Abandon You Choose Dragon Chapter 13
“Iris didn’t refuse the contract!” Ash hammered out every word. “She was the bride kneeling in there! Rex took her away, and not one of you saw a goddamn thing!”
James went white. “She—how could she—she knows what Rex is—”
Liam swallowed hard. “She’d rather marry a cursed lone dragon than refuse the contract? Has she completely lost her mind?”
The two of them exchanged a glance and broke into a run toward the western edge of the territory, almost in unison.
“Stop!” My father’s roar froze them in place. “Nobody leaves! The ceremony must be completed. Everyone stays. Not a single person moves!”
James’s feet locked to the ground. “Dad, we can’t just let Iris—”
“He’s right, Uncle! That’s Iris—she can’t marry a dragon who’s buried three mates!”
A muscle twitched in my father’s jaw.
“Not today. Today is Chloe’s—”
“Chloe, Chloe, Chloe!” Ash exploded. “Is there anyone else in your eyes besides Chloe? Your daughter just got carried off by the one person your whole family looks down on, and you won’t even blink!”
The yard fell completely silent.
Chloe stood on the steps, her face white as paper, her rabbit ears hanging limp and still.
“That was her choice!”
My father’s voice went cold as the grave.
And Ash finally understood.
In this family, I had never once been treated as a person.
He shoved through the crowd and ran toward the west.
“Hold him!”
Before the words finished echoing, two young males from the tribe seized Ash’s arms, one on each side.
“Let go of me!” Ash thrashed against them. “I’m going after your daughter—why the hell are you stopping me?!”
My father stood on the steps, his voice low enough to have risen from the earth itself.
“The Praise Moon ceremony will be completed. The Moon God is watching. No one leaves. Even if the sky falls, it waits until tonight.”
Ash’s arms were wrenched behind his back. Veins bulged along his neck as he struggled, but the tribesmen held fast.
They dragged him back to the sanctuary entrance.
Through the rest of the ceremony, he moved like a marionette. Told to bow, he bowed. Told to rise, he rose.
Only one thought filled his mind: Iris is gone.
The sun tilted west. The crowd thinned.
The household began preparing for the evening banquet.
Ash found it grotesque.
Chloe’s family was marrying off their daughter—at Iris’s family home?
He wasn’t released until the ceremony was over.
The two young men patted his shoulders and said, “No hard feelings, groom. Rules are rules.”
Chloe walked over, eyes rimmed red, her rabbit ears trembling.
“Ash, we’re all shocked about Iris. But could you please… not leave today?”
Chloe’s mother swept him with a frigid glare.
“If you dare run off now and humiliate Chloe in front of the whole tribe, I will make you regret it.”
Then she took Chloe’s arm and led her inside.
My father was directing people to set up tables. No one in the entire household said Iris’s name.
As though she had never existed at all.
A light tug at his sleeve.
Ash turned. It was my mother.
She’d slipped out from the back of the crowd at some point. Her face held a strange kind of calm.
She drew him half a step into the shadow of the corridor.
“Go out through the back.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I unlocked the gate. Follow the stream to the left—it’ll loop around to the main road. They won’t notice you’re gone before dark.”
Ash looked at her.
Her eyes were red, but the tears hadn’t fallen.
“Go.”
He turned and slipped through the back courtyard, then ran east along the riverbank.
“Iris, if you actually go through with this, I swear I’ll—”