Cael's POV
I smelled her blood before I saw her.
Human. Female. Broken.
The scent drifted up from the ice caves—the place where fools left their sacrifices, thinking I would consume them like some mindless beast. As if a thousand years of existence had reduced me to nothing more than a garbage disposal for their unwanted criminals.
I should ignore it. I always ignored the sacrifices.
But this one was different.
This one smelled like fire.
I landed at the cave entrance, my wings stirring up snow and ice. The familiar rage simmered in my chest—rage at humans who thought chains and suffering were acceptable offerings. Rage at a world that had taken everything from me.
The cave was dark, but my eyes saw perfectly in the blackness. And there she was.
Chained to the wall like an animal. Wearing nothing but a thin white dress in freezing temperatures. Her left hand was swollen and bent at wrong angles—broken fingers, recently. Cuts and bruises covered her exposed skin. She was shivering so violently I could hear her teeth chattering.
But she was alive.
And she was looking right at me with eyes that should have been filled with terror but instead held something else. Resignation. Acceptance.
Like she'd already made peace with dying.
That made me angrier than anything else.
"Please," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "Make it quick."
The words hit me like a physical blow. She thought I was here to kill her. To tear her apart and feast on her bones like the monster humans claimed I was.
Who did this to you? I asked in the old tongue, the language of my kind that no human had spoken in centuries.
She blinked, confusion crossing her face. "What?"
I moved closer, letting my flames light the cave properly. She flinched but didn't scream. Didn't beg. Just watched me with those impossibly brave eyes.
Your injuries. Your chains. Who dared to break you like this?
And then she answered—not in the old tongue, but she understood it. I could see the comprehension in her eyes even as common words fell from her lips.
"My father. My fiancé. Everyone I trusted."
The betrayal in her voice was raw and real. I knew that pain. Had lived with it for a millennium.
I reached for her chains, and she flinched—just a small movement, quickly controlled. Like she was used to being hurt but trying not to show fear.
That slight flinch decided everything.
I shattered her chains with a pulse of heat.
"I don't understand," she said, staring at her freed ankle. "Aren't you going to kill me?"
I crouched down to her level, close enough to see the gold flecks in her brown eyes. Close enough to smell the impossible scent radiating from her—smoke and flame and something ancient that shouldn't exist in human blood.
"I am Cael," I said, switching to common tongue so she'd understand clearly. "The Destroyer. The Scorched One. The monster they sent you to die for."
My tail moved of its own accord, curling near her side. An instinct I hadn't felt in so long I'd forgotten it existed—the urge to protect, to shelter, to claim.
"And I do not kill those who speak the old dragon tongue."
"But I don't speak—"
She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes widening as realization hit.
Her hand pressed against her chest, right over her heart. Right where I could sense the impossible warmth pulsing beneath her ribs. Dragon-fire. In a human body.
Impossible.
"You carry dragon-fire in your blood," I said, unable to keep the wonder from my voice.
How? Dragon-bonded bloodlines were extinct. I'd watched the last of them die three hundred years ago, hunted down by the very humans they'd tried to bridge with.
Unless...
I scooped her up before she could protest. She was lighter than she should be, cold as ice despite the fire in her veins. Her broken hand pressed carefully against her chest, trying not to touch me with it.
"Wait—where are you taking me?"
I looked down at her, this broken human girl who spoke ancient languages and carried impossible fire. Who'd been betrayed by everyone she loved and still hadn't broken.
"Somewhere you won't die," I said. "And then we're going to find out exactly what you are."
I spread my wings and launched into the air.
She made a small sound—not quite a scream, more like surprise—and her good hand clutched at my scales for balance. The wind whipped her dark hair around her face as we climbed higher, leaving the ice caves far below.
"I'm going to fall!" she gasped.
My tail wrapped around her waist instinctively, holding her secure against my chest. "I won't let you."
For some reason, she believed me. Her death-grip on my scales relaxed slightly, and she actually looked around—at the mountains below, the stars above, the world spreading out in every direction.
"I've never flown before," she whispered.
"Few humans have. Not in a thousand years."
"Why?" The question was soft, curious rather than demanding.
"Because humans decided dragons were monsters to be slain rather than allies to be honored." The old bitterness crept into my voice. "They hunted us. Killed our young. Destroyed the bonds that once made both our kinds stronger."
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "For what my people did to yours."
I almost dropped her in shock.
In a thousand years, no human had ever apologized. They justified. They excused. They claimed self-defense or necessity or destiny.
But none had simply said sorry.
We flew in silence after that, my wings carrying us toward the volcanic mountains where my lair waited. She shivered against my chest despite the warmth I was radiating, her broken body finally giving in to exhaustion.
"What's your name?" I asked as we began our descent.
"Elara," she murmured, her eyes already closing. "Elara Thorne."
Thorne.
The name hit me like dragon-fire to the chest.
Lord Garrett Thorne. The most famous dragon-slayer in five generations. The man who'd led the hunt that killed my last remaining friend, burning him alive in his nest while he slept.
And this girl—this broken, betrayed girl with dragon-fire in her blood—was his daughter.
The irony was so perfect it almost made me laugh.
I landed at my lair's entrance and carried her inside, laying her carefully on the furs near the main fire pit. She was unconscious now, her body finally surrendering to pain and cold and exhaustion.
I should leave her to rest.
But I found myself kneeling beside her instead, studying her face in the firelight. She was beautiful in a fragile, human way—delicate features, long lashes, lips that looked like they smiled often despite everything that had been done to her.
And when I carefully pulled back the collar of her dress to check for more injuries, I saw it.
A mark. Faint but unmistakable, right over her heart.
The dragon-bonded sigil. The symbol that marked those rare humans who carried dragon heritage in their veins.
Her father must have seen this. Must have known what it meant.
And he'd tried to destroy her for it.
"You fool," I whispered to the unconscious girl. "You had a treasure beyond measure, and you threw her away."
Elara stirred slightly, and I pulled my hand back. But as I did, my fingers brushed against her broken ones.
Heat flared between us—sudden and shocking. Not my fire. Not hers.
Both.
Her eyes snapped open, and for a moment we just stared at each other. In that instant, I felt everything—her pain, her fear, her desperate hope, her surprising strength.
And beneath it all, something else. Something that made my ancient heart beat faster.
Recognition.
Not of a person. But of a bond. The kind that hadn't existed in a thousand years.
The kind that tied dragon souls to human ones, making them stronger together than they ever could be apart.
"What—" she started.
But before she could finish, her eyes rolled back and she collapsed against the furs, truly unconscious this time.
I sat there in stunned silence, staring at my hand where our skin had touched.
A faint mark was appearing on my wrist—silver flame, delicate and impossible.
The mate mark.
"No," I breathed. "That's not possible."
But even as I denied it, I looked at Elara's wrist and saw the matching mark appearing there.
Golden dragon scales, shimmering softly in the firelight.
We were bonded.
The Destroyer and Lord Thorne's disgraced daughter.
Fated mates.
And somewhere in the distance, I heard the sound of dragon wings—many wings—approaching my territory.
Someone had followed us.
And they were coming for her.