The Dragon Prince’s Unwanted Bond

Damian stood several paces ahead, tall enough to make everyone around him seem diminished. Platinum-silver hair had been slicked back from his angular face, though loose strands had escaped across his forehead. His black shirt hung open at the throat, revealing deep collarbones and a hard, defined chest beneath. He looked overheated despite the mountain air, one hand resting in the pocket of dark trousers, the other holding an unlit cigarette.

His expression suggested the academy had personally offended him by existing.

Beside him stood a man with bronze skin, close-cropped brown hair, and broad, powerful shoulders. Gold threaded through his dark eyes when he glanced toward the gates. A griffin, Ember guessed. He wore a fitted uniform marked with a silver wing at the collar.

“Ember?” Mike called.

She lifted one hand. “That’s me.”

The moment she crossed the threshold, Damian’s head snapped toward her.

His silver eyes fixed on her face.

Then he growled.

The sound rolled across the stone courtyard, low and rough enough to vibrate through Ember’s ribs. She stopped so abruptly her suitcase struck her ankle.

Every conversation near the entrance died.

Ember’s fingers went cold around the handle. She searched Damian’s face for an explanation, but his stoic expression had cracked into something far more dangerous. His jaw was clenched. His nostrils flared as though he had caught a scent he hated.

She took one step backward.

“I’m sorry,” she said, though she had no idea what she had done. “Was I supposed to wait outside?”

The griffin drove an elbow into Damian’s ribs.

Hard.

Damian’s attention broke from Ember. His head turned slowly toward the other man, and the growl that followed was sharper, more primal.

The griffin did not retreat. “Manners, Damian.”

For one tense second, Ember expected the prince to transform. She had seen photographs of dragons in the academy brochures, but none had prepared her for the pressure rolling off him now. The air seemed to darken around his shoulders, smoke curling faintly at his back before vanishing.

Damian caught the griffin by the arm and pulled him several steps away.

“What happened?” the griffin demanded under his breath.

Damian’s voice was too low for Ember to hear. She caught only fragments - the words bond and mine, spoken with such restrained fury that her stomach tightened.

The griffin’s eyes flicked toward her.

Then back to Damian.

Whatever Damian said next made the griffin’s expression change from irritation to concern.

Ember wished she had not noticed.

Mike hurried toward her, his shoes clicking over the polished stone. “You’re Ember, right? I’m Mike. This is James.”

James offered a stiff nod. “We were told the three of us would be housed together.”

“That’s what my letter said.”

“Good.” Mike glanced past her. “Because I was beginning to think they’d put us somewhere with the wolves.”

James paled. “Don’t joke about that.”

“I’m not joking.”

Despite herself, Ember almost smiled. It vanished when Damian returned.

The prince stopped several feet away, leaving space between them. It was a deliberate choice, and she noticed it. His gaze dropped briefly to the suitcase at her side, then rose to her face again.

“I am Damian,” he said.

His voice was deep and controlled, nothing like the animal sound he had made moments ago.

Ember kept her hand on the suitcase. “You’re the prince.”

“Yes.”

The answer held no pride. That somehow made him more intimidating.

The griffin stepped forward. “I’m Atlas. I’m assigned to escort you through the dragon section.”

“Assigned by whom?” Ember asked.

Atlas blinked, apparently surprised she had asked. “The academy.”

“Not him?”

She glanced at Damian.

A muscle moved in his jaw.

“Not him,” Atlas said, though his tone suggested the distinction had become complicated.

Damian’s silver eyes narrowed on Ember. “You are not in danger here.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”

The faintest shift touched his mouth - not a smile, exactly, but something that made her more aware of the sharpness in his face.

James adjusted his satchel. “Are humans allowed everywhere?”

“Most places,” Atlas answered. “Some training grounds are restricted. Transformation halls are off-limits unless you have an instructor. Never approach a dragon in animal form without permission.”

Ember looked toward Damian before she could stop herself.

His stare had not moved from her.

“Does that rule apply to princes?” she asked.

Mike made a strangled sound.

Atlas coughed into his fist.

Damian’s eyes lowered to Ember’s mouth for one unsettling second. “Especially princes.”

The answer should have reassured her. Instead, heat rose along her neck.

She looked away first.

They crossed the courtyard beneath towering arches carved with animals. Wolves leapt across one pillar. Griffins spread their wings over another. A phoenix rose through flames on a third. At the center stood a dragon, its stone jaws open, black glass set into its eyes.

Ember felt the academy watching her through every carved face.

Students passed in clusters. Some wore uniforms; others had arrived from training halls in loose shirts and boots. A fox shifter with copper hair glanced at Ember, then whispered to a deer shifter beside her. Two rabbits hurried past with their heads lowered.

No one approached the humans.

That, Ember suspected, had less to do with politeness than the black-and-silver dragon crest displayed over the entrance.

“Why are our dorms in the dragon section?” James asked.

“To keep you protected,” Atlas said.

“From what?”

“Everyone.”

Mike’s nervous laugh died when Atlas did not smile.

Damian walked behind them now. Not beside Ember. Behind her.

She could feel his attention between her shoulder blades.

It made every step too deliberate.

At the next corridor, she stopped. “Could you not do that?”

Damian halted. “Do what?”

“Watch me.”

“I’m escorting you.”

“Atlas is escorting us.”

“I am also escorting you.”

“That sounds unnecessary.”

“It is not.”

The certainty in his tone scraped against her nerves. Ember turned fully toward him. Up close, he seemed even larger, his shoulders filling the narrow passage. His skin carried a faint warmth that reached her before he did. Smoke and cedar clung to him, with the bitter trace of tobacco.

“I don’t know you,” she said. “You growled at me, then followed me through a hallway while staring at my back. You’ll have to forgive me if I find that unsettling.”

Something flickered behind his eyes.

Not anger.

Hurt, perhaps - but it disappeared so quickly she doubted herself.

“I did not mean to frighten you.”

“Intent doesn’t erase impact.”

Atlas looked between them, suddenly very interested in the ceiling.

Damian’s fingers tightened around the cigarette in his hand until the paper creased. “You are correct.”

The admission caught her off guard.

He glanced toward the corridor ahead. “I will walk beside you instead.”

“That isn’t the same as leaving me alone.”

“No.”

“Then we understand each other.”

For the first time, Damian looked almost amused. “Do we?”

Ember held his gaze. His eyes were not merely silver; they were pale and reflective, like moonlight caught on dark water. Something in them pulled at her attention, an invisible pressure that made her want to step closer while every sensible instinct told her not to.

She turned away.

“Show us the dorm.”

The human corridor lay behind two enormous doors of black wood. Silver runes glowed along their edges, and the instant Ember crossed through, the heat in the academy faded. The air became cool and clean. Three doors lined each side of the hall, each marked with a human symbol rather than an animal crest.

“Protection wards,” Atlas explained. “They recognize human signatures. No shifter can enter without permission.”

“Not even a dragon?” Mike asked.

“Not even one.”

Ember exhaled quietly.

For the first time since arriving, her shoulders loosened.

Damian noticed.

Of course he did.

“This corridor is secure,” he said. “If you need anything, contact the guard station.”

“Or the prince?” James asked.

Damian looked at him.

James swallowed. “I was joking.”

“Do not.”

The command was quiet. It still made James step back.

Ember’s irritation sharpened. “You can’t threaten every person who speaks to you.”

“I did not threaten him.”

“You made him afraid.”

Damian’s gaze returned to her. “Fear is sometimes useful.”

“So is basic courtesy.”

Atlas’s mouth twitched.

Damian studied Ember as if she were a problem no one had given him enough time to solve. “You are very determined to correct me.”

“I’m determined not to be treated like property.”

The words left the air between them stripped bare.

Damian went utterly still.

For a moment, Ember thought she had gone too far. Then his gaze lowered to her hand, to the ring of keys Atlas had just given her, and his expression changed.

“I would not keep you,” he said.

His voice had lost its edge.

Ember’s breath caught despite herself.

The prince looked away first, toward the sealed doors of the dorm rooms. “But I cannot promise I will not watch for danger.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No,” Damian said. “It isn’t.”

He stepped aside, allowing her to pass.

Ember unlocked the nearest room. It opened onto a small suite with two bedrooms, a shared sitting area, and a window overlooking the academy’s dragon courts. Black stone walls curved around the glass. Far below, something massive moved through the mist - only a shadow, then a flash of silver wing.

Ember’s stomach tightened.

Behind her, Damian remained in the corridor.

She looked back at him. “Are you coming in?”

The question slipped out before she could reconsider it.

His attention sharpened.

“No,” he said after a pause. “You have not invited me.”

The restraint in his answer unsettled her more than an arrogant refusal would have.

“Good.”

“Yes.”

Neither of them moved.

Atlas cleared his throat. “We’ll leave you to settle in.”

Damian’s gaze stayed fixed on Ember. “If anyone troubles you, tell me.”

“I’ll tell the guard station.”

“Tell me as well.”

“Why?”

A pulse moved in his throat.

“Because I will hear you.”

The words were simple. His expression made them feel like a promise she had not agreed to receive.

Ember stepped into the dorm and pulled the door halfway closed. Damian did not leave. He stood beneath the silver warding runes, tall and silent, watching her as if the distance between them were something he intended to measure.

She shut the door.

Only then did she breathe.

Through the wood, she heard Atlas murmur, “You’re making this worse.”

Damian answered too softly for her to catch.

Ember set her suitcase down and pressed her palm against the door. The stone beneath it was cool. Her skin still remembered the heat of Damian’s presence.

She had reached the dorm exactly as planned.

She had a room, a key, and protection from every shifter on campus.

Yet the one person she could not stop thinking about was the dragon prince standing outside, guarding a bond she did not know existed.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters and about 10,219 words in the full book.