My Choice: A War God vs A Fake Dragon Chapter 06
Chapter 6 The Man I Wanted Dead
“You’re the fool!”
Selene’s words hit their mark.
Cassian suddenly seemed to remember something.
Finished
He kicked her aside without a glance, ignoring her cry of pain, and dropped to his knees in front of me
His face was full of panic and regret. “Mira, I had my reasons. I truly did.”
He grabbed at the edge of my robes. “My plan was always to take the throne first, stabilize the clan, and the reveal the truth once the realm was secure. I meant to return to you.”
His voice broke. “I never imagined Selene wasn’t even who she claimed to be.”
Then he looked up at me with desperate hope. “Mira, I know I was wrong. Please. Come back to me. If you return, I’ll do anything you ask.”
I bent slightly, almost curious. “Anything?”
He nodded frantically.
But I already understood what he wanted.
Now that his deception had been revealed, he could very well be stripped of his title and reduced to nothing. Yet the Dragon clan could not go without a ruler. If I returned to his side, God might still accept him and allow the succession to continue.
Why would I ever give him that?
He looked at me with expectation so naked it would have been laughable under any other circumstances.
Then I said, slowly and clearly, “I want you dead.”
His face changed.
I rested a hand over my still-beating heart and thought of the agony I had endured in my last life. “If I could choose,” I said honestly, “I would want you cut into a thousand pieces.”
His whole expression twisted. “Mira, you vicious bitch.”
Kael stepped in front of me again, shielding me from his rage.
Then he covered my ears with both hands and said softly through our private bond, “Let’s go.”
Behind us, the Dragon clan descended into turmoil.
The Crown Prince was dead. The Second Prince had usurped his place. The clan’s faith in the royal line had
been shaken to its core.
Some demanded Cassian’s execution at once.
Others argued that, as the last royal son, he must be allowed to live.
But all of that no longer had anything to do with me.
I lay on my bed with one foot braced against Kael’s chest, trying to shove him away while I caught my breath. “No more. I mean it. No more.”
He was impossible.
An entire day had passed, and I had barely left the bed even once.
Kael, however, showed no sign of mercy.
He bent close to my ear and asked in a low voice, “Mira… who was better? Me, or Cassian?”
For a moment, I just stared at him.
Then it finally clicked.
Ever since we returned from the succession ceremony, Kael had not asked how I uncovered the truth. He had not even shown much interest in the political chaos spreading through the Dragon clan.
He had only worked himself against me with single-minded determination.
Was he… jealous?
When I did not answer, he tightened the hand resting on my waist and went quiet for a moment. Then, with unmistakable gloom, he said, “So you still can’t forget him.”
“That’s true,” I said. “I can’t.”
The hurt in his eyes came so fast and so plainly that I nearly laughed.
The great war god of the Dragon clan loosened his hold on me and asked in a small voice, “Is it because I haven’t treated you well enough?”
I finally broke and burst out laughing.
He looked at me, confused.
I reached up and tugged at his cheek. “Please. Who forgets their enemies?”
Then I softened and said, “Yes, I once loved Cassian. But that was before. Now I only want him dead.”
Kael’s eyes brightened little by little.
But then I tilted my head and asked, “There’s something I still don’t understand. Why did you step forward that day, in front of everyone, when I asked to remarry?”
His face went red all the way to the tips of his ears.
Slowly, awkwardly, he began to tell me a story.
A war god, it turned out, had not always been a war god.
Finished shed
Kael had royal blood in him, but his parents died when he was very young, and no one had ever valued him. To survive-and to prove that he could-he had started from the very bottom as an ordinary soldier.
Three hundred years ago, during a campaign at the border, he was lured into an ambush.
All allied lines had already pulled back.
He had thought he was going to die there, abandoned and waiting to become a demon’s meal.
Then a small head peeked out from the rocks.
He still remembered the words clearly. “Oh? You’re from the Dragon clan. How did you get caught here? Don’t be scared. I’ll take you home.”
Kael looked at me and said softly, “Mira, I fell for you immediately. But when you brought me back to the Dragon camp, I learned from the others that you were a princess of the Phoenix clan… and already betrothed to Cassian.”
His eyes lowered. “At the time, I thought, who am I compared to him? But I couldn’t bear the idea of being no one forever. So I kept fighting, kept climbing, until I became the war god.”
Then he gave me a sheepish smile. “That way, when you saw me again, even if you felt nothing for me at all, you’d still know my name.”
He hesitated before continuing. “When you lost your husband and asked for a new marriage in front of the entire court, I didn’t step forward at once because I was too stunned. It felt like heaven had dropped a gift into my lap, and I couldn’t think straight.”
His ears turned even redder. “Everything after that… you already know.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh at him or scold him.
So instead, I cupped his face in my hands.
After two lifetimes of drifting, something in me finally settled.
Cassian had thrown me away like a worn-out thing.
Kael held me like a treasure.
“You fool,” I murmured.
Then we tangled ourselves around each other again, tireless and breathless, until I no longer knew how much time had passed.
At last, a servant’s voice came from outside.
Kael helped me into my robes and carefully covered every mark he had left before allowing the servant inside.
The servant bowed, clearly uncomfortable. “My lord… my lady… the visitor is the Crown Princess.”
Selene was standing at the entrance.
The moment her false bloodline had been exposed, the Dragon Queen had cast her out of the royal territory that same day.
