Chapter 1
My flame-red dragon Theodore, the one I'd raised for seven years, had become wrong.
Normally, if I left for more than a day, he'd slam into me the second I walked through the door—tail coiled around my arm, head nuzzling my neck, acting like a hatchling fresh out of the shell.
This time I pushed open the door and Theodore didn't even look at me.
I reached out to touch his scales. He shook my hand off, irritated.
That night I tried to let him coil around my arm to sleep like always. He actually whipped me with his tail, then flew up to the top of the cabinet with pure disgust on his face.
I stared up at that arrogant dragon head perched on the cabinet, something tight and cold coiling in my chest.
Finally, I'd had enough. I pulled the crystal orb from my sleeve.
I stared at the scene playing out in that expensive scrying orb, a bitter laugh rising in my throat.
There, my flame-red dragon Theodore—the one I'd raised for seven years—was lying docile at the feet of a woman in a threadbare mage's robe.
The woman was Lilith. The guild's resident damsel-in-distress. Everyone knew her act: tears on command, helpless routine perfected, and she still couldn't cast a basic fireball to save her life.
But right now, Theodore was using that noble head of his—the one I usually had to coax for half an hour just to touch—to nuzzle affectionately against Lilith's calf.
"Theodore, you're such a sweetheart. I bet Seraphina never lets you have treats like this, does she?"
Lilith's syrupy voice drifted from the orb, so fake it made my teeth ache.
Theodore rumbled deep in his throat and obediently opened his jaws, swallowing that cheap red berry whole.
The sight actually made me laugh.
Treats?
I'd spent seven years going half-blind over alchemical formulas to purify his bloodline, brewing essence-refining elixirs the guild would kill for.
I fed him dragonblood grass saturated with pure magic. She fed him roadside garbage even wild boars wouldn't touch.
And this ungrateful bastard thought her scraps were sweeter.
I shoved the orb back into my sleeve and kicked open the garden gate ten paces away. My heels cracked against the stone path.
Lilith flinched behind Theodore like a startled rabbit. Theodore shot to his feet, crimson wings flaring wide to shield her. A warning growl rolled from his throat—aimed at me.
"Seraphina, please don't be angry with Theodore. He just looked so lonely, I only wanted to—"
Lilith's eyes went glassy, as if I were some cruel tyrant abusing my familiar.
Theodore's golden slit-pupil eyes locked on me, cold and accusing. Through our soul bond, his voice came sharp with reproach:
"You're always so controlling, Seraphina. Lilith actually cares. Maybe you should think about that."
I looked at this red dragon I'd raised from a hatchling, whose scales I'd buffed to a mirror shine with my own potions, and felt the last thread of attachment snap clean.
"So you want her as your master?"
My voice came out flat. Calm. No heat left in it at all.
Theodore lifted his head, arrogant as ever, and huffed smoke from his nostrils.
"If you learned some kindness from her, maybe I'd forgive you for barging in like this."
"Fine. You want her? She's yours."
I raised my right hand. Silver light flared at my fingertips, sharp and cold.
"Wait—what are you—" Theodore's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
"Cutting you loose."
I drove the silver magic into my own forehead.
Pain ripped through my skull—a tearing, wrenching agony as the soul bond shattered.
The golden thread that had linked us for seven years exploded into glittering fragments and dissolved into nothing.
Theodore's massive body jerked. His eyes went wide, disbelieving.
He'd never imagined I'd do it. No argument. No second chance. Just done.
"Seraphina! How could you—" Lilith's voice pitched into a shriek.
I didn't look back. I already knew what her face looked like under that mask—triumphant and gloating.
"Congratulations. You just inherited my garbage."
I turned and walked.
If seven years couldn't make him loyal, I wasn't wasting another day. I'd get a new dragon. One that needed me and only me.
Sunk costs? I didn't believe in them. I had gold and I had skill.
Thirty minutes later, I stepped into the most lawless beast market in the capital's underbelly.
The air reeked of blood and waste. Iron cages lined the walls, packed with snarling, hissing creatures.
"Well, well! Mage Seraphina, slumming it today?" The market runner hustled over, grinning and rubbing his hands together.
"I'm buying a dragon." I didn't waste time. "The most vicious kind. Stubborn. Loyal to the bone once it bonds. That's what I want."
His grin faltered. "Ah... purebloods are hard to come by, you know that. But—" He scratched his jaw. "We did get something yesterday. Old black dragon, half-dead. Clan cast-off, defective goods. Want a look?"
Defective.
Funny. That's what the guild called me too.
I followed him to the darkest corner of the market, where the worst cases were kept.
Inside the last cage, a black dragon lay crumpled in his own blood.
His scales were cracked and colorless, many torn away entirely to expose bone. Both wings hung limp and shattered, twisted at unnatural angles.
He sensed me. Slowly, one eye cracked open.
Deep violet. Dark as an abyss. No madness in them. No fire. Just a hollow, bone-deep exhaustion—and underneath it, buried so far down I almost missed it—
Hunger. Not for food.
For something else.
My pulse kicked.
"Him."
I tossed a purse of gold at the runner's feet. The coins clinked heavy against the stone.
"Open it."
He snatched up the gold and fumbled with the lock.
I stepped inside the cage and crouched in front of the dragon. Slowly, I reached out and rested my palm against his torn, bloodied snout.
His scales were cold. Colder than they should've been.
"I'm your master now. Don't betray me, and I'll keep you alive."
The black dragon stared at me. His throat worked.
A faint, broken sound escaped him—something between a whimper and a growl.
Then, with visible effort, he lifted his head and extended his rough tongue.
With something like pleading, like desperate dependence, he licked my palm.
Slowly. Gently.
