He Chose His Mistress. I Chose the Cursed Dragon. Recap…

Dorian led his pregnant mistress onto the altar and asked for Aurelia's blood like it was a grocery list. The hall went silent. Twelve clans watched. And Aurelia, the last pure-blood human in the realm, finally understood what her fiancé thought she was worth.

The Bracer on the Wrong Wrist

Lilia wore pale gold. Her belly was slightly rounded, and inside her was a fully formed dragon pup Dorian called the future heir. On her wrist sat a silver bracer Dorian had once snapped onto Aurelia's own arm, back when he pulled it from his pocket and promised, "Aurelia, as long as I'm alive, no one will bully you."

That promise aged badly.

Aurelia had grown up beside Lilia for eighteen years. She knew every weakness the serpent-shifter hid, and when other clans bullied Lilia, Aurelia was the one who came running. When Lilia's bloodline began to decay, Aurelia slit her own wrist and healed her with purifying blood. So when Lilia stroked the bracer and asked, tears welling in her eyes, whether Aurelia minded, the betrayal landed like a knife between ribs.

"I took a snake under my wing and she struck straight at my heart."

Dorian didn't even flinch. He said Lilia needed the bracer more. Then he laid out the real plan: he would keep the eternal soul bond for Lilia, and Aurelia would move into the sunlit keep, give a drop of purifying blood every month to nourish the pup, and raise the child as her own. Her blood, her prophecy, her name as a dragon's trophy — all his. His love, his soul bond, his pup — all Lilia's.

She Burned the Pact

Everyone in that hall expected Aurelia to fold. The pure bloodline was dying out. She had no family, no territory, nowhere else to go. Some sneered. Some pitied. Some just waited for her to be grateful.

Instead she pulled out the runic dagger she always carried and drove it into the golden flame. The blade swallowed their names side by side. The hall erupted. The ceremony elder turned pale but couldn't deny it — under the rules, the marriage didn't count.

"If the prince won't bond with me, I won't beg."

Then she turned to the twelve clans and made her offer: whoever accepted her blood pact and formed the eternal soul bond with her could have her. A prophecy had haunted the realm for thousands of years — whoever bonded with her would awaken their ancient bloodline and rise above every clan. Greed flickered across every face.

And then every heir remembered Dorian. No one stepped forward. Dorian leaned in and murmured a pet name that used to soften her, now a collar around her throat, reminding her she had nothing without him. Lilia hid a smile behind his shoulder.

Then Empress Vespera swept in, dismissed Lilia with a single glance, and took Aurelia's hand like a loving elder. But her comfort came with a price tag: Aurelia's purifying blood belongs to the realm first, then the clans, and only after that to her. Blood bag, pup's mother, realm's resource — three cages, all built by people who claimed to care.

The Only One Who Asked

The temple doors opened. Sunlight spilled across the crystal steps, and a thin black figure stepped through — Prince Orion, the Dragon Emperor's eldest son, sealed for thirteen years, unable to shift, written off as dead. Black seal marks crawled over the wrist beneath his sleeve. He looked like standing was costing him everything.

His gray eyes stopped on Aurelia. His voice was hoarse from long illness.

"May I bond with you?"

Dorian laughed like it was a joke. Vespera's face drained of color. Both warned that purifying blood would awaken Orion's seal and kill him on the spot. Orion ignored them and kept waiting for her answer.

In the whole hall, only he asked if she was willing. Not for her blood. Not for the prophecy. Not to decide who she belonged to.

Aurelia walked past Dorian's outstretched hand and said yes. Orion held out his own — cold, pale, faintly frostbitten, and shaking with the effort of staying upright. When Dorian tried to block her, Orion said one word. Move. Dorian backed off. A dying man who hadn't shifted in thirteen years, and the whole hall changed at a single look.

Vespera screamed forbidden and sent guards. They froze three paces away, sweating, arms shaking. Orion reminded her — in front of all twelve clans — that once a blood pact is accepted, no one can tear up the Ancestral Dragon's rules. She had to let it continue, and her glare at their clasped hands promised this wasn't over.

The elder brought out a blank pact. Orion signed first, sharp and steady. Aurelia wrote her name beside his. Golden flame twisted with blue fire, and the new pact took shape — bonded together, sharing life and death.

Then she saw the black seal marks on his wrist moving faster.

"Orion, will you die?"

He was silent for a second. "Maybe it's not too late to back out now."

She doesn't. But the bond has just woken something that's been torturing him for thirteen years — and it's hungry.