No magic would be enough if the toxin wasn’t removed. She lunged for her bag, panic rising like bile and froze.

  Cold steel kissed the skin of her throat. A rasping voice coiled around her ear like smoke.

  “Now I thought all you damn Dragon Singers were wiped from this godforsaken world.”

  Her breath hitched. Fingers twitching inches from her satchel, she didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

  Fury curled through her chest like fire stoked too long.

  “I don’t know who you think I am,” she said tightly, eyes narrowing, “but if you don’t move that blade, you’re going to regret breathing near me.”

  The blade pressed harder, drawing a thin line of blood.

  The man chuckled low and mean, his breath sour against her skin.

  “Big words… for a girl rolling around in dragon blood. You think one half-healed beast makes you special?”

  He shifted behind her, voice dropping darker.

  “I’ve butchered your kind. Dragon kin, too. You’re all myths that die screaming. But you?”

  His tone sharpened to a deadly point. “How did one of you survive this long under my nose?” Imogen’s fists clenched. Fury rising like lightning behind her eyes.

  “And that old bat who raised you,” he sneered, “she’s lucky she’s already rotting. I’d have made her choke on her ‘choices.’” He said, laughing again.

  Axel could barely keep his eyes open.

  His massive frame trembled with each shallow breath, the golden glow along his wounds flickering like a candle in the wind.

  A low, broken whine escaped his throat. A sound that cut straight through Imogen’s chest.His light was fading. Imogen stood frozen, rage boiling beneath her skin as her fists clenched at her sides.

  She snarled, voice low and shaking with fury. “What are you even talking about? How do you know who I am? Why would you take part in slaughtering a race that just wanted to live in peace?!”

  The man behind her let out a barking laugh, cruel and bitter.

  “Peace?” he scoffed. “Let me give you a history lesson before I kill you. I’ve always had a habit of playing with my food.” He leaned in close, the cold steel never leaving her throat, his breath hot and foul against her ear.

  “They were too powerful for their own good. And every day we let them live, they got stronger.”

  Imogen’s stomach twisted.

  “The Dragon Singers,” he hissed.

  “They claimed they only wanted peace, but they were the dragons’ lifeline. We didn’t realize it until it was too late. Their presence, their aura; it kept the dragons strong. Kept them immortal. One of your kind finally broke under our blades and told us the truth. That the singers were the reason the beasts were invincible.”

  His grip on her tightened as he continued, voice darker now, almost reverent in its malice.

  “So we made a choice. We offered peace. A truce.” He chuckled quietly “While our soldiers sat at their tables and spoke of harmony, my grandfather and his men slit the throats of the younglings, burned the nests, and swept through the villages. We made sure no Dragon Singer lived long enough to sing again.”

  A cruel smile curled in his voice. “We found a few stragglers. Some of them had already bred with dragons foolish enough to think love could protect them. What they created…” He spat into the mud beside her. “A new generation. Stronger. Wilder. Magic that didn’t sleep in just one bloodline anymore.”

  His tone turned sharp with bitterness.

  “That’s when we knew we had to wipe them out completely. Before they grew too powerful to stop.”

  Imogen didn’t flinch. Her jaw clenched, breath ragged, eyes blazing with fury. “So you slaughtered them because they were evolving?” she snarled. “Because they had hope?” He laughed, low and cold. “Because they were a threat.”

  A gust of wind swept across the battlefield, carrying the sharp scent of blood and ash. Smoke curled in the corners of Imogen’s vision, distant shouts clashing with the thunder in her chest.

  “And now you’re afraid,” she said, voice rising as something unfamiliar stirred behind her words, low and thrumming like a storm about to break.

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  “Because the ones you couldn’t kill? The ones you missed?”

  She shifted slightly, her hand curling around a nearby stone slick with blood and earth. The air around her pulsed faintly with warmth, Axel letting out a low, strained growl in response.

  “They didn’t die,” she whispered. “They waited.”

  The man hesitated, just for a heartbeat; but it was enough.

  The earth beneath Imogen’s fingers pulsed gold, a shimmer of raw energy rising around her like a second skin.

  “And now,” she said, she twisted her head just enough to catch him in her peripheral vision with a fury he hadn’t expected, “You’re standing in front of one.”

  The golden pulse around Imogen burned like wildfire hot and wild. She could feel it in her bones; in her blood like something dormant had cracked open inside her and spilled out, too vast for her body to contain.

  The man staggered back for a second, face lit by the golden glow. His sneer faltered. His grip on the blade wavered. Axel let out a rumble, a flicker of life rising with Imogen’s magic.

  But it didn’t last.

  The power surged again uncontrolled, raw. The force slammed into her like a wave. She doubled over, crashing forward onto her hands as the power tore through her. Her breath came in ragged gasps as the magic ripped through her like a storm with no anchor. Her vision blurred, golden sparks flashing behind her eyes.

  She tried to hold on to it, to channel it but it was like trying to hold back the tide with a paper wall. The general’s face twisted with cruel amusement as he stepped forward again. “You don’t even know how to use it, do you?” he spat. “Pathetic.”

  She barely heard him. The cold steel pressed against her shoulder again as the man regained control, forcing her down. Her body trembled.

  Drained. She couldn’t fight. Not like this.

  Far away at the edge of the battlefield Darius froze. He felt it. That burst of wild, golden magic it raced through him like a lightning strike, unmistakable and primal. The bond between them surged, alive and screaming. His mate. Imogen. She was in danger.

  He didn’t wait. The last of the kingdom stragglers barely had time to raise their blades before he cut through them like a storm of steel and fury. His feet pounded over broken earth, heart thundering, sword already dripping with blood. Trees blurred past him, smoke rising around the battlefield as he sprinted for her.

  “Imogen!” he roared.

  The general turned at the shout, sneering.

  “Oh good,” he muttered, dragging Imogen up with one arm like a ragdoll. “Let’s finish what your kind started.”

  But the second Darius saw her; mud-smeared and shaking. Barely conscious in the man’s grip

  Something inside him snapped. And then he saw him. The man holding Imogen wore a jagged helmet, forged not from metal; but from bone. The curved, ivory remains of a dragon’s skull blackened and scorched at the edges crowned his head like a twisted trophy. Darius’s breath caught.

  Not just any dragon.

  His mother.

  That helmet had once been her head. The majestic skull of the Queen of Dragons, slain only days ago.

  The reason the war had begun. The death that had driven his people into hiding. The grief that had nearly broken him. He could still see the crack between her eye sockets. A crown stolen from a corpse and worn like a badge of pride.

  The general smirked beneath it, yanking Imogen closer like a shield. “You recognize her, don’t you?” the general called out, his voice echoing across the field. “She begged for mercy. Your kind always does.”

  Darius didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.His eyes darkened, every inch of him turning to stone and fire. The air around him shimmered with heat, crackling as the sigil on his chest burned with rage. He moved not like a man, but like a storm unleashed. A flash of metal. A roar that wasn’t human.

  The battlefield trembled beneath his fury. Even Axel, still barely conscious, rumbled a warning low in his throat: Run. But it was too late. Darius had seen the face of the monster who killed his mother. And nothing would stop him now.

  The general didn’t flinch. He dug the blade deeper against Imogen’s throat, just enough to draw another crimson bead of blood. The edge shimmered with a dark green sheen, oily and foul-smelling even from a distance.

  Darius skidded to a halt, chest heaving. The scent hitting him like a blow.

  Poison.

  Not just any kind. Serpent’s Bane. A rare venom forged in the old wars engineered to kill dragons slowly and cruelly.

  It had paralyzed his kin. It had been the death of his cousin. His mentor.

  His mother.

  Imogen’s eyes met his.

  They were still glowing faintly, defiant but she was swaying on her knees, magic-drained, too much too fast. Her fingers twitched weakly where they hovered near the dirt. Axel stirred behind her, struggling to rise again despite his injuries, his tail twitching with tension.

  The general’s voice cut through the haze. “Come any closer,” he said, pressing the poisoned blade flat to her skin, “and your little mate dies before she ever learns what she really is.”

  Mate.

  The word wasn’t a revelation. It was a weapon.

  He knew.

  Darius’s fists tightened around the hilt of his sword, the metal creaking beneath his grip. The sigil on his chest burned hotter, his dragon blood screaming to be unleashed. “You don’t deserve to wear her bones,” he growled, voice a low, vibrating thunder. “You desecrated a queen, and now you dare threaten my mate with the same fate?”

  The general sneered. “I’m doing what your kind never could. Winning; you and your dragons die today, King of Nothing.”

  That did it. Darius didn’t move. Not yet. But his eyes locked with Imogen’s. Hold on, they said. I’m coming for you. She gave him the smallest nod, even as her breath hitched and her knees buckled further. Every second ticked louder than the last.