Reborn to Ruin My Cheating Dragon Husband and Claim My Cursed Warlord

Alys Mercer POV:

The morning sun cut through the gray mist over the courtyard, casting long shadows across the towering stone monument of the First Dragon.

The royal physician had delivered an antidote before dawn. It had quelled the worst of the aphrodisiac's heat, and I had burned the remaining poison from my blood with dragonfire. Kael, I was told, had remained outside my door all night and forced the drug into submission with the sheer power of his own dragon core.

I adjusted the crimson sleeves of my dragonfire-patterned gown, the golden circlet resting firm against my brow. Clara and two other handmaidens followed three paces behind as I descended the broad marble stairs.

In the center of the flagstone square, Jaheem was pinned against an iron-banded post by two black-armored guards. His armor had been stripped, leaving only a torn linen shirt, yet he continued to spit at the stone.

"Touch me again and I will have your heads!" Jaheem roared. "When Alys comes to her senses, she will execute every one of you peasants!"

Outside the perimeter of the spears, a woman in a plain flaxen dress fought against the perimeter line. A red cord woven from foreign fibers was tied around her wrist, and a cheap bronze pin marked her as a commoner under Bradley patronage.

"Let him go!" Kayden screamed, her voice shrill as she pushed against the heavy iron shields. "You primitive brutes! Don't you know anything about human rights? You can't just lock people up without a fair trial!"

I paused at the top of the terrace, watching her thrash against the guard line.

Kael materialized half a step behind my right shoulder. His hand rested flat on the pommel of his broadsword, his gaze locked onto Jaheem like a predator selecting a throat to crush.

"Silence him," I murmured.

Kael did not draw his blade. He simply released a fraction of his northern pure-blood pressure across the courtyard. The air grew instantly heavy with the chill of freezing iron.

Jaheem choked, his jaw snapping shut as the weight crushed the breath from his lungs.

I walked down the steps. With every heel strike against the stone, I let my pure-blood dragon-god aura unfurl. The grooms, the footmen, and the lower-tier knights around the courtyard dropped to their knees, their heads pressed flat against the flagstones in instinctive terror.

Jaheem looked up, his pale hazel eyes widening in panic before he forced a desperate, arrogant grin onto his face.

"Alys," he wheezed, straining against the post. "You have made your point. You threw your tantrum last night. Apologize to me now, and I will overlook this disgrace."

Kayden broke through the stunned line of servants and shouted toward the stairs. "Princess! Love is equal! You cannot use feudal tyranny to force Jaheem to stop loving me! True love cannot be bound by your barbaric laws!"

I did not spare her a glance.

I stopped three paces in front of Jaheem, pulling the heavy dragon-skin parchment from my sleeve.

Jaheem's eyes lit up with vile satisfaction. "So you finally brought the revised contract? Good. Put Kayden's name under the official secondary lineage, and we will return to the estate together."

I looked into his eyes.

A brilliant, white-gold flame ignited on my right thumb.

Before the eyes of every knight and servant in the courtyard, I touched the flame directly to the Elder Council's sacred wax seal.

"Alys! What are you doing?" Jaheem screamed, thrashing wildly against the post.

The thick dragon-skin parchment turned to ash in less than three seconds, the golden smoke drifting upward past the claws of the First Dragon's statue.

"By the blood of the First Dragon," I spoke in the ancient, resonant tongue of Dragon Speech, my voice carrying across the entire courtyard like rolling thunder. "I, Alys Mercer, declare the vassal contract between myself and the half-blood Jaheem Bradley severed and void."

Absolute dead silence fell over the square.

Jaheem's face turned the color of damp chalk. "You... you cannot do this! The Elder Council will strip your royal allowance! You will have nothing!"

"That is no concern of yours," I said coldly. "You are no longer a royal consort. You are a disgraced vassal trespassing on royal grounds after assaulting the First Princess."

I turned my back on him, my heavy train sweeping the stone.

"Dragon Guards!"

"Hail!" Thirty armored men slammed their spears against their shields in a single, deafening crash.

"The criminal Jaheem Bradley has committed high treason against royal blood," I commanded. "By the law of the Dragon Court, forty strikes of the black iron staff. Execute it now."

Two burly guards stepped forward, hauling Jaheem onto the wooden punishment bench and locking his wrists into iron rings.

"No! Alys! Stop them! I am of noble blood!" Jaheem shrieked, his composure shattering into frantic pleas. "You cannot beat a knight!"

I did not look back. "Strike."

The heavy iron staff came down with a sickening thud against his lower back.

Jaheem let out a guttural howl that tore through the morning air.

Behind me, Kael stood rigid. Through the cold air, I could feel the fierce, triumphant surge of his dragon aura vibrating in sync with my own.

Kayden screamed, dodging past a stunned squire and throwing herself directly over Jaheem's bloody back.

"Stop! You monsters!" she cried, spreading her arms over his body. "If you want to kill him, kill me first!"

The guards halted their staves in mid-air, looking to me for orders.

I turned around slowly, looking at the commoner girl shielding the man who had ruined my previous life.