Page 27 of Dragon King’s Duty Bride

“You don’t know that you can’t. We haven’t tried.”

Her throat tightened as she lifted her chin. “Then take me properly as your wife.” There. She had thrown it out there, wanton as it may have been.

The words fell into the space between them. Bare. Unarmored. Lucas went utterly still.

Sia felt heat creep up her neck but did not look away.

“If duty is required,” she continued, voice soft but steady, “then let’s fulfill it. I won’t shrink from that.”

What she didn’t say was even if you don’t want me. Even if it’s unpleasant.

Lucas's expression changed. It was shock at first, then turned to something darker and pained.

“Sia,” he said slowly, “I won’t use you.”

As though the only possible way he could approach her was exploitation.

“I’m offering,” she whispered.

Offering herself like an obligation. Offering herself because surely desire was out of the question.

“I know.” His voice roughened. “And I am refusing.”

The rejection landed quietly but cleanly. Refusing. Not postponing. Not waiting. A flat out refusal. A sharp flare of humiliation burned beneath her ribs.

Of course. Of course he refused. She had made it easy. Framed it as duty. Made herself small and practical. What man would desire that?

“And so,” she said with a forced steadiness she did not feel, “you must accept another.”

His head snapped up.

“I will step aside,” she continued before she lost nerve. “I will leave before the girls grow more attached. It would be easier now.”

Easier for him. Easier than sharing a bed with a woman he did not want.

“No.”

The word cracked through the room. It startled her despite herself. Lucas stepped closer. Not touching, but closer than they had stood in months. Close enough that she could see the faint scar at his temple. Close enough that his warmth reached her without obstruction.

“You will not leave,” he said, voice low and unsteady in a way she had never heard before. “You are not a placeholder. You are not a bargaining chip. And you are not leaving my daughters.”

“Then what am I?” she asked before she could stop herself.

The question escaped raw and vulnerable. Because if she was not a wife in truth, and not a mother by blood, and only a political necessity, then what worth was she?

His gaze flickered. Conflict. Heat. Something that made her breath hitch without understanding why.

“You are…” he began. And stopped.

He dragged a hand through his hair as his composure fractured.

“You are not the problem,” he said instead. “There will be no new wife. No exile. No replacement.”

Replacement. The word sliced through her. They both heard it. She already owned that title.

Neither spoke of Dian.

But she felt her presence in the silence that followed. Lucas stepped back first, as though proximity itself had become dangerous.