Seraphina POV:

The first thing to cut through the haze was a woman's voice, sharp and triumphant.

"She's in there! I saw her sneak in with some vagrant myself!"

A cold smile touched my lips. Cammie. You didn't waste any time.

I pushed myself up, my body aching. I looked down at the man beneath me.

He was fully awake now. Those golden dragon eyes were fixed on me, no longer filled with need, but with the cold, clear promise of murder. He was offended down to his very soul.

I met his gaze without flinching.

The footsteps grew louder. A crowd of lavishly dressed nobles, holding torches that cast dancing, monstrous shadows on the ice walls, burst into our chamber. Leading them was my dear cousin, Cammie Faulkner.

She was a member of the Faulkner family, a branch of House Carlisle, and she had always been jealous of my position as the granddaughter of the main house's patriarch.

Behind her were several matrons from other branch families, their faces pinched with disapproval, and a few younger nobles just there for the show.

Their collective gaze landed on us. On our tangled limbs, our torn clothes.

A wave of shocked gasps rippled through the group.

The matrons immediately began whispering, their voices dripping with scorn. "By the First Dragon, shameless."

"She's disgraced the Carlisle name!"

Cammie pressed a hand to her mouth in mock horror, but her eyes were gleaming with victory. "Sister! How could you... with a man of no name, no station?"

Her words were a carefully aimed dagger, painting me as a slut who'd consorted with a commoner.

I ignored her, my attention on the man whose lap I was still in. I searched the memories of the original Seraphina for his face. Nothing. He was a stranger.

His gaze swept over my face, as if confirming something. Our eyes met, two predators assessing each other.

Then he spoke. His voice was a low rumble, laced with frost. "Seraphina Carlisle."

He knew me.

And in that moment, seeing those unique golden eyes, feeling the sheer weight of his presence, I knew him. Only one man in the entire kingdom of Dragonreach had eyes like that.

The Prince Regent. Aldric Beaumont.

Shit.

I had just slept with the one man in the kingdom you absolutely do not fuck with. My face remained a calm mask.

Aldric's eyes narrowed. The murder in them intensified. A disgraced, dragonless noblewoman had dared to defile him.

Cammie, misinterpreting our silent appraisal as some kind of lover's gaze, grew bolder. She stepped forward, pointing a finger at me. "Seraphina, you're caught. What more can you say? You've not only betrayed your betrothed, Kian Sterling, but you've sullied the Carlisle bloodline!"

Her accusation ignited the crowd's self-righteous fury. They began to shout, calling me a disgrace, a whore.

Slowly, deliberately, I moved off Aldric's lap. I straightened my torn dress, my movements unhurried, as if I were at a garden party.

My calm was a stark contrast to their hysteria. Cammie's smile faltered.

Aldric sat up. He simply pulled the edges of his open, scale-patterned tunic together, and an invisible wave of pressure, the authority of a true apex predator, rolled through the cave.

My reaction had annoyed Cammie. She hadn't noticed the shift in the man behind me. "You harlot!" she shrieked. "Show us the face of your lover! Let's all see what kind of trash you've picked up!"

She lunged, reaching to grab my arm and pull me away, to expose the "commoner" to the crowd.

A glint of ice entered my eyes. I was about to move.

Aldric moved first.

He didn't stand. He simply lifted his head and pinned Cammie with his gaze.

That one look was like a physical blow. It carried the weight of glaciers and the chill of the void. Cammie's outstretched hand froze in mid-air.

The temperature in the cave plummeted. The shouting nobles fell silent, a primal fear clutching at their throats, a tremor that ran deeper than thought, right into their blood. It was the bloodline pressure of a Dragon-God.

Cammie finally realized something was terribly wrong. Her gaze trembled, shifting from my face to the man sitting behind me.

The torchlight illuminated his features. The face that launched a thousand fantasies in every woman in the kingdom, and a thousand fears in every man.

Cammie's eyes widened. The blood drained from her face, leaving it a waxy, pathetic white.

Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Behind her, the other nobles finally got a clear look. A chorus of choked, strangled gasps echoed in the ice cave.

Then, a dead, terrified silence.

Seraphina POV:

Cammie's lips trembled for a long moment before a single, shattered sound escaped. "Your... Your Highness... the Prince Regent?"

"Prince Regent." Aldric's voice wasn't loud, but each word was a block of ice dropped on their hearts. He confirmed his identity.

Cammie's knees gave out. She crumpled to the ground with a soft thud, her body shaking like a leaf in a storm.

The nobles behind her scrambled to follow, falling over each other to press their foreheads to the frozen floor. No one dared to breathe.

The once-noisy cave was now filled only with the sound of terrified, suppressed gasps. This was the raw power of his station.

I watched the scene, my heart a steady, cold drum in my chest. This was the kind of power I needed to survive in this world.

Aldric didn't even look at the groveling crowd. His golden eyes were still locked on me, studying me like an unexpected complication, an object that had disrupted his plans.

Cammie, sobbing on the floor, began to babble. "Your Highness! I... I didn't know it was you! I thought... I thought my sister..."

A single, cold glance from Aldric cut her off.

"You thought?" He rose to his feet slowly. His tall frame cast a monstrous shadow in the torchlight, engulfing the kneeling figures. "You brought this crowd into my private place of meditation... based on something you thought?"

His words revealed a critical fact: this wasn't just any cave. This was the Prince Regent's sanctuary. Cammie hadn't just made a mistake. She had committed a grave transgression.

Her face turned the color of ash. She began to slam her forehead against the ice. "Forgive me, Your Highness! I deserve death! I truly did not know it was you!"

I watched her, a silent observer. Now was not my time to act. I would let Aldric's fury be my weapon.

His gaze swept past Cammie and landed on the figure who had been ignored until now—Rick Tucker, huddled in the shadows by the entrance.

The thug had been frozen in terror since the moment the nobles knelt.

"That man," Aldric said, his voice dangerously soft as he pointed. "Who is he?"

Every head turned. Cammie's heart sank into a frozen pit. The one piece of her plan she wanted hidden was now in the spotlight.

Two guards from the crowd immediately surged forward, grabbing Rick Tucker and dragging him like a sack of garbage before the Prince Regent.

"Your... Your Highness..." he stammered, pissing himself. "It wasn't me! I don't know anything!"

Aldric looked down at him, his golden eyes devoid of any warmth. "Speak. Who sent you?"

I chose my moment. My voice was not loud, but it cut through the tension. "Cammie, my dear cousin. Weren't you just accusing me of sleeping with a 'vagrant'? There he is. Why don't you identify him?"

My words were a scalpel, sliding precisely into Cammie's wound and reminding Aldric of the plot's origin.

Cammie flinched, staring at me in horror, as if seeing me for the first time. My sudden aggression had clearly caught her off guard.

Aldric's gaze flickered to my face, a spark of inquiry in their depths.

On an occasion like this, Rick Tucker's will shattered. He glanced from my face to Cammie's terrified one, and survival instinct made his choice.

"It... it was a maid! She found me—she paid me—" His voice cracked, and his eyes darted toward Cammie, a silent but unmistakable accusation.

Cammie's face twisted in panic. "Why are you staring at me? Don't you dare slander me!"

It was only a hint, but enough to make the nobles shift uneasily.

I stood up and walked toward Rick Tucker. All eyes followed me.

Then, in a move that stunned everyone, I lifted my foot and kicked him squarely in the jaw.

He cried out, falling backward as blood and teeth sprayed from his mouth.