[The unbelievably gorgeous cover was made by @The_Lancelot_ 😭💗 I'm so in love with it omg💗💗💗]

Dohmenic

The world turned red. The furniture began to shake violently, just as it seemed a cloud slid in front of the sun and shaded the land into a gloomy nightmare. He felt his friend beside him take a cautious step back when his muscles began to tremor, knowing what this meant. Knowing what this would unleash.

The Lady Kahtrina had been kidnapped. Abducted. Taken.

Right from under his nose.

He roared as he clenched his fists, trying to contain his anger, but failing; A female had been taken while being under his protection and now stood to suffer a fate worse than death itself.

"My lord," Callath tried, but the male should've known better than to try and approach him when he was like this.

Out of his mind in rage, the Dralan lashed at his friend, seizing him by his servant collars and shoving him up against the nearest wall with brutal force, his fingers closing around his throat.

Red. Red was all he saw.

Callath wheezed, but didn't fight him, simply just held eye contact with him - the cold, but armored prowl in his eyes telling him that he was pissed, too. The Mihr hunters were his responsibility to deal with and he had failed. He could tell the male wanted as much revenge as himself, but this one wasn't his war to fight.

It was Dohmenic's.

He therefore let go of his friend again with a furious sound and then stalked away, pacing back in forth while clenching and unclenching his hands.

Blood... he wanted to taste blood. But not the sweet, enthralling blood that flowed in his female's veins... no, he wanted the sour, defiled and tainted taste of his enemy's blood on his tongue, lingering on his teeth as he ripped the male's throat open with his fangs and left him to bleed out on the ground.

Phlague. He had taken the only female who could strengthen his kingdom and make his downfall unobtainable. With a Dralaq on his side, he could've won... but now...

The Dralan finally stopped pacing and closed his eyes for a moment. The Lady Derina's quiet sobs could still be heard, yet Lord Amasgohn remained in stoic silence. The Dralan could feel the crushing pain of the male. It was an energy as rattling and thick as his own rage. The male mourned the loss of his daughter, but did so in a manner worthy of an old warrior; tears would only strengthen the enemy's victory, so silent fury took their place.

"How did they get in?" The Dralan finally asked, his voice as guttural and raw as they came. Anger and wrath laced through it like a blade, cutting each syllable up like he would his nemesis. "Why wasn't I summoned?"

"We didn't know," Lord Amasgohn gravelly replied. "The Lady Kahtrina went to her chambers after the... incident at the beach. She came down for dinner, we ate, and then she went back up to her chambers to sleep. None of us found out until this morning, when she... didn't..." The male's voice dried up and faded out.

The Dralan clenched his jaw. His chest was tight with wrath, building up to explode in white hot rage. "She was alone in her room?"

"Certainly not," Lord Amasgohn almost growled back, offended with the mere suggestion that he hadn't constantly keep his daughter protected. "She had five trained guards patrolling the hall to her room, plus her personal Kischmir who sleeps in her chamber. All of them prepared to give their life for her. And they did."

Dohmenic closed his eyes. Rage overpowered the grief, but there was one other emotion that was tearing him apart, and it was perhaps the strongest one.

Failure. It had been his job to ensure nothing happened to any of them while he was in their home. He knew the dangers he brought with him when he entered their fort and asked for their daughter's hand, which was why he had taken every precaution with his female, locking her up and keeping her away.

Now, he wished he had done the same for the Lady Kahtrina.

And to think he had woken up this morning in bliss. In contentment. Sleeping by his side, his female had simply just been breathing steadily with the faintest hint of a smile on those fine, delicate lips he had cherished with all of his might last night. He had been tempted to kiss them in her exhausted sleep, tempted to touch her, but he had refrained. Still, he had watched her almost all night long, until sleep rendered him unconscious as well. Peaceful and content, he had slept, all the while the Lady Kahtrina had been getting kidnapped - torn from her bed and ripped away from her home.

He hadn't heard a single one of her screams.

Her Kischmir had probably been killed in cold blood. The guards who had died for her were trained for this sort of thing, but that Kischmir... she was unarmed and innocent. Just like the Lady Kahtrina.

The wrath inside the Dralan now bubbled to the surface. He had kept it down for as long as he could, but it was irrefutable that it would explode at one point. And now it finally did.

Letting go of an angered roar, he grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on - which turned out to be a food cart - and smashed it into pieces against the wall. Nobody objected to his rage, nobody tried to stop him. They let him lash out his fury on the furniture until his palms were blooded and his knuckles were scuffed to the bone. Yet still, he didn't feel anything but wrath. Still, it wasn't enough.

"She'll be avenged," The Dralan snarled through his hard, heavy pants, clenching and unclenching his torn up fists. "I will personally see to that she will be avenged and brought back alive. My promise," He now thickly said and glared straight at Lord Amasgohn who looked up at the Dralan with hollow eyes. "As your Dralan, I promise you she will come back to you and your female's arms. On my blood, I promise you, Amasgohn."

Lord Amasgohn pressed his lips together in a hard expression, nodding slowly only once, before turning his head back to his crying mate, wordlessly. He was beyond speaking by now.

And to be frank, so was the Dralan.

"Gather my troops," He barked to Callath who had stayed in the back in all the madness. "Send every Lathra at my disposal out to hunt for the Lady Kahtrina and bring her back where she belongs!"

"Yes, sire," Callath replied, wrath radiating from his every pore as well. He gave a brief nod, then turned on his heel to execute his order. The Dralan knew he wouldn't fail to beat each and every single one of his Lathras into finding the Lady Kahtrina. Be it on his own blood, the Kathmir would make them hunt until they couldn't walk.

The Dralan turned his eyes to the mourning couple again, and for just one brief second, allowed himself to feel their pain.

It crushed him.

But then all he felt was wrath. Phlague had hunted a female that was under his protection and had succeeded in capturing her. It was a burning, humiliating blow to his power and title as Dralan, one he would wear for all eternity. Phlague was mocking his strength and showing him how weak his forces were. It consumed him with madness, made his blood boil and made the broken furniture shake on the ground again.

Nobody... nobody would ever again get so close to him without facing the spikes of his fangs if they dared cross him. Enough was enough. War had been declared the moment Phlague announced his hatred to his reign, but this was when it officially started.

Blood. Blood would pain the mountains and valleys in the whole of Drala crimson until he had disposed of Phlague and ridded the land of his kind.

Never again would anyone fucking cross him.

Leyla

What a beautiful morning, Leyla thought with a small smile as the first thing when her eyes blinked open. The sun was peaking in through the red drapes and was delicately poking her tender skin.

A hazy blur of last night's events then transpired before Leyla's vision as she turned on the silky sheets, realizing she was lying there alone. She gasped, not for the loneliness, but for the memory of what she had done last night... done with the Dralan.

Dohmenic.

Sweet Miss, she thought and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to block the images from returning to her - yet stubbornly they came to her and teased her mind until her cheeks were a blazing crisp color. She couldn't lie still, just remembering how he had touched her.

Had been inside her.

Leyla let out a small, involuntary squeak. The feel of his warm fingers having stroked her where none had ever been, not even herself... Sweet Miss in the sky above.

Dohmenic. Her mind couldn't get used to calling him that, even after last night. He was still her King and she was still but his servant. Calling him by his birth name was a privilege that was beyond her.

But where was he? How long ago did he leave? Why did he leave?

Oh, she had to be stupid if she thought last night changed a damn thing. She had very well just stated it; He was the Dralan, she was his servant. No amount of passionate nights would change that. Her blood would only sustain him as long as it remained pure, so how long did she truly expect him to stay around her when all he wanted to do was...

Leyla gulped nervously as she remembered his words.

There are five-hundred and six different things I want to do to you right now. Most of which involves me taking you in every way possible on this bed.

The pure image tainted her mind in red thoughts. As if every fantasy that had been rolling around in his dominant mind had transferred into her own mind, she saw all the things he wanted to do to her. Naughty things. Sinful things. Forbidden things.

But out of all those things, there is the one I want the most. The one that'll never happen.

Leyla's breath froze in her throat. The words rushed through her brain and made her lightly tremble.

And that's having you sit astride me on my throne as the Dralaq of my kingdom, our nation's future mother.

Leyla sucked in a breath as she tried to process it. She had been too far gone yesterday to truly comprehend what he had said, but now... it all seemed to hit her. How much he had truly wanted her. Truly craved her.

And how much all of it could never be.

Leyla exhaled her breath. Did he truly mean everything he had said or was it just a mere fantasy like the rest? Even if he had been grave serious, it remained a fantasy still; a beautiful, yet unobtainable reality that could never be. And still, with that knowledge in her head, she couldn't let go of his words.

From the moment I met you, I knew I wanted you. I wanted to drink from you, I wanted to eat from your hand. I wanted your taste on my lips every night before I went to bed and every morning before I left for battle. I want to watch you grow round with my semen and want to watch you birth our firstborn. I want it all from you Leyla, and nothing less.

Her eyes closed as she dwelled in his words - his fantasy; She saw a version of herself, back in his palace, back in his chambers. She was preparing him dinner like she always did, when he then walked in through the doors. She saw herself turn and lay eyes on the male whose young she safely carried in her womb, saw how his eyes fell to the roundness of her belly and then strode forward, coming closer to her with a determined, happy look in his eyes. They were so close to touching when the fantasy suddenly blurred away, got wiped off her mind by the cruel reality.

That would never be. It never could, despite what had happened last night.

Awoken by the cold truth, Leyla opened her eyes and looked around the empty bedchamber, looking for something, but nothing in particular.

Last night had been a mistake, she saw that now. She had been so overpowered by his masculinity and high on adrenaline from her outburst, she had forgotten to stay in contact with reality. Now that she was neither possessed or obsessed, she saw it all very clearly again.

- Her and the Dralan could never be.

Climbing out of the warm, but oddly cold bed that seemed to repel her now, Leyla strode across the floor to the vanity table where a hairbrush laid, and then begun the task of preparing herself. She had to get her mind off what had happened last night and get a hold of what was going to happen.

He was going to mate Lady Kahtrina. Like or not, he didn't have a choice. She was suitable and had what he needed. It was for the kingdom's survival. Leyla knew now that she'd have to do everything in her nonexistent power convince him of that, and herself.

As always, she never came first. And for once, neither did he; the kingdom did.

Reality was a cruel mistress to play with. In this world where all females dreamt of a better place, she had allowed herself to do the one thing she shouldn't; hope. Now that she had gotten a taste of what that was, she wished she never had. Because now she knew what she had to live without.

Him.

Leyla therefore terminated the thought of her and the Dralan in her mind, crushed it like it was nothing but a bug. But that was what it truly was; a bug that had infiltrated her and would kill her slowly, unless she got it out of her system.

- And that was what she would do.

The doors to the bedchamber suddenly burst open and startled Leyla, causing her to yelp and drop the hairbrush she had been smoothing though her blonde locks. As she whipped around, she wasn't surprised to see it was the Dralan who stood there, his eyes immediately locking on her as hers found his.

Leyla felt her cheeks crisp again at the sight of him. He was presented to her in a totally different light after last night. Remembering how intimately they had lied, how she had clung onto his shoulders as he had pleasured her generously, while drinking her blood with deep suckles... his lips against hers... so gentle, yet so dominant... hungry...

A small shudder ran through her body, but then she noticed the look that caged itself within the Dralan's icy, electric eyes as he gazed hard upon her.

Anger. Furious, hot and thoroughly pissed anger that seemed to make the walls shiver and the energy in the room ignite. All thoughts that might have made Leyla tremble with lust immediately evaporated as the anger invaded her space and made a cold-sweat run down her back.

Something was wrong. Leyla instantly knew. As he closed the door shut behind him without breaking eye contact with her, Leyla took a deep breath and tried to prepare herself for whatever had caused him to be like this. But would it be enough?

With a feeble voice, she asked carefully; "W-what is wrong, my lord?"

He was so enraged, he didn't even catch her using his formal title, the title he told her never to use again when they were alone - which they were. Instead, he slowly walked up to her, his footsteps the bipolar opposite of his mood. "Something has happened."

Well, that much was obvious. What Leyla needed to know was what happened.

But before she could ask that very question, he replied - his words nothing but a scarring knife through the air. "The Lady Kahtrina is gone."