Page 31 of Cursed with the Dragon Prince

Reina snaps to action, pulling her discarded bodice to her chest, cheeks flushing.

Somehow, I pull myself together and seize the speaking stone. “Yes,” I rasp out. I clear my throat. “I’m here.”

“Drakon.” Kaliyah sighs with relief. “You’re okay. Is Reina with you?”

Hopefully, the clan’s elder doesn’t realize what she interrupted. I don’t need her input to know this liaison between Reina and myself is unwise. The clan has witnessed what can happen if the Blessed One chooses a lover.

Concern helps me shake off the lingering desire.

“Are you safe?” I ask Kaliyah.

Reina sits nearby, listening. She rests a hand on my thigh—I don’t know if she’s comforting herself or me.

“Scorpia is confining us in the great hall. Enough agree with her that she can maintain control. She says we’re her hostages—if you bring Reina back, she promises everything can return to normal.”

“Are you safe?” I ask again.

“Yes, I believe so…” There is more that goes unsaid, but I understand—neither of us expected Scorpia to poison the clan. Anything seems possible. “Scorpia knows I can reach you, and I suspect she’s allowing me to send you this message.”

What she doesn’t say is that she’s likely being overheard. “I understand,” I reply.

“I need to know if Reina wants to continue this journey. If she’s ready to end this, return to Scorpia now. Then we can all move on, accepting the curse. However,if she wants to pursue the throne, I won’t let Scorpia stop her.”

“I want this,” Reina rushes to say. “Or at least I want more time.”

Kaliyah’s quiet, and I can’t tell if she’s thrilled at the news or disappointed. Her next words are stiff. “Then practice with Drakon,” she instructs. “Learn to shift and fly. I will tend to the clan.”

There’s more that she isn’t saying, but this time, I can’t interpret her silence. “Sunrise and sunset?” I ask, confirming when we will next speak.

“Sunrise and sunset,” Kaliyah agrees.

The stone becomes silent, dead in my hand, and my imagination runs rampant, wondering what Scorpia has planned. As the fear threatens to rouse the dragon’s rush, I clench the speaking stone in my fist.

Before it can consume me, Reina touches my arm. Not sensually, but warmly. Comforting. She sees my unease, the looming rage, but instead of running, she embraces me. My hand opens, my heart loosening.

Reina

The next few days pass in a flurry of wings and flight.Practice, practice, practice.We pause only to rest and eat, then replenish and practice again. Every evening, every morning, we hear from Kaliyah. Her updates are simple—there isn’t much to say.

When we rest, we cuddle. Our bodies gravitate together, soothing our shared uneasiness, except the rampant passion hasn’t returned. Something shifted after Kaliyah’s message, reminding us of our duties, establishing a barrier that wasn’t there before—we don’t even kiss.

We don’t talk about why. I feel rejected. I feel relieved.

The clan is in danger. Our relationship is complicated. We don’t want to this to be messier than it already is. And while the air is riddled with unresolved tension, I’m not ready to tear it down. I doubt my own desire.

Desire seems wild, out of control. When I had him pinned under me, straddling him,I wanted him.Desperately.

Passion has always been unnecessary, inconvenient. Only with Drakon as eager as me, the years of self-denial fade away. My body knows sex is normal, and as we cuddle, my mind rewires, unlearning.

I tell him things, and he listens, sometimes even asking questions. There’s much about my world he doesn’t know, and explaining it to him helps me unravel my previous life.

I explain my mother’s death in childbirth, the curse of my birthmark. Admitting how I hoped to have children, to nurture them as I wasn’t, I confess how I was married off as a young woman to a man who discarded me. I confess how desperately I wanted my child, to shower them in love and acceptance.

I speak of grief because motherhood never found me.

In time, I share how my brother shamed me for returning, making me the least of his household.

I don’t cry. At least, not until I mention my nieces. They’re the ones I miss. Even when their mother shooed us apart, I turned their thimbleweed bouquets into flower crowns.

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