Semua Bab The Ruthless King's Possession:Fated To The Untamed Beast : Bab 11 - Bab 20

The palace slept beneath a silver moon.But King Drakonios did not.His eyes—crimson, ancient, ever watchful—smoldered in the dark as he wandered the west wing halls alone. No guards followed. No attendants dared whisper. The Dragon King was a shadow unto himself—silent, cold, and unknowable.And tonight, something deep within him stirred.His footsteps slowed before a tall obsidian door—her door. He stared at it for a long moment, jaw clenched, breath sharp in his throat. His hand hesitated on the iron handle, carved with dragons mid-flight.Then, without warning, he entered.The chamber beyond was quiet, cloaked in pale moonlight. Velvet curtains shifted slightly with the wind, and the hearth had gone out hours ago. Cold clung to the air, yet it wasn’t that chill that made him pause.It was her.Elianna lay curled near the far side of the massive bed. Her body was small, tense even in sleep, one arm tucked beneath her cheek, the other clutched across her chest like a shield.She sti

Cassandra paced the ivory-tiled antechamber outside her rooms, the midnight oil guttering in the sconces and painting her silhouette in twitching shadows. The palace slept—or pretended to—but her mind surged with cold, bright purpose. Tomorrow’s Combat of the Courts would spill every rival talent onto the Sapphire Arena, and one well-timed stroke there could turn rumor into obituary. Elianna would enter veiled, guarded, distracted by ceremony; Cassandra would enter armed with secrets.She unrolled the parchment the apothecary had slipped beneath her door. Venin d’Aube—a dawn-coloured tincture that sealed itself in flesh like liquid fire, paralyzing the lungs beneath a perfume of roses. A single drop on the barbs of a training javelin would finish a dragon, the chemist had sworn. Cassandra would need only to nick Elianna’s skin. In the chaos of choreographed combat, who would notice a scratch that never bled?Yet poison alone was not enough; suspicion had teeth. She needed Elianna isola

Elianna—sat alone in her chamber, candle sputtering on a cracked desk. The night after Seraphina’s confession about human treachery, she found herself unraveling the tale again and again in her head like an old loom pattern, threads fraying with each pass.What the humans did to him was unforgivable, she mused, tracing idle circles across the parchment map of the palace. But what if the Xaerathian princess hadn’t died? Would he have turned out colder still—or warmer? Would the prophecy have tempered his rage before it calcified?She tried to imagine a different Qombinia—one where laughter rang down those vaulted halls instead of tightened silence. A kingdom where Drakonios greeted petitioners with patient curiosity instead of glacial stares. The idea twisted something inside her, equal parts pity and unexpected jealousy. If the princess had lived, she realized, I would be standing in her shadow, not she in mine. And for a heartbeat, Elianna hated that unborn stranger for the power she

As the heavy doors of his chamber closed behind him, King Drakonios stood still, letting the silence wash over him. The room was dimly lit, the last rays of daylight peeking through the curtains. He looked out at the fading sky, his jaw clenched, his thoughts racing.Today wasn’t just any day.It was the day of the palace competition in Qombinia. A day of spectacle, of pride, of power.And now, he knew it was also Elianna’s eighteenth birthday.He hadn’t known earlier—not until Elliot had shouted it during their confrontation with her parents. And the moment those words left the boy’s mouth, something inside Drakonios had stirred—a guilt he couldn’t ignore.She had been alone.And now… he couldn’t bear to stay.He turned sharply from the window. “I’m going back today,” he said to himself aloud. “Before the sun fully sets. I’ve wasted enough time.”Without another thought, he swept his cloak over his shoulder and strode back down the corridor, his boots echoing on the polished floors.

The Dragon King’s ReturnA sudden gust of wind sliced across the courtyard like a sharpened blade, rattling the bronze chains that anchored the ceremonial banners overhead. Those banners—blood-red and phoenix-gold—snapped and twisted in the turbulent air, their sigils of rising flame dancing like live things against a sky bleached pale by the noon sun. Every torch guttered, every standard rippled; even the marble tiles beneath the nobles’ polished boots seemed to shiver at the omen scrolling across the heavens.The courtiers felt it first: a prickling at the nape, a hush that swallowed gossip mid-sentence. Then the scent of heated stone drifted down from above, laced with something wild—ozone, smoke, and ancient earth. Magic crackled in the air, invisible but unmistakable. Eyes turned skyward, mouths half-formed around questions they’d never had to ask in their lifetimes.And then it came, tearing the fragile silence apart.A roar—no, the roar—exploded across Qombinia, rolling over th