Page 185 of Bound By Crimson

Her eyes stung.

“I wanted better for you. I thought I was giving you something beautiful. I thought… I thought he was giving me something real.”

She closed her eyes, swallowing back the bile that rose in her throat.

Malachai.

The name still made her chest ache.

She didn’t know what was real and what was manipulation anymore. She still saw the way he looked at her. The way he touched her like she was fragile and worshiped. Like he loved her.

She had wanted to believe it.

Neededto believe it.

And now?

Now she didn’t even know who she was anymore.

But one thing hadn’t changed.

She was Noah’s mother.

And he didn’t deserve to starve just because she was broken.

Lyric rolled over slowly, pushed herself upright with trembling arms, and reached for the tray.

Tears slid silently down her cheeks as she brought the spoon to her mouth.

“They took everything from me,” she whispered, hand trembling over her belly. “But not you. I won’t let them take you.”

She held onto that thought like a lifeline, rocking herself gently, whispering promises to her son as the night pressed in tighter around them.

She wasn’t giving up.

She was still here—and she was going to fight.

She pressed her hand to her stomach, her voice fierce and breaking all at once:

“I swear… I’ll never let them take you.”

Chapter Sixty-Eight

No One Is Coming

She wasn’t sure how many days had passed.

Time had blurred into one long stretch of silence and sameness. The meals arrived in silence, brought by the same woman with the blank face and tighter bun—Tessa.

Charles stood behind her every time, silent and unmoving, his broad frame a constant reminder that escape was pointless.

Always the same tray. Always the same rhythm.

Eat. Rest. Sleep.

And through it all, Lyric waited.

At first, she waited for Kai.