Two thick, suffocatingly strong arms wrapped forcefully around Rosearia’s waist from behind, pulling her flush against a chest as hard as reinforced iron.
Her crimson eyes flared. Mana spiked through her veins, she was ready to tear the intruder to shreds. But before her spells could detonate, an intoxicating scent swept over her senses.
Ozone. Fine wine. Scorching, suffocating dragon heat.
"Aldric!" she gasped, her heart slamming against her ribs.
A low, rich laugh vibrated through her spine, sending an electric shiver straight to her toes. Aldric leaned in, his lips brushing the delicate shell of her ear, his searing breath scorching her skin.
"Did I scare you, my sweet Rose?"
"SQUEEEEEEAK!"
Snowball let out a noise of absolute, catastrophic outrage.
Without missing a beat, Aldric casually hoisted Rosearia completely off her feet with a single arm, spinning her around while tossing the small white creature sideways onto a nearby garden bench like an unwanted sack of flour.
"Unbelievable!" Snowball huffed, bouncing off the cushion and fluffing his fur to three times its normal size. "No respect! Absolutely zero respect for calamity beasts! You dragon-blooded brute, I am an ancient bringer of end-times, not a throw pillow!"
Rosearia didn’t hear a single word the creature screeched.
Her breath hitched as her eyes locked onto Aldric’s glowing, slitted golden ones.
He looked dangerously, offensively handsome. His golden hair was artfully disheveled, and his royal coat was unbuttoned at the throat, exposing the faint, iridescent dragon scales shimmering near his collarbone.
"You are...," Rosearia panted, pressing both hands against his broad chest to steady her racing heart. "What if I had impaled you with an ice spike?"
"I’d let you," Aldric growled softly.
His golden gaze darkened, swirling with a raw, predatory intensity that made her knees feel dangerously weak.
"Do whatever you want to me, Rose. Destroy me. I’m entirely yours."
His hands gripped her waist tighter, pulling her close enough that she could feel the thunderous, heavy beat of his dragon core pulsing against her palms.
The quiet, melancholic vulnerability she had shared with Adrian just moments ago vanished into thin air. It was instantly incinerated, replaced by the wild, suffocating tension that always burned like a wildfire between her and the Dragon Duke.
"I missed you," Aldric murmured, his thumb tracing the sharp, elegant line of her jaw before brushing heavily and slowly against her lower lip. "Three hours away from you feels like a slow, agonizing execution. Do you have any idea how hard it was to focus on an investigation knowing you were wandering around the capital without me?" Read the latest chapters at novelping dot com.
"Aldric..." Her voice trembled, slipping past her usual composed defense.
"Look at me." His golden eyes blazed like molten gold. "You look agonizingly dangerous in black, Rose. It makes me want to ruin you right here among the roses."
A sudden, sharp heat flared deep in Rosearia’s stomach.
She wasn’t a fragile damsel to be flustered into silence.
Tilting her chin up, her crimson eyes flashed with her own lethal, intoxicating spark. "Is that a promise, Duke?"
Aldric’s breath hitched sharply.
Before she could draw another breath, his mouth descended onto hers.
The kiss was wild, greedy, and relentlessly possessive. Aldric backed her gently until her spine met one of the cold marble pillars supporting the glass roof, his long fingers tangling greedily into her vibrant jade-green hair. He kissed her like a dying man downing poison, taking every drop of air from her lungs.
Rosearia’s fingers curled tight into his broad shoulders, pulling him down, meeting his fierce hunger with her own spark.
When he finally pulled back, leaving a thin thread of breath between them, both of them were flushed and breathless. He rested his forehead against hers, his golden eyes blown wide.
"Tell me you missed me," he demanded, his voice a rough husk.
Rosearia’s eyes flickered. She swallowed past the lump in her throat, her chest heaving. "I... I missed you."
A slow, dangerously arrogant smile spread across Aldric’s lips. "I knew it."
He stole one more brief, bruising kiss before finally easing his weight back, though his arm remained locked around her waist like an iron chain.
Off on the bench, Snowball was covering his face with both tiny, fur-covered paws. "Scandalous! Absolutely vulgar! I am a sovereign beast of destruction, not an audience for your mating rituals! Have some shame!"
Rosearia buried her face in Aldric’s chest for a brief second, catching her breath while her pulse beat frantically in her throat. "You’re a menace," she whispered, her cheeks burning. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
"Only for you, my Rose."
Slowly, he helped her smooth down the elegant black silk of her dress.
The playful warmth in the air began to thin out as Rosearia forced her sharp, analytical mind back to the front. "Your investigation..." She cleared her throat, locking eyes with him. "What did you find out about the crest on the assassins?"
The playful smirk on Aldric’s face faded. In a fraction of a second, the flirtatious lover vanished, replaced by the ruthless military commander of the North. His expression hardened into pure, deadly obsidian.
He reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a piece of ancient, weathered parchment, unfolding it between them.
"The crest," Aldric said, his voice dropping an octave into a lethal register. "It isn’t a mercenary symbol. And it isn’t an imperial noble house playing shadow games."
Rosearia’s eyes narrowed into sharp slits. "Then what is it?"
"It’s the mark of a cult." He held up the parchment. Sketched in dark ink was a terrifying, circular emblem of a shattered moon dripping blood into a weeping eye.
"Do you know the name of the cult, that might lead us to a closer clue."
"No, but what I do now is that they worship primordial dark magic — things that existed long before the modern gods or the founding of the Empire," Aldric explained, his golden eyes flashing grimly. "I dug through the black-market archives. They leave a trail of horror. High-tier mana cores ripped out of living mages. Divine blood spilled in ritual circles. Entire high-noble lineages completely erased from the imperial registers overnight."
Rosearia stared at the drawing. A cold, unnatural dread sank straight into the pit of her stomach.
"And the assassins who tried to take my head were carrying this mark?"
"Yes," Aldric said grimly. "Which means they haven’t just entered the capital. They’ve infiltrated the highest ranks of the Imperial Court."
"How do we pull the threads?" Rosearia’s mind instantly began mapping out pathways, targets, and leveraged political assets. "Who is directing them?"
Aldric smiled faintly, leaning down to press a swift, lingering kiss to her cheek. "There’s only one person in the capital with access to forbidden archives deep enough to reveal their leader."
"Vesper," Rosearia said instantly, the answer dropping off her tongue like a blade. "The High Witch."
"Exactly."
Rosearia closed her eyes and let out a long sigh, rubbing her temples. "I shudder to think what absurd, blood-curdling price that woman will demand from us in exchange for a name."
Aldric’s wicked, lethal charm flashed back into his eyes as he pulled her flush against his side. "Whatever she demands, Rose... I’ll burn down half the city to pay it to find out who dared target you."