Chapter 69: _ My First Heartbreak

Vaela Bertram Drakaryn [Stepdaughter of the Dragon King]

I knew Remus had been caught off guard by what I did before the Initiation Ball. I didn’t care. I wasn’t sorry about it, and I certainly wasn’t going to apologize.

I was done playing the meek, supportive sister, standing quietly in the shadows while he focused on his duties, his dragon, and his endless political ambitions. It was high time he realized I wanted more.

I had earned my place at his side, and I wasn’t about to be shoved into the background by anyone—least of all a markless, dragonless trench rat.

When that wretched girl had dared to step into our path and stop our procession, my initial reaction had been simple irritation. Commoners were like roaches in this academy—always underfoot, always looking for handouts or royal mercy.

But when Remus... my Remus... had actually leaned down and offered his hand to help her off the floor, the blood in my veins had turned to burning acid.

Remus does not help girls. He doesn’t care what happened to the noble daughters who fluttered around him like moths to a candle. That unapproachable distance was precisely what I loved about him. It made me feel secure. It proved that he belonged only to me, that no high-born Lady could ever breach the walls he built around his heart.

So watching him extend a gentle hand to a dirt-streaked nobody was a declaration of war.

I had punished every girl foolish enough to approach him in my presence over the last three years. Lady Seraphine had "accidentally" lost half her hair to a rogue spark during spell-crafting class after she tried to sit next to him at the spring feast.

Lady Giselle’s little addiction secret had suddenly become the Academy’s top gossip after she handed Remus a scented handkerchief. I knew how to handle threats.

For this markless pest, I would start with humiliation. I would drag her name through the mud until she begged the Headmistress to expel her and send her back to the filth whence she came. And if public ruin wasn’t enough to keep Remus away from her?

Well. Violent accidents happened all the time in the combat arenas.

My fury had reached a boiling point before the sun was even fully up today. It started when Remus refused to let us ride on Vaelor.

Riding Vaelor was our routine. It was how we showed the entire academy that the Drakaryn lineage rode together, above the common filth. But this morning, Remus had cold-shouldered me, insisting he had "urgent business" to attend to.

To make matters worse, he hadn’t even let me braid his hair. For two years, I was the only one permitted to weave the golden leather ties into his silver hair before morning assembly. Today, he had yanked his head away, snapped his collar tight, and walked out without a second glance.

Veyra was merely annoyed that she had to walk through the courtyard on her own two feet instead of flying. But Veyra was an idiot whose entire world revolved around whether or not that Wolf Prince Ivar was going to reply to her scrying scrolls. She didn’t see the bigger picture.

I, on the other hand, was consumed by rage.

I had dragged Veyra along, forcing us to wait outside the third year’s lecture hall for nearly an hour, determined to confront him the moment he showed up. But he never made it to the hall.

Rumors were already tearing through the corridors like wildfire. Whispers of Prince Zev striding through the Dragon Academy with his arm locked around the markless girl.

I saw everything. I saw the exact second the rumors reached Remus’s ears. I watched his face turn ashen as he instantly changed direction, sprinting toward the central Great Hall with a speed I had never seen from him before.

I had taken off after him immediately with Veyra trailing behind me, complaining about her hair blowing in the wind.

And then I saw it.

I watched Remus engage in an animalistic tug-of-war with Prince Zev over that girl. We Dragons were elegant creatures unlike savage tigers and wolves but today, Remus had not been elegant.

My worst nightmare was unfolding right in front of my eyes.

There is finally a girl Remus cares about.

The realization hit me like a physical blow to the chest, making it hard to breathe. He wasn’t doing this for academy honor. He wasn’t doing it for security. The panic in his eyes was reserved for one thing only: a woman he couldn’t bear to see in pain.

I had to stop it. I had to do whatever it took to break the spell she had over him.

So I had marched forward, pushed past the princes, and delivered a slap so hard across her filthy face that my own palm burned from the impact. I wanted to break her. I wanted to remind her that she was nothing but mud beneath our boots.

Instead, everything had collapsed into pure madness.

I still didn’t understand what had happened to my body a second later. My own arm had jerked backward against my control to strike Remus straight across his face.

Zev. That monster of a Tiger Prince had used his vile blood manipulation on me, turning my own body into a weapon against the person I loved most in this world.

Now, as the echoes of the brawl faded and the dust settled in the ruined Great Hall, I stood near the scorched wall, tears of humiliation and heartbreak streaming down my cheeks. I was sobbing so hard my ribs ached.

I didn’t even know what was hurting me more—the horror of Zev forcing my hand to strike Remus, or the unbearable truth that Remus didn’t give a damn about me right now because of a filthy nobody.

The realization made my chest feel a hundred times tighter. No. No girl deserves him except for me. Remus belongs to me.

His affection, attention, and care... they all belong to me!

How dare she? How dare a filthy nobody think she is worthy of even breathing the same air as him? I hated being cruel, so when people pushed me into being violent, I hated them more.

This girl was pushing me...