MasukDRACO.If I didn’t have a copy of my speech, I would be lost. There were many times I had to look at it to make sure I was still delivering the correct words. But I would not deny the night was turning out better than I hoped for. The best I had in the last two years.I could see Iris standing at the back of the crowd, smiling as she listened to me. To be honest, I was not even sure she was listening. She was just staring with that beautiful smile on her face, the same smile she would give me whenever she teased me, which would eventually end up with her straddling my lap. Seeing her brought all my senses back to life. And although I had felt all these wonderful, overwhelming emotions with her before, it had been too long ago, so tonight felt like the first time again. And for the first time since she was taken, I smiled in front of the crowd. I could tell the people who were there also enjoyed the humor I added in my speech. All because I was trying to impress the woman who was
DRACO.“Because I’m nervous.” She replied. “Why?”“Are you married? Or have a girlfriend?” She asked, and I saw uncertainty in her eyes. And my heart began picking up its pace. I didn’t know if I should tell her I was waiting for someone but I didn’t want her to think I was pushing her away. “No. I’m not married. Are you?”She shook her head.“Maybe a boyfriend or a lover?” I had to ask.She giggled. “No. I haven’t met anyone I fancied. Until…” She paused before she crinkled her nose. “Can I show you something? It was the reason I wanted to talk to you but please don’t laugh at me.”“I promise I won’t laugh.” I looked at her as she pulled her slingbag to her front and began rummaging inside it, making my heart thunder. I wanted nothing but to pull her into my arms, but I didn’t want to scare her, and she wouldn’t end up disappearing before me. I had waited so long for this moment, so a few more minutes were definitely worth it. What mattered most was that I could see her. And hope
DRACO.“Alpha, you’ll be called on the stage approximately in twenty minutes.” One of the organizers of the Dryndow Festival approached me just as I walked out of the backstage area into the open space behind the makeshift stage. I had to stand up from my seat because I felt suffocated. I needed air. “I know. I just don’t like to be in crowded places.” I told him, my forehead creasing as I opened the bottled water in my hand and drank it. “Do you want me to request someone to fan you, Alpha? We didn’t know it’d be this warm tonight.”“No need, just let me be here and call me once it’s my time to speak,” I said, still scowling, wanting him to just leave me alone. “Yes, Alpha.” He bowed in respect before turning around to go back up the stage. If this festival didn’t hold any meaning to me, I would decline the request to be a speaker, as I did in the previous years. But for the last two years, I had accepted the invitations. Now that I knew that this was the festival where I first
TWO YEARS AFTER.DRACO. The days turned into weeks and then into months. The seasons came and went by, but nothing had changed. My home was still empty—as empty as my heart, as empty as my life. I miss Iris every day.The days were longer and the nights were painful. I had been alone almost all my life and had heartbreaks in the past—my mother’s death, my father’s abandonment, Felicity’s betrayal, and many others that made me a hard, bitter man—but nothing could compare to the heartbreak of losing her. It had been two years, yet the pain felt as if it were just yesterday when she’d left. I tried to live day by day, keeping to my promise not to seek her or bother her, while doing my best to be a better man—a man worthy of her, even if there was no guarantee I would get to tell her how much I loved and wanted her. At the beginning, my constituent kept asking about her. My Beta and everyone around me simply said she had moved on to be with her immediate family. Some were disappoint
DRACO.“Iris will come back to life with no memory of you, or the human life she had. She will only have beautiful memories of her childhood with Prince Vaidas and Queen Cassiopeia.” Selene told me and it took a while before the words sank in.“She deserves that…” I told her, meeting her eyes.“She can fall in love with anyone she will meet along the way.”“I will not get to meet her again in this lifetime. Is that right?” My tears fell and as much as I didn’t want that, I had no choice. This was the better option for Iris.“Swear to me, Draco, that you will not do anything to find her.”“Is this a test? To see if I’m a good man and I can keep my promise? I’m going to fail, Selene. I’m impatient and selfish. I know this is the reason she was taken from me, because you think she deserves better than me.”“I would not give her to you as your mate if I thought she deserved another man.”“And why are you taking her away from me?”“In time, you will understand. But for now, I want you to p
DRACO.I took Iris’ body from the palace and teleported us to the portal that would take us out of the Wicker Forest. Iris and I had made this journey many times, so I knew where to go and where it would take us.I thought I would get caught, but everything went according to my plan. I was able to take her home—back to our bedroom. But nothing had changed. “What are you planning to do now?” Roman asked. It took a while for him to grasp what was happening, and although he was more composed than I was, I knew he was also devastated by the news I carried. “I don’t know,” I mumbled as I closed my eyes. Roman had never seen me cry but there was no sense hiding the pain. He knew Iris was my whole world. “I’m sorry, Alpha.” His voice came out low. “You can leave. I want to be alone. I don’t want to talk to anyone today or tomorrow.”“I will take care of everything. Take as much time as you need.”I nodded my head and didn’t look at him, but I listened as he walked away. His footsteps
IRIS.“I will not explain myself. I have rules, and if they don’t like them, they can go to hell and fuck themselves.”“But the workers at the…”“No one died when the facility was burnt to the ground.” He said as he turned around and walked toward the door. “I already asked Roman to gather informati
IRIS.I was still crying when I heard someone knock at the door. “Iris…” Alpha Draco’s voice came. “Let me in.”I wanted to tell him I needed more time, but after what he had done for me, he deserved to know what was going on in my mind. So I wiped my tears and opened the door. I thought I would
IRIS.“The ring…” He mumbled.“You couldn’t find it. So you never told her about it, and she didn’t know either. You just asked her to open her eyes, and you wanted to take her home with you, for good. She jumped into your arms happily before she called her mom and Dad. Everyone looked happy… The n
IRIS.“Fuck me tonight, Alpha. And while you do, ask me to marry you…” I had no idea where I got the courage to say those words. Maybe I was getting too comfortable speaking my mind around him. Or maybe I was trying to see if there was a limit to things I could say to him. But I think I overdid it







