TAMING THE DRAGON

Aislinn POV:

For years, I was cast aside by the Sterlings, left to rot in the countryside while my so-called parents ignored my existence.

Then they brought me back, only to offer me up as a sacrifice in my sister's place. I was to marry the Dragon Lord, Gideon Carlisle.

They said he had once been the realm's greatest warrior, but war had taken half his face and crushed his legs. They said the wounds had turned him into a monster. The Sterlings were sending me to my death.

I didn't refuse. I bled them for every coin they had, squeezing twenty thousand gold coins out of them as my survival fund.

On the wedding day, I arrived at my groom's estate. His steward tried to make me crawl through a dog door.

Gideon wanted to humiliate me? Fine. Let's see how he liked being dragged out instead.

I was blessed with unnatural strength. I hoisted the 500-pound stone gargoyle from his own front gate and smashed his door to splinters.

"Old lizard!" I shouted into the ruins. "Come out and greet your bride!"

***

"You will marry Gideon Carlisle."

These words, spoken in my mother Lady Sterling's syrupy, theatrical tone, hung in the air of the stuffy drawing-room. I sat on a cold, carved wooden chair, my hands folded in my lap.

Across from me, Lady Sterling, a woman whose entire existence was a performance, looked at me with what she probably thought was gentle sympathy.

"It is a great honor, Aislinn. You will become a lord's lady."

Honor?

The Gideon Carlisle she spoke of was a Dragon Lord, the Regent of this kingdom, a former god of war. He was said to have had half his face melted away by enemy dragonfire in a fierce battle, and his legs had been crushed and permanently broken as well. The wounds of war had made him brutally violent. It was said that he once tore apart a spy who broke into his home with his bare hands, without even shifting into his dragon form. That was certainly an exaggeration, but it was enough to show how terrifying he was in the eyes of the world.

This was no honor. It was practically murder.

I kept my head bowed, my gaze fixed on the worn linen of my dress, then flicked it toward the hem of her magnificent silk gown. Gold thread formed the griffin crest of House Sterling, a symbol of the nobility I had never truly belonged to. The contrast made a bitter, mocking smile flicker across my lips for a brief moment.

She had no idea that her daughter was no longer the helpless, obedient, abandoned girl she used to be.

In this land called Eldoria, dragons are everywhere, and those who have awakened their power can transform into dragons. Yet they had cast me aside to the countryside for years, simply because I was a "worthless" one who couldn't shift.

But fortunately, that exile had taught me how to survive on the borderlands. I learned medicine, and I learned how to handle hypocrites like them—people who glittered on the outside but were hollow within.

In my mind, I was already weaving plans of revenge against the two people in this room who called themselves my parents.

"Your sister, Imogen, is destined for a greater match," Lady Sterling continued, her voice laced with feigned regret. "She is determined to marry Crown Prince Tristan. We cannot waste her on a... cripple."

My father, Lord Marcus Sterling, cleared his throat. "It is the King's will. It is your duty and your honor."