I was the kingdom's offering, a bride chained to duty's cold altar with no spark of my own.
Traded for shaky peace, veiled in mists and wards that hummed like forgotten prayers.
I told myself I'd endure it. Keep my walls high. But then he appeared, this shifter whose noble gaze hid a hunger that clawed at the air between us.
His presence alone twisted the air thick, pulling me toward the beast he barely leashed.
One unguarded moment in torchlit vaults, and his lips grazed mine, hot as forge embers.
I shoved him back, spitting defiance. "This is politics, nothing more."
But my body betrayed the lie. Night after night, his touch haunted me, fingers tracing paths that promised the wild freedom I'd starved for.
Freedom laced with ruin. The kind that devours control whole.
His skin rippled under my fevered fingertips, scales blooming like secrets too dangerous to keep.
Half-formed growls echoed from eclipse-shadowed depths, vibrating through bone and vow.
I surrendered inch by defiant inch, profaning royal oaths with rapture that felt like idolatry.
Terror of the monster within him warred with the ecstasy of yielding, binding us in reckless fire no ward could contain.
What if this passion completes the sacred shifter bond we both crave?
Or shatters my autonomy, the kingdom's fragile shields, the anchor of his draconic soul forever?
The eclipse looms, hungry. And I'm terrified how much I ache to let it all burn.
