Chapter 1

I stood outside the gates of Blackthorn Keep, waiting for the escort that had been sent to receive me.

Instead, the first person who came through the gate was Marcus Blackthorn.

For a moment, recognition darkened his face. Then the old arrogance returned, smooth and familiar, as if three years had changed nothing between us.

“Sienna?” His gaze moved over my cloak, my traveling dress, the quiet curve of my stomach. “What are you doing here?”

He dismounted, and the people behind him followed.

Clara Linwood came to his side in a gown too fine for a morning inspection, her attendants gathering around her like a court built for mockery.

Marcus looked me over once more.

“What are you wearing?”

Clara covered her mouth and laughed.

“Look at her. Three years away from Blackthorn Keep, and this is what she has become?”

One of the men behind her snickered.

“She must have run out of places to crawl.”

Clara’s eyes dropped to my stomach, and her smile sharpened.

“I heard some lowborn Azure Dragon got you pregnant. Did he throw you away too? Is that why you came back to beg?”

The laughter spread through the group.

Marcus lifted one hand, and they quieted at once. He had always liked being the one who decided when cruelty should stop.

He studied me with the solemn expression of a man preparing to offer mercy.

“My household does need another servant,” he said. “Someone to do the rough work. Cleaning, laundry, nursery duties. Nothing difficult.”

He threw a folded bundle at my feet.

Gray servant’s livery.

“The wage will not be generous, but it will keep you alive. In your condition, that is more than anyone else would offer.”

Clara smiled wider.

“How kind of you, Marcus. Not many men would take pity on a woman carrying another man’s bastard.”

Three years ago, I had stood before this same man in ceremonial white, waiting for him to take my hand and complete our Dragon bond before the altar of the Dragon Goddess.

He had let go of me in front of every noble house in his territory.

Now he wanted me in servant gray.

The insult should have hurt more. Perhaps it would have, once.

I lifted my head and met his eyes.

“I am not alone.”

Marcus paused. Clara’s laughter faltered, but only for a second.

I placed one hand lightly over my stomach.

“I have my child.”

Clara stared at me, then burst into a laugh so sharp that even some of her attendants glanced away.

“So it is true,” she said. “You were abandoned by some Azure Dragon and came crawling back with his bastard in your belly.”

She stepped closer, her perfume heavy and sweet in the cold air.

“Sienna, you really have no shame.”

Marcus frowned at her, but not because he disagreed. He preferred his contempt dressed as generosity.

“That is enough, Clara.”

Then he looked back at me.

“You should be grateful I am offering you anything at all.”

“I am not here for your charity.”

The guards near the gate exchanged glances. They had expected tears, excuses, perhaps a plea for shelter. That was the woman they remembered, the girl who had once loved Marcus Blackthorn enough to let his smallest kindness feel like sunlight.

That girl had died at the altar three years ago.

Marcus stepped closer and lowered his voice.

“Do not be proud with me, Sienna. I know what happens to women who leave their clans with nothing. You lasted three years. That is impressive. But pride will not feed you, and it will not protect that child.”

He glanced at my stomach with a trace of disdain.

“Take the livery. Come quietly. Clara may dislike it, but I can still give you a place in my household.”

He was offering me a place beneath Clara, just enough pay to keep me dependent in the same household where I had once been promised a seat beside him.

I did not pick up the livery.

Marcus’s patience thinned.

“Sienna.”

I stepped around the bundle at my feet.

“I said I am not alone.”

Clara folded her arms.

“Then where is this great protector of yours? Where is the man who gave you that child? I do not see anyone rushing to claim you.”