Chapter 10: The First Hunt

The fragile truce forged in the dungeon’s darkness did not magically erase the past. The air between Kaleb and me remained heavy with unspoken words and the ghosts of our shared pain. But the ice had cracked. The bond, once a silent void, now hummed with a cautious, tentative energy—a mixture of residual hurt, fragile understanding, and a dawning, terrifying hope. I moved him from the dungeon to a secluded room in a disused wing of the manor, under the guise of needing a stronger slave to...