All Chapters of Bound to The Enemy of My Mate : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

As the royal guards seized Alvero, the young man’s composure shattered into pure, animal terror. “No! Please!” he screamed, his voice raw. He clawed at his father’s arm, but the Duke shook him off like a bothersome insect. “Father, tell them! I didn’t know! I knew nothing about the mine or the Vorlagians! I’m innocent!” His wild, pleading eyes found Elira. “Sister, please! You know me! I’m not clever enough for any of this! I was never part of his plans!” Elira looked at her brother, the boy who had tormented her, the man who had sent assassins after her. She saw the truth in his panic. He was a pawn, too stupid and self-absorbed to be trusted with the Duke’s real schemes. And she felt a chilling nothingness. “Ah,” she said, and her voice was like ice cutting through the heat of his fear. “I almost forgot. My brother may not have known about the mine, but he knew we were digging for secrets.” She turned to the King, her face a mask of calm. “To stop us, he sent assassins to kill us

Of course. Here is the revised chapter, integrating all the suggested enhancements to deepen character perspective, emotional stakes, and political nuance. --- The King’s voice cut through the grim aftermath of the square, sharp as a whip crack. “Kael. Elira. With me. Now.” They followed him down into the palace dungeons. The air was thick with the coppery smell of blood and the choking dust of shattered stone. King Theron stopped before Duke Alistair’s empty cell. The back wall was not just broken; it was gone, replaced by a yawning hole that led into darkness. “Find out how,” the King commanded, his voice trembling with suppressed fury. Kael moved toward the hole, Elira falling into step beside him, a partner in the investigation as much as in the crisis. “Torches.” The light revealed the truth. This was no rough tunnel. It was an old, forgotten passage, part of the palace's original foundation, long sealed and forgotten. But the entrance to it had been modern, brutal, and prec

The silence that followed Kael’s declaration was thick and heavy, broken only by the faint crackle of the fire in the king’s solar. It was not a peaceful silence, but a vacuum, sucking the air from the room and leaving a profound stillness in its wake.Kael’s words, “I never wanted to be a Duke,” hung in the air, a stark and painful confession that seemed to change the very geometry of the room.King Theron’s eyebrows drew together in a deep frown. His eyes, sharp and perpetually calculating, studied Kael’s face. He saw the tightness around his mouth, the shadow of pain in his eyes that no battlefield wound could ever cause. This was not the face of a man playing a political game. This was the face of a man whose foundations had just been shattered. The King’s gaze then shifted to Elira. He saw her panic, raw and unguarded. He saw the confusion in her wide eyes, the slight part of her lips as if to form a protest that wouldn’t come. She looked… lost. This was not the cunning, strategic

A cold, grey light filtered through the study windows of the Rennar mansion. It had been a fortnight of such mornings. Kael sat amidst a fortress of parchment, but the reports on border patrols and grain yields were just a blur. He wasn’t reading them; he was using them as a shield, a barricade to wall out the memory of Elira’s face in that hallway and the crushing silence that had filled his home since her departure. The head servant, Gerold, entered, his footsteps quiet on the thick rug. He placed a tray of food next to another, nearly identical tray from the previous evening, both untouched. “My Lord,” he said, his voice worn. “You cannot command an army or a household like this. This… stillness… cannot continue.” Kael didn’t look up. His quill scratched against a new document, the sound hollow in the silent room. Gerold sighed. He had served the Rennar family since Kael was a boy. He could read this prolonged silence. It wasn’t about work. It was about the empty space at th

The following days established a new, fragile rhythm. Kael’s presence was a constant, quiet fact. He did not crowd her, but he was a shadow in her periphery during the day, a silent sentinel in the halls at night.In the workshop, Elira enforced a brutal new order. “The old way is ash,” she told Holden and Borin, her voice leaving no room for argument. “You will work as one. Borin explains the theory. Holden adapts the craft. Every step is approved by both, or it is not taken.”The first sessions were a war of scowls and grunts. But then, examining the shards of the failed trigger, Borin pointed a calloused finger. “See? A cold-shut fracture. The metal was poured too cool.”Holden, his pride still wounded, snorted. “Aye. The furnace couldn’t hold the heat you demanded. We need a forced-air bellows on the main forge. A design from the northern mines.” It was a statement of fact, not a concession.Borin was silent for a long moment, studying the big smith. “This is true?” he finally aske