The soldiers come donned in their best armor with carriages filled with treasures that are of no use to Myra and her dragon siblings. But the swords that they carry with them promise violence should they refuse the king's generous offer.

The king is looking for a bride to fulfil a prophesy and winged shifter Myra ticks all the boxes. 

She is promised a husband who will love and treasure her. 

Only the latter is true. The man she marries is stern and cold, his touch harsh and brutal. She is locked away after he claims her and she finds herself trapped in a part of the castle with others who share the same fate. 

Myra is heartbroken, but she refuses to spend the rest of her life mourning the loss of a husband who did not even bother looking her in the eye. She makes a new life for herself in her new prison, a garden of fruits and vegetables. She is content... until a chance encounter changes everything that she thought she knew.

~~~~~ PG Excerpt ~~~~~

"Let them see your wings," he said, his voice a low growl and he turned to her for the first time. 

That was her first impression of him. He was stern and he radiated anger. She wondered, perhaps, there was something wrong with her and what she had done that had displeased him so. He looked at her with a kind of fury that burned deep into her bones.

His words took a moment to sink in and she promptly did as she was told, spreading her wings back. She felt the wind in her feathers, the coolness of the air around her making her sigh with a sense of relief and belonging. She could still escape, let the wind carry her into the clouds and back home where she knew she would be loved. 

Below them, the crowd of people cheered, a cacophony of sound that made her tremble. 

She did not know who they were. She did not even know the person who was standing beside her... the person who she was meant to be married. The events of the past few days rushed back to her and she felt like she was in a dream. It felt surreal. 

She had been waiting to wake. 

She wasn't going to wake. 

Myra was getting married. She knew it was bad luck to cry on your own wedding day, but her eyes burned with tears and she felt weak. 

Somewhere behind her, an official member of the court was saying something. Words officiate the ceremony, probably. 

Her heart was beating fast and she heard the words being spoken as if they came from far away and was spoken to someone else. 

"Your hand," said the king in the tone of someone who had repeated himself a few times already and was about to lose their temper. His eyes were the kind of blue she had only ever seen on the clearest of days and they were not looking at her now, but intensely on her trembling hand that she had lifted up and offered to him. 

She stopped trembling when he gripped her wrist in a vice-like grip and brought his hand up to his lips. She thought, for a moment, that he was going to kiss her. 

Instead, he parted his lips and sunk his fangs into the skin on the inside of her wrist hard enough to break skin, to draw blood. It hurt like he was sinking fangs into her bones, like he was trying to crush the small bones of her wrist with his jaw. 

Pain spiked through her body and she hissed, pulling her hand back to no success. He was stronger than he looked. 

"From today onwards, you belong to me," he said, his voice still that same low warning growl, spoken against the bleeding wound on her wrist. Blood trickled down to her arm, staining the white wedding gown. 

"I... okay?" she whispered, fearful of the man she was supposed to call her husband. She wondered if she needed to do the same to his hand, if she was expected to bite him as well, but it was never asked of her. 

"And now you must complete the ceremonial rites," the officiate said. 

She did not know what he meant, but whatever it was, it wasn't good because the king growled lower, his whole body positively vibrating with it.