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SERA

T he chamber door clicks shut behind me.

Veylan does not speak.

Neither do I.

The fire in the hearth flickers, casting shadows against the black stone walls, against the silken sheets that still carry the ghosts of what happened between us.

But this silence? This is something else.

Not tension. Not control.

This is hesitation.

And Veylan Drazharel does not hesitate.

I turn to face him, expecting cruelty, distance, punishment.

He gives me none of those things.

Instead, he watches me.

His silver eyes drag over me, dark, unreadable. Studying. Calculating.

Like a warlord who just took the battlefield and is trying to decide whether to burn it to the ground or claim it as his own.

My pulse trembles.

I don’t let it show.

Instead, I take a slow step forward, testing.

“You didn’t kill me.”

His jaw tightens. The smallest reaction.

But he does not answer.

I push harder. “Why?”

Nothing.

Another step.

“Why am I still here?”

Still, nothing.

The silence stretches, too heavy, too much.

It’s suffocating.

And I refuse to suffocate.

"Why are you keeping me here?" My voice is low, sharp, a dagger unsheathed.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away.

“I told you.” His voice is calm, but there is something dangerous beneath it. “You belong to me.”

The words should be easy, effortless.

They aren’t.

Something shifts.

A crack. A hesitation.

He hesitated again.

And that? That is what terrifies me the most.

“That’s not an answer,” I say.

His lips press into a thin line.

I step closer, tilting my chin.

“I think you don’t know what to do with me.”

His gaze sharpens.

Good.

I want him angry.

I want him ruthless.

I want proof that what happened last night was nothing more than control.

Nothing more than power.

So I do the reckless thing.

The stupid thing.

I reach for the dagger.

The one he gave me.

The one that should have meant nothing.

His gaze locks onto my movements as I wrap my fingers around the hilt.

A test.

A challenge.

A game I still don’t fully understand how to play.

I take his hand. Lift his fingers.

And place the dagger in his palm.

The steel glints between us. A whisper of violence.

“If I belong to you,” I murmur, voice steady, “then do it.”

His fingers tighten around the handle.

The blade does not tremble.

I press forward, just enough to make it dig into the skin at my throat.

I feel it.

The cold kiss of steel.

The promise of what he should do.

What he has done to so many before me.

“Say it,” I whisper. “Say you want me dead.”

His grip tightens.

The breath leaves my lungs, chest rising, falling—waiting.

Daring.

Veylan hesitates, his eyes narrowing as he gazes at me.

The knife does not move.

His body does not move.

Only his breathing shifts, just slightly. A single breath too slow.

His silver eyes burn into me.

Not with fury.

Not with hate.

Something worse.

I hold my breath.

The blade moves.

Slowly.

Not to cut.

Just enough to remind me that he could.

That he still holds the power here.

That he still owns me.

But then he lowers it.

Lowers the blade.

Lowers the threat.

And I hate that my stomach twists.

I hate that some part of me wanted him to press just a little harder.

To finish it.

To make it stop.

But instead, he does something far, far worse.

He leans in.

Close. Too close.

His lips hover at my ear.

“Don’t challenge me.” His voice is a ghost, a growl, a dark thing crawling against my skin.

“I will break you, little siren.”

A shiver races down my spine.

He steps back, breaking the moment.

And I let him.

If he doesn’t, I might.

My breath comes too fast.

My hands shake.

But when I glance down, I realize something.

He left the dagger in my hands.

I hope there never comes a time that I will use this myself.