All Chapters of The Dragon Warlord's Bride: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The smell of smoke lingered even after the fires had been put out. Not the clean burn of hearthwood, but the bitter stench of charred flesh and scorched stone—an omen, some whispered, of the Warlord’s wrath.Princess Sera stood atop the crumbling western parapet of Aeryth's citadel, the wind catching the hem of her blood-red cloak. Her gaze held the horizon, where the last embers of battle still smoldered. The once-golden banners of her father’s kingdom hung in tattered strips from the towers. Blackened. Broken.Below, silence blanketed the remains of the capital like a shroud. No victory songs. No mourning cries. Only the cold, distant toll of surrender.They said he didn’t take cities.He claimed them.Behind her, the chamberlain’s boots scraped the stone with each hesitant step. "Your Highness… it is time."She didn’t look back. “He wants an audience.”“He demands it.”Of course he does. Dragons don’t request.She turned slowly, lifting her chin with the practiced ease of royalty,

The doors opened without a sound.Heat spilled out from the Sanctum like breath from a waiting mouth—dry, searing, scented with smoke and molten stone. Sera stepped forward before she could stop herself, her bare feet brushing over cooled obsidian etched with glowing runes. The doors closed behind her with a low thud, sealing her inside.The chamber was circular, vast, and pulsing with heat. Flames burned in suspended braziers overhead, casting shadows that writhed across walls inscribed with ancient sigils. At the center of the room, a raised dais shimmered with embedded gold and claw-marked stone. And standing upon it, wrapped in nothing but shadow and command—was him.The Warlord.He had shed his armor.Now, he wore nothing at all. No armor. No robe. Just skin—scarred and scaled, carved with muscle and laced with heat. Dragons did not dress for modesty. They did not conceal what they were. His body was a declaration of dominance, unapologetically primal.Sera froze.The sight of hi

The thought came at nightfall—not as a plan, but as a whisper.Leave.Sera sat on the edge of the bed, the pendant she’d found now clenched in her hand like a talisman. She hadn’t tried the door since she arrived. Maybe out of fear. Maybe out of the quiet, gnawing belief that it would be locked. A part of her had whispered it was pointless to resist, that running would only invite worse. But another part—older, raw—refused to lie still.What would he do if he caught her? Would he rage? Would he destroy the corridor around her with a word? Would he simply watch, quiet and cruel, and let the fortress do it for him?She stood and walked to the door, heart slamming against her ribs. Her hand hovered above the handle. Her breath stilled.The door opened.No resistance. No sound. No guards.The hallway stretched before her, lined with flickering braziers and dragon-carved pillars. Empty.She stepped out.The stone was hot beneath her bare feet. Her silk robe clung to her skin. The sigil did

She woke tangled in furs, the heat of the bath still clinging to her skin.Only—it hadn’t faded.It had deepened.Her limbs felt heavy, her breath too warm. A soft ache lingered beneath her ribs, deep and rhythmic. She blinked into the dim morning light and brought her hand to her chest.The sigil was glowing.Not just with heat, but with intent.Its edges shimmered beneath her skin like gold dust in water, pulsing softly with each beat of her heart. She could feel it working through her, humming just beneath her breastbone, coiling low in her belly like fire waiting for breath.She sat up too fast. The room spun. Her blood felt… thick. Magic-laced.She dragged the robe around her shoulders, fingers trembling as they tied the knot. The fabric was soft but clung too close, too warm—like a second skin she couldn’t shed.When she stood, the sigil flared again. Not painfully. But insistently.It wasn’t just marking her.It was syncing her.To him.She stumbled to the basin near the bed, s

The corridor outside the war hall was cold—colder than she remembered. Each step away from him felt like tearing a piece of herself free, and yet the bond did not loosen. If anything, it pulled tighter, more insistent now that she had denied it. It was not a chain—but a current, and the further she tried to walk, the more it dragged at her, seething under her skin.Sera made it only as far as the archway leading into her chamber before her knees threatened to give. She braced a hand against the carved stone, trying to catch her breath. The air was too thin, the weight in her chest too heavy. Her mouth tasted like copper, her head buzzed. Her body was humming in a frequency she couldn't silence.She wasn't afraid of him. That was the lie she kept telling herself. What she feared was herself—what she would allow, what she would crave, what she wouldn’t be able to stop. The truth was lodged in her marrow, coiling tighter with every heartbeat.The moment she crossed into her room, the sig