BOUND TO THE VAMPIRE CROWN

CHAPTER 3: BREATH FROM THE UNDERWORLD

The carriage wheels slammed against the frozen mud, the violent jolt sending a sharp spike of agony straight up my arms.

I was slumped on the wooden floorboards in the corner of the dark, enclosed wagon, my hands bound tight with heavy iron chains. The black, poisoned veins from the resurrection spell still throbbed beneath my skin, a constant, low burning that made my fingers twitch uncontrollably. Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass.

Across from me, Leo sat jammed against the wooden wall, his knees pulled tightly to his chest. His tunic was torn, stained with our mother’s blood, and his face was completely pale as he stared out the small, barred window of the carriage.

“They are burning everything, Lyra,” Leo whispered, his voice cracking as he looked out into the night. “The smoke is covering the entire valley. I can see the ancestral trees catching fire from here.”

“Don't look at it, Leo,” I rasped, my throat raw and coated with the metallic taste of dried blood. I leaned my head back against the rough wood, trying to stop the spinning in my mind. “Close your eyes. Look at me.”

“How can I close my eyes when mother is lying back there in the dirt?” Leo snapped suddenly, his terror turning into a desperate, jagged anger. He turned his head to glare at me, tears cutting clear lines through the ash on his cheeks. “We left her, Lyra! We left the elders! We are riding into the northern territory with the monsters who slaughtered our entire family, and you are telling me to just close my eyes?”

“I did it to keep the blade off your throat!” I hissed back, the black lines in my neck flaring with a sudden heat as my anger flared. “If I didn’t start that incantation, Julian would have severed your head right in front of me! Do you think I wanted to open that vault? Do you think I wanted to bind my soul to a tyrant?”

The heavy wooden door of the carriage suddenly slid open with a loud, scraping screech.

The cold northern wind rushed into the cramped space, making Leo gasp and shrink back into the corner. Julian stood there on the mounting block, the dark fur collar of his traveling cloak dusted with the first flakes of snow. He looked down at us, his expression completely restored to its usual cold, flawless mask.

“Get out,” Julian commanded flatly. “We have reached the border checkpoint, and Valerius wants the girl brought to his mount. Moving her by wagon slowing down our pace, and the blood-anchor needs to be verified before midnight.”

“She can barely stand up, Julian!” Leo yelled, stepping in front of me as if his small, human frame could actually block a centuries-old vampire. “Her arms are literally turning black from your twisted magic! If you force her onto a horse right now, she will fall off and die!”

Julian didn't even blink. He reached out, grabbed Leo by the front of his collar, and casually yanked him out of the carriage, throwing him onto the snowy ground outside. Leo cried out as he hit the hard earth, rolling into the slush.

“Leo!” I screamed, dragging my useless legs forward, the iron chains clanking loudly against the floorboards as I tumbled out of the wagon opening, landing heavily on my knees in the freezing mud right next to my brother.

Julian stepped down, his expensive leather boots sinking slightly into the snow. He looked down at me, entirely indifferent to my pain.

“Your brother needs to learn his place very quickly if he intends to survive the week, Lyra,” Julian said, his voice quiet but carrying a sharp edge. “He is a servant now. In the northern citadel, a servant who raises his voice to a crown prince is fed to the vanguard hounds before the sun sets. Do not let his stupidity shorten his life.”

“He is a child!” I spat, pushing myself up using the carriage wheel, my breath coming in ragged, freezing gasps. “You took our home, you took our coven, and you took my mother’s life. Do not lecture me about his survival when you are the only threat to it.”

“I am the reason he is still breathing,” Julian corrected sharply, his jaw tightening slightly as he took a step closer, his eyes locking onto the black lines tracking up my throat. “The spell is warping again. Your pulse is erratic. Valerius can feel the instability from the front of the vanguard line, and he is losing his patience.”

“Good,” I choked out, a bitter, bloody smile crossing my lips. “Let him feel it. Let him worry about going back into the dark.”

A low, dark chuckle echoed from behind Julian.

The vampire guards instantly dropped to their knees, bowing their heads into the snow. Valerius strode through the darkness, his long crimson cloak catching the wind like a sheet of fresh blood. He didn't look tired from the ride; his eyes were a vibrant, terrifying red in the dark, and his presence alone made the air feel too heavy to breathe.

“She has teeth, Julian,” Valerius murmured, stopping right in front of me. He reached down, his ice-cold fingers wrapping tightly around my throat, forcing my head back until I was looking directly into his crimson eyes. “But a weapon that bites its owner is quickly dismantled. Tell me, witch, is your heart slowing down because you are truly suicidal, or are you just testing the limits of my temper?”

“The bond... is heavy,” I managed to squeeze out through my restricted airway, my hands gripping the chains at my waist. “Your shadow... is pulling too hard on my life force.”

Valerius’s eyes narrowed. He kept his grip tight on my neck, but his other hand reached out, his thumb pressing hard against the pulse point on my wrist where I had slit Julian’s flesh. The moment his skin touched the wound, a violent surge of dark magic tore through my body, making me scream out in agony. It felt like my blood was turning into liquid ice, freezing my internal organs from the inside out.

“Stop it! You’re killing her!” Leo screamed, trying to rush forward from the mud, but Julian instantly stepped in his path, placing a heavy boot squarely on Leo’s chest and pinning him to the ground without looking down.

“She is not dying,” Valerius stated coldly, releasing his grip on my throat and letting me collapse into the slush, gasping for air. He looked down at his own palm, where a faint violet spark of my coven’s magic was swirling before dissolving into his skin. “The anchor is simply rejecting the foreign nature of my blood. She needs a stabilizer to bind the spell completely.”

“What kind of stabilizer?” Julian asked, his voice tight with caution as he kept Leo pinned under his boot.

“A blood-lock,” Valerius replied, a cruel, elegant smile stretching across his pale face. He looked down at me, his eyes gleaming with absolute malice. “She will drink from me tonight, Julian. Once my blood is inside her veins, the anchor will be forced to accept my resurrection permanently. She won't be able to stop her own heart even if she tries, because her pulse will belong to me.”

“No,” I whispered, horror striking through my chest, cutting through the physical pain. “I will never drink from a monster. I will starve myself before I let your filth into my body.”

Valerius tilted his head, his gaze shifting slowly from me down to Leo, who was struggling weakly under Julian’s boot.

“You will drink, Lyra,” Valerius said softly, his voice dropping to a dangerous, purring whisper that made my blood run cold. “You will open your mouth and swallow every drop, or I will have Julian snap your brother’s legs right here in the snow, and we will see how loud your coven’s pride is then.”