After my dragon mate bought me at the auction with the highest price of the entire session, which crushed everyone else’s bid. Then, I became pregnant. Dragon-kind struggled to produce offspring. Yet I carried three little dragonlings to term in a single birth. But the male who had once been so possessive he bordered on obsessive now regarded me with cold indifference. “Honestly,” Drakar said, “I regret it.” I looked up at him in confusion. His gaze swept over my full chest and the curve of my waist and hips. “I shouldn’t have let my temper get the better of me back then. I shouldn’t have chosen you just to spite Lyara. Looking at you now — you’re nothing, just knows how to breed. And that’s how you’ve come to live such a wealthy life.” “While my Lyara,” he continued, “has suffered all these years because of me.” My whole body went rigid. My eyes slowly burned red. I whispered a quiet protest — told him he couldn’t live without me. But Drakar wasn’t moved in the slightest. If anything, he grew more animated, already scheming about how to bring his true love back to him. He turned that contemptuous gaze on me one last time. “You think I’d have ever kept circling back to you if your body weren’t what it is?” “Don’t worry. You gave me offspring, so I won’t throw you out. As it happens, my brother still doesn’t have a female. When he comes back, you’ll move into his quarters.” Dragon-kind were creatures of deep appetite. Once they’d been with a female, they couldn’t go without. And his brother — that male had been sneaking around trying to get close to me when we first met. — “Are you certain you want to transfer the original female’s registration to your brother’s name?” The orc clerk at the record office clearly thought he’d misheard. He looked at me — full-figured, abundantly curved — and then looked at the frail, paper-thin female cradled in Drakar’s arms, the kind who looked like a strong wind might carry her off. “Once the transfer is filed, it cannot be reversed without the consent of another registered male.” But Drakar acted as though he hadn’t heard a word. He furrowed his brow impatiently. “Of course I’m certain. Please make it quick — my female was just brought back, she’s not adjusted to the environment here yet, and I need to get her settled at home.” The clerk swallowed his irritation and crossed out the name behind Drakar’s, replacing it with a new one. My name was now filed under a dragon-kin called Caelun. “Done. Your brother still needs to come in and press his mark. When does he return?” Drakar was too busy soothing the female in his arms to give a proper answer. “Tomorrow, probably.” — When we left the registration office, I stood alone to one side. I watched Lyara pout and cling to Drakar, sulking about how he’d abandoned her all those years ago — and how he’d stood right in front of her and bought another female at auction. Drakar coaxed her with tender patience. When he finally finished, he glanced back at me. In the cold wind, I must have looked small and desolate. He paused. Something flickered across his face — words that never made it past his throat. In the silence that followed, I spoke first. “Am I moving out today?” Drakar’s brow creased. “You don’t have to rush—” “You’re Amber, aren’t you?” Lyara cut in suddenly, looking me over from head to toe with naked jealousy. “I remember you. You were the most sought-after female at that auction.” “Orcs just love that type, don’t they?” She smiled thinly. “Tell me honestly — don’t you find it embarrassing, carrying around a body like that? If I looked like you, I wouldn’t leave the house.” She glanced sideways at Drakar, her expression going soft and wounded. “Drakar… you like that type too, don’t you?” Drakar’s face tightened at once. “Who said anything like that? It disgusts me.” I went completely still. My eyes stung. Disgusts him. But every single night, he’d wrap his dragon tail around me and pull me close, taking and taking until I was trembling and boneless. His scales would brush the length of my spine, slow and deliberate. Sometimes once wasn’t enough. He needed twice. Three times. Only when I was completely spent would he finally be satisfied. And all of that, apparently, disgusted him. Lyara curved her lips in a small, satisfied smile and hooked her arm through Drakar’s, watching me with practiced pity. “Don’t take it personally. If Drakar hadn’t bought you that day, do you think you’d be living as well as you have been? You should really be thanking me — if I hadn’t had that falling-out with Drakar, there never would have been room for you.” I looked at Drakar. He didn’t react. I let out a dry, hollow sound of agreement. Seeing that I had no fight left in me no matter how she twisted the knife, Lyara lost interest and pulled Drakar forward, demanding to go home. He followed her with an indulgent smile. After a few steps, he glanced back. “Amber. Since you want to move, go ahead.” “Don’t take it to heart. We’re still family.” Family. Yes. We were still family. Only I was no longer his female. I belonged to his brother now.
The moment Lyara arrived home, her expression collapsed. She stormed straight into the room I shared with Drakar. She tore through every corner, pulling out anything connected to me, hurling it all outside one piece at a time. A pair of woven grass rings I had braided myself. A protection charm I had quietly tucked beneath Drakar’s pillow. I had spent a long time sewing that charm. The stitches were tight and even — every one of them careful, every one deliberate. Now it was being ground beneath her heel like rubbish. I stood frozen in place, watching Lyara pass through our home like a hurricane, scattering everything I had built with my own hands. And Drakar stood right there beside her. He didn’t stop her. He gave a helpless little laugh. His gaze caught mine — brief, weightless. “Let her have this,” he said lightly. “I owe her. A little venting is fair. Whatever she breaks, I’ll replace.” My eyes burned. I shook my head and said quietly, “It’s fine. Nothing important.” Drakar paused. He studied me, a vague restlessness crossing his face — but he didn’t say another word. — Along the fence in the yard, my vegetable garden grew in a straight, tidy row. Drakar had complained about the trouble, said it was easier to just buy food at the market. But I’d still wanted to grow my own. And for all his grumbling, he had quietly built a low wooden fence around the beds for me later on. Now Lyara walked straight through those seedlings without a second glance. She yanked my undergarments from the drying line and shook them with exaggerated disgust. “You actually hang these outside where everyone can see? Are you trying to advertise yourself? A totally whore!” She dropped the garment and stepped on it. Beside her, Drakar couldn’t quite suppress a laugh. His warm, attentive gaze followed Lyara everywhere, completely unaware of the color draining from my face. I hunched my shoulders instinctively. For the first time in my life, I felt ashamed of my own body. But Lyara wasn’t finished. She prowled the rest of the yard, until her eyes landed on the woven basket sitting against the wall. The sun had been good today. I’d been worried the room was too stuffy, so I’d carried the basket outside to let the dragonlings nap in the warmth. My stomach lurched. I called out sharply: “The young ones are in there—” I didn’t get to finish. She had already picked it up. I went white and lunged forward without thinking. But I was too late. Lyara startled, stumbled back a step — and in that instant, a dark shape flashed past her and caught her before she could fall. The three dragonlings, curled in their nest of soft cloth, tumbled out like three small fruits shaken from a branch. They were so small. So small that when they hit the ground, they made no sound at all. Only the largest of the three — startled awake by the impact — let out a thin, reedy cry. “Baby—!” I dropped to my knees, frantically gathering all three of them into my arms with trembling hands. They were frightened. Their tiny tails wound around my fingers, their little bodies shaking in stuttering, irregular tremors. The oldest one had scraped the skin from his forehead. A faint bead of blood welled up at the wound. The pain of it squeezed the breath out of my chest. Drakar had been closer to that basket than Lyara. If he’d wanted to, he could have pressed it down before she ever reached it. He hadn’t. He had chosen to catch Lyara first. And then watched, without so much as a furrowed brow, as our young hit the ground. I used to wonder about all those nights — the desperate, tangled closeness, the thousand small tendencies he had of bending toward me, the thousand ways he had of sheltering me. If that wasn’t something like love, I had asked myself, then what was? But in this moment, I could no longer pretend I hadn’t been wrong. —
I raised my head, voice shaking, eyes red. “Drakar, please. Please don’t let her throw anything else. I’ll pack everything myself — I’ll take it all with me. I promise I won’t leave a single thing behind.” Drakar flinched. He slowly released the arm he had around Lyara. The dragonlings were still crying — thin, heartbroken sounds aimed at their father. They wanted him to touch them the way he used to. Just once. But before Drakar could even speak— Lyara whirled on him, eyes flooding with tears. “Drakar. You felt something just now, didn’t you? You felt sorry for her. Sorry for the young she gave you. Didn’t you?!” “I knew it. You said you were disgusted, but you never let go of her — not really!” Drakar’s brow furrowed. He moved to deny it instinctively. “That’s not—” “You promised you’d come back for me!” Lyara’s voice broke open. The tears came in a torrent. “You stood in front of everyone and bid top price for her. The other females laughed at me for half a year after that. Said I was deluding myself, that a male like you would never choose someone like me.” “After that, no one wanted to buy me. I had to wash other people’s clothes. Split firewood. Every filthy, exhausting task you can imagine — I did it all.” “One winter I ran a fever for seven days. I was barely conscious. And all I could think about, lying there burning up, was you. Wondering when you would come.” “And where were you? Were you with her? Had you already forgotten I existed?” Her crying softened into something smaller as she pressed herself against his chest, fists beating weakly against him. “Drakar, we’ll have young of our own. I can give you so many…” “Just stop looking at other females. Please.” The tension gradually drained from Drakar’s body. He pulled his gaze away from the dragonlings. Away from me. He raised a careful hand and wiped the tears from Lyara’s face. “Don’t cry. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.” The dragonlings called for him. Their voices grew thinner and thinner. They pressed their small snouts against my fingers, their dark, luminous eyes reflecting my face back at me. Asking a question I didn’t know how to answer. Why are we hurt, and Father won’t look at us? I just watched. My whole face had gone numb, locked into something that wasn’t quite an expression at all. I reached out and touched each of their heads, one by one. It took a long moment before I managed anything resembling a smile. “It’s all right, little ones.” I lowered my head and began gathering things off the ground. Picked something up. It fell again. I picked it up again. It fell again. Tears dropped onto the dirt and disappeared. In the background, Lyara was telling Drakar she wanted a new bed built — she refused to sleep in one that had been shared with another female. She wanted the vegetable garden torn out and replaced with flowers. She wanted the fence taken down. Drakar looked in the direction she pointed. His gaze rested on my green, tended rows for just a moment. He looked down at me. Then he turned away. He tucked his chin against the top of Lyara’s head. “Whatever you want.”
Over the days that followed, I moved into Caelun’s quarters. He had been gone too long. The room was heavy with damp. I cleared out a small corner as best I could. Layered old clothes over dry grass to make the dragonlings something like a nest. At night, the thick, sticky summer air drifted in through the window, carrying the cloying scent of the flowers Drakar had planted over my vegetable beds. The dragonlings fussed and squirmed against my chest, too unsettled to sleep deeply. They were heartbroken. From the day they were born, their father had never been cold to them like this. I leaned down and pressed my lips gently to each of their foreheads. My eyes stung. Outside, the sound of crying carried through the dark. I rolled over and pressed my hands hard against my ears. Then — a crash. A heavy, jarring impact. “Drakar, don’t — don’t touch me. Please, I’m frightened—” Lyara’s voice was filled with a trembling of fear. Then, a stumbling footsteps in the dark. My whole body went taut. The next second, the door was shoved open from outside. Drakar stood in the doorway. His pale green dragon eyes were fixed on me with a wild, locked intensity. His gaze moved over my face, then dropped to the open collar of my robe. I knew that look. I had seen it on a thousand nights. In the dark, it preceded him pulling me close, his tail winding around my waist, and the long, relentless hours that followed. He was in heat. I pressed myself back against the wall. Something in Drakar’s jaw ground tight at the sight of it. He didn’t know what he was angry about. His instincts surged forward regardless, drowning out the rest — that is my female, no one takes her from me. As he stepped toward me, I shook my head desperately. “No. I don’t want this.” My refusal seemed to cut through him. He stopped. He looked at me like he’d been wounded. Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who let me go. “I don’t consent—” But I hadn’t finished the sentence before he caught my wrists easily and pinned them above my head. Then a sharp hiss. The largest dragonling fought free of the blankets. Pushing with his little tail, he dragged himself forward until he was positioned in front of me. I could feel him trembling. His eyes reflected Drakar’s half-shifted form, and what filled them was terror. But he opened his mouth anyway. He bared his small, still-forming fangs and hissed a warning directly at his father. The other two jolted awake. They imitated their brother, shaking violently, pressing up in a trembling row. Three dragonlings barely bigger than my palm, lined up between me and the male who had made them. The tears burst from my eyes without warning. “Baby — don’t, don’t come closer—” I tried to reach for them. Drakar held my wrists. I couldn’t move. Drakar looked down. The heat had clouded his mind. He reached out. The dragonling thrashed in his grip, tail lashing frantically. “Let go of him! You’re hurting him!” I fought like I’d lost my mind. My nails raked his arm. Drakar’s expression tightened. With an absent, careless motion, he tossed the dragonling aside. The tiny body struck the wall and slid down. “Baby!” The pain drove the breath from my lungs. My eyes went red. “What is wrong with you? That is your child! How could you—” Something surfaced in Drakar’s face. A brief flicker of clarity. He stared at his own hand. He looked at the dragonling crumpled against the wall. But the instinct rose again. His gaze returned to me. His hand came back up. “Amber…” he murmured, barely coherent. From the doorway came a scream. “What is happening in here?!” Drakar went rigid. He spun around. Lyara stood barefoot in the entrance, her eyes stretched wide, staring at us. Drakar shoved me away. His face twisted with something I didn’t have a name for. In the panic of the moment, the words came out before he could stop them. “It was — she came onto me.”
I went completely still. The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Everything I had known — everything I had believed about the past three years — collapsed in a single moment. And then I laughed. A quiet, involuntary sound. Something in Drakar’s expression shifted as he watched me. His head swam. “That’s not what I—” he started. But before he could finish, Lyara was already on me. She seized a fistful of my hair. Her open hand connected with my face. “You shameless thing!” Before she could land a second blow, Drakar’s hand shot out and caught her wrist. “Lyara!” “So you’re protecting her now?!” His hand slowly lowered. I watched Drakar struggle. His gaze was flat and hollow. Something inside me went quiet. Lyara dragged me by the hair toward the door, pulling hard enough to make me stumble. She hauled me out into the open yard and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Everyone, come look! Drakar doesn’t want her anymore, and she’s still out here throwing herself at my male! Shameless! Disgusting!” Torchlight appeared as other settlement members came out to see. I let her drag me. I had nothing left. There was a ringing in my ears. My mind kept playing back the words Drakar had just said. The next moment, Lyara grabbed the front of my robe. “You like everyone looking at you so much? Then let them look!” Shame and helplessness crashed over me. I began fighting her in earnest. But the fabric tore anyway. Around us, low murmuring ran through the crowd. “Isn’t that Drakar? I thought he was obsessed with Amber. Now he’s throwing her aside for some bony little thing?” “What a waste. Think he’d let someone else take her home?” “Try it if you want your skull caved in. You know how dragon-kin are. No logic.” The cold air hit my skin. I shivered. Drakar stood at a distance. He was ashen. His lips moved. Whatever thought he’d formed, he swallowed it. Lyara finished her performance. She threw the torn fabric in my face, turned on her heel, and slammed the door. Several sets of hungry eyes lingered on me. They slid away one by one when they glanced at Drakar. The crowd dispersed. Drakar walked toward me. His fingers trembled slightly. He curled them into a fist and stepped past me. “I’ll go calm her down. When she settles, I’ll come back for you.” The door closed. Silence. I slowly pulled the remnants of my clothing around my body. My crying had already gone hoarse. All that remained were ragged, irregular breaths. I didn’t know how much time passed. Then someone stepped in front of me, blocking the moonlight. I looked up. My vision was blurred. A young dragon-kin stood over me. His face was strikingly, almost dangerously beautiful — and at that moment, etched with shock. He breathed out a single word. “…Sister-in-law?”
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