Chapter 55: _ The Dragon Likes its Shiny Things

Remus Dravaryn [Heir to the Dragon Throne]

I hated the Initiation Ball.

I hated the scent of heavy perfumes, I hated the drunk noble heirs, and right now, as Vaelor carried us through the cool night air toward the Dragon Quadrant, I particularly hated the way Vaela was pressing herself against my spine.

Veyra sat up front, perched near Vaelor’s neck, complaining loudly about a broken nail. Behind me, Vaela had both arms locked around my waist. Her chest was pressed flat against my back, and every time Vaelor flapped his wings, her hands drifted lower, close to my belt line.

A few hours ago, while preparing for the ball, she had done something similar in my quarters... deliberately letting the washcloth drop and trailing her bare fingers across my cock.

At the time, I’d been so shocked I shoved her into my easel. She’d burst into tears, accusing me of being cruel, and because I hated seeing my sisters cry, I’d held her and let her wrap her arms around me while she apologized.

But even then, her hands had grazed my manhood, lingering in a way no sister’s ever should.

I’d spent two out of three years turning a blind eye to it, convincing myself she was just overly affectionate or dramatically codependent.

I loved Vaela and Veyra. They were my family, and I would tear the realm apart for either of them. But tonight, the truth became too vivid to be ignored. Hell, sometimes, I ran from the truth because it was easier to be comforted by a sweet lie.

Vaela genuinely believed that because we weren’t related by blood, her sexual desires toward me were entirely fair game.

It made my skin crawl.

"Remus, you’re so tense. Did the ball displease you that much?" She purred into the nape of my neck.

"I am flying a four-ton dragon, Vaela. Move your hands up to my waist before I drop you into the canopy." I sighed.

"You’re no fun," she pouted, though she grudgingly shifted her fingers an inch higher. "You barely spoke to anyone tonight. But when that pathetic, dragonless trench-rat who had the audacity to step directly into our path almost fell, you jumped to help her up."

My jaw locked.

Veyra chimed in from the front, not even turning around. "Did you see her dress? It’s so obvious she stole it or probably licked the boots of some noble girl to get it. And the way she stared at you! Like a starving dog looking at a butcher’s shop. I almost wanted to fling her into the punch bowl."

"She tripped," I said through my teeth.

"Because she’s clumsy and useless," Vaela sneered, her chin resting on my shoulder. "Honestly, a markless, dragonless nobody breaking rank at a royal procession? She should be flogged. If she ever gets near you again, Remus, I’ll make sure her pretty little face is permanently ruined."

A vein throbbed in my neck, but I kept my face impassive.

Vaela wasn’t making empty threats. Over the past three years, I’d noticed a pattern. Noble girls who tried too fiercely to corner me at court often suffered sudden, humiliating "accidents."

Hair catching fire from rogue sparks, reputation-destroying rumors appearing out of nowhere. I’d ignored it because it spared me from dealing with desperate heiresses, but seeing that same predatory envy directed at her turned my stomach to lead.

Because the dragonless girl wasn’t just a random trench-rat.

She was Elira.

The girl from eight years ago. The little girl who had sat beside a twelve-year-old grieving prince under a stone archway, wiping his tears while he wept for his murdered mother.

I had spent eight years holding onto her scent... ah... that scent of wild lilies and rain... searching the high courts of Aureth for a noble lady who bore it. I’d convinced myself that when I finally found her, I would claim her. It had been my secret, foolish comfort through years of blood, deception, and war training.

I never imagined she was a lowborn from the stone trenches of Stonewick.

A Dragon Prince claiming a dragonless trench girl with no family name was a fantasy so absurd it bordered on insanity. The Dragon Council would tear her to pieces before they ever allowed it.

And it was worse than that. Much worse.

During the Heartstone testing, when she had touched the relic, the stone had detonated into a blinding spectrum of impossible colors. That single event put her straight at the very top of the Anomaly list I was preparing for my father.

She was a continental problem. If she turned out to be the harbinger of the apocalypse predicted by the court seers, the Five Realms would execute her without a second thought.

I was supposed to investigate her. I was supposed to report her.

Instead, when she’d broken rank tonight and stood directly in my path, looking up at me with those wide, breathless eyes, my entire soul had screamed at me to cross the gap, pull her into my arms, and burn anyone who dared touch her.

She had remembered me. I saw it in her eyes. She was looking at me, trying to confirm if the silver-haired prince standing before her was the same broken boy from the archway.

And I had ignored her. I’d walked right past her as if she were dirt beneath my boots.

It had nearly killed me. But I had no choice. If I had shown her even a fraction of the emotion tearing through my chest, I would have painted a huge target on her back.

Vaela would have destroyed her before the week was out, girls from the Academies who wished one day, they could become the Dragon Queen would make her life at Last Bastion a living hell, and my father’s wardens would have dragged her to the dungeon for questioning.

We were two connected souls from different worlds. I was at the pinnacle of nobility, and she was at the rock bottom.

Fate has a weird way of dealing with me, doesn’t it?

I still wasn’t sure why Ivar was stalking her but seeing how unwilling he’d been to save her, I knew it couldn’t be for a personal reason.

It was even laughable to ever think Ivar Wulfram could have a personal intent towards a Dragonless nobody. The boy might not know how to keep his cock in his pants, but he picked his women well.

As for Ajax asking her for the first dance, I couldn’t place it. Unlike Ivar and Zev whose envy of me had clouded their better reasoning, Ajax and I often exchanged words should we cross paths.

The Academies have put the students in a place of constant competition, but Ajax and I knew better than to be overridden by the rivalry. We weren’t friends, yes, but we also weren’t enemies.

However, from the moment he deliberately stood before Elira, wrapped his hands around her waist, and smiled at her, the lines between rivals and friends began to blur in my eyes.

Good Ajax Solvaris... the Dragon likes its shiny things and it does not share...