Bound By Virtue

Prologue

The ballroom glittered like a sinner’s paradise. Drowned in gold, silk, and secrets unsaid.

Crystal chandeliers bled honeyed light over masked faces, over whispered lies, over bodies swaying to a melody far too seductive for innocence. Laughter echoed softly through the grand hall, mixing with the clink of expensive glasses and the scent of lust disguised as perfume.

Yet none of it held his attention.

But them.

Kaelith stood in the corner of the upper balcony, a glass of Cabernet resting lazily between his fingers. His cold, merciless, unnervingly patient gaze followed the couple moving across the marble floor below.

And for the first time that evening… something resembling amusement touched the corner of his lips.

She moved like moonlight trapped in mortal skin. So soft. Untouchable. Dangerously hypnotic.

Every step she took seemed to pull the world toward her, as if gravity itself had forgotten its purpose. And the man holding her… he danced like he had once memorized the rhythm of her soul.

Beside him, Lorcan swirled the amber liquid in his glass before tilting his head toward the couple below.

“You truly believe this was wise on your part?” He looked at Kaelith. “To let them find each other again.”

There was a pause followed by a quieter hush. “Are you not afraid she’ll remember?” Lorcan’s gaze drifted toward the man dancing with her. “Afraid he’ll take her away the moment he realizes who she is?”

Silence answered him. A long… heavy… deliberate silence.

Kaelith smiles. And it should have looked beautiful on his angular and aristocratic face. It should have looked warm. Instead, it looked as if death might wear before claiming a soul.

Lorcan felt the temperature around them drop.

His childhood best friend raised the glass to his lips, taking a slow sip before his dark eyes returned to the woman below, as though the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

“She can remember.” His voice came low. Velvet wrapped around steel. “She can beg.” A dangerous pause. “Even he can bleed for her.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “But he will never take what chooses to stay.”

The confidence in his voice wasn’t arrogance. It was possession. Raw. Ancient. Terrifying.

Below them, the music softened. The dancers moved closer. And in the middle of the ballroom, beneath a thousand golden lights, the man pulled her flush against him… and kissed her. As if he had spent lifetimes starving.

Lorcan’s fingers tightened around his wine glass until his knuckles turned white. For a moment, something old and painful flickered behind his eyes, like the ghost of a boy who once believed in fairytales.

He lifted the glass to his lips, swallowing bitterness. “Funny, isn’t it?”

“Fate may be cruel enough to let two souls find each other again…” He watched their bodies move as though the world around them no longer existed. “…but who says fate gets the final word?”

A dark chuckle escaped Lorcan. Then he glanced at his friend, only to find that grin. That terrifying… beautiful… inhuman grin. And suddenly Lorcan understood. This was never a reunion. This was a battlefield. And the man beside him, was already prepared to start a war.

After all, in matters of love and war, everything’s fair. And this was both love, and war.

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