danced around on this planet and the kind of war my father carries in his veins. But I know the truth—she won’t move. And even if she would, a part of me… doesn’t want her to.
I hate that thought. I hate that my father can probablyseethat thought in me.
His laughter is low, rolling over the clearing like smoke. “Your pet has spirit,” he says, the words dripping with condescension. “Will you let her die for you, Rovax’thar? Or will you finally remember where your loyalties lie?”
I draw myself up, letting the glamour over my skin thin just enough for the black to seep through, for the faint glow to spark in my eyes. “My loyalties are my own.”
Something in his expression hardens, the amusement freezing into disdain. His hand flexes at his side, and I feel the magic shift—dense, metallic, tasting like blood before it’s even drawn.
“Skylar,” I say again, quieter this time but no less urgent. “If you stay, I can’t hold back.”
Her chin lifts. “Then don’t.”
And that’s it. The last tether snaps.
