Reborn to Choose the Wingless Dragon Chapter 08
I didn’t even wait for the chaos to end. I turned and ran, stumbling back toward our home.
“Raven?” Kade’s voice cut through my panic the moment I crossed the threshold. He dropped the
protective barrier and was at my side in two strides, catching me as I swayed. “What happened?”
Itwisted free and lunged for the warming bed, my eyes locked on the three sleeping bundles. They were breathing–steady and even. Their dark red newborn scales gleamed with a healthy sheen. No twisted limbs. No sickly shadows.
“Hey-” Kade’s arms came around me from behind, solid and warm. “I’ve got you.”
He pressed a kiss to my temple, his voice low and steady in my ear.
Our babies are fine. You didn’t feel the pain because channeled pure dragon essence through the bond–I took it for you.” His grip tightened slightly. “There’s no dark magic here. Just me.”
His words hit like a lifeline, steadying the terror coursing through me. I sagged back against his chest, watching our hatchlings‘ innocent faces, and finally let myself breathe.
Yes. My children were born from something real. And Cecily had been consumed by her own greed.
The fallout was even uglier than I’d imagined.
Within days, the Wolf Court convened a public trial. The vaulted hall was packed. The High Priest stood at the center, his staff pointed at the malformed creature writhing on the floor–four mismatched eyes, 1 limbs that bent wrong.
His voice rang cold and clear.
“No maternal hawk traits. Bloodline contaminated.
with at least five foreign species. The body is saturated with blood grass toxins–it won’t survive the month.” He let the silence stretch. “The Dragon
Clan and all allied houses refuse to recognize this creature. It has no claim.”
The hall erupted in whispers.
The rumors spread fast after that, each one more Vicious than the last.
Some said Darius had been made a fool more times than anyone could count. Others claimed Cecily had used heat potions and whoever was willing to take the gold.
Darius sat rigid on his throne, jaw clenched, veins bulging at his temples. When he looked at Cecily, it was like he was staring at something rotting.
Cecily collapsed on the stone floor, clutching the twisted thing to her chest. She still wore that haughty
mask, but I could see it–underneath, she was crumbling.
A month later, I was at the outer market in the Eagle Capital, picking up soft blankets and jars of scale salts for the babies. I was in a good mood, ready to head home.
That’s when I saw her.
Cecily, wrapped in a filthy cloak, clutching a black basket marked with wolf insignias. She slipped into a dark alley like a shadow.
I heard the gossip on the street–she’d been cast out of the Court, lost her mind, started asking around about other people’s newborns.
I figured she was just playing victim again, looking for sympathy. So I went home.
But when I got there, the wards were slashed open. The guards were on the ground, unconscious.
The nursery was empty.
My three babies–gone.
Panic slammed into me so hard I couldn’t breathe. I forced myself to focus, scanning for anything, any clue-
Then I saw it. A scrap of torn ribbon on the floor. Gold thread, green silk. Cecily’s signature binding cloth.
I grabbed the dagger Kade had given me and ran.
I followed the dragon essence trail to an old tower deep in the abandoned district. Inside, I could hear her voice, sing–song and unhinged.
“Don’t cry, babies. Mama’s taking you back to Court.
You’ll put me back on top, won’t you?”
I didn’t wait. I kicked the door open and had my blade at her throat before she could turn around.
“Where are they?”
ripped the basket from her arms and tore it open.
Empty.
Just shredded cloth. Black feathers.
Everything inside me went cold.
Cecily threw her head back and laughed–high, dracked, manic. “They’re gone! Dead!” She was grinning, eyes wild. “I lost everything–so you don’t get to keep anything either!”
She screamed it like a curse, that victim’s wail I knew
so well. “I was torn apart so you rot with me!”
My vision went red. The feathers on my back sharpened into blades. I was ready to tear her apart with my bare hands.
Then the wall exploded.
Kade came through like a storm, dragon essence rolling off him in waves, sealing every exit. His eyes locked on Cecily.
“Stand back, Raven.” His voice was ice. “Let me handle this.”
cecily’s hand shot up, wind magic crackling around her fingers–some kind of suicide spell, meant to take us all down.
But before she could finish the incantation, a burst of crimson–gold flame shot out from the corner of the room, straight into her chest.
She didn’t even have time to scream. The fire consumed her in seconds, reducing her to ash that scattered on the wind. than.
My oldest son stumbled forward, tiny hand outstretched, his voice clear and steady for a three- week–old hatchling.
“Mama. I came back.”
dropped to my knees and pulled him into my arms, my hands shaking as I checked him over. Then I saw them–his brother and sister, peeking out from behind a fallen beam, wide–eyed but safe.
I held all three of them and finally let myself fall apart.
Cecily’s death barely made a ripple.
Alton struck her from the family records the same day. No monument. No mention in the histories.
Darius smirked when he heard, muttered something like, “Saved me the trouble,” and publicly declared she’d fled in disgrace. That was it. Erased.
After that, Kade and I took the children back to the Pragon’s Sanctum. He sealed the wards himself and stood watch over the nursery every night.
He was still the same with me–possessive, intense, impossible to argue with–but now that fierce protectiveness had become something bigger. A fortress around all of us.
sat by the bed one evening, watching the triplets sleep in their soft dragon–scale blankets, and thought about everything. Two lifetimes of being treated like an outsider. The cliff. The fall. The pain.
And I realized–I didn’t need the Eagle Clan anymore.
I didn’t need a throne reached over and took Kade’s hand.
“We’re home,” I said quietly.
He rumbled his agreement, pulling me and the children into the circle of his arms.
For the first time in two lives, I felt whole.