POV: Draven Valehure
The council’s voices still echo in my head, sharp and accusing, chasing me down the corridor like hounds on a scent.
“Kill her. She’s evil.”
“She’s a Blackmoor. She’s cursed.”
“She’s bewitched you. You’re under her spell.”
One moment, I’m staring down Lucien’s smug face; the next, my hands are trembling with the urge to break his jaw.
Every muscle in me felt wound too tight. I felt rage and confusion, an old and dangerous mix.
But it wasn’t Lucien’s words that haunted me most. It was hers.
Miss X’s face, pale and the fire in her eyes, when she said she would have killed my father if he’d been alive. She had felt no remorse. I knew she had meant it.
And somehow, I couldn’t hate her for it. My father deserved it. He had destroyed a whole family just for hi
