Bond of Light and Shadow: Where a Prince Meets the Commander Bound by Fate

di Lucian Reef (Autore)

Lucian Reef, 2025

From the moment Prince Leorion Valerius first crossed blades with the young soldier Draven Nightbane on the training grounds, a strange gravity settled between them—something quieter than friendship yet stronger than duty. Years passed beneath the weight of shared battles, whispered strategies in war tents, and the unspoken trust of two souls who had survived more nights together than apart. Though Leorion shone like the sun heir he was born to be, Draven moved in his orbit with the steadiness of a shadow that never once faltered. When the kingdom began its campaign against the rising vampire threat, they fought side by side, cutting through the darkness with the ease of men who understood each other's breaths. But on a moonless night near the border, an ambush shattered everything: Draven was taken, dragged into the dark, and returned only after a violent struggle—bloodied, silent, and bearing a wound he refused to let the healers examine. What Leorion never learned was that Draven had been bitten by a pureblood vampire, a curse that should have twisted him into a creature of thirst and hunger. Yet the affection, loyalty, and quiet devotion he held for his prince anchored him, letting him resist the pull of blood while hiding the truth behind disciplined smiles and well-timed shadows. As the war deepened, Leorion sensed changes in Draven—the unnatural coldness of his skin during late watches, the flashes of crimson in his eyes when he thought the prince wasn't looking, and the way he lingered too close whenever Leorion bled from minor wounds, breath hitching as though fighting an instinct he dared not name. Despite this, Draven remained the commander the prince trusted most, his blade unsheathed for no one but Leorion, his voice steady even when shadows clung to him like a second skin. Rumors about a cursed soldier began to grow among the ranks, but Leorion silenced them with a single command, for he believed in Draven more fiercely than he believed in his own crown. Their bond reached its breaking point when the Vampire King himself descended upon the battlefield, seeking the "half-turned" warrior whose blood refused to yield. In the chaos of collapsing defenses, Draven revealed a strength no human should possess, intercepting the king's strike meant for Leorion. He dragged the prince out of the burning stronghold, shielding him from falling debris and the echoing commands of the vampire monarch calling Draven by a name he pretended not to know. When the final wave of flames surged, Draven made his choice without hesitation: he pushed Leorion toward safety, stepped back into the inferno, and held the enemy off long enough for the prince to escape. Leorion watched from beyond the crumbling wall as Draven disappeared into the blaze, a figure of quiet loyalty swallowed by fire, leaving behind only the echo of a promise he never spoke aloud. In the days that followed, the kingdom mourned its most trusted commander, but the prince refused to accept a world in which Draven's shadow no longer followed his light. Something in the bond between them—something forged in blood, war, and unspoken devotion—refused to die. And though Leorion did not yet understand why Draven had grown colder, stronger, stranger, or why the Vampire King had spoken his name with the intimacy of an old claim, he carried the unbearable certainty that the man he lost was not gone. Not truly. Not forever. Book I closes as Leorion stands alone on the battlements at dawn, gripping Draven's scorched insignia in his hand. The rising sun warms his face, but the space beside him—where his commander once stood—remains cold. Somewhere beyond the borders of men, in the lands ruled by eternal night, a cursed warrior awakens. And the bond between prince and commander, once a quiet thread, begin

• Autore: Lucian Reef
• Anno edizione: 2025
• Editore: Lucian Reef
• Formato: EPUB2 con DRMFREE
• Lingua: Inglese
• Compatibilità: Tutti i dispositivi (eccetto Kindle)
• Layout: Reflowable
• EAN: 9798232703240