Page 71 of Billionaire Dragon King’s Rejected Mate

Randi

Randi had thought she understood what happiness felt like. She believed she had experienced it in small, fleeting pieces back in Tampa when she first began building something that belonged entirely to her.

But nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the overwhelming, breath-stealing certainty that settled into her chest as she stood beside Chance as his new fiancee while the crown of Noriveille became his. In the same moment, he had made his choice to make her his in a way that was both public and irrevocable.

It wasn’t just the proposal, though that alone had been enough to leave her heart racing and her thoughts spinning. It was the way he had done it, the way he had stepped away from power at the very moment he was meant to claim it, and chose her first in front of an entire kingdom as though there had never been any question at all.

She still felt it now, hours later, standing in the quieter corridors of the palace with her fingers brushing absently over the tattoo on her wrist.

“Well,” she said lightly and glanced up at Chance as they walked side by side. Her tone threaded with amusement despite the warmth lingering in her chest, “I guess this means I’m going to need another one.”

Chance looked down at her with a hint of confusion crossing his expression. “Another what?”

“A tattoo,” she clarified and lifted her wrist slightly. “It would feel unbalanced otherwise, don’t you think? One for where I came from…” she tilted her head, a playful glint in her eyes, “and one for the crest of Noriveille.”

A quiet laugh escaped him. “You’re already planning permanent marks of loyalty?”

Randi shrugged, though her smile softened into something more meaningful. “I think that decision was made the moment I said yes,” she replied. “The tattoo is just balance.”

Chance shook his head slightly, though the fondness in his expression was unmistakable. “Remind me not to underestimate your commitment.”

“Too late,” she said easily.

But as much as she wanted to stay in that moment and linger in the warmth of it, there was something else she needed to do. Something that had been sitting in the back of her mind since the moment the battle ended. An itch she couldn’t ignore and a question that refused to be quiet.

“I want to see him.”

Chance’s steps slowed, tension threading through his posture. “Randi, don’t.”

“I’m not going down there to fight,” she added quickly. “I just… I need to.”

He turned to her fully then and studied her like he was trying to read every thought she wasn’t saying out loud. There was worry in his eyes but he wasn’t afraid for himself. He was for her. Finally, he exhaled and gave a reluctant nod. “I’ll have someone escort you.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said softly, though she didn’t argue when he insisted anyway.

The dungeon felt colder than she remembered. Not just in temperature, but in something deeper. It felt like the stone corridors remembered every cruel word and every act of violence it had ever witnessed. Randi walked down the dim corridor while a guard trailed a few paces behind.

The anger she’d carried for so long had dulled into something quieter. Something that wanted answers. Or maybe it was something that still hoped to get some.

The former King Gunner sat in his cell. The remnants of his former power had been stripped away until he was nothing more than a man behind iron bars. She knew the moment his gaze lifted and locked onto hers that whatever had made him who he was had not been so easily removed.

His power had just given him the ability to use his evil.

“Well,” he drawled, his voice cutting through the silence, edged with the same venom she remembered, “if it isn’t the reason my son thinks he’s a king.”

Randi stopped just outside the bars and folded her arms. She studied him carefully and searched his face for anything that even mimicked regret. Anything that suggested there had ever been a man worth saving beneath all of this.

She found nothing in his demeanor, his attitude, or the way he glared at her that made her suspect he cared even a little.

“You’re still doing that,” she said after a moment. “Blaming everyone else for the choices you made.”

His lip curled, eyes narrowing with open disdain. “And you’re still standing where you don’t belong.”

“I was hoping…” She hesitated, the admission catching in her throat before she forced it out. “I was hoping that maybe losing everything would’ve forced you to see it.”

“See what?” he snapped

“That you were wrong,” she said simply. “That you were the problem all along.”