Rejected Bride: Married To The Dragon King

Addison Jordan POV:

I stood before the Dragon God Altar, the silk of my white gown whispering against my skin. It felt like a lie.

The murmur of the crowd was a physical thing, hundreds of pairs of eyes pressing into my back. Each whisper was a tiny needle.

The ceremonial fires had been lit for an hour.

My fiancé, Lord Harper Carney, was late.

My fingernails dug into my palms. The sharp, clean pain was an anchor in the rising tide of humiliation. It was the only thing that felt real.

A ripple of movement went through the crowd. A gasp.

My head snapped up. Hope, sharp and foolish, pierced through the dread.

I saw him then, cutting a path through the assembled nobility. But he wasn't alone.

His arm was wrapped tight around my cousin, Lady Hettie Conway. Her smile was sickeningly sweet, the triumphant bloom of a well-tended weed.

Every sound in the grand hall-the crackling fires, the rustling silks, the whispers-vanished. All I could hear was the frantic, desperate hammering of my own heart against my ribs.

They walked toward me, each step a deliberate desecration of what was supposed tobe my sacred moment. They were walking on my dignity, grinding it into the cold stone floor.

Hettie leaned into Harper's side, her gaze a cloying mix of pity and pride. "Cousin," she purred, her voice just loud enough to carry. "I'm so sorry we're late."

The victory in her tone was a dagger, twisted with practiced grace.

"Harper loves me," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that everyone could hear. She tilted her head, showing off the necklace she wore. The starlight pendant. The one I had designed. The one meant for the Lady of House Carney. "You should be happy for us."

I looked at Harper. The man who had sworn his future to me just last week. His face held no guilt. Only impatience and a flicker of contempt.

"Addison," he said, his voice cold and dismissive. "It is what it is."

"Our betrothal is at an end."

The words were a thunderclap in the sudden silence. I was now officially the greatest joke in the capital.

I could feel the shock, quickly followed by the delicious, hidden delight of the crowd. A scandal was always more entertaining than a ceremony.

I forced my spine straight. I would not crumble. Not for them.

I met his gaze, my own as cold as the grave. "Lord Carney," I said, my voice steady. "I thank you for showing me your true character."

"From this moment, there is nothing between us."

Hettie's smile faltered. She had expected tears. Pleading.

Harper's brow furrowed, his pride stung by my composure. "Who do you think you are?" he sneered, his voice laced with venom. "You're a dragonless woman. Without the protection of my house, you are nothing."

I didn't answer. There was nothing left to say.

I turned my back on them, on the life that had just been stolen from me.

And as I turned, my eyes scanned the edge of the crowd, searching for an escape. My gaze snagged on a figure standing alone in the shadows of a great pillar, apart from the gossiping throng.

He was tall, his silhouette a stark cut of darkness against the flickering torchlight.

The light was too dim to see his face clearly, but I could see his eyes. They were the color of molten gold.

His gaze cut through the crowd, through the noise and the spectacle. It held no pity, no mockery. It was a deep, searing regard that seemed to see straight through the shattered facade to the wreck beneath.

For a single, bizarre moment, the frantic rhythm of my heart steadied. It was like finding a solid piece of rock in the middle of a churning, frozen sea.

He just watched me. As if he were the only other person in the room, the sole witness to my public execution.

Hettie's shill voice cut through the air behind me, unwilling to let me have the last word. "A dragonless nobody, abandoned at the altar! You're worthless now, Addison!"

My feet faltered for a second.

Then I walked faster, fleeing the whispers, the stares, the ruin of my life.

But the stranger's gaze followed me, a brand of heat on the back of my neck.