Page 18 of Knotted By the Triad

We performed the wedding ritual without her and left her to sleep until the drug wore off. Today, we’d taken two brides into our harem. Yet only one was important to us. The other was a nuisance and a necessity.

“I know you think it's the drug, Kai,” Zian continued, pulling me out of my thoughts. “And maybe somehow the Poison Clan did create a drug that could even affect our inner dragons. That's all the more reason to find out what is going on. Such a drug should be outlawed. But if it's not a drug, then...”

“She is not our fated one,” I growled. “It's rare to find a fated one. It has to be the drug.”

Zian didn't say anything else. Neither did Daemin. But neither of them looked like they believed me. I didn't care. I had to be right. Mei Lin was our best friend, the woman we cared for. And after years of waiting, she was now our secondary wife.

No daughter of the Bane family was going to walk into our home and change our plans simply because she smelled like strawberries and chocolate. Or because the defiance in her gaze had impressed me.

Or because my dragon had roared the moment I laid eyes on her. Damn it! Maybe we should demand that Daveah be found and brought in and let Zuri return to the countryside, out of sight, out of mind. A knock sounded at the door.

I leaned forward. “Come in.”

The door opened, and one of our shadow guards stepped inside. Great! Something to distract us from the cold omega resting in the far courtyard of the manor. At least now we would be forced to focus on work instead of our new bride.

Our new bride, who was spending her wedding night alone. My dragon clawed restlessly inside my chest at that thought. I rubbed a hand over the spot. When I glanced up, I found Daemin staring at me. He smirked. I ignored him. The shadow guard closed the door behind him and bowed.

“Forgive the interruption, Your Highnesses,” the guard said, voice low.

“What happened?” I asked, ready to focus on something else, anything else.

The guard wouldn’t have disturbed us on our wedding night if he were here to deliver a routine report. Our shadow guards came from Zian’s clan, the Shadow Clan. Its members were elite spies and provided most of our intelligence.

“We've intercepted another shipment of prohibited cargo. The wagon and everyone traveling with it are being held at the southern checkpoint until we receive your orders.”

That made this the third shipment we'd intercepted. The first had been discovered moving through Assassin territory, the second through Shadow territory. After the second, we'd ordered our men to watch every route controlled by the Triad more carefully.

We allowed plenty of illegal goods to move through our territories. Smuggling was part of the business, and the Triad took its cut just like we did from gambling houses, protection payments, and the other operations under our control.

But we had rules. Human trafficking, along with the selling of certain weapons and poisons, was forbidden. We were even stricter now that Zeyan was King. However, lately, someone had been testing those rules.

“What did they find?” I asked.

“A medicinal merchant was transporting herbs, roots, and several crates of medicinal wine. His paperwork was in order, but when the guards searched the wagon, they discovered a false compartment beneath the cargo.”

“And?” Daemin asked, hating when others didn’t give him all the information in one go.

“Inside, we found six sealed jars of Dragonblight.”

The room fell silent. It had been a long time since I’d heard the word Dragonblight. Even on the streets, where it was commonly known as DB, people didn't speak about it openly. None of us had ever seen it in person.

“You're certain it’s DB?” I asked.

“The guards found residue around the seal of one of the jars. Our on-site poison master tested it and confirmed it was Dragonblight. From the concentration, he believes the contents of all six jars are undiluted.”

“Fuck,” Daemin muttered, rubbing a hand through his long hair.

Dragonblight had been prohibited throughout our Ashborne Kingdom for generations. Most poisons had limited effects on dragon shifters because our bodies burned through toxins quickly and healed the damage they caused before it could become life-threatening.

Dragonblight was different. It attacked the connection between a shifter and his dragon. Once enough entered the body, it prevented the victim from shifting and slowed the accelerated healing that might otherwise save them.

Long ago, a Dragon King had been murdered with it during a feast. He'd tried to shift after realizing he'd been poisoned, but his dragon wouldn't answer him. Without his dragon, his accelerated healing failed, and he'd died before the feast was over.

After his death, the Crown outlawed Dragonblight throughout the realm. The Triad eventually did the same, forbidding anyone from manufacturing, selling, or transporting it through our territories.

There was enough poison sitting in that wagon to take down the dragon guards protecting the palace and kill my cousin along with them. That didn't mean Zeyan was the intended target, but six jars of concentrated Dragonblight weren't being smuggled through our territory for no reason.

Whoever had ordered that shipment was preparing to kill dragons. And there was only one dragon in the realm whose death could change the fate of the entire kingdom.