The dragon race's concept of "revenge" had always baffled human scholars. Leon had read the theories. Their vengeance was a potent, unpredictable mix of deep obsession, extreme actions, and motivations that often lay beyond human comprehension. It was never straightforward.
So, no matter what form a dragon's retaliation took, Leon knew better than to be surprised. Their ways were inherently wild and profound.
But this? Two years ago, to disgust her, he had used a forbidden spell in a single, intense moment of retaliation, leaving her with his child. Now, was her plan to somehow turn the tables? To humiliate him in a similarly intimate, twisted way?
The sheer, audacious madness of it left him reeling.
He had no more time to ponder the intricacies of the dragon queen's mind. Her silver tail lifted high behind her, a clear sign of a dragon's excitement—whether for battle or for… other, more primal activities.
"Rossweise, either kill me now or give me a blade. Let us fight fairly, one on one," Leon demanded, his voice firm despite the tremor of dread beneath.
He would accept a true duel, dragon against human. Even in his weakened state after two years asleep, he would fight to his last breath. It would be a death worthy of a Dragon Slayer, protecting the pride he had built over a lifetime of blood and sacrifice.
But this? This was a perversion of a duel. The battlefield was all wrong.
Rossweise ignored him completely. Her tail pressed down with immense force, pinning him effortlessly. He couldn't move a muscle.
"Your Majesty… you can kill a Dragon Slayer, but you cannot dishonor one!" he pleaded, trying to appeal to some buried sense of honor. "Forcing me to… to this is the ultimate insult!" The words were torn from him, a raw wound touching his deepest oath to loathe all dragons.
Rossweise's eyes fluttered slightly. A faint blush bloomed across her cheeks. She began to move in a slow, deliberate rhythm, matching the pace of her breathing.
"Since being with a dragon in this way is an insult to you," she said, her voice cold yet laced with a dark satisfaction, "then you should have known this day would come. You cast the first stone with your Blood Enchantment."
"I don't wish to hear your excuses, Leon. The fact that you find this so demeaning only makes my revenge more perfect." A fire burned within her—the old anger from his violation now mingling with a corrosive, triumphant joy.
She reached out and pressed a single finger to his lips, silencing him. When her eyes opened fully, her vertical pupils held a complex swirl of emotion—a feigned tenderness masking something far more calculating.
Leon stared, momentarily lost. Though her gaze seemed almost loving, he knew it was a phantom, a chemical illusion born from physical exertion. It wasn't real.
That "feeling" was just biology, the same base instinct that drove all creatures.
This was, as she had stated, purely about humiliation. This was her retaliation.
"Then let us—" she whispered, her voice dropping to a low, victorious purr, "—begin."
Leon squeezed his eyes shut, fighting a desperate, internal war against his own body's traitorous responses. It was a futile battle.
For any man, it would have been impossible to resist. But for Leon, the primal urge crashing against his lifelong identity as a Dragon Slayer created a schism in his soul.
The deep, instinctual drive to reproduce, hardwired into every male, warred violently with his honor and pride…
They were opposing forces, light and dark. When they collided, there was no peace, only ruin.
What followed was less an act of revenge and more a wild, shame-filled spectacle. Rossweise reveled in her power, turning his own magical transgression back on him in the most visceral way possible.
The battlefield had shifted from windswept cliffs and bloody fields to a soft, enormous bed. The weapons were no longer swords and spells, but the intimate press of skin and the shared heat of two opposing bodies.
It was meant to shame Leon, the mighty Dragon Slayer, but didn't it shame her, too? Yet the queen, lost in her fervor, seemed more fiercely beautiful than ever. Her silver hair shimmered, her eyes burned with a crazed light.
When the intense struggle finally subsided, the two representatives of warring races—who had spilled each other's blood for centuries—lay tangled in a strange, shared, and deeply wrong-seeming exhaustion.
Rossweise, feeling the lingering warmth, tilted her head back to look at the ceiling. Her hair cascaded down like a river of starlight. She let out a low, dark laugh. "Look, great Dragon Slayer. Do you feel the shame of being with the dragon you hate most? Do you feel helpless? Hehe… Hahaha~~" Her laughter echoed with triumph, yet it couldn't completely mask a thread of old, personal pain.
Leon, freshly awakened and physically depleted, felt as though his body might shatter. Every muscle screamed in protest; his breath came in short, ragged gasps.
He abandoned any attempt at reason. "Kill me!" he shouted, his voice hoarse. "Rossweise! You've had your revenge! You can end it now! Do it!"
Two years ago, he had been ready to die. His final act was to leave a mark on her she could never erase.
But she had saved him, only to subject him to this madness. For a proud man like him, this spiritual breaking was a far deeper wound than any physical death.
Rossweise dropped all pretense of softness. "Kill you?" She snorted, her voice hardening to steel. "The hurt you inflicted isn't mended by a single moment of this."
"I want you to live, Leon. I want you to live a long, long life."
The queen bent down slowly, her face hovering close to his, her hair forming a silver curtain around them. She traced the shell of his ear with a feather-light touch.
"You have to stay alive to continue receiving my… disdain." Her whisper was a warm, cruel caress against his skin.
"I want you to live in this shame, great Dragon Slayer. Do you understand? A full lifetime, administered by me, harshly, and drenched in humiliation!" Her words painted a future of unending torment.
"You may think you can cheat me. That you can end your life when my back is turned."
"But unfortunate for you, even if you sever your own head, I will use every resource and ancient magic at my disposal to drag you back." Her power as a queen was vast, her knowledge of forgotten spells deep.
"I want you to live, forever beneath my heel, bearing my shame and my repayment."
"Leon Cosmodeous, no one can kill you until I permit it. Not even you." Her tone was final, an irrevocable curse.
The silver dragon's eyes were now clear of their earlier haze, sharp and cold as ice.
"I want to leave my mark on you."
"For dragons, this is the highest honor. Many powerful Dragon Kings have dreamed of bearing my mark." It was a permanent bond, a claim of absolute ownership.
"But only you, Leon. Only you will receive it."
"Because for you, it is no honor at all."
"It, carved into your flesh, will mean shame. It means you are my prisoner. It means for the rest of your days, you are bound to me, unable to ever truly leave." A cruel smile played on her lips, savoring the perverse irony.
As she spoke, Rossweise slowly lifted her right hand. A intricate silver magic circle ignited in her palm, pulsing with potent energy. With her other hand, she ripped open Leon's shirt, exposing the bare skin of his chest.
"Rossweise… please… stop. Don't do this…" Leon begged, his voice cracking with a panic he hadn't felt even in the face of death. This was a loss of freedom more terrifying than dying.
"I will show you the fate of those who cross me, Rossweise!" she declared, ignoring his plea, her focus entirely on the spell.
For half a minute, the air hummed with magic. Then, Rossweise pulled her hand back. With a flick of her wrist, the hand mirror from the bedside table flew into her grasp.
She held it carefully, tilting it so Leon could see the result. There, emblazoned over his heart, was a masterfully wrought sigil: a silver dragon in mid-flight, its wings spread, artfully intertwined with shapes that vaguely resembled hearts. It glowed with a soft, permanent light.
"Leon… will you still be the great dragon slayer in their eyes now?" she mocked. The mark was a brand, a constant reminder to himself and any who saw it of his defeat and subjugation.
Rossweise gave a soft, triumphant laugh. She dressed with practiced grace, smoothing her gown and hair, every movement that of a victorious queen.
"I am going to prepare a meal for our daughter." She paused at the door, glancing back over her shoulder. Her voice was a silken threat. "Tonight…"
She left the word hanging, a promise of continued torment, and swept out of the room.
Leon lay alone in the silence, staring at the ornate ceiling. The mark on his chest tingled, a constant, burning reminder of his new reality. Shame washed over him in cold waves, but beneath it, a small, stubborn spark of defiance flickered. How could he escape this? Was he doomed to live under her thumb forever? Hatred for her warred with regret for his own actions, and a tiny, unwanted flicker of connection to the life he now found himself in—a father to a daughter, bound to his greatest enemy. The revenge was not over; it had merely opened a long, dark road stretching out before him.