No one enters.
957 Words
Blake POV
The fortress walls shuddered with the low roar echoing through the stone corridors.
Not from me.
Another dragon.
And not one stationed here.
My blood snapped to heat.
I moved fast—silent, a shadow of fire and bone—slipping down the hallway with a speed only dragons of royal blood possessed. Every step pushed the curse higher, every heartbeat pulling madness closer.
But it wasn’t the curse that drove me now.
It was her.
Elle.
My mate—
though she didn’t know.
Though I couldn’t say the word aloud without risking everything.
The fortress was meant to keep her safe.
Hidden.
Untouched by the royal court and its venom.
But this intruder—this fool—had tried to breach a door only I had the right to enter.
I smelled him before I saw him.
A male dragon’s scent—sharp, cold, and tainted by Kaelis’s influence.
So she sent someone.
Of course she did.
I turned the corner and the intruder froze—a slender, flicker-fast dragon-shifter with pale scales shimmering along his jawline. He wasn’t one of mine. He wasn’t even high-ranked.
A spy.
“My Prince,” he gasped, backing up until his shoulders hit the wall.
He hadn’t expected me to be this close. No one expected me to move like this during the curse.
But for Elle, madness became a blade in my hand.
My voice came out low. Too calm.
“You entered a restricted wing.”
He swallowed, throat bobbing.
“I—I was only scouting. The Crown Princess-to-be requested—”
The snarl ripped from me before he could finish her name.
Kaelis.
She was already hunting.
I closed in on him.
“You have exactly one chance to tell me,” I growled, “what she wants.”
His breath hitched, panic rolling off him.
“She—she believes the doll you brought is not a doll. She suspects the wolf girl might be—”
“Finish that sentence,” I warned, “and I will tear your tongue out.”
He trembled.
“…a rare-breed wolf.”
My heart slammed once.
She suspected it.
She suspected Elle.
Rage burned through me, a wildfire I had to chain before it consumed everything. I slammed my hand beside his head, cracking stone.
“You will tell me everything she said.”
He nodded rapidly, voice shaking. He had no choice with my command.
“She thinks the girl could give you power. The kind only rare wolves carry. She wants to confirm it. If she is that breed, Kaelis means to—”
He stopped, breath strangling itself.
To take Elle.
To break her.
To kill her if needed.
My vision flashed red.
I caught his throat in my hand—not crushing, but pinning him like an insect to a board.
“You will not speak her name again,” I hissed. “You will not breathe a word of this place. And you will never try to enter her hall again.”
“I—I won’t,” he whispered, shaking.
There was no sincerity.
Spies never swore loyalty.
So I shoved him into the iron-barred alcove beside us. A trap once used for dragons who lost control.
His eyes went wide. “My Prince—”
The bars sealed shut with a slam.
“You will stay there,” I said, “until I decide what to do with you.”
He rattled the bars, voice cracking. “But—my family—will come for me!”
“She won’t find you,” I said coldly. “No one will.”
His panic was nothing to me.
Elle’s scent—drifting faintly from down the hall—hit me like a fist.
Sweet.
Soft.
Growing hotter.
My blood stilled.
Not good.
Not now.
Her heat was coming.
Too early.
Too strong.
Her wolf was waking and her body was already reacting.
Blaze’s voice snarled in my mind, raw with hunger and fear.
We need her. NOW. Her scent—Blake, she’s close. Too close.
“I know,” I hissed back.
We can’t resist much longer.
“I know.”
If she goes into heat fully—
“She isn’t ready,” I snapped aloud, chest tightening.
The spy stared at me, horrified, but I didn’t care.
I pressed my forehead to the cold bars, fighting to breathe.
“I’m barely holding back,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “If she goes into heat like this, I won’t be able to stop. Not without harming her.”
Not without breaking her.
Crushing her.
Claiming her in a way she was too fragile, too small, too unaware to survive.
And worse—
She might not even want me.
The thought carved something vital from inside my ribs.
Blaze went silent—the kind of silence that meant we both knew the truth.
We would kill for her.
Die for her.
But taking her?
Taking her before she begged for it, before she chose us?
That would destroy her.
And I would rather break under the curse, lose my mind, be chained for a century—
than bruise a single piece of that little wolf.
But her heat…
her scent…
It called to us like a dying man calls to air.
I pushed away from the bars and stalked back toward her hallway—fighting every instinct, every shred of hunger pulsing through my veins.
“The fortress is safe,” I muttered to myself. “She’s hidden. She’s protected. I just need to—”
My breath hitched.
Her scent grew stronger.
Hotter.
Calling me.
My claws pricked through my skin.
The curse surged.
And I ran.
- Writer
