Scorched Desires

Prolong-Ancient Heartbreak and Modern Consequences

Thousands of years ago, before the world had forgotten magic and before dragons were whispers in old songs, there was a witch named Cordelia who made the kind of mistakes that echo through eternity. She was powerful—beyond mortal comprehension—and beautiful in a way that made men forget to breathe, gods question their loyalty, and smart women cross the street just to avoid the drama that followed her like a designer perfume.

With raven-black hair cascading like a waterfall of shadow and eyes that shimmered with the allure of starlit nights, she was the embodiment of enchantment. Think Cleopatra meets Merlin, with a dash of "I can end your bloodline if you forget my birthday."

Yet for all her power and otherworldly allure, she was not immune to love.

And she gave her heart, foolishly and completely, to a dragon.

His name has been lost to time, burned away by betrayal and bitterness. But Cordelia had remembered it once—whispered it in kisses during stolen moments, cried it into the night when he didn't return from his flights, carved it into trees with magic that made the bark bloom with flowers that smelled like his scales. He was fierce and noble, a protector of his kind, with scales that gleamed like diamonds and a heart that beat true. And she, an immortal of earth and shadow, was his secret, his hidden desire, his dirty little witch on the side.

Because that's what she was, wasn't she? The other woman. The forbidden fruit. The relationship you don't bring home to meet the dragon parents.

But fate—the cruel architect of hearts and professional ruiner of romantic dreams—had other plans. Cordelia's world shattered like glass the day she found him entwined with another. Not just any woman, but his true mate, the one woven into his very essence by the threads of destiny like some cosmic matchmaking service she'd never signed up for. The bond between dragon and mate was said to be unbreakable, undeniable, and sacred.

Cordelia had never been sacred. She'd been convenient.

Standing there, watching the love of her life nuzzle another woman's neck with the same tenderness he'd once shown her, Cordelia felt something inside her chest c***k open like a fault line. It wasn't just heartbreak—it was the sound of a soul splitting in half, of dreams turning to ash, of forever becoming never.

"It's not what you think," he'd said, because men—even dragon men—apparently came equipped with the same factory-installed stupidity when caught red-handed. Or in this case, scale-handed.

"Really?" Cordelia had replied, her voice deadly calm. "Because what I think is that you're wrapped around another woman like she's your personal security blanket, and I just spent three centuries believing I was something more than your magical side piece."

He'd tried to explain. Something about destiny and bonds and things being complicated. Cordelia had listened with the patience of someone who was currently calculating exactly how many different ways she could end his existence.

In her heart, she had given everything: her love, her magic, her very soul. She'd rearranged her entire immortal existence around his schedule, learned to love the smell of sulfur, and pretended to find his dragon hoarding habits charming rather than the early warning signs of a serious psychological condition.

And what had he given her in return? Lies. Pretty words. The occasional shiny trinket from his hoard when he felt guilty about something.

That night, after she'd left him standing there with his mouth open like a fish—a really big, scaled, fire-breathing fish—the sky wept alongside her. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a harbinger of the tempest that mirrored the absolute shitstorm brewing in her heart.

The wind howled through the halls of her stone keep, rattling the shutters as if trying to escape the chaos that brewed inside. The clouds roiled overhead, turning the sky an ominous shade of deep gray, as if the heavens themselves were mourning with her—or possibly just trying to avoid being in the blast radius of what was coming next.

Candles flickered and died, one by one, snuffed out by the breath of a storm too fierce to contain. The air turned heavy with the scent of lightning—an overwhelming blend of ozone and fury that tasted like regret and smelled like revenge.

Magic surged within her like a tidal wave, humming and crackling beneath her skin—a volatile energy that demanded to be unleashed. Grief twisted into rage, coiling around her heart like a serpent that had been fed a steady diet of betrayal and broken promises. A tremor shook the earth beneath her feet, making the very foundation of her home shudder and groan in sympathy for her anguish.

Or possibly in fear. Even ancient stone knew better than to mess with a witch having a breakdown.

Walls cracked under the weight of her power, spider-webbing outward like the lies he'd told her. Mirrors shattered, sending shards of reflective glass cascading like sorrowful raindrops across the floor—each shard a fragment of her broken heart, each piece reflecting a different memory of happiness that had turned out to be just another pretty illusion.

Her long black hair floated around her like a halo of night, defying gravity and several laws of physics, indicating the depths of her fury. Her once soft, love-filled eyes blazed white with a celestial fire fueled by betrayal, a tempest of emotions warring within her like a storm that had come to claim the land and leave nothing but scorched earth in its wake.

"Let fate bind them," she hissed, her voice echoing like thunder through the stone chamber, a wordless cry against the injustice of her love and the cosmic joke that was destiny. "Let them find one another in every life, in every form, in every realm."

She raised her arms, and the air crackled with charged energy, humming like a swarm of angry bees who had just been told their honey was subpar. The storm outside intensified, wind screeching like lost souls—or possibly like the sound of her last remaining faith in love dying a dramatic death.

"But let them never know the joy they stole from me."

The flames in the hearth ignited with a blue hue, flickering in response to her wrath, as if the fire itself was taking notes on how to burn with the intensity of a woman scorned.

"I will not stop the bond," she whispered, her voice suddenly low and dangerously deliberate, like the calm before a nuclear winter. "Let the dragons find their mates. Let them taste love, let them feel the pull of souls recognizing their other half..."

Her fingers curled into fists, and the storm outside mirrored her wrath—the wind howled like it was auditioning for a death metal band, and the rain began to pour, a deluge of sorrow falling from the sky as if the world itself was crying for her pain.

"But may their bloodlines wither," she commanded, determination etched into every word, each syllable a dagger aimed at the heart of destiny itself. "May no fledgling rise from their union. May fire and wing be the last of their kind, until the day a dragon finds love without fate's chain."

She paused, feeling the weight of centuries pressing down on her shoulders, the future stretching out like an endless expanse of loneliness and regret.

"Until a human heart chooses him freely... without the bond's pull... without destiny's design. Only then may new life bloom from their love."

A final bolt of lightning shattered the air around her, striking the very floor at her feet with the force of a small apocalypse. The stone cracked wide open beneath her, a chasm forming to swallow the remnants of her heart and possibly her security deposit.

In that moment, amidst the chaos that looked like the world's angriest rave, Cordelia felt the weight of the world pressing down upon her. She was giving everything she possessed to weave this curse into the fabric of time—her power, her life force, her frequent flyer miles to the realm of the living.

The energy poured from her like a fountain, vibrant and unrelenting, but she was fading. Each pulse of magic drew her closer to the brink of exhaustion, like running a marathon while simultaneously solving calculus and trying to remember if she'd left the cauldron on.

She could feel her life essence intertwining with her spell, a sacrifice far greater than simple anger. It felt like part of her soul was being torn away, as if the very stars were weeping for her loss—or possibly just uncomfortable with the amount of magical radiation she was currently emitting.

"From this day forth," she cried, pouring her essence into the echo of those words, feeling them carve themselves into the bones of reality, "may no dragon father a child of love. May the skies remain silent of newborn cries. May fate weave a tapestry of longing upon all those whose hearts find their true mates, yet know no sweetness of new life from their union."

With one final surge of strength—the kind that comes from having absolutely nothing left to lose—she poured everything into that last, powerful declaration.

"Until love chooses freely, without the chains of destiny."

A pulse of brilliance erupted from her—a blinding light that surged upward, tearing through the storm clouds and igniting the night like the world's most expensive fireworks display. The heavens lit up in a show that would have been beautiful if it wasn't powered by the complete destruction of one woman's faith in happily ever after.

In that instant, she felt it all slip away—a profound emptiness radiated through her as she completed the incantation. The energy that had once swirled so fiercely around her began to dissipate like smoke from a cigarette she'd never wanted to light in the first place.

Time seemed to stretch, and she could feel her existence unraveling like a cheap sweater in the wash.

And then, silence.

The kind of silence that follows the end of the world, when even the crickets are too stunned to make noise.

As the magic settled, Cordelia collapsed to the cold stone floor, drained and weary, her power extinguished and her heart heavy with the weight of loss. Magic seeped from her very being, leaving her hollow and fragile, like an eggshell after the chicken has moved out.

In that stillness, the echoes of her curse rippled through time like the world's most devastating pebble dropped in the pond of eternity. Unbeknownst to her, she had bound dragons to their mates, condemned to dwell in love without lineage, while ensuring that she herself remained forever alone—because apparently, cosmic justice had a sense of irony that would make Shakespeare weep.

And thus the world turned, with dragon shifters finding their destined mates time and time again through the centuries, yet never bearing the fruits of their union. Love without legacy. Passion without progeny. Hearts that beat as one, but would never create a third heartbeat between them.

The skies remained silent of dragon young, the eggs of bygone hopes never stirring, echoing the curse that a heart, once so full of love, had given its all to cast.

Now, in this new age, whispers of her name lingered in the winds, forgotten by many but still waiting in the spaces between heartbeats for one brave soul to uncover the true depth of her sacrifice.

Until now.