Page 5 of The Bound Blood
Tamsin snorts. “Good. You shouldn’t. He’s a demon prince; they aren't really known for their trustworthiness.”
“But he helped us. When it counted.”
“Even monsters have soft spots,” she says, quieter now. “Doesn’t mean they won’t still bite.”
I glance back toward Lindsay.
The bed she lies on is surrounded by softly humming runes, etched into the floor and stone like protective barriers. Her blanket is twisted from where she must’ve thrashed before this stillness took over, and the pillow beneath her looks like it’s been replaced at least once.
Beyond her, a healer moves slowly between the beds of other injured students, adjusting a glowing orb that’s keeping the room warm despite the chill creeping in through the stone walls. The scent of healing salves and copper hangs thick in the air, laced with something sourer—burned magic that hasn’t fully cleared.
If Kael has a soft spot, it’s probably Lindsay.
It’s not like I haven’t seen it—the way he watched her before she even noticed him at the revel, standing in the shadows of the courtyard. I might not trust him to havemyback…
But I could probably trust him withher.
“You’re thinking too loudly. You can’t save anyone if you don’t heal up,” Tamsin says, crossing her legs and leaning back in her chair. “So lay back and rest.”
THREE
RAIDEN
The world dripsin shadows and static.
For a moment, I’m nowhere. Nothing. Just flickers of sound and light andpain—pain that crawls along my spine like fire laced with gasoline, burning into my skin. My ears twitch, catching the soft hum of rune wards and distant footsteps. My claws curl against thin fabric beneath me.
Not a dream. But close.
My tails shift first, all six of them, sluggish and too heavy, twitching as though trying to shake the excess magic off. The tips still spark with latent electricity, crackling faintly in the silence.
My limbs ache. My bones feel like they’ve been snapped and poorly reassembled. The shift back to human form is already pulling at me, dragging me toward the surface whether I’m ready or not.
I groan as the transformation hits.
Everything burns. The bones in my fingersshatterand reform, fur drawing back into skin, tails flickering out with jolts of electric recoil. My chest heaves with the effort, breath scraping up through my raw throat. It feels like I’m dying. It hasn’t felt this bad since my first shift.
When I open my eyes, the world is dim—washed in the blue glow of ward light. Night clings to the infirmary like fog, thick and unmoving. Beds line the walls, curtains drawn, shadows stretching long across the stone floor. Pain, fear, and trauma settles in the quiet.
But it’s the figure at my bedside that pulls me fully awake.
Tall. Severe. Dressed in ceremonial black with kitsune crests stitched in silver along the collar. His presence presses down like a blade at my throat.
Father.
“You’ve made a mess,” he says, voice low and precise.
I blink slowly, my vision still warping at the edges. My throat is dry. My body won’t stop shaking from the shift. “What?—?”
“You put yourself into the middle of this one. The tether, the Veilbind.” He says it like a curse. “Youwillsever it. You will stay away from that girl. Like you should have done already.”
It takes a second for the words to absorb through the pain still running through my body.
Lindsay.
My pulse stumbles.
He wants me to sever our bond. If he demanded it in the beginning, I would have in a heartbeat. It was forced on me. The school said it hadchosenme. That she needed someone strong enough to handle her magic, and I was it. I didn’t get a vote. No one asked what I wanted.
