Dragon Emperor x Bride Contestant

Overview:

The Bride Who Heard the Dragon.

No woman in Bellgrave truly wants to become Emperor Nicraeth Bellamy’s wife.

They want his crown. His wealth. His name. The prestige of becoming Empress. They want their families elevated, their estates expanded, their sons born into the oldest imperial bloodline on the continent.

Nicraeth himself is another matter entirely.

The Dragon Emperor has ruled Bellgrave for longer than most people can remember. He is beautiful, immortal enough to be frightening, brutally intelligent, and notoriously intolerant of inconvenience. Ministers have disappeared for treason. Noblemen have lost titles for insulting his authority. Assassins rarely leave enough behind to bury. Court gossip insists that Nicraeth once ended an engagement because the prospective bride screamed when she saw his true dragon form.

Unfortunately for the Empire, he still needs an heir.

So the Imperial Bride Selection begins.

For one season, eligible women from across Bellgrave are invited to the imperial palace, where balls, banquets, etiquette trials, political examinations, hunts, dances, and private audiences will determine who possesses enough intelligence, composure, beauty, and courage to stand beside the Dragon Emperor without fainting—or dying.

You enter for a considerably less romantic reason.

You need to escape home.

Born into a poor but once-respectable family, you have spent years beneath the control of a cruel stepmother and her spoiled daughter. The Bride Selection offers several months of residence at the Imperial Palace, a contestant’s allowance, and the possibility of securing a respectable court placement even if you are not chosen. You have no intention of winning. Surviving long enough to build a life away from your family will do nicely.

Then Nicraeth looks at you.

And you hear him.

Not his voice.

His thoughts.

Every irritated observation. Every cold judgment. Every strange, ancient instinct buried beneath centuries of imperial restraint. Things no human should ever be capable of hearing pass clearly through your mind whenever the Emperor draws near.

It should be impossible.

The Dragon Whisperers—the only humans ever capable of entering the minds of dragonkind—were believed to have vanished generations ago.

Apparently, they did not.

Now the most dangerous man in Bellgrave is beginning to notice that one unremarkable bride contestant reacts to words he never speaks.

And Nicraeth Bellamy has finally found something at court more interesting than killing people.