I'm The Dragon King's Heir

Chapter One: Wedding Day Execution

Dragon Hunters. These lethal humans have hunted my kind for hundreds of years. Their iron weapons mean death, but they do not scare me. At least, not as much as the Demon Flight dragons– specifically their King.

        "Celeste, you cheating bitch!" I scream. The last thing I expected on my wedding day was to walk in on my fiancé having sex with someone else... much less my own stepmother.
    "Onyx, it's not what you think!" Nestor exclaims, pulling away quickly and covering himself with a pillow. His dusty brown hair is slicked back with sweat, and Celeste doesn't look much better. She sits up, wiping her smeared dark lipstick with the back of her hand, running the other through her blonde curls to smooth them out.
    "It's an arranged marriage," Celeste mutters, holding the blankets tight around her. "No one cares what she thinks."
   
I only met my 'fiance' Nestor yesterday, since our marriage was arranged by my father, the Dragon King of the territory.

"And the wedding's off," I say firmly.
    "No!" Nestor exclaims. "Onyx, be reasonable! We can still work this out!"
    Celeste's eyes track to someone behind me. I turn to look, but it's too late. "Get her."
  

    My head pounds as my eyes fly open, kidnapped, chained, and tossed into a dungeon.
Where the hell am I? I pull on the chain around my wrist and see it's attached to a huge, unconscious man. A familiar man– no, a mountain in dark leathers, with a muscled chest and chiseled jaw. I rear back with fury.
It's Ryder, dragon lord over the Demon Flight. His dragon flight murdered my mother last year in a slave-raid. I need to find a weapon before he wakes up. Suddenly, his eyes shoot open, narrowing on me with a snarl.
    "What trick is this?" He growls, jumping up and pulling on the chain that connects his right wrist to my left one, and pins me to the dungeon wall. A sudden electric shock, searing against my forearm beneath my thin sleeve, shoots through my body, making me cry out in pain. I know Ryder felt it too, because his eyes widen in surprise.
    "Get off me!" I shriek, trying to push him back. "I'm imprisoned too, so I'm obviously not responsible."
    "You Black Sun Dragons will do anything to get your way," Ryder hisses, leaning in dangerously close. "Kidnapping is nothing compared to your dragon flight killing my father and sister!"
    "Get your facts right," I shoot back. "My father only ordered their deaths after your flight killed my mother. Our queen."
    Ryder's hands tighten on my wrists, pressing them harder into the wall. "I always knew I'd see you chained in a dungeon. I just imagined being on the other side of the cell."
    Twisting my wrists, I loosen his grip as I stomp on his left foot. "Let me go! You're the criminal here." I push against his chest, which feels like a ton of bricks, but he releases me and steps back.
    "One wrong move, and I'll snap your neck."
    "One wrong move from you, and I'll claw out your throat," I retort. "But, since we're chained together, it makes sense to let you live since I can't drag your heavy-ass dead body out of here."
    Ryder eyes me up and down in my wedding dress and his lips curve into a cruel smirk. "So, what's the Black Sun Flight's most precious bargaining tool doing chained in a dungeon? Did your fiancé realize you'd probably kill him in his sleep and get rid of you?"
    I bristle, annoyed by how close he is to the truth, but I won't tell him anything. I don't trust him. "Who kidnapped you?"
    "I don't know," Ryder shrugs. "I don't remember anything."
    "Well," I shrug, mocking his movements, "neither do I."
    He holds my eyes as he lifts his cuffed wrist, slowly pulling the chain and forcing me closer to him. Ryder's piercing green eyes burn into me as if he's trying to read my every thought. The dangerous growl that emanates from him sends shivers down my spine.
    "I can't shift. Damn it!" He roars.
    I close my eyes and focus, but I also can't shift into my dragon. Ryder tries to pull the cuffs off with all his might, but they don't budge at all. "It's the wrist cuffs. They're made of copper. We only have our human strength until they come off."
    Copper is severely harmful to dragons. It weakens us if touched and can be deadly if ingested.
Suddenly, a door slams in the distance, and footsteps approach. Ryder moves toward the cell door, stepping on my long dress in the process. "Your damn dress is going to get us killed."
    I quickly reach down and rip the long skirt from my upper thighs. Whatever. It was an ugly dress, anyway. Ryder's dark gaze moves over my exposed legs, and I raise my brows in return.
    "That works," I hear him mutter.
    I ball my hand in a fist and stand beside Ryder. My body pulses with adrenaline as the footsteps get closer.
    "Dragon hunters," Ryder says quietly, his eyes narrowing. My blood goes cold. Dragon hunters– pure-blood humans who hunt dragons and sell their parts for profit. After my father, King Alarik, and my mother, First Human Queen Lavena, were married, the human/dragon kingdoms living in harmony-thing was their first order. The dragons who were loyal to my parents and their cause were given their own kingdoms and raised to 'lord' status,  but after me, the first human-dragon hybrid was born, the entire kingdom was torn and descended into chaos. Dragon kingdoms turned into enemy territories, who tried to reinstate human slaves, but the humans rebelled, inspired by my mother's story. They poured their time and resources into discovering a way to protect themselves, and discovered copper is lethal to dragons– me included. Since then, humans have become hunters, trying to reclaim dragon lands, while dragons are turning on their neighboring kingdoms, burning, murdering, and raiding villages.
    The cell door opens and three hunters enter. Immediately, the leader shocks both Ryder and I with a taser. I fall to the ground with a cry of pain as hot electricity burns through my body. The three men are wearing leather hunting gear, all of them looking tough with their bruises and tattoos.
    "One move, and I'll cut your arm off," the leader, a grown man, says menacingly. "You are both to do exactly as I say."