Too Late For Regret: My Dragon Lord

Florence POV:

The cold stone of the courtyard pressed against my cheek, the air thick with the smell of rust and fear. A dragon-hide whip, soaked in salt water, tore across the skin of my back. The pain was a white-hot explosion that nearly sent me into darkness. That was the ninth lash.

From a distance, I could hear the choked sobs of my maids, Mrs. Hayes and Poppy, pleading for me. Their cries were quickly muffled as guards roughly clamped hands over their mouths.

My mind splintered. I, Florence Wilkerson, once a top-tier emergency room physician, was now here, in this hell, being publicly shamed for an accusation of adultery I didn't commit. Fragments of my modern world-the sterile scent of a hospital, the frantic beep of a heart monitor-collided with the raw despair of the woman whose body I now inhabited.

Caelus Alvarez, my husband in name only, stood before me. The dragon lord, with his brilliant gold hair and amber dragon eyes, regarded me with nothing but pure disgust.

The clothes he wore were embroidered with intricate dragon scales in gold thread, glittering in the sun, while I was dressed in a roughspun prisoner's tunic. This was the difference between the Dragon-born and the Dragonless, power made visible.

His voice was as cold as ice. "The tenth lash. Let her remember the price of betraying the Alvarez name." He raised the whip, its tip drawing a cruel arc through the air.

I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the impact. But the searing pain never landed on my back.

Instead, a small, warm body threw itself over me with a muffled grunt. My eyes flew open. I twisted, my muscles screaming in protest, and saw my five-year-old son, Aethan. He had taken the blow for me, his thin back shielding mine.

His small face was pale, his lips trembling from the shock of pain, but his ice-blue eyes were fixed on Caelus with unnerving defiance. "Don't... Don't you hurt my mommy!"

Caelus's expression twisted at the interruption. "Get out of the way, you Dragonless bastard!" he roared.

Aethan's small frame trembled, but he didn't move. He just hugged me tighter.

In that instant, the last remnants of the original Florence's despair were consumed by a fire I hadn't felt since I'd arrived in this world. I was no longer the weak woman who begged for his love. I was a doctor. I was a mother.

A single thought burned through my mind: protect my child.

Caelus, apparently provoked by the defiance of a five-year-old, raised the whip again. This time, he aimed for Aethan.

"Caelus, my love, he's just a child," a voice as soft as silk drifted from the adjoining colonnade. Catharine Craig, dressed in a sky-blue silk gown embroidered with subtle, silver dragon-flame patterns, glided toward him. The dress was a statement of her favored status.

She walked to Caelus's side, placing a graceful hand on his arm. Her own blue eyes were filled with "concern." "Losing your temper over a child is beneath a Dragon Lord's dignity."

Her words were a balm, but the look she shot toward Aethan and me held a flicker of triumph. It was her. She had orchestrated all of this.

Caelus's rage subsided slightly under her touch, but his loathing for us remained.

He sneered down at Aethan. "As worthless as his mother. Drag him off. Continue the punishment."

Two guards moved forward, their hands reaching to pull Aethan away from me.

"Mommy! Mommy!" Aethan cried, his small hands clutching my tunic.

My son's cries were a blade twisting in my gut. No. I would not allow it.

The moment a guard's fingers brushed against Aethan, I used every ounce of strength I had left. I pulled Aethan under me, shielding him, and my voice, though hoarse and cold, cut through the air with absolute clarity. "Stop."

It wasn't loud, but the authority in that single word made everyone, including the two guards, freeze.

Caelus narrowed his dangerous dragon eyes, startled that I dared to speak.

I lifted my head, my gaze meeting his. The old Florence would have cringed and looked away. But I stared directly into his eyes, my own holding not fear, but a cold, rising fire.

"Caelus Alvarez," I said, each word a chip of ice. "If you dare touch my son again today, I promise you, you will regret it."

A dead silence fell over the courtyard. Everyone stared, stunned.

A Dragonless woman, a scorned wife on the verge of being whipped to death, was threatening a Dragon Lord.

The smile on Catharine's face froze. She looked at me in disbelief.

Caelus's shock morphed into a deeper, more profound fury. He felt his authority had been challenged in a way it never had before.

He shook off Catharine's hand and stalked toward me. The oppressive pressure of a dragon's presence radiated from him, so heavy the air itself felt thick and hard to breathe.

He crouched in front of me, his fingers seizing my chin. "What did you just say?" he ground out, his voice a low growl. "I didn't hear you. Say it again, if you have the nerve."