Dragon King’s Duty Bride (Alpha Dragon Kings of Silver Peaks #3)

Chapter 1

Lucas

King Lucas Vanstorm stood at the edge of the patio that overlooked the crystalline falls that made Crystafalls famous, at least in their own minds.

The veils of water dropped away into mist and moonlight and created their own music from the crescendo below where the water struck the massive boulders from the Silver Snow Mountains.

The chorus echoed through the valley like a melody that refused to stop.

He usually came here to think and let the cascading sounds soothe his soul. But tonight, he didn’t think anything was going to quiet his mind.

The townspeople said the falls answered to him and their magic bent whenever Lucas willed it. But they were wrong.

Nothing bent for him anymore because he didn’t try to make it. Not since Dian.

Not to be confused with his duties. He still ruled Crystafalls like a king because the crown demanded it.

The province itself required a steady hand to keep the boundaries of right and wrong intact and the safety and needs of the town met.

But beneath the regalia and reverence, Lucas was a broken man stitched together by duty alone.

Every step he took through the castle echoed with ghosts.

Every corridor carried reminders of a life that had ended too soon.

Dian’s death had not faded with time. If anything, it had sharpened.

Three years had passed, and the ache still lived in his chest like a living thing.

Her absence was a wound that never closed, no matter how many sunrises peeked over the falls.

She had been his mate as a man and his dragon’s one true mate, meant to be together for life.

There was no second bonding and no replacement when things went wrong, as they had with Dian’s losing battle with her disease.

The dragon within him knew this as surely as it knew the skies.

Lucas had not touched another woman since Dian took to her sick bed, long before she died. He never would.

Love, for him, had not merely ended. It had been sealed in ash and memory, and guarded fiercely by the dragon coiled deep within his soul. To attempt to love another would be a lie, both to himself, man and dragon, and most of all to Dian.

His gaze drifted from the falls to the tower windows beyond the courtyard. Three of them still glowed faintly with enchanted night-lights that swirled soft stars made of light around the ceiling until young eyes closed into sleep.

Celeste. Luna. Stella.

His daughters were sleeping, or at least they were supposed to be, even though he knew their rest wasn’t always complete. Grief clung to them just as it clung to him.

Celeste, the eldest, tried to be brave but had meltdowns when her emotions slipped. Luna asked too many quiet questions and her grief turned inward like a locked door. And little Stella still reached for her mother in the dark and woke with tears she didn’t understand.

Lucas had learned to move through the palace at night without a sound to check on them when the weight became too heavy to bear.

He knew the rhythm of their breathing, saw the brief smiles that never seemed to materialize while awake, and the way each of them acted in their sleep just before the nightmares threatened.

Protecting them was the only thing that kept him standing some days.

Behind him, the balcony doors opened. Elder Aldrek, the closest thing he had to a confidante on the council, walked out to join him.

“My king,” Aldrek said carefully. “The council awaits your answer.”

Lucas didn’t turn. He already knew what they wanted. The Visionary Trust Council never came without prophecy in one hand and obligation in the other.

“They’ve already decided,” Lucas said. “Why pretend I still have a choice?”

A pause. The kind heavy with ancient magic and political inevitability.

“Crystafalls needs a male heir,” Aldrek replied quietly. “You know this. You were born into it yourself. The bloodline must be secured. The visions are clear.”

Lucas turned then with anger flashing beneath his composed exterior. “My daughters are my heirs.”

“And they will be strong rulers,” Aldrek said quickly. “But heritage was forged by kings. Without a male successor, the throne will weaken within a generation.”

Lucas’s jaw tightened. “So, this isn’t about legacy. It’s about fear.”

“It is about survival,” Aldrek said gently. “Theirs. And yours.”

“Tell them I’ll be there in just a minute.”

“You know I’m your friend, Lucas. I know you miss Dian and don’t want this. But while she passed on, your life continues, like it or not. The council has been patient, but you’re not getting any younger.”

“I know all about child bearing years,” he griped. “I’ll be there.”

Lucas wanted to check on the girls before he went to the firing squad, at least that’s what it felt like. A betrayal on so many levels, but one that he couldn’t do anything about.

All three were sleeping when he entered their suite of rooms. Stella’s stuffed bunny had fallen to the floor, so he picked it up and tucked it under her arm. He kissed her forehead and moved on to Luna’s bed. He fluffed her pillow and she mumbled and snuggled down in the comforter.

Celeste lay crossways on her bed with the blankets kicked aside.

She moved around as much in her sleep as she did when awake.

He tried to resituate her on her pillow, but her body stiffened and short of waking her up and risking her wrath, he gave up and adjusted her blankets.

He tucked it around her with a slight smile.

She looked so much like Dian already. At only ten years old, she already had a lifetime of responsibility on her shoulders with her sisters. He tried to spend as much time as he could playing mother and father, but with his duties, Celeste inherited a lot of the mother duties.

Guilt ripped at him but he had never found an answer. Unfortunately, it seemed like maybe the council had, and it was a decision that could assist on several fronts.

He just didn’t want any part of it, regardless of the potential benefits. With a long sigh, he kissed Celeste on the forehead and headed toward his meeting chamber.

The doors to the chamber stood open and the council, twelve elders, sat in a crescent shape made with their chairs.

They all looked slightly bored but sat up and adjusted when he entered the room.

Lucas knew that most of them would have chosen to be anywhere except where they were about to exert their will upon him, but like him, they had no choice.

And they had chosen his destiny. He wasn’t about to waste time with niceties so got right to the crux of the issue.

“Who is she?”

“Sia,” Aldrek answered. Just one word.

The name that struck like a blow to the chest. Lucas couldn’t prevent the sharp intake hiss.

Dian’s younger sister.

Sia, who shared her smile in quiet moments and her stubbornness in loud ones. Sia, who had stood beside his daughters at Dian’s funeral, grief etched into every line of her face while she held them upright when Lucas himself could barely breathe.

Due to her schooling, Lucas hadn’t had much contact over the years with Sia. They had gotten along well when they did cross paths at family events, but it was always in passing. Dian and the girls had been much closer to her than he had been.

“No,” Lucas said immediately. “Anyone but her.” She would be such a reminder of his late wife.

“There is no one else,” another elder said softly. “Her blood aligns with the crown. The council’s opinions converge only with her.”

Lucas felt his dragon stir, restless and agitated. The bond it had shared with Dian pulsed painfully and rejected the very idea. Marriage in Crystafalls was not merely political. It was magical and completely sacred.

To marry Sia would mean standing beneath the falls again while they spoke vows meant for Dian alone. It would mean binding himself to a woman who carried his true mate’s blood right along with her memory.

It felt like betrayal.

“I will not dishonor my wife,” Lucas said, his voice low. “She was my dragon’s one mate. There will never be another.”

“You would honor her,” Aldrek said gently. “By protecting what she loved most.”

Lucas’s thoughts flew, unbidden, to three little girls asleep under star-lit enchantments.

Dian’s children. Their girls.

Slowly, painfully, he bowed his head.

“For the kingdom,” he said. “But mostly for my daughters.”

The council exhaled as one.

Lucas straightened, every inch the king once more, even as something inside him went still and cold.

“I will marry Sia,” he said. “But understand this with nothing but crystal clarity. My heart is buried with Dian. This union will give you an heir, nothing more.”

He strode back to his post near the falls as mist curled upward and he closed his eyes to the pain that memories wrapped him in.

The future had shifted and created new destinies. One that he didn’t want any part of. But his gaze once again traveled to the tower windows.

Without a monarchy, his daughters’ lives would be forever altered and not necessarily in good ways. He wouldn’t have the powers that he had now to protect them if he lost his crown. He had to accept the fact that Aldrek was right. Life went on even after his heart had died.

And for the first time since Dian’s death, Lucas wondered if the greatest danger ahead was not to his kingdom but to the fragile hearts of the daughters he was trying so desperately to protect.