"What is the mighty dragon king doing in a kitchen? Surely our hospitality isn’t so—"

​The words hadn’t fully left her lips when her eyes landed on the trembling chef and the specific ceramic bowl in Caspian’s hand. She paused mid-sentence, her green eyes widening by a fraction of a millimeter.

​How? her insides screamed, clear as to what was going on here. They had discovered the poison but no one was dead yet. Just how? How did they detect an odorless, tasteless neurotoxin before taking a single sip?

​Caspian’s golden eyes slit into razor needles. He didn’t miss the way her voice faltered, or the sharp, guilty panic that flickered across her beautiful face for a fraction of a second. He didn’t need a confession. He knew exactly who the culprit was.

​Without saying a single word to the Matriarch, Caspian reached out, gripped the female fox chef tightly by her silver hair, and yanked her head back with brutal, unyielding force. He jammed the rim of the ceramic bowl against her teeth and tilted it back, forcing her to chug down every single drop of the poisoned broth.

​"There," Caspian snarled, flinging the empty bowl against the stone floor where it shattered into a hundred pieces. "I’m returning it to you." He let go of the fox female’s hair.

​The female chef collapsed to her knees, coughing violently as she jammed her fingers down her throat, trying to throw it up. But it was already too late. The neurotoxin had already hit her bloodstream.

Within seconds, her limbs began to stiffen. She fell onto her side in the dirt, her chest heaving as she clawed at her own neck, completely unable to draw a single breath of air into her lungs.

​The kitchen staff screamed, scrambling away from the dying chef in pure horror.

​Celene stood completely mortified, her pale face turning an ash-grey as she watched her asset choke on her own execution order right in front of her.

​Caspian didn’t look at the dying woman. He whipped his massive, scaled tail around with a violent, shattering force, smashing it directly into the thick side wall of the kitchen. The stone exploded outward, creating a massive crater and sending a shower of heavy debris raining down into the inner courtyard.

​He drew himself up to his full, towering height, his jaw unhinging slightly as he directed his fierce, burning glare straight onto Celene’s frozen form.

Then, he let out a deafening, primal roar that shook the very foundations of the Eleven Spires, his voice echoing through every single corridor of the palace.

​"I don’t care who was behind this," Caspian roared, the black scales on his face tightening with a terrifying, absolute bloodlust. "But whoever tries to hurt my mate and child—" He pointed a heavy, clawed finger directly at Celene’s face. "—will die."

Celene nearly fell back but she kept her feet steady.

Caspian walked past but then stopped and turned his head to say to the trembling chefs and servants watching.

"Prepare the meal again," He commanded. "And if I detect any harmful substance in it, I will feed it to all of you in this kitchen, and to those who could not eat it, I will hang you on a pike and burn you alive." His throat glowed orange, a threat of fire and violently, before whipping his head forward and walking away.

Celene stood frozen in the ruined kitchen, the heat from Caspian’s threat still scorching the back of her neck long after his heavy footsteps faded down the corridor.

Her gaze dropped to the floor, where the female chef’s body had gone completely rigid, her wide, vacant eyes staring blankly at the shattered pieces of ceramic.

​The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the frantic, terrified breathing of the remaining kitchen staff.

They didn’t dare to look at the High Matriarch. They just stared at the massive crater in the side wall where the courtyard breeze was now blowing grey rock dust over the prep tables.

​"M-Matriarch..." the head overseer finally whispered, his four tails trembling violently against his legs. "The... the new meal... should we—"

​"Are you stupid? Of course you should do what he said. Do you want us all to get killed?" Celene snapped, her voice cracking slightly as she forced her defensive, haughty mask back over her pale face.

Her eleven bright red tails wrapped tightly around her silk robes, no longer fanning out with grand pride.

"Prepare it again. Use the cleanest stores. If a single leaf of wild bramble touches that pot, I will personally flay the skin from your backs before the dragon even gets his chance."

​Without waiting for an answer, she turned sharply on her heel and hurried out of the kitchen, her mind racing with a sudden, deep-seated panic.

The chefs were all scared. The Matriarch was acting like this was an incident that had nothing to do with her but they all knew that she was the one who gave the orders to the now dead fox. She had come to the kitchen and whispered something to her.

The chef had been slightly trembling since then.

​Meanwhile, Caspian stormed back into the guest pavilion. The heavy wooden door slammed shut behind him with a force that rattled the lattice windows.

His chest was still expanding with heavy, ragged breaths, and the orange glow at the base of his throat took a long moment to cool down, slowly fading back into the dark line of his neck scales.

​Raiden and Kulu didn’t ask what happened. They had heard the deafening roar and the shattering stone from across the court, and they could already smell the distinct scent of ozone and burnt rock rolling off Caspian’s skin.

He had gone to the kitchen.

​Hana remained sitting back against the silk cushions, her hand resting flat over the tight white fabric of her dress where her belly throbbed.

Her expression hadn’t changed at all. She looked up from her tablet as Caspian stopped at the edge of the mat. She had been viewing the live feed to make sure things were still okay back at the den and thankfully, there were.

Caspian’s golden eyes were wide and frantic as he looked her up and down, checking to ensure she hadn’t suffered any sudden strain.

​"They are making it again," Caspian rumbled, his voice still carrying a rough, vibrating edge. "No one will touch the food this time. I made sure of it."

​"Good. You did well." Hana said flatly. "I’m still hungry. Sit down and finish my feet. The left one still aches."

​Caspian let out a low, grounding huff through his nose, the terrifying bloodlust completely melting away as he immediately dropped back down onto the floor.

He picked up her left foot, his large, warm hands moving with careful precision to rub the tension out of her ankle.

​Raiden watched him, a slow, dark smirk returning to his face as his nine pink tails relaxed behind him. "A bit theatrical for a kitchen visit, don’t you think, lizard?"

​"They tried to touch her," Caspian growled softly, not looking up from Hana’s foot. "They tried to touch my child. Next time, it won’t be my tail on their wall."

​"They won’t try it a second time tonight. They aren’t that foolish," Hana muttered, closing her eyes for a second.

"They’re too busy adjusting their defensive layouts for tomorrow. They think they’re setting up a trap at the shrines, but they’re just giving me an unmonitored window to rest."

​Kulu applied a few more drops of the warm essential oil to his palms, his hands moving back to her shoulders with a steady, rhythmic pressure. "You can rest for now, Hana. We’ll let you know when the meal is here."