She locked eyes with him.
"Yes. I wrote the prophecy. I set every term. I was then bound in chains so I couldn’t claim him even when he was ready." Her chin lifted, defiant even through the flush. "But I did yesterday. And I won’t apologize for a single goddamn second of it."
Ashworth didn’t laugh.
The
gleeful
mischief drained from his face like water down a sink. What remained was something quieter. Older. Eyes that had seen empires born, dragons rise, and dragons burn.
He went back to counting his money.
Slowly. Methodically. The soft rustle of bills the only sound in the room.
Dravenna watched him. Waited.
Say something, you old bastard.
The stare could have stripped varnish.
You don’t get to drag that confession out of me and then just sit there counting twenties like it’s nothing.
He finished a bundle. Set it down with reverence. Reached for the next.
Then, so quiet it was almost lost in the paper:
"I’m glad."
Dravenna blinked. "What?"
"I’m glad you’ve finally managed to become
free
. Today>" He still didn’t look up. "For the record, I have to admit, the
prophecy
was a
beautiful chain
, Dravenna. You shackled yourself to him before he ever had the chance to choose you. And now—"
A small, real smile touched his mouth.
"—nothing can stop you from standing beside him in the open. From being exactly what you were always meant to be."
He paused. The counting stopped entirely.
"I only hope
Melissa
finds the strength to break free too the way you broke free from the Angels."
The last bundle landed softly on the desk.
Ashworth set it down with the careful precision of a man handling nitroglycerin right before he lights the fuse.
"There’s something else."
His voice had changed.
Gone was the
cackling degenerate
who kissed cash and made the Dragoness sputter like a teenager. In his place sat the
Sage
—the title Phei’s father had once whispered with reverence. Not teacher.
Not master.
Sage
.
The old word for those who’d walked so far down the shadowed path they could glimpse the shape of tomorrow through the smoke.
"Something has
awakened
." Ashworth’s eyes were distant now, staring at a horizon only he could see. "Yesterday night."
"I felt it." Dravenna’s voice had gone soft, almost reverent. "The Void-Ice. Just a small part of
His heritage
finally breaking through—"
"And not just his heritage." Ashworth shook his head once. Slow. Grave. "Something
responded
. From inside one of Legacies families. From beneath one of them. The moment Phei’s blood sang out, something ancient heard the note...and began to
stir
. If I am not wrong, that ancient being, might’ve be a catalyst of his awakening."
A chill slid down Dravenna’s spine—not fear, exactly. The same tremor she’d felt in the stadium: a subtle fracture running through foundations she’d believed eternal.
"What are you saying, old man?"
"I’m
saying—"
Ashworth finally met her gaze. Those eyes had watched Seiryū grow from feral child to nearly blazing dragon, then watched that
unawakened
dragon burn to ash. "—
chaos is coming.
Not the loud kind that announces itself with trumpets. The quiet kind. The kind that seeps through hairline cracks, poisons wells, turns brother against brother long before anyone notices the water ever tasted wrong."
He leaned back in the chair that wasn’t his.
"And when it arrives,
Dragoness...we’re
going to need every chain we’ve ever broken."
He leaned forward, elbows on the desk amid the green towers of cash, voice dropping to the gravelly timbre of a man who’d long since stopped pretending the world was kind.
"Phei is going to rip through the Legacies like a hurricane through beachfront condos. Not because he’s angry. Not because he’s cruel. Because that’s what dragons
do
when they finally wake up—they burn down every cage that ever tried to hold them."
His eyes narrowed, the twinkle gone, replaced by something older and colder.
"And the Legacies? They’ve spent generations perfecting cages. Cages for power. Cages for secrets. Cages for things that should have stayed six feet under and forgotten."
"You think they’ll fight back."
"I am saying they’ll
try
." Ashworth’s laugh came out bitter, like black coffee left too long. "And I think they’ll fail spectacularly. And in failing, they’ll wake things that have been napping since before any of us drew breath. Things with teeth. Things that don’t negotiate."
He paused. Let the silence sit heavy.
"But that’s not what keeps me up at three a.m."
"Then what does?"
"
Melissa
."
The name landed heavier this time. Not a blade. A stone dropped into still water. Ripples spreading slow and inevitable.
"She’s carried this burden
solo for a decade
," Ashworth said quietly. "Shielding that boy. Guiding him. Keeping the
wolves at bay
when he didn’t even know wolves existed and he even thought she
hated
him. And now—"
He opened his weathered hands, palms up, helpless in a way that didn’t suit him. "—now he’s
awake
. Now the real game starts. And the chaos he’s about to rain down on every Legacy family from here to the coast?"
He met her gaze. No mischief. Just truth.
"She
can’t weather it alone
."
Silence stretched thin between them, taut as piano wire.
"What are you asking me to do?"
"I’m not
asking
." Ashworth’s voice carried the quiet inevitability of prophecy—not the pretty kind Dravenna had scripted for herself, but the kind that simply
was
. "I’m telling you. Stay close to him liker you were meant to be. Stay close to
her
. When the storm hits—and it
will
hit—Melissa’s going to need someone who understands what it costs to love a dragon. You’re free now. You can do that much!"
He smiled then. Small. Sad. Ancient as fault lines.
"She’ll need the
Jade Dragoness
beside her. Someone who knows how to protect without suffocating. How to guide without owning. How to stand in the inferno and still breathe."
Dravenna held his stare for a long beat.
Then, soft: "You’ve seen something."
Not a question. A statement.
Ashworth picked up a bundle of bills. Didn’t count it. Just held it like a talisman.
"I’ve seen enough." His voice dropped to a near-whisper. "I trained his father, Dravenna. Watched Seiryū grow from feral kid. Then I watched them
break
and burn him in that car. Watched them strip everything he loved and reduce him to
ash
and memory."
His hands trembled—just once, just for a heartbeat.
"I will
not
watch them do the same to his son. Not while there’s still air in my lungs." He looked up, and those seventy-three-year-old eyes burned with a fire that had no right to exist in a man his age. "So when I say stay close—when I say Melissa will need you—"
He set the money down. Final. Decisive.
"
Listen
."
The words hung like smoke from a blaze that hadn’t yet caught.
Melissa.
Another woman chained. Another dragon leashed.
Dravenna said nothing more. Just watched the shameless old bastard sit there with his winnings and his ghosts, feeling the weight of decades, secrets, and a love so patient it had learned to hide behind prophecy and power plays.
Outside, Paradise glittered like it had no idea what was coming.
Inside, two ancient monsters tallied their victories.
The dragon had risen.
And the world was about to learn what that meant.
Dravenna nodded once. Slow. Deliberate.
"I’ll watch over them both."
"Good." The old gambler’s grin slid back into place like a well-worn mask. Easy. Effortless. "Now. Where were we? Ah, yes—"
His eyes sparkled again.
"—you nearly fucked your prophesied mate over your desk like a
nineteenth-century
courtesan
in heat—"
"I will
end
you, old man."
"You’d have to catch me first, and my cardio is legendary for someone who’s technically fossilized—"
Her phone buzzed against the desk.
Dravenna glanced down—pure reflex, the casual flick of someone who fielded a hundred messages a day and dismissed ninety-nine without blinking.
Then she saw the contact name.
Madam.
Her blood didn’t cool. It
froze.
Chilled and goosebumps were Childs play.
Frozen
—the marrow-deep, primal cold of prey recognizing apex in the dark.
She opened the message.
Six words.
Six words that sucked the oxygen from the room, made the money towers, the banter, the warm lamplight, the afterglow of victory—all of it—feel suddenly, absurdly distant.
Tell those two brats I’m coming.
Dravenna’s hand shook. Just once.
Ashworth noticed. His counting stopped dead.
"Dravenna?"
She didn’t answer.
Because the thing that had just announced itself with six deceptively casual words was something neither of them was prepared for.
Something
she
wasn’t prepared for.
Dravenna Ashford—Dragoness of Paradise, Dean who bowed to no one, woman who’d waited fourteen years for her mate—
Shivered.