Erza stood in the hallway, her mind racing through possibilities and conclusions that she had never allowed herself to consider before.
What if I just kill him and go back to my world?
The thought arrived like a blade—clean, sharp, efficient. It cut through the confusion and the strange feelings and the warmth that had been building in her chest despite her best efforts to stop it.
Wouldn't that be easier? Easier than waiting for his graduation, than watching him recover day by day, than dealing with these emotions she didn't understand and couldn't control?
She considered it.
Really considered it.
She hadn't promised to spare him. Hadn't made any vow or oath. She had simply said she would watch over him, give him time, let him prove himself. Those were words, nothing more. Words could be broken. Words meant nothing to a queen.
Queens made rules. Queens broke rules. Queens did whatever was necessary to achieve their goals. That was the privilege of power. That was the right of the Dragon Queen.
And right now, with Yuuta weak and feverish and nearly dying, killing him would almost be a mercy. A favor. A kindness, even. He was suffering, wasn't he? She would just be ending that suffering.
"Yes," she whispered to herself, her voice hardening with resolve. "I'll kill him now. It's the rational choice. The logical choice."
Her face darkened.
Her eyes grew cold.
She moved toward the bedroom.
Each step was deliberate. Measured. The step of a queen who had made a decision and would not be swayed by anything as foolish as emotion or sentiment or the strange fluttering in her chest that she refused to acknowledge.
No one could stand against her. No one could question her. What she said was truth. What she did was justice. That was how it had always been. That was how it would always be.
But her heart—
Her heart was screaming.
It pounded against her ribs so hard she thought it might break through bone and flesh and all the armor she had built around herself. It flooded her chest with something hot and painful and completely foreign. It begged her to stop, to turn back, to reconsider.
She ignored it.
She was the Dragon Queen. She did not listen to hearts. She did not feel. She did not care.
The cold, ruthless nature that had kept her alive for centuries took over. The warrior who had survived when her own family abandoned her in the frozen mountains. The queen who had conquered continents and killed without hesitation. The monster who had earned her place through blood and fire and absolute determination.
She opened the bedroom door.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Yuuta lay on the bed, sleeping peacefully despite everything, his face relaxed even though the fever still burned inside him. Elena was curled beside him, her tiny hand resting on his arm, her dinosaur stickers still plastered across her cheeks in the same place she'd put them hours ago.
They looked so peaceful.
So vulnerable.
So completely, utterly trusting.
"If I end him now," Erza thought, "it will be over. No more waiting. No more confusion. No more of these feelings I don't understand and don't want."
She raised her hand.
Her claws extended—fourteen inches of pure white death, gleaming in the dim light that filtered through the curtains. They were beautiful in their lethality, perfect in their design, created for exactly this purpose.
Ready to strike.
Ready to end it.
Ready to be the Dragon Queen again.
But her hand wouldn't move.
She stood there, frozen, her claws inches from Yuuta's face, her arm trembling with the effort of holding back. Muscles that had never failed her, that had slaughtered thousands without hesitation, that had crushed skulls and ripped through armor—those muscles shook like those of a frightened child.
What is wrong with me?
In all her centuries of existence, in all the wars she had fought, in all the enemies she had slaughtered—she had never hesitated. Never taken more than a second to end a life. Killing was as natural to her as breathing, as instinctive as the cold that lived in her blood.
But now—
Now she couldn't bring herself to kill a single human.
A weak, pathetic, feverish human who slept inches from death without even knowing it. A human who had done nothing but be kind to her. A human who had fed her and clothed her and given her daughter a home. A human who looked at her like she mattered.
Her hand fell.
The claws retracted.
And a tear rolled down her cheek.
She touched it with her free hand, staring at the moisture on her finger like she had never seen such a thing before. Her eyes were wide, confused, lost.
"What... what is this?"
A tear.
Her tear.
It had been decades since she last cried. Centuries, perhaps. She had forgotten what it felt like—the warmth, the wetness, the weakness of it. She had built herself into something that didn't cry, didn't feel, didn't need.
But here it was.
Proof that something inside her had changed.
Proof that she was no longer the same queen who had arrived on this miserable planet.
Proof that Yuuta—
She couldn't finish the thought.
Didn't want to.
Didn't dare.
In the bed, Yuuta stirred.
He coughed—a deep, wracking sound that shook his entire body. His eyes remained closed, lost in whatever fever dreams haunted him, but his mouth opened, and a small amount of blood spilled out, staining the pillow beneath him.
Erza's heart lurched.
"Mortal?"
Her voice was barely a whisper.
He didn't respond.
Didn't wake.
Didn't know how close he had come to death.
But Erza knew.
And as she stood there, watching blood stain the pillow, watching the man who had changed her struggle for breath, watching her daughter sleep peacefully beside a father she adored—
---
Yuuta's breathing grew shallower.
His fever spiked higher, the temperature rising to dangerous levels that made his skin burn to the touch. The blood on the pillow had spread while Erza stood frozen, a small but terrifying stain against the white fabric, evidence that something was terribly wrong inside his body.
His face, even in sleep, was twisted with pain—eyebrows furrowed deeply, jaw clenched tight, lips parted in silent gasps for air that never seemed to be enough. He looked like a man fighting a battle he was losing.
Erza watched.
Frozen in place.
Terrified in a way she had never been terrified before in all her centuries of existence.
He's dying.
The thought cut through her like a blade made of ice and fire both at once.
He's actually dying.
Right now.
In front of me.
And I—
She didn't finish the thought.
Didn't need to.
Because in that moment, something inside her broke. Centuries of control shattered like glass dropped on stone. Centuries of ice melted in a single heartbeat. Centuries of being the untouchable, unfeeling, invincible Dragon Queen—all of it, every carefully constructed wall, every frozen barrier, every layer of protection she had built around herself—collapsed into nothing.
She leaned down.
Pressed her lips to his.
The kiss was sudden—so sudden that even she didn't understand why she was doing it until it was already happening. Her mind screamed at her to stop, to pull back, to regain control, to remember who she was and what she was supposed to be doing here. But her heart—that traitorous, newly awakened heart that she hadn't known existed until this man stumbled into her life—pushed her forward with a force she couldn't resist.
She closed her eyes.
Let her saliva flow into him, carrying with it the ancient healing properties of dragonkind.
Let her magic mix with the power her mother had spoken of so long ago, the power that only worked between mates who truly loved each other.
Let herself feel for the first time in longer than she could remember.
For a long, intense moment, there was nothing but the warmth of his lips against hers, the beat of his heart against her chest, the desperate, aching hope that this would work, that he would live, that she wouldn't have to watch him die.
Then she pulled back.
Her face was crimson—not the pink of embarrassment she had felt before, but a deep, burning red that spread from her cheeks to her ears to her neck.
Her eyes were wide, unfocused, completely blank.
Her mind refused to process what she had just done.
I kissed him.
I kissed a mortal.
I kissed YUUTA.
Why?
Why did I do that?
She didn't have an answer.
Couldn't find one no matter how desperately she searched.
All she knew was that seeing his blood, watching him struggle for each breath, feeling him slip away despite everything she had tried—it had been unbearable. More unbearable than any physical pain she had ever endured. More terrifying than any battle she had ever fought. More devastating than any loss she had ever experienced.
She couldn't bear to see one more drop of blood leave his body.
Couldn't bear to watch him fade.
Couldn't bear to lose him.
And now—
Now she watched.
His face changed before her eyes.
The furrow in his brow smoothed away like clouds parting after a storm. The tension in his jaw relaxed, his teeth unclenching, his lips softening. His breathing deepened, steadied, became the slow and easy rhythm of true rest rather than the desperate gasping of fevered struggle.
She reached out with a hand that trembled.
Pressed her palm to his forehead.
Cool.
Normal.
Healed.
"It... it worked." Her whisper was barely audible, even to herself. "The myth... it was real."
She stared at him.
At the man she had just kissed.
At the man she had been eager to kill.
At the man who had somehow, impossibly, become something more than a target, more than a mistake, more than a mortal.
She couldn't look at him anymore.
Couldn't face what she had done.
Couldn't face what it meant.
Couldn't face the truth that was written in every beat of her racing heart.
She fled.
---
In the hallway, she collapsed onto the sofa.
Her legs gave out. Her body folded. She grabbed the nearest book from the coffee table—any book, any object, anything to hide behind—and pressed it to her face.
She hid behind it like a child hiding from monsters under the bed.
Like a girl hiding from the truth.
Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it in her ears, feel it in her throat, count each desperate beat.
Her cheeks burned with a heat that had nothing to do with fever.
Her lips tingled with the memory of his.
"What is happening to me?" she whispered into the pages, her voice muffled and small. "What is this feeling? What is this change?"
She didn't understand.
Had never needed to understand before.
Emotions were weaknesses. Feelings were for lesser beings. Love was a myth told to children.
But something was different now.
Something had shifted in the space between heartbeats, in the moment between life and death, in the press of lips against lips.
And there was no going back.
---
In the bedroom, Yuuta stirred.
His eyes opened slowly, groggily, fighting against the weight of sleep that still pulled at him. The room was dark—the sun had set while he rested, and only the distant glow of city lights filtered through the curtains.
He was alive.
He was breathing.
He was here.
"What..." His voice was hoarse, weak, barely more than a whisper. "What happened?"
He touched his lips without thinking.
They were wet.
Not with his own saliva—he could tell the difference immediately. The moisture was foreign, left by someone else, marked by another presence.
"Did I sleep with my mouth open?" he murmured, too tired and confused to think clearly. "That's embarrassing."
He looked around the room.
Elena lay beside him, her tiny hand still wrapped around his arm, her face peaceful in sleep. Her dinosaur stickers were still plastered across her cheeks, slightly crooked now, catching the faint light.
He smiled.
Reached down carefully, gently, so as not to wake her.
Pulled the blanket up over her small body.
Tucked it around her shoulders with the kind of tenderness that came naturally now.
"Tomorrow," he whispered into the darkness, "I'll make something special for you both. You were both so worried about me."
He closed his eyes.
Let sleep take him again.
And never knew that while he slept, a queen had kissed him back to life.
---
To be continued...