All Chapters of BOUND TO THE BLOOD KING: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

The courtyard still smoldered. Ash’s fortress, once a monument to control and fire, now throbbed like a wounded beast, twisted steel groaning, molten streaks dripping from shattered balconies. Bianca stood among the remnants, daggers slick with soot and blood. Ash was nearby, eyes molten copper, muscles coiled as if ready to strike.And yet, the stranger, the one who had appeared like smoke, was gone.Vienna’s ruins whispered, carrying a new threat on the wind. Bianca knew it before her eyes confirmed it: signs of movement in the shadows organized, precise, and unseen. A faction she had not accounted for had emerged from the ashes.They called themselves the Crimson Pact, inheritors of Francesca’s clandestine network. Where Bianca and Ash had relied on fire and loyalty, this new force relied on stealth, intelligence, and whispered fear. Soldiers moved like ghosts through the ruins, leaving no trace but fear.Bianca crouched atop a crumbling wall, scanning the horizon with eyes sharpen

Smoke still bled from the South Wing. The air was thick with the scent of scorched velvet and the metallic tang of fear. Bianca stood in the doorway, her blade steady though her pulse thundered.And from the heart of the flames stepped the impossible.Her stepmother, Valentina Greco. The woman who had taught her the elegance of cruelty. The woman Bianca had burned to ash years ago.She looked untouched by time. Her hair, silver-white now, gleamed beneath the flickering torchlight. Her smile was carved in cold precision, lips painted the color of blood remembered.“You always did underestimate me,” Valentina said softly. “You thought fire would cleanse. But fire only transforms.”Bianca’s dagger trembled once then steadied. “You’re a ghost wearing flesh.”“Perhaps. Or perhaps I’m the consequence of your unfinished sins.”Behind Valentina, shadows moved figures cloaked in crimson. Their masks were carved in the likeness of serpents devouring their own tails. The Crimson Pact is alive, r

It began with a whisper.Soft footsteps through marble corridors. The hush of linen skirts brushing against stone. The scent of rose oil faint, deliberate drifting through the sleeping halls of the Ashford estate.The maid carried a silver tray of wine and honey cakes. Her posture was perfect. Her smile was serene. But her reflection in the mirror showed something else: the shimmer of black ink crawling up her neck, the mark of the serpent.The sigil of the Crimson Pact.Luna lay asleep in her chamber, the dagger resting on the table beside her. The maid slipped soundlessly through the door. A hand reached for the blade not to steal it, but to plunge it down.The strike never landed.A shadow lunged from the corner Matteo. His hand caught the woman’s wrist midair. Steel clashed. The tray crashed to the floor. “Guards!” Matteo’s voice thundered.The assassin twisted, blade flashing toward his throat. He deflected it, slamming her against the wall. Her eyes were black pools of nothing,

The fortress of the Crimson Pact rose like a jagged wound beneath the blood-red moon, half-ruined towers clawing at the storm-heavy sky. Rain hissed across broken battlements, pooling into rivulets that gleamed like spilled ink on the cobblestones. Every step Bianca took was mirrored by a low, humming vibration through the stone, a subtle heartbeat that suggested the place itself was alive, aware.Matteo moved at her side, a shadow among shadows, his hand never leaving the hilt of his sword. Bianca’s cloak trailed behind her, brushing across remnants of shattered statues, bones, and dust-laden sigils carved into the floors centuries ago. “They didn’t build this fortress for themselves,” Matteo murmured. “Every trap, every rune… it’s for someone like you.” “They prepared for the daughter,” Bianca said softly, eyes scanning the walls. “They didn’t anticipate the mother.”She knelt to examine a rune carved into the stone, tracing it with a fingertip. The symbol pulsed faintly beneath h

The night air was thick with smoke and whispers as Bianca and Matteo made their way through the hidden tunnels beneath the old monastery ruins outside Vienna. The path reeked of iron and incense, the stones slick with age and memory.At the end of the corridor, a faint glow pulsed candles surrounding a frail figure seated upon an altar of bone and silver. The Oracle of the Veil, blindfolded with black silk, waited in stillness, her body trembling as if the very air spoke through her.Bianca hesitated. She had faced gods and monsters, but this ancient creature of truth felt like stepping into the mouth of fate itself. “You’ve come to ask what all queens ask when the crown begins to bleed,” the Oracle rasped, her voice like dry leaves on marble. “How to end what was never meant to be broken.”Bianca drew closer. “The curse, how do I stop it before it consumes her?”The Oracle’s head tilted, the candlelight painting her face in haunting golds and shadows. “There is but one way. The serp