THE PRIESTESS'S WORTHLESS HUSBAND IS A DRAGON

CHAPTER 5: CURSED BRIDE PART 1

The black town car idled at the front gate of the Morrison estate. Ethan walked out in borrowed clothes that didn't fit right, the shirt too loose around his shoulders, the fabric brushing against the raw whip marks on his back with every step.

His chest felt like a house with the walls torn down.

Hollow. Empty. The space where his Bloodline Core used to live just ached and ached like a tooth that had been pulled but the nerve was still screaming.

Nobody came to see him off. No father at the door. No mother at the window. No brother pretending to cry.

The two guards at the gate watched him pass through and then pushed the iron bars shut behind him the way someone carries a bag of garbage to the curb and walks back inside without looking.

Eighteen years in that house, and this was how it ended. Not with a goodbye. Not even with a door slammed in his face. Just a gate closing behind him and the sound of a lock clicking, and then nothing.

Inside his head, the True Dragon Spirit was already talking.

"Left turn, three blocks down, there's a vault built into the foundation of an old bank. One of my previous hosts stashed about forty million in gold there two hundred years ago. Interest rates being what they are, it's probably worth considerably more now. We'll grab it later. First, let's go meet your comatose bride."

"Can you stop calling her that?" Ethan muttered under his breath, climbing into the back seat of the car and pressing his forehead against the cold window.

"What do you want me to call her? Sleeping Beauty? Horizontal Wife? The Artist Formerly Known As Conscious?"

Ethan closed his eyes and didn't answer.

The car moved through the city and eventually turned onto a private road lined with old oak trees whose branches wove together overhead like a ceiling made of leaves.

The Clarke estate opened up at the end of the road, a sprawling compound of stone buildings and manicured lawns that made the Morrison estate look like a guest house.

Ethan stared through the window and felt absolutely nothing. He was too empty to feel anything.

The car stopped. He stepped out.

A woman was already standing at the front door waiting for him.

She was tall with sharp cheekbones and dark hair pulled back from her face. Her eyes moved over Ethan in one quick sweep, taking in the bruises on his jaw, the stiffness in the way he held his shoulders, the faint bloodstain at the collar of his borrowed shirt where a whip mark had reopened.

Her expression didn't soften. It hardened. Her jaw clenched and her eyes went dark with a fury that wasn't aimed at him but at whoever had done this to him.

"You must be Ethan." Victoria Clarke's voice was warm but steady, the kind of voice that could comfort a child and command a boardroom in the same breath. She stepped forward and took both of his hands in hers. "Welcome home, sweetheart. You are safe here."

Something cracked in Ethan's chest. Not the hollow where his Core used to be. Something else. Something older. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had called him sweetheart and meant it. He couldn't remember the last time a pair of hands held his without wanting something from him.

The Spirit went quiet inside his head for a moment. Then, softly, almost gently: "I like her. Don't screw this up."

A man appeared behind Victoria. Robert Clarke, the eldest son from the main branch, stood with his arms crossed and his face twisted into a look of open disgust. He was tall and broad, dressed in a tailored suit that probably cost more than everything Ethan had ever owned combined.

"So this is what Harrison dragged in." Robert looked Ethan up and down like he was inspecting a stray animal someone had brought home from the street. "A coreless nobody with whip marks on his back and nothing to his name. What a joke. The Clarke family is really scraping the bottom of the barrel now."

Victoria's head turned toward Robert. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. She just looked at him, and the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. Robert's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again and closed for the final time. He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked away without another word.

The ceremony was simple and fast. A signed document. A stamp. A witness. No flowers. No music. No family gathered in rows with tearful smiles.

Just ink on paper and the quiet understanding that this was a transaction, not a celebration. Ethan signed his name and felt nothing. The pen felt heavy in his hand, and the signature looked like it belonged to someone else.

Then they took him to Serena's room.

The door closed behind him with a soft click, and suddenly the world shrank down to four walls, dim light, and the slow beeping of medical monitors.

Ethan stood in the doorway and looked at his wife for the first time.

The room was dim, curtains drawn, the only light coming from the soft glow of the machines beside the bed.

Serena lay on white sheets like a painting someone had hung in a room nobody visited. Red hair fanned across the pillow like spilled autumn.

Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and her features were so perfect they didn't look real. High cheekbones.

A small straight nose. Lips slightly parted like she had fallen asleep in the middle of saying something. Beautiful in a way that made his chest hurt for reasons he couldn't name.

Ethan walked to the chair beside the bed and sat down. He stared at her face for a long time.

"I don't even know her."

"You don't need to know her." The Spirit's voice was unusually calm. "Get closer."

"Why?"

"Just trust me, kid. Walk to the bed."