Betrayed Bride: I Married My Ex's Comatose Uncle, the Dragon Lord

Jovita POV:

"Don't... Jovita could be back any minute."

The breathless giggle belonged to my stepsister, Katlin Sullivan. The man she was whispering to inside the private lounge was my fiancé, Damian Harrison. They were together behind a closed door on our wedding day, minutes before I was supposed to marry him.

The realization froze the blood in my veins.

I stood outside the private lounge of the bridal suite, my hand hovering an inch from the ornate handle. The ivory silk of my wedding dress, a gown that had taken up the entire carriage, now felt like a shroud.

My heart, which had been hammering with a mix of nerves and delirious joy, suddenly went still.

"So what?" That was Damian's voice. My fiancé. The man whose ring I was about to accept. His tone was low, thick with a desire that was sickeningly not for me. "Let her wait. The little country bumpkin is probably still giddy that she gets to marry me at all."

A buzzing filled my ears, drowning out the distant murmur of wedding guests.

Through the crack in the door, I could make out their silhouettes against the silk screen inside. Damian stood pressed close to Katlin, his head bent toward her while her arms curled around his neck. There was no mistaking the intimacy between them.

My hand fell to my side.

My fingers brushed against the small sapphire pendant hidden beneath the bodice of my dress. It had belonged to my mother, an old bridal keepsake and the blue token brides traditionally carried for good fortune. "I did it, Mama," I had whispered to it in the carriage just moments ago, watching the grand Harrison estate grow closer. "I'm marrying into one of the most powerful families in the kingdom."

What a fool I was.

"Once we're married, I'll find an excuse to send her off to some country manor," Damian continued, his voice a venomous caress. "Out of sight, out of mind. Then you can be with me, properly."

Katlin's voice was a tearful, triumphant whine. "But I can't wait, Damian. I'm already carrying your child... I should be the one in this dress."

Child.

The word was a physical blow. It knocked the air from my lungs, and I stumbled backward, my shoulder colliding with a decorative pedestal by the door. A porcelain vase teetered, then crashed to the floor with a deafening shatter.

The sounds inside stopped.

The door was wrenched open. Damian stood there, his tunic half-unbuttoned, his hair a mess. Behind him, Katlin clutched a robe to her chest, her face flushed, a victorious smirk already twisting her tear-streaked face.

Damian's shock lasted only a second before it curdled into annoyance and contempt. "You heard? Good. Saves me the trouble of explaining."

I didn't scream. I didn't cry.

I just stared at them, at the two people I had trusted most in the world. The sight of Damian pressed against Katlin was burned into my mind. A hot, searing anger began to rise from the pit of my stomach-a feeling I knew far better than helplessness.

I had grown up in the barren borderlands, a girl born without a trace of dragon blood. My own father, Arthur Sullivan, the King's Treasurer, had sent me away as a child and left me there to be raised far from the wealth and privilege of the capital. Years later, when an alliance with the powerful Harrison family became useful to him, he had arranged my marriage to Damian for his own benefit.

There had never been any fatherly concern behind it. Arthur would never risk offending the Harrisons for my sake, and Damian knew it. To him and people like him, I was still nothing more than a bloodless country girl who should have been grateful that a Harrison was willing to marry her.

The borderlands had taught me how to survive being unwanted. That instinct was waking up again now.

I turned on my heel, my magnificent train dragging through the porcelain shards, and walked back into the main room of the suite without a word.

My handmaidens, Rose and Wren, stared at me with wide, frightened eyes. Wren, who had gone to look for Damian and Katlin, was pale, her lips pressed into a thin line. She had clearly been warned to keep her mouth shut.

I walked to the enormous gilt mirror and stared at my reflection. The perfect bride. The perfect joke.

Slowly, deliberately, I reached up and removed the long veil from my hair. My mother had sewn it herself, stitching tiny pearls into the delicate lace. It was the most precious thing I owned.

I walked to the candelabra burning brightly in the center of the room.

"My lady, what are you doing?" Rose whispered, taking a step forward.

I ignored her. In the stunned silence of the room, I touched the edge of the veil to an open flame.

It caught instantly.

Woosh.

The dry tulle erupted in a column of fire. I held it aloft, a torch of my own humiliation and fury.

The thick, acrid smoke billowed to the ceiling, triggering the magical fire alarms. A piercing shriek echoed through the entire estate, a sound that would bring everyone running.

"What the hell are you doing? Are you insane?" Damian burst into the room, his face a mask of fury. He lunged for the burning veil, but I sidestepped him easily.

I held the flaming torch high, my voice ringing out clear and cold, loud enough for the guests now crowding the doorway to hear.

"This wedding," I announced, my gaze locked on his, "is canceled."

I looked past him to Katlin, who was now sobbing theatrically in the doorway, the picture of a wronged maiden.

"Because the groom," I said, each word a shard of ice, "is busy enjoying one last fling with my stepsister."

A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. I saw the Harrison family's formidable housekeeper, Mrs. Gable, her face ashen as she pushed through the throng of shocked faces.

The fire licked at my fingers. I let the last of the burning veil drop to the expensive rug, where it smoldered in a heap of blackened lace and ash.

I would not be the tragic footnote in their story.

I met the shocked, pitying, and scornful eyes of the crowd and straightened my spine. This wasn't my end. It was the beginning of my revenge.

Before anyone could move to stop me, I pushed through the stunned guests, gathered the soiled hem of my ridiculous white dress, and walked out of that place of shame.

I didn't know where I was going.

I only knew I would never look back. Behind me was hell. Ahead, I would carve a path with my own two hands.