✦ Chapter 10 ✦
For centuries, dragons and werewolves had been locked in a hostility so old it felt carved into the stones of the kingdom itself. Even now, with the war long buried under generations of dust, the bitterness clung to the land like a curse no one dared name. Speaking the word dragon aloud was forbidden — a rule enforced with such rigidity that even whispers earned punishment.
Philip had broken that rule every single day.
He sat beneath a starless sky, watching the blackness stretch endlessly like ink poured across glass. Thin red clouds drifted lazily through the darkness, eerie and oddly beautiful — the kind of strange, unsettling beauty Philip had grown to appreciate. And when the crimson butterflies appeared, gliding through the night like scattered embers, he couldn't help but smile. Their presence softened the sharp edges of the world. When they touched the earth, their bodies dissolved into shimmering dust, reforming into a human silhouette.
Esper emerged — tall, sharp, and red-eyed — settling beside Philip as if he had always belonged there.
"Dragons, male omegas, and witches are cursed," Philip murmured, hearing his father's bitter voice echo through memory. A cruel sentiment, especially from a man who had taken an omega to his bed and created Philip himself.
Hypocrisy looked uglier the older he got.
Philip's eyes stayed on the river, dark water reflecting the sky like a tarnished mirror. "Did you really leave him like that, Esper?"
Esper tilted his head, gaze matching Philip's, red eyes glowing faintly against the gloom. "You mean the violet-eyed omega?" His lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile — something far more unsettling.
Philip swallowed, heat crawling up his neck. "I saw… in your silver water." He hated how guilty he sounded. He had snooped — walked right into Esper's room and looked at something he shouldn't have. But Esper hadn't shown a flicker of anger. Only that unnerving almost-smile.
Esper's voice broke the silence again, unhurried, chillingly calm. "You should've watched until the end."
Philip stiffened. "You wanted me to watch him being—" His breath hitched, disgust and fury snapping his spine straight. "What is wrong with you?"
Esper didn't flinch. His eyes brightened, glowing like coals stirred in darkness. As he lifted a hand, a section of the river shimmered, turning silver. Images formed on its surface — a pale boy with long white hair, trembling, breath heavy. An Alpha slumped defeated on the ground nearby, whimpering.
Philip's shock rushed out in a shaky breath. "You saved him?" he whispered, relief and disbelief clashing in his voice.
Esper flicked his gaze toward him, expression unreadable. "Why assume that?"
Philip pointed sharply at the vision. "Because that Alpha wouldn't have gotten there in time on his own. And because you—" He paused, frustration knotting his words. "Because I know you did."
Esper's eyes widened the slightest fraction — surprise, or maybe amusement — before he sighed. "You're right."
" But...why? " Philip asked.
With a slow, deliberate motion, he lifted his hand. Dark smoke curled around his fingers, drifting toward Philip before he could recoil. The moment it touched him, Philip's vision flashed white. Suddenly he was seeing through someone else's eyes — Elian's. The boy stood at a window, moonlight wrapping around his hair like a halo. Fragile, otherworldly. Untouched snow beneath a winter sun.
The smoke faded, leaving Philip breathless and shaken. "You used your powers," he said, voice cracking. "Esper, that's dangerous."
Esper shrugged lightly, as if discussing the weather. "I didn't use them for long. I merely showed the Alpha what would happen."
Philip rubbed his forehead, a knot forming between his brows. Esper always brushed it off — the cost of his abilities, the strain, the risk. But the river didn't lie. Elian's image shimmered on its surface, pale and luminous.
A thought fell into place.
"Is this because of his beauty?" Philip asked quietly.
Esper didn't answer at first. Instead, his slender fingers curled beneath his chin, his gaze fixed on Elian's reflection. The boy truly was breathtaking— skin as pale as untouched frost, hair cascading down his back like spun silver, violet eyes glowing faintly even in the memory. Red marks on his neck like spring petals scattered over snow.
"He is beautiful," Esper murmured. "But that's not it."
Philip shivered. "Then what is it?"
Esper finally met his eyes. The force of that gaze hit Philip like a blow — red, bright, alive with something fierce and unspoken. It wasn't desire. It wasn't power. It was deeper, older, coiled like smoke in the air between them.
"Something deeper," Esper said.
Philip's breath stuttered. Esper had always been strange, unsettling in a quiet, elegant way — but this was different. There was hunger in his eyes now, not for flesh but for truth, for connection, for something Philip couldn't decipher.
"Really…?" Philip whispered.
Esper's lips curved again, sharper this time. Dangerous. Knowing.
Memories flickered behind his eyes — an Alpha kneeling before him years ago, pride shattered, begging for his son's safety. A good man. A desperate one. One who hadn't lived to see the promise fulfilled.
Esper stirred the silver water with a fingertip. Elian's reflection trembled, then dissolved into ripples.
"Let's just say," he murmured, leaning back with an eerie calm, "an old friend asked me to protect him."
Silence folded over them, thick enough to taste. Philip's heart pounded faster, certainty settling cold and heavy in his chest.
Whatever Esper was entangled in…
It wasn't finished.
Not even close.
And somewhere far away, beneath a moon that never stopped watching, Elian's fragile beauty moved through the world like a spark waiting to ignite something dangerous.
✦ End Of Chapter ✦