She Swiped the Wrong Dragon Card

Seraphina Draven left an Obsidian Hoard Card with no spending limit for her daughter Elena before departing for Europe, a test every Draven heir had to pass. At first the alerts seemed harmless—over a hundred luxury items in three days, ten villas in five—but then came a charge for a hundred obscene novelty items, and Seraphina knew something was wrong. She flew back in secret with a birthday gift, still picturing Elena's delighted face. Stepping out of the airport, she found over a dozen missed calls and answered a ring from Haven Medical Center. A nurse told her Elena had been hit by a car while picking through trash, needed emergency treatment, and if the bill wasn't paid immediately they would throw her onto the street. Seraphina rushed to the hospital and found her daughter skin and bones, an arm fractured in thick casts, her face bruised, her arms covered in wounds, and a small air mark on her wrist that looked almost dead. The nurse tossed the bill onto the dirty bed and sneered. Seraphina made one call; the director appeared with a swarm of doctors, fired the nurse on the spot, and apologized. A private medical team arrived within ten minutes and moved Elena into a private vehicle while Seraphina's assistant fell into step behind her with a report. Julian Vale, the housekeeper's son, had taken Elena's Hoard Card and given it to Clara Vale—the child raised in Elena's place—claiming Elena wasn't worthy of being the Draven heir or of him. Julian had been using Seraphina's name to launch his own business, telling everyone he was the future son-in-law who would inherit Draven Holdings, while Clara seized the assets meant for Elena and drove her out of Draven Manor.

Seraphina ordered the card frozen by seven that evening and announced she and Elena would attend the Midnight Horde auction in a week. The night of the auction, she brought Elena to the third-floor suite, a space reserved for fewer than five guests with a badge that demanded both money and power. Below, through the one-way glass, Clara held court in a custom gown, surrounded by classmates, swiping the Hoard Card and telling everyone to bid on whatever they wanted. Every time Clara claimed an item, the mysterious third-floor bidder drove the price into the millions. In the suite, Seraphina slid a black velvet box toward Elena: the Emerald Flame necklace, an old Draven heirloom once worn by the last Dragon Queen of Avalon, worth more than everything being auctioned that night combined. Elena barely dared touch it until Seraphina fastened it around her neck herself. When Seraphina stepped out for a call, Elena wandered downstairs and was quickly surrounded. Classmates shoved her, snatched her cane, called her a fake heir and a beggar, and pushed her to the floor. Seraphina, seeing exactly where the wounds had come from, took photos on her phone—forbidden in that room for anyone but her—and dialed Cassian Draken. As the man who made boardrooms and the dragon underworld tremble purred a greeting, she told him their real daughter had been bullied into a hospital bed. His reply came low and certain: wait for me.