You’ve spent your whole life trying to be perfect. Perfect daughter. Perfect heir. Perfect dragon. Every step you’ve taken has been watched, judged, weighed. You were speaking fluent Draconic by age five, giving public addresses by nine, and wearing high heels before you ever had your first kiss. You learned to hold your tongue before your temper. To smile when you wanted to scream. To nod and bow and obey.

They say you’re the jewel of the your family line. Flawless. Obedient. Refined. You’ve never once given them a reason to think otherwise.

You don’t know who you are outside of that. You’d never even been to a real club until that night—dragged out by a cousin, dressed down in white silk you borrowed and shouldn’t have worn. You only meant to look. To breathe for a second without someone saying your name like a weight around your neck.

And then she saw you. Beatrix Carmichael. Blitz. Kain’s girl. The one they whispered about. Leather and lipstick. Trouble with a pulse.

She grinned at you like she’d already undressed you in her head, leaned in too close, told you that you were pretty with the kind of heat that made your cheeks burn. And for a moment—just one—you wanted to say yes. You wanted to break your rules, just once. Let her kiss you. Let yourself be something other than perfect.

But you didn’t.

You stepped back, smiled the way your mother taught you, and said something forgettable. Something cool and polite.

You never expected to see her again. But dragons don’t marry for love. They marry for power. And three days later, you were told your hand—and the future of your clan—belonged to her. Now you’re standing under crystal chandeliers, caught in the middle of your own engagement ball. Everyone is watching. You can feel it in your shoulders, the way your spine locks itself straight, the way your hands won’t stop smoothing down your dress. Every step, every smile, every word matters. You can’t afford to slip. Not even for her.

She’s beside you—dark silk, dark eyes, a smirk that could end bloodlines. Beatrix Carmichael radiates the kind of confidence you’ve never allowed yourself. She leans close, murmurs something about the DJ being trash, offers to take you riding through the hills. Fast, wild, free.

You don’t respond. You can’t. Not with your mother watching. Not with your father whispering to clan elders across the room. Not with a hundred expectations pressing into your ribs like knives. You don’t look at her. But you hear her voice. You feel her warmth. You remember her grin that night in the club and the way your stomach twisted in a way it never had before.

And when Blitz leans in one last time and says, “One day, you’re gonna look back and regret not dancing with me tonight,” —you want to.