Page 13 of Shadebound (Dark Fantasy #1)

A s we headed back up in the lift, the cuffs dug into my flesh.

Each steel prong embedded like a miniature stake.

The magic in them hadn’t fully settled since the fight.

My skin had begun to adapt around the cuff, the searing pain receding to a steady buzz.

I figured within minutes the burn would fade entirely unless I tugged at the prongs again.

Still, I hated the numbness in my veins.

Hated how I was more human than I ever had been.

And that the bastard thing had left me adrift without my creatures at full capacity.

I really was going to kill Hightower one day. Softly, gently—just to hear her pretty screams ring through these stone halls like a twisted lullaby.

I’d show the bitch what it was like to lose her magic.

“Alpha!” A chirpy voice pulled me out of my murder thoughts and into the start of a headache. “Are you coming to celebrate our victory in my dorm? Tyler managed to steal a bottle of rum from one of the younger students.”

I looked up, finding the dark-haired girl from before. She was taller than me by a few inches and looked lethally graceful with her posture. Not wanting to be a stereotypical bitch just because she was pretty and clearly familiar with Zayden, I offered my best version of a friendly wave.

She did not respond. Perhaps it was because she was too busy staring at Zayden.

“Jinx,” he smiled at me instead of responding to her, “This is Saphira. She’s an unofficial member of the pack. She’s a panther shifter, but she’s not so bad.”

“Hello.” I deadpanned. Forgoing the pointless formalities that people normally wanted, to the girl who could turn into a panther at will.

She looked me up and down, golden eyes narrowing. Her sharp stare lingered on my curves, and the places of my body that were soft where she was toned and slender. My throat got tighter at the way she smirked when she finished sizing me up.

A broad smile lit up her face a second later, but all I could hear was my sister’s warning in my head when she talked about the girls at our old school who’d pretended not to be rotten on the inside.

“Hi. Your shirt is so... interesting. I wish I had the confidence to wear something like that.” Saphira forced the barbed words out before she placed her hand on Zayden’s arm, black pointy nails slightly digging in.

“So the party—are you coming? I really hope you do. I always love it when you come to my parties. We have the best fun.”

He shook his head, shrugging out of her touch as the lift arrived, and he waved me and Draven into it before stepping in himself.

“I’m busy. But I’m sure we can come to the next one.” Her smile dropped as Zayden replied. “Have a nice night though!”

The doors shut in her face as my brother turned to me, signing a very inappropriate word about the shifter girl that I pretended not to want to laugh at.

I was trying not to be a cliché. Just because she was a pretty woman who may or may not have been interested in Zayden didn’t mean I had to hate her automatically and be rude.

I’d wait until she gave me a dirty look or backhanded compliment again before I gouged her eyeballs out with a spoon. It seemed only fair.

After thirty cringe-worthy seconds—one foot from a man I’d last seen naked and my oblivious little brother—we finally tumbled out of the lift into the main hall. To distract my brain from memories, I kept flexing my fingers, willing my creatures to stir.

A silent relief washed over me when I heard their soft grumbling at the dampening. As I murmured sweet words to them, I tried to hatch a plan.

I had to get this cuff off. How was I supposed to survive the next century with most of my magic locked away and my creatures barely stirring?

I’d rather have volunteered for a church bake sale.

I kept glancing at Draven and Zayden. My brother wasn’t hurt.

He was fine. Chatting with Zayden like nothing had happened, his hands moving as he signed something about the giant polar bear shifter who tried to take his head off.

Zayden was answering back, calm as anything.

As though we weren’t in a magic prison together.

Or that it wasn’t awkward to see each other again.

And like he hadn’t just watched me obliterate people with shadow magic that might’ve been a little overkill.

Okay, a lot overkill.

I had no choice but to pretend again as Zayden pushed open the second door and held it open for us to go through.

With my brother here, it wasn’t like I could be honest. So instead, I searched.

Plotted. Made sure to note anything that could have meant something in my plan to get Draven out, and my creatures back to full strength.

The halls of Mors Academy were narrow and crooked, carved from grey-black stone that looked worn from centuries of footsteps and colder than it had any right to be.

The ceilings arched too high for the top to easily be seen.

It smelt faintly of ash and old paper, like a library that had been burnt and rebuilt.

Runes marked every wall, etched deep into the stone in long, winding sequences.

Some glowed faintly as we passed. As though they sensed our movement.

I didn’t recognise the language there either.

I didn’t want to. A shiver down my spine made me think they were watching.

They are. Came the answer in my head. Mors sees all within its halls when the runes glow.

The walk twisted uphill, each corridor more abandoned than the last. Gaping holes yawned in the rotting floorboards, revealing shadowed levels below.

Webs of gashes scored the walls, and melted cobwebs clung like tattered lace.

There were heavy wooden doors set into the walls and ceiling, precariously hanging.

Candles burned low, their wax pooling in thick drips along the floor.

The walls were pockmarked by decay, with stones missing or crumbling at the edges.

Sections of the ceiling had collapsed, leaving jagged beams above and a fine layer of dust in every corner.

My footsteps echoed sharply, the silence settling in every hollow space.

There still wasn’t a single window —no air from outside, no hint of sky.

It was suffocating to be cut off from the world beyond these corridors. I was very rarely indoors back home.

At least, I hadn’t been until the town hated me for such a droll reason as their misguided belief that murder was wrong.

“It’s awfully grey.” I mused. “No signs of life or... or anything.”

It feels like a prison. My brother agreed with me.

Zayden snorted without humour. “Our dorm is worse. It’s just one concrete room with thirteen beds.

It’s like that trashy reality show Bells loved to watch.

Except instead of us finding short-term love on a pretty island full of plastic bimbos, we get to find lifelong enemies filled with nothing but hatred. ”

“That’s it? A bed in a packed cell?” Mine and Draven’s brows pulled together. My chest tightened with dread—thirteen strangers within concrete walls, no privacy, nowhere to hide. A cold knot formed in my stomach as panic prickled at my skin.

I fucking hated people. Their noise grated on my nerves. Especially when they did hideous things like breathe near me. Or snore.

Snoring ought to have been illegal. Capital punishment was the only way to weed out the weak who couldn’t breathe right at night.

“We get a small dresser each, and a shared toilet and sink,” Zayden said.

“No in-room showers—you’ll use the academy showers back in the arena.

They’re decent for the first two minutes and then ice-cold.

Oh, and you only get one bar of soap that doubles as shampoo.

That’s it.” He gave a dramatic shudder.“Not even an ounce of conditioner unless you can score some in the village.”

My head snapped up. “We can get out?”

Zayden’s eyes flicked to the walls, lingering on the etched runes like they might be listening, then back to me with a slow shake of his head as he signed, Not here .

Still, the spark was already lit. If there was a way to the village, there was a way to make my plan a hell of a lot easier.

He glanced down at my wrist cuff and asked, “Has the pain gone yet? Hightower did the same to me once or twice when I pissed her off. She usually reverses it after good behaviour, but I swear I can still feel those barbs in my skin.” His jaw tensed as he signed our conversation to my brother, so he didn’t have to stress about lipreading.

“I can only feel it if I think about it.” I shivered, disgust evident, as my fingers automatically went to the cuff on my other wrist.

My brain was locked on the agony I was no doubt going to experience. Not just for the people part, or the torture, but because my poor hair was going to suffer.

And I was going to have to be... to be... urgh ... I was going to have to be nice . To strangers. To men . To my roommates for the next century.

I’d rather have stuck pins in my eyes.

“What about the people in the dorm?” I dry heaved a little at the incoming nightly sleepover I wanted no part of.

He and my brother fought a laugh. “Most of our roommates aren’t bad, but a few are assholes.

Especially the dragons. But really, it’s just that there’s zero privacy—trust me, it’s the worst part.

You can’t even sneeze without a dozen other people hearing it.

” He reached over to squeeze my arm. “There are two more girls in there. One of which I know you’ll like.

That should hopefully take the sting out of things. I know men gross you out more.”