My Mate Sacrificed Our Eight Sons for His First Love

Aurora Wood has spent seven years mourning seven newborns stolen before they could cry. Each time, her mate Jude Smith insists his first love Elizabeth saved them. Her grief is called madness. Then the eighth child hatches in her arms, and a shadow snatches him. This time Aurora follows.

In an abandoned holding pen, she finds an empty iron cage and a faint remnant spirit: her firstborn. The child tells her Elizabeth called them props, that Jude never came to see them. Six shattered eggshells lie nearby. The golden light fades before Aurora can hold him.

She returns to the castle, bloodied, and tells Jude what she saw. He slams a black dragon command seal down on her forehead, and she sinks into darkness while he hands her newborn back to Elizabeth. She wakes in chains, burns through them, and drags herself to the black market warehouse. There she finds her eighth child barely alive, wings clamped in cold iron, scales covered in fire suppressant powder.

Elizabeth arrives with elders, staging a rescue. At the sacred fire pool, the hatchling's tail flame flickers and dies. Aurora begs Jude to send him to the healing tower first. Jude refuses. If they stop the ceremony in front of the elders, seven years of Elizabeth's trials are gone. The flame goes out.

Aurora strikes the Dragon Bell and announces that Jude and Elizabeth murdered her children. She is dragged to the Cold Tower and bound with a soul binding spell. A smuggler attacks her, and she presses the mate mark, begging Jude for help. At the banquet, Jude feels the mark burn but ignores it.

The door explodes inward, and Dragon King Theo Spencer steps through the golden light. He tells Aurora he felt their bond awaken the moment she called for help. Aurora stares at him, stunned. The mate mark on her neck belongs to Jude. Then she begs him to take her away.