"What exactly do you want with Raiden?"

​A collective hiss of indrawn breath rattled through the chamber. Several of the red-tailed elders on the platforms bared their teeth, their knuckles whitening as they gripped the edges of their stone seats.

Nobody spoke to the High Sovereign of the Crimson Court with such clinical disrespect. Well, they just hadn’t met Hana yet.

​Caspian took a step closer to Hana, his chest expanding as he let out a low, warning rumble that made the granite floor beneath the elders vibrate.

Kulu shifted his weight on her other side, his grip on the metal spear tightening just enough to let the room know he was ready to drop anyone who moved.

​Lord Kaelen held up a single hand, instantly silencing his elders. His gaze flicked from Hana down to Raiden, who was standing straight, his nine pink tails held high and steady just as Hana had ordered.

​"He is the bearer of our unbroken core," Lord Kaelen stated coldly, treating his grandson with the same detached, transactional indifference Hana used for her projects. "His mother’s choices were irrelevant. But his blood belongs to the Eleven Spires. He will stay in the inner court, where his lineage will be properly cultivated to secure the future of the Crimson Line."

Hana raised a brow. "And that is?"

"He will take on multiple females and bear more pure blooded children." Lord Kaelen implied. "That is the least he can do for his clan. And as for you, human... you have managed to unlock the raw potential of his feral senses, and you carry the seed of an ancient dragon. We can offer you a place in the outer courts to safely deliver your child. But the boy stays with us."

​Raiden’s jaw tightened, a flash of pure anger crossing his emerald eyes, but he kept his mouth shut, waiting for his cue.

​Hana let out a short, quiet breath that was almost a laugh. She looked up at the High Sovereign, her thumb lightly brushing the safety switch of her weapon.

The old fox truly believed his ancestral claim gave him the right to just reallocate her assets.

​"You’re running a very flawed calculation," Hana said, her dark eyes narrowing into thin, lethal slits as she stared at the throne. "I didn’t bring him here to trade him off, and I certainly don’t take relocation orders from a wall ornament. Raiden," she made sure to emphasise on his name because it seemed like this senile old man kept forgetting the boy had a name. "Is my mate, which means he’s my resource. If you want him to expand your line, then you’ll have to wait until I birth a child for him because I don’t share."

Just so they don’t take her words lightly so she added. "I warn you. If you dare put my man in a cage, I will turn this entire valley into a burning graveyard. Do not test me!" she warned.

Everywhere went silent to the point that if a pin dropped, it would echo.

Raiden’s heart was pounding so loud it could echo. Hana had just said she would birth his child and that stirred something inside him.

Caspian was proud because his mate would never cower to anyone and stood tall just like him. He was ever ready to set it all ablaze whenever she gave the order.

Kulu’s feathers rustled a bit, equally feeling proud. This was Hana’s might. Not even those sitting on their high horses and thinking the world belonged to them could make her falter or drop her conviction.

Once she claimed something, it was hers for life, unless she didn’t want it. But that would hardly happen. Because Hana was the type to make even the useless useful, so no resource is lost.

And then, before anyone could speak up, Hana snapped her fingers and added, "Oh, right. I might’ve said to wait until I birth Raiden a child but don’t get me wrong. I don’t plan to give my child to any of you so... Tough luck."

Lord Kaelen did not snap, nor did he roar. But the atmosphere in the grand chamber instantly dropped to a suffocating, freezing weight.

The white fan of his red-tipped tails merely stiffened, the tips twitching with a cold, ancient fury that made the six elders on the lower platforms grip their stone seats so hard the granite began to form tiny, hair-line cracks.

​"You dare bring a hairless, foreign tongue into our sacred court to bark threats at the progenitor of the Line?" Celene hissed from the side, her eleven crimson tails violently flaring out like a massive wall of fire.

Her green eyes were completely wide with an outrage that she could no longer suppress.

"You are a mere human carrying a lizard’s spawn! You survive on our ridge by our ignorance, and you think you can dictate the womb of the Crimson Core?!"

​Hana didn’t even look at her, ignoring her as though a bit was merely passing by. But she would very much like to swat that bug.

Still, she kept her dark eyes locked dead onto the old fox on the throne, her thumb resting on her stun gun with a terrifyingly relaxed posture.

​Lord Kaelen slowly leaned forward, his piercing, predatory gaze drilling into Hana’s face, trying to find a single tremor of hesitation. He found nothing.

She was looking at him the exact same way she looked at the heavy metal walls of the closed Aegis bunkers outside—like an object she was fully prepared to break open and strip for parts.

​"You do not share," Lord Kaelen repeated, his voice echoing off the high-ceilinged stone like a heavy drum. "And you refuse to yield the bloodline of the Spires. Human... Your brutes are strong, but they cannot shield your mind from the thousands of ancestral spirits that guard this valley. You claim him as your resource, yet you will leave here with nothing if your heart stops beating before the sun sets."

​Before the old fox could even finish his threat, Caspian stepped fully in front of Hana, putting his black scaled form Kaelen’s line of sight as his scaled tail gave a heavy thwack against the floor and created a crater.

A thick, terrifyingly hot orange glow burst to life at the base of his throat, the scales around his neck expanding as a low, tectonic growl shook the dust from the palace rafters.

​"Don’t even get me started about her heart stopping because if Hana’s heart manages to skip a single beat on this stone," Caspian rumbled, his golden eyes slit into savage predator needles as he bared his razor-sharp fangs and glared at them. "You’re all dead."