The Professor's Forbidden Dragon Prey

Elena Ignis is a student at Asgard Academy, relentlessly mocked for her pitiful magic. During a plant growth spell demonstration, she musters only a single bean sprout, and the classroom erupts with laughter led by Veronica. After class, she accidentally collides with the new beast-taming professor, Cassius. He grabs her wrist and, noticing a cut, heals it with an unsettling intimacy that leaves her frozen. Something in her scent triggers him—his long-sealed curse mark stirs violently. He detects a magic pulse radiating from her, an echo of a fire dragon he encountered a decade ago, yet she appears entirely human. Fascinated and suspicious, he adds her name to his elite special training roster, a privilege reserved for the academy's finest. The announcement shocks the student body. Veronica and her clique corner Elena, shoving her and accusing her of cheating her way onto the list. Cain, a third-year, steps in to defend her dignity. Overwhelmed and convinced she does not belong, Elena sneaks into Cassius's office to ask him to remove her name. She finds the door unlocked, but the professor emerges from the shadows, his presence freezing her in place. He refuses her request flatly, stating he has plans, and dismisses her with a predatory stillness that makes her skin burn.

Cassius carries the weight of a bloody legacy. As the 37th heir of a legendary dragon-hunting clan, he was tasked with exterminating every last fire dragon. A decade ago, he cornered a small, trembling hatchling but, instead of killing it, he let it run, curious to see what it would become. Now, Elena's scent matches that memory, and his cursed mark throbs in response. Alone in his office, he mutters a cold warning to himself, "if you really are that little fire dragon, I warned you—no second escape." Elena, haunted by nightmares of a silver-haired man and a horned girl, dismisses them as fantasy, having grown up in an orphanage with no knowledge of her origins. Yet her magic remains dangerously unstable, and the closer she gets to Cassius, the more her body reacts with an inexplicable, burning heat. His intense scrutiny strips away the pretense of tutoring, revealing a hunter fixated on prey who may hold the key to the curse devouring him from within.