Page 62 of The Dragon King's Pregnant Mate

I’m here with a monster.

"Finally awake, Calliope?"

I hate the way he says my name. I wish I could rip out of his mouth, curse him to never say it again.

Ulric's voice carries none of its old charm. He stands at the edge of the narrow ledge where I lie bound, golden hair whipping in the frigid wind. His fine clothes are ragged now, his face gaunt and haunted. Burns from our last battle still mar his skin, the scarring worse than I remembered. He’s clearly been hiding for days from the dragons hunting him, looking wild and unkempt.

But it's his eyes that truly frighten me—there's nothing left in them of the charismatic prince who once pretended to be my ally. Only madness remains, sharp as broken glass.

"How did you get into the castle?" My voice comes out weaker than I'd like, but I force myself to meet his gaze. "The wards—"

"The wards remember me." His laugh holds an edge of hysteria. "Just as the stones remember. Just as everything in that cursed city remembers who I was meant to be, before my brother stole it all. The walls remember my blood. Really, it’s all about blood."

I test my bonds carefully, trying to access my magic. But something's wrong—the power feels distant, muffled, like trying to hear through deep water. When I reach for the familiar pulse of winter storm, I find only echoes.

"Wondering why your little tricks aren't working?" Ulric's smile is knife-sharp as he holds up an iron pendant. Ancient runes pulse with sickly light along its surface. "Amazing what you can find in the old places, if you know where to look. The first dragons knew how to bind magic. Knew how to cage things that were never meant to be caged. It won’t last long, but then again, you won’t be conscious long. I’m going to make sure you have a…painless pregnancy."

I struggle to sit up, fighting waves of dizziness. "He’s going to find me. How does it feel, Ulric? To be the monstrous failure you are? It can’t feel good."

His expression darkens.

In two strides he crosses the ledge, fingers tangling in my hair as he yanks my head back roughly. "You think you're clever, don't you? Think you've won? My brother's tame little witch-queen, carrying the heir that should have been mine—"

"I was never yours." The words emerge fierce despite my fear. "Never meant to be."

"No?" His grip tightens painfully. "Then why did the Gods lead me to you? Why did they whisper of your power, of the child you would bear? A child of dragon and Windwaker blood, strong enough to reshape the world…." His voice drops lower, edges of madness creeping in. "Fate wanted me to rule this place. I know it. But if I can't have that power, if I can't rule through that child, then neither will my brother. I'll see you both dead first. Perhaps I should just kill you both now. Either way, I’d get what I want."

Terror claws at my throat as his meaning sinks in. One hand moves to my swollen belly, feeling our child's magic pulse beneath my palm. They're moving less than usual, as if the binding magic affects them too. The thought sends fresh fear coursing through me.

"They're innocent," I whisper. "Whatever quarrel you have with your brother—"

"Innocent?" Ulric's laugh echoes off the mountainside, startling the circling dragons. "Was I innocent, when our parents died? When Arvoren claimed everything that should have been shared between us? When he left me with nothing but scraps and shadows?" His fingers dig deeper into my scalp. "Now he'll know how it feels. To watch everything he loves torn away. To be left with nothing but memories and regret."

The wind howls fiercer around us, driving snow like daggers. But for once, I'm not the one controlling the storm. My magic feels weaker by the moment, drained by whatever power pulses in that cursed pendant. Even our child's strength seems to fade, their movements growing sluggish, uncertain.

Desperately, I reach for my bond with Arvoren. The connection flickers like a guttering candle, but I pour everything I can into it—my fear, my location, my certainty that time grows short.Please, I think fiercely.Please feel this. Please come.

"He won't find you in time." Ulric reads the hope in my eyes. "By the time he realizes you're gone, by the time he tracks you here…it will be far too late." He releases my hair, stepping back to survey me with clinical detachment. "I wonder, should I wait for him to arrive? Let him watch as I end his legacy? Or would it be crueler to leave him wondering, searching forever, never knowing exactly how you died?"

"You really hate him that much?" I ask, though I already know the answer. "Your own brother?"

"Hate?" Something shifts in Ulric's expression—grief perhaps, or what remains of it beneath the madness. "You don't understand. You couldn't. Do you know what it's like to grow up in his shadow? To watch him take everything, claim everything, own everything? To know that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you'll never be anything but the spare? The backup plan?"

His voice cracks on that last word, and for a moment I glimpse the wounded boy beneath the monster—the child who never felt good enough, who learned too young that love was conditional on success. But then his eyes harden again, and that glimpse of humanity vanishes like smoke.

"But none of that matters now." He draws a blade I recognize—the same dark metal as the pendant, inscribed with runes that make my teeth ache. "All that matters is making him suffer as I have suffered. Making him understand what it means to lose everything."

I try to scramble backward, but there's nowhere to go. The ledge drops away behind me into endless white, and my bonds prevent any real movement. But as Ulric advances, blade raised, something shifts inside me.

Our child’s power flares, stronger than I’m used to, and suddenly I know with bone-deep certainty that Arvoren is coming. I feel him through our bond like approaching thunder, like the promise of dragon-fire and fury. My husband is hunting, and all of Ulric's madness and magic won't stop him from finding us.

"He's coming," I say, and there must be something raw and truthful in my voice because Ulric falters. "You know he is. You can feel it too, can't you? The way the very air changes when he hunts?"

"Let him come." But there's fear beneath the bravado now. "Let him watch you die—"

"He'll tear you apart." The words emerge in a whisper, but they carry the weight of prophecy. "Not quickly. Not cleanly. He'll make you suffer for every moment of fear you've caused me, for every threat to our child. And this time…this time I won't try to stop him."

Ulric's hand shakes slightly, the blade wavering. "You think I fear him? After everything—"