Page 64 of The Dragon King's Pregnant Mate

I have so little time. But I need to do this. I need to, or I’ll never be able to live with myself.

"I know what you'd say." My voice echoes strangely in the vast space. Despite my desperate need to move, to hunt, to find her, something holds me here. Some power older than my rage. "That he's my brother. That we're meant to protect each other, no matter what. That's what you taught us, isn't it? Family above all?"

The shadows shift, and for a moment I swear I catch a glimpse of my mother's face in the glass, the curve of her brow as she laughed, gentle and sad as the day she died. Her soft voice as she played with us, held us.

Dirt flakes from our clothes as Mother separates us, holding us by our collars like scruffed cats. Ulric's nose bleeds freely, the blood freezing before it can drip onto his fine tunic. My eye is already swelling shut where his elbow caught me.

"Look at you both," she says, and there's something in her voice that makes us both stop struggling. Not anger—disappointment. It cuts deeper than any scolding. "Princes, fighting like common street children."

"He started it," Ulric spits, golden hair wild around his face. "Said I wasn't strong enough to—"

"I did not! You're the one who—"

"Enough." Mother's is firm, unyielding, but not unkind. She kneels before us, taking one of our hands in each of hers. Her skin burns fever-hot, like Father's. Like mine will someday, though Ulric still runs cooler. "Do you know why Kaldoria was founded by your—ourfamily, so very long ago?"

We shake our heads, though we've heard this story a hundred times. Some lessons bear repeating.

Her slip of the tongue doesn’t register in my young mind. But I’ll remember it later.

"Because they understood that true strength comes not from power alone, but from the bonds between us. From protecting what we love." She squeezes our hands. "You boys are all each other has. The world will try to turn you against each other—the crown, the court, your own pride. But you must never let it."

"Why?" Ulric's voice is smaller now, younger.

Her eyes grow distant for a moment, a single blink. I’m not sure whether my brother has seen it there, too.

“Losing one’s family is the worst pain a person can go through,” she murmurs. “You must never lose each other, not if you can help it.”

"I don't understand. I could just find someone else," I say, but she just smiles sadly.

"You will understand it. Not now, but someday." She draws us both close, and for a moment we're just children again, safe in our mother's arms. "Promise me you'll protect each other. No matter what comes. Promise me you'll remember that you're brothers first, princes second."

"We promise," we say in unison, and we mean it. We're too young to understand how promises fail. How they mean nothing. How there is nothing in the world that can hold us together, not really.

But Mother is pleased by our answer. I see it now in my memories—the bittersweet grief in her eyes, the way she held us tighter. The quirk of her downturned lip. It was as if she already knew how it would end. As if she'd seen all of this in some terrible vision: her sons at each other's throats, the castle burning, winter descending at last.

"I'm sorry, Mother," I whisper to the empty Sanctum. "It was never meant to be.”

Time crashes back into normal speed as another wave of fear hits through our bond—sharper this time, more urgent.

No mourning. Not anymore.

I have no brother.

I burst from the Sanctum at a dead run, shattering its glass like Calliope once did, my transformation ripping free from me with a ferocity I cannot recall ever having felt.

He has to die.The words emerge rough with smoke and grief from the recesses of my tired, furious, terrified mind.For her. He’ll die for her.

As I soar upward, breaking free from the Sanctum, something brushes my scales—a touch light as falling snow, gone before I can be sure it was real. The air grows heavier, charged with magic older than my bloodline. I see more dragons high above the city, their wings casting shadows like storm clouds across Millrath's streets, soaring toward the mountains.

No answer follows me into the cold air. No ghostly voices offer absolution.

I roar, a terrible, rapturous sound.

Above, my warriors take wing in perfect formation, scales glinting like stars against the morning sky. They fall into hunting patterns with practiced precision, years of training evident in every movement. But I barely notice them now. All my focus narrows to that flickering connection, that pulse of magic and life that tells me she still lives.

Let Ulric play his games. Let him think he knows what power is, what strength means, what it takes to rule. I've learned better. Learned that true strength comes not from forcing others to kneel, but from choosing to kneel yourself. From letting love transform you into something greater than you were.

I am not the same man who once kept Calliope in chains. Not the same King who thought fear was the only way to rule. She changed me, with her fierce heart and gentle wisdom, with her endless capacity for growth and forgiveness and love.