Addison Jordan POV:
I fled down the altar steps, the sound of my own breathing harsh in my ears. The laughter and whispers of the crowd felt like a physical pursuit.
A wave of cloying perfume washed over me, and Hettie caught up, blocking my path. Her face was a mask of false concern that made my stomach churn.
"Cousin, don't be like this. I know you're upset," she began, her voice dripping with counterfeit sympathy. "But you can't blame Harper. Who would want to marry a dragonless woman, whose blood runs cold?"
The term was a common slur for those of us who couldn't transform. A reminder that I was lesser. Incomplete.
I stopped, my gaze flat and empty. "Move, Lady Conway. We have nothing more to say to each other."
My coldness seemed to finally crack her facade. The feigned sweetness vanished, replaced by the raw, ugly spite I knew so well. "You think you're still the high and mighty daughter of House Jordan? You're a public disgrace! A joke!"
She leaned in close, her voice dropping to a venomous hiss meant only for me. "Everything that was yours will soon be mine. Your chambers, your status, Father's favor."
Her words were poison, meant to find purchase in my deepest insecurities. But the part of me that could feel was already numb.
A thin, cold smile touched my lips. "Is that so? Then you had best pray that stolen things bring you luck."
I pushed past her, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a fight. I knew any reaction, any anger, would only feed her triumph.
I finally escaped the main hall, finding refuge in a quiet, deserted corridor. The sudden silence was a relief, but it couldn't quiet the storm inside me.
A low, resonant voice spoke from behind me.
"She's wrong."
I spun around, my heart leaping into my throat. It was him. The man from the shadows.
He stepped out of the pillar he'd been standing in, his tall frame seeming to shrink the corridor. Up close, his eyes were even more arresting—a pure, liquid gold that was the legendary mark of a pure-blood dragon.
A jolt of alarm went through me. I took an instinctive step back. "Who are you?"
He didn't answer, just closed the distance between us with slow, deliberate strides. He moved with a predator's grace, utterly silent.
I caught his scent then—a strange, clean smell of ozone after a lightning strike, mixed with something ancient, like smoke and hot metal. It wasn't a cologne. It was the scent of power.
He stopped three paces from me, his golden gaze intense. "You are not worthless, Lady Jordan. Your value is far beyond their comprehension."
I stared at him, speechless. In a day filled with betrayal and scorn, he was the first person to offer a single word of anything else.
I took a moment to truly look at him. He wore a simple, dark tunic, impeccably tailored but unadorned with the crest of any house I recognized. Everything about him screamed power, but a quiet, restrained power, unlike the flashy peacocks of the capital.
"I don't understand your meaning, my lord," I said, my voice tight with caution, falling back on the formality of court.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. He didn't seem to mind my wariness. "It's quite simple. I saw your predicament. And I heard their foolishness."
His golden eyes held a glint of something I couldn't decipher. "And I, as it happens, have a predicament of my own."
"I was also stood up by my intended bride today."
He said it so casually, as if discussing the weather.
My jaw dropped. I couldn't form a coherent thought.
He held out a hand toward me. It was a large hand, strong and calloused, a warrior's hand. "Since we have both been so inconveniently abandoned," he said, his voice a low rumble.
"Perhaps we should make a pair."
My mind went completely blank. The world tilted on its axis.
"Marry me, Lady Jordan," he said, his gaze locking with mine. His tone was calm, but it held a weight, a command, that was impossible to ignore.
"In return, I will be your shield. I will stand between you and all the storms to come."
The proposal was madness. Utter insanity.
But as I stood there, stripped of my future, my name, my dignity, his offer wasn't a proposition.
It was a lifeline.
I stared into the bottomless gold of his eyes, my heart pounding a frantic, desperate rhythm.
