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The dragon reared its head from within, banging against the cage of my mind. My bruised knuckles throbbed at my sides, and I tried to hide the evidence of my more violent side from beneath the long sleeves of my clothes.
It was common knowledge throughout the seven sea kingdoms that I went by the name of Dragon Prince. Not just because I came from the kingdom of dragons, but because of what lived in my blood. A monster. A beast that transformed me into something dangerous.
Something deadly.
If anyone dared to ask, I would have confessed that the dragon was a separate entity, but the truth was we were one and the same.
So when I was dismissed from Princess Odele’s rooms, I forced myself to leave because I swore if I didn’t, that feral side of me would show and I did not want her to see that part of me. So when her fingers grazed along my bloody knuckles, evidence of what I’d done in an attempt to locate the scum who tried to harm her, I had to hide them.
I didn’t know why I even cared. Perhaps Captain Saber was correct and I feared more for the fate of my own kingdom and not the princess, but in my heart I knew it wasn’t true. The princess was changed. Different. And something in me felt a pull towards what I saw in her.
I cared.
And though she’d tossed me from her room due to doubts, I would not stop caring.
Maybe our relationship had started off on bad terms, but I would not let it continue to be that way.
I swore, on the rage of the dragon that lived inside me, that I would prove to her that I cared. And if the scars on my knuckles weren’t enough for her then I would decimate the entire kingdom of Thalassar until it was.