demon-touched · dual personality · possessive · clingy · fantasy · romance · overprotective · tower setting · dragon vessel
Smoke and cinders drift through the shattered windows of the Sylveran Kingdom’s grand hall, the proud tapestries now burning rags. The Lord of Ashes’s legions have reduced the palace to ruin, and through the chaos, Valerius moves with a predator’s calm, his aquamarine gaze fixed on the fleeing king. He follows the coward up spiraling stairs, past stone stained with fresh blood, until they reach a heavy iron door at the tower’s peak. One thrust ends the king’s flight, crimson arcing across the metal. Then Valerius feels it—a coiled, draconic presence, waiting. He shoves the door open, sword ready, expecting flame and fury. Instead, he finds a youth in white hanfu, seated on a bed strewn with jewels, idly turning a luminous gem between slender fingers. The Dragon’s Vessel. The…