Chapter 159: The Will Of A Dragon

Rhydian Drakhar woke with a groan.

Pain throbbed behind his eyes, spreading across his skull while his heart pounded in his chest. He remained still for a while, a hand pressed against his forehead as he waited for the pounding to ease.

What the hell happened?

It felt like he’d slept for days, even though his body carried the strange exhaustion of someone who had been very active without remembering any of it.

Rhydian slowly opened his eyes only to see the stone ceiling stretched above him. His brows furrowed. He knew that ceiling. Rhydian pushed himself upright and looked around.

Gold moved beneath him with a familiar metallic clatter, several of the coins sliding down the enormous mound upon which he’d apparently been sleeping.

His lair.

How the hell had he gotten here? The last thing he remembered clearly was the dining hall.

His dragon, Sargon, had become increasingly obsessed with what Aria should eat. Eventually, his incessant complaining had become unbearable enough that Rhydian had taken matters into his own hands and fed her himself.

After that, it felt like he had been evicted from his own body while someone else took over.

Sargon.

Rhydian could feel the fog clouding his memories beneath the headache. What had his dragon done? He needed to know. So he closed his eyes and forced himself to think.

The first memory struck him so suddenly that Rhydian’s eyes snapped open. He saw himself flying toward Dragonspire.

No, not himself, but Sargon. The memories came rushing back before Rhydian could properly process the first.

Sargon had entered their lair with an intention that made Rhydian’s stomach turn. The bastard had gone straight to the hoard, grabbed a handful of jewels in his large clawed hands, and flown off.

Another memory surfaced of the bastard stalking Aria and finding the perfect opportunity in the restroom. He remembered Aria’s confusion when he’d appeared and watched through the memory as Sargon took out the jewelry he’d stolen from their own hoard and put it on her as if it belonged there.

Rhydian watched with growing horror as his dragon willingly gave his treasures to a human female.

How was this happening?

Then Maverick appeared and tossed the jewelry aside as if it were worthless.

Rhydian remembered the rage and the dining hall collapsing around them as Sargon’s fury consumed every rational thought Rhydian possessed.

Yet none of that was what horrified him now. Rhydian sat completely still as the meaning behind Sargon’s actions finally settled over him.

A dragon did not take treasure from his hoard and place it upon a female without reason. His dragon had chosen a mate.

Aria.

"No..." Rhydian whispered, his face set in disbelief. "No fucking way."

He surged to his feet so quickly that the gold scattered beneath him. His legs were unsteady, forcing him to catch himself against a nearby rock formation.

"It can’t be."

Aria was human.

Had Sargon completely lost his fucking mind?

Rhydian dragged both hands through his hair and began pacing through the cavern, trying desperately to find another explanation.

Dragons did not mate with humans. They couldn’t. Humans were an entirely different species and weren’t part of draconic mating traditions, bloodlines, or anything else that had governed dragon society for thousands of years.

A dragon choosing a human made absolutely no sense, especially his dragon. Sargon wasn’t some ordinary beast; he was the strongest.

Rhydian was the Drakhar heir. One day, the responsibility of continuing one of the strongest draconic bloodlines would fall upon him. Dragons were apex predators, and their females were built accordingly, with strong bodies and powerful beasts. Females capable of surviving pregnancies with offspring carrying ancient draconic blood and eventually producing heirs strong enough to continue their clans.

To think Sargon had looked at Aria Aspen, a tiny, beastless human who could probably be blown halfway across a room by one careless beat of his wings, and decided she was his mate.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" Rhydian demanded.

Of course, silence answered him. Now the bastard wanted to be quiet.

Rhydian pressed his fingers against his temples. How was he supposed to explain this to the dragons at Bestiaris? To the Drakhar Clan? To his father?

The thought alone made him grimace.

No. They wouldn’t accept it. Why would they? Rhydian himself could barely accept it.

Yes, he’d been fascinated by Aria from the beginning. He wasn’t going to lie to himself about that. There was something about the human that called to him. He’d even entertained the idea of getting her into his bed eventually, if only to satisfy the curiosity she’d created.

That was supposed to be it. Nothing serious. Not a female Sargon intended to keep, and certainly not someone Rhydian would be bound to for the rest of his life.

Rhydian exhaled harshly and finally stopped pacing, properly taking in his surroundings. He had claimed and fashioned his lair within Dragonspire, a mountain humans had called by that name for generations before they’d known dragons were real.

As expected, the name had stayed after the dragons came.

Human legends claimed the mountain had been made for dragons because of how impossible it was for ordinary people to traverse. Its cliffs rose too steeply in places for climbing, and enormous sections of volcanic rock could only be reached from the air.

The legends had become considerably less amusing once the actual dragons arrived.

Rhydian had ensured the entrance to his lair was hidden away so that it wasn’t easily found. But the interior was even more impressive.

Old volcanic passages twisted through the mountain before opening into enormous caverns, some wide enough for Sargon to move through without lowering his wings. Black volcanic stone covered the walls, broken occasionally by veins of strange crystal that had formed within the mountain long before Rhydian arrived.

Some of them glowed. The light was faint, scattered patches of pale blue and violet shimmering along the walls and casting enough illumination across the cavern to reveal his hoard.

Gold was spread everywhere. Coins gathered in enormous mounds alongside jeweled crowns, weapons, gemstones, sculptures, and artifacts collected—stolen—by Rhydian over the years. Modern treasures had gradually joined them too, because Rhydian saw absolutely no reason a dragon’s hoard needed to remain trapped in antiquity.

But this was merely the outer portion of his lair. The passages descended farther into the mountain until they reached a cavern unlike any other within Dragonspire. There, thousands of luminous formations hung from the ceiling, crystalline stalactites glowing softly in the darkness while smaller formations rose from the ground beneath them.

And at the center rested a small, impossibly dark lake.

Blackwater.

The beginning of the river humans believed swallowed sunlight.

Water escaped from that lake through fissures beneath Dragonspire, traveling through underground channels before eventually emerging and feeding the great Blackwater River separating human territory from Bestial City.

Yet the water behaved differently inside the mountain.

While sunlight seemed to disappear into Blackwater without reflection, the strange light produced by Dragonspire’s crystals danced perfectly across its surface. Beneath that cavern ceiling, every glowing stone was mirrored in the black lake until it looked as if thousands of stars existed above and below at once.

His lair was the only place where Rhydian could disappear from the responsibilities attached to his name.

Until Sargon betrayed him.

At that thought, a deep rumble finally stirred inside him.

There you are.

Sargon’s presence unfolded lazily within his mind, utterly unbothered by the crisis he’d created.

Rhydian clenched his jaw.

"You chose a human."

The response came without hesitation.

Mate.

Rhydian closed his eyes. "Fuck you," he cursed.

He would not accept this choice. Aria was human.

As if reading his mind, Sargon replied.

"Treasure. Ours."

"You do not understand!" Rhydian snapped.

Even if there was the slightest chance he dared accept Aria as his mate, it would only lead to her doom. Aria Aspen couldn’t survive the life of a dragon. Their customs, their way of life, everything about them demanded strength. Even fucking required a level of endurance he doubted her fragile human body could withstand.

She wouldn’t be able to keep up with his vigor. Not to mention, as far as anyone knew, humans and dragons couldn’t procreate. Rhydian was the dragon prince. One day, he would need an heir capable of succeeding him and continuing the Drakhar bloodline.

Everything practically screamed that they couldn’t be together.

And then there were his enemies. Caelis Cobryn and the serpent clan would come for her the moment they discovered what she meant to him. Aria wouldn’t simply be his mate anymore. She would become his greatest weakness, and anyone who wanted to hurt him would know exactly where to strike.

Sargon heard every thought and rumbled, "We protect Treasure. Together."

"No, no, no." Rhydian shook his head. "This is not happening."

The dragons would never accept Aria. Worse, her existence as his mate could threaten the very order their society had upheld for centuries. Dragons stood above humans in strength, power and status. Humans were not their equal, much less beside their future king.

A dragon’s female was considered an extension of himself, and if Rhydian chose a woman his kind considered weak, they would see that weakness as his own.

He couldn’t let that happen.

"I’m sorry, but I’m not taking the human as my mate," Rhydian told Sargon.

At once, his dragon’s roar exploded through his head, so furious that Rhydian staggered. Sargon’s rage tore through him with enough force to make his bones ache, the beast violently rejecting the very idea of abandoning the female he had already claimed as theirs.

It was said that no one could fight against the will of their dragon and win, but this was something Rhydian had to do. Not only for his own safety, but for Aria’s too.

Because if he accepted her as his mate and dragged her into the brutal world that came with being Rhydian Drakhar’s female, she wouldn’t simply have to prove herself worthy of standing beside him.

She would have to survive everyone who believed she wasn’t. Otherwise, Aria Aspen was as good as dead.