Chapter 3

Augus

When that woman begged to be excused from the medicine, I felt anger.

I knew exactly what she was imagining. Bear my child, become the cherished duchess of a noble human house — a life of comfort, wealth, and reverence. Every woman in this castle harbored the same fantasy.

How laughable.

What none of them knew was this: I am not human. I come from the world of dragons — the one and only crown prince of the Black Dragon lineage. A hundred years ago, when the previous Dragon King, my father, passed from this world, I should have inherited his throne. Instead, I was framed. Accused of his murder. In a single night, I was subjected to punishment and cast out of the dragon world entirely.

And so I have lived here ever since.

But my father's death had nothing to do with me.

I intend to return and expose the truth — to reclaim the position that was always rightfully mine. My injuries, however, have not fully healed. Until they do, I have no choice but to remain in this place and endure.

To speak plainly: I have had enough of it. This filthy human world. I despise humans — their bodies are pitifully fragile, and they carry a stench that turns my stomach.

Then I encountered that woman.

I still can hardly believe it. My fated mate — and she turns out to be a wretched human. Yet the first time I drew close to her, I noticed something that should have been impossible: she carried none of that smell. The one that clings to every other human being without exception. Instead, there was something else — something unfamiliar, something that settled my heart the instant I breathed it in.

Everything about that moment told me the same thing.

She is my mate.

"Be my slave."

That was the first thing I said to her.

Even knowing she was my fated mate, I could not bring myself to accept what that meant. A slave was all she could be.

"Thank you, my lord."

She knelt before me with gratitude, lifting her face — those eyes looking up at mine.

"I have no name. Would you give me one, my lord?"

It was the first time I had looked at her clearly. She was watching me with a pair of deep blue eyes unlike anything I had encountered — not among dragons, not among humans. I will admit they were extraordinary.

But I despised the way she looked at me with them.

It felt like mockery.

See? What does all your power matter? Your fated mate is me — a human.

So I gave her a cold answer.

"You are not worthy of one."

Still, her presence was not without its uses. I am a dragon at full maturity — I require release. Her body served that purpose well enough. More than that, I gradually became aware that each time we were together, my injuries healed a little further. Perhaps that was the particular gift of a fated mate's bond.

I made a decision: once my dragon strength had fully returned, I would kill her. Her existence would be a stain on my name — an obstacle to everything I needed to reclaim.

"My lord, you must be tired."

I turned my head. Linda — the disgraced princess — was still in the room. The woman had drunk her medicine and gone, leaving only the two of us.

Linda was smiling at me in that particular way of hers, her posture arranged for effect.

I had taken her as my concubine for political reasons — her family's holdings covered territory in the western reaches of the human world that I needed access to. But I resisted her proximity. In honest terms, I resisted the proximity of any human being.

Except for that woman.

"Let me help you relax, my lord."

Linda apparently failed to notice my expression. She rose from her chair and moved toward me.

Before she could reach me, I shoved her chair aside.

I would not touch it with my hands. Too contaminated. Repellent.

Linda went down hard, completely unprepared for it. She looked up at me from the floor, eyes brimming, her face arranged in an expression of wounded feeling.

Humans. Did she genuinely believe I couldn't see through her?

"Get out."

I tried to keep the revulsion from my face. Clearly, I failed. Linda's whole body began to shake; she scrambled to her feet and fled from the room in a stumbling rush.

Quiet at last.

I was about to go and rest when noise broke out beyond the door. The sounds of a struggle.

A moment later, Ike entered.

Ike has served me since before my exile — he followed me out of the dragon world and has not left my side since. He is of mixed blood: a dragon by his father's line, but his mother was human, which made him an object of contempt among our kind. I was the one who accepted him.

Humans are repugnant — but Ike did not choose his own birth. I could not hold that against him.

It was precisely why I refused to accept a human as my mate. I would not have my future heirs face the same contempt Ike had endured. That fate was not something I would wish on anyone who carried my blood.

"Your Highness," Ike said, "Miss Linda is beating the slave woman."

Linda's hatred of that particular slave was no secret. Under ordinary circumstances I would not have intervened — the gap in their standing was too wide for it to concern me. Linda had something I wanted from her. As long as she stopped short of killing the girl, I was willing to let the matter run its course.

Besides —

A wretched human, becoming my fated mate.

Was that not something that deserved punishment in its own right?

I remained in my chair.

But then, without any warning, a pair of blue eyes surfaced in my mind.

Watching me. Calling to me.

"My lord—!"

Her voice came through the wall.

Before I had decided to move, I was already on my feet.