Chapter 58: _ Something About Her

Remus, two nights ago, a Borrowed was discovered inside the estate of the Dragon Viscount in the Capital. The creature had quietly slaughtered and taken the skin of a senior housemaid, before the piling bodies of dead servants led to an investigation that exposed her.

My grip on the parchment tightened so hard the edges crinkled.

A Borrowed. A demonic entity from Hell, capable of stealing human flesh, memories, and magical cores. The exact same kind of monster that had taken over my mother eight years ago before destroying my family.

The dimensional seals are fraying faster than the high mages predicted, my father’s letter continued. The harbinger is active. The apocalypse has officially begun, my son. It is no longer a distant prophecy—the enemy is already walking among us in stolen skin.

I paused, scoffing. My father writes like the apocalypse hadn’t already subtly begun years ago. The realms had been keeping every discovery a top secret, trying to save face. That was exactly why these creatures had grown bolder, and gods know just how much they’ve spread across realms and households.

As much as I knew how important it was to maintain our sovereignty as a political body because any weakness shown puts each realm at the detriment of the others, the apocalypse was beyond politics.

The prophecy had existed right at the dawn of shifterhood. No realm wants to be the first in history to record the emergence of the hell agents and that was exactly how we’d lose this war.

It sickened me every time my father lied to my face about the truth behind my mother’s death. Yet, perhaps, to hasten my search for the anomaly, he was letting me in on this.

At least, it shows the Viscount’s negligence, not his. My father was a hypocrite.

I resumed reading:

Protect yourself and your sisters at all costs. Do not trust anyone outside our bloodline.

The Dragon Council is keeping this a top royal secret. I expect your completed Anomaly list before the next full moon. Anyone exhibiting impossible magic, altered cores, or unnatural aura signatures must be named so they can be handled before the Capital falls.

Do not fail me.

The parchment slipped from my fingers, fluttering silently onto the wooden desk.

My heart thundered in my chest.

The apocalypse wasn’t coming in years or months. It was happening now.

And Elira, with her markless core, her zero-metric rating, and her multi-colored explosion at the Heartstone, was standing right in the center of the storm as the prime Anomaly suspect.

If my father found out what she was... if I handed her name over on that list before the next full moon... he would probably burn her to ashes where she stood.

I wasn’t sure what they’d do with the anomalies exactly, but could I risk it? For a council that hides life-threatening news from its people to save face...

What will they do to her?

"I promised I’d keep you safe," I whispered into the empty room. "But even that now seems impossible. Why does everything with you, Elira No-One, have to be so complicated?"

I blew out a sharp exhale, staring down at my father’s letter until the black ink began to blur in the candlelight.

For eight years, I had executed every order, survived every trial, and swallowed every lie my father fed me. I had never once disobeyed the Dragon King. When he told me to hunt, I hunted. When he told me to bleed, I bled.

Now, he was asking me to sign a death warrant for the only girl who had ever made my frozen heart beat.

The conflict in my chest was a clawing pain. It felt like my core was splitting down the middle, half of it burning with duty to my kingdom, and the other half burning with a promise to a dirty little girl under a stone archway.

If it were just about the Borrowed, there would be no debate. I would burn every skin-stealing demon back to the depths of Hell myself. I would gladly tear down the realms to ensure the Hell Lord’s prophecy never came to pass.

But Elira?

Was she a demon wearing human flesh? Was she the harbinger of our annihilation?

Or was she something else entirely? The one destined to save us?

I can’t read her, I thought, slamming my fist against the wooden desk. That’s the maddening part.

Every single soul in the Five Realms projected an emotional signature. I could read panic, lust, greed, and malice in vivid colors before a person even opened their mouth. But Elira’s aura was a completely blank, impenetrable vault.

It didn’t make a lick of sense.

"I’m not making a decision tonight," I muttered to the quiet room, running both hands through my hair.

I couldn’t afford to be reckless. I needed to find out what the Dragon Council actually intended to do with the anomalies once they were named.

Execution? Vivisection? Imprisonment?

More importantly, I needed to watch Elira. I had to study her, hunt for any trace of malevolent darkness, and confirm whether she was a threat to the world or just a wildly unlucky girl from the stone trenches. Until I had answers, I would observe from the shadows. I wouldn’t make a choice I’d regret for the rest of my life.

I stripped off my formal dragon-scale tunic, tossed my leather boots into the corner, and headed into my adjoining bath chamber.

Stepping into the steaming water, I leaned my head back against the smooth edge and closed my eyes, hoping the heat would scrub the tension from my bones.

It didn’t work. Because the moment I closed my eyes, Elira was right there.

My jaw tightened as a spike of jealousy tore through my stomach. I hated the memory of Ajax Solvaris’s hand resting so casually on her waist during the first dance. I hated the way he’d smiled down at her, like he’d discovered a secret treasure no one else was clever enough to see.

And gods, I hated how I’d felt when the dance rotation briefly brought her into my orbit.

I had spent eight years living like an ascetic monk. I had never touched a woman intimately. I had never wanted to. Court heiresses had thrown themselves at my feet for years, and I’d looked at them with the same interest I had for decorative furniture.

So why, when my gaze had swept over her flushed skin and bare shoulders in that ballroom, had my mind instantly devolved into unhinged savagery?

I had imagined pulling her into the shadowy alcove behind the royal thrones. I had imagined trapping her between my body and the cold stone, tilting her chin up, and biting her lower lip until she tasted like dragon-fire and wild lilies.

I had imagined slipping my hand beneath that ridiculous red dress, feeling the heat of her bare thighs, and teaching her every single reason why she shouldn’t be smiling at Lion princes.