Page 16 of Dragon King’s Duty Bride

Aldrek’s mouth twitched faintly. “You were not raised to offer such thin answers to your elders.”

Lucas suppressed a sigh. There was no avoiding this. “You did not come to discuss my daughters’ laughter.”

“No.” Aldrek’s gaze remained outside. “I came to discuss your marriage.”

The word settled heavily between them.

Replacement marriage was more accurate. Nothing more than a political necessity wrapped in ceremony and tradition.

“How does your new queen fare?” Aldrek asked mildly.

“She is not my queen,” Lucas answered without thinking.

“She stands in that role, at least in title.”

Lucas’s jaw tightened. Outside, Sia sat up and brushed grass from her sleeves while Luna clung to her shoulders.

“She has done more for my daughters,” Lucas admitted quietly, “than I have managed since Dian’s passing.”

Aldrek nodded once. “And between the two of you?”

Lucas’s spine went rigid. “We are… cordial.”

“Cordial,” Aldrek repeated. “You share chambers?”

Lucas held the elder’s gaze evenly. “We share my master suite.”

Aldrek did not blink. “And an heir?”

There it was, the true purpose of the visit. Aldrek may be an old friend, but duty always came first. The dragon line did not survive on laughter and gratitude.

Lucas felt a heat coil low in his abdomen but it was anger, not desire. “It has been mere weeks.”

“Dragons do not require months to secure a future,” Aldrek replied calmly. “The council grows restless. Your daughters are cherished, but the line must be strengthened with a son.”

Lucas’s dragon stirred at that.

“Heirs will come,” Lucas said.

It was not a lie, it was simply not yet true.

Aldrek studied him closely now with a tilt of his head. “You have not consummated your marriage.”

It was not a question. Lucas forced himself not to react.

“We are married,” he said evenly. “What happens between us is not the council’s concern.”

Aldrek’s gaze sharpened. “It is precisely our concern if the bond is not being honored.”

Bond.

The word scraped across an old wound. There was no bond. There was only a ceremony. Vows spoken for stability. A woman who slept in the same bed with him with doubts and history between them.

But Lucas could not tell this elder, who would certainly report back to the rest of the Trust Council, that when he stood too near her or held her in the night, something restless and forbidden rose inside him, and he did not trust it.

“She requires time,” Lucas said carefully. “She was not raised within our… traditions.”

Aldrek’s eyes widened, subtle but piercing. “She was not told what you are.”