The Dragon King’s Substitute Bride
Chapter 65

MIDAS

"Stay still or you'll send us both crashing to the floor."

Her attention returns back to him and she stops trying to twist around in his arms to glance behind her. "Where are we going?"

"Back to your room so you can do what every other normal person is doing at this time of the night, sleeping." Midas feels her stiffen. "You are not going to lock me up again are you?"

"No I will not."

She says nothing but he can feel her relax again, the tension seeping out of her body.

He watches her silently.

His eyes roaming over her face, engraving the details in his mind.

The way her bottom lip is slightly fuller than the other and the roundness of her cheeks when she smiles.

She blushes. "How are you even able to see where we are going?"

"I do not need to see to know where to place my feet."

"Is this perhaps another of your creepy dragon king abilities?"

He scoffs. "So disrespectful."

She smirks, lifting the corner of her mouth in a way that quite frankly fascinates him but then again, everything about her fascinates him.

"Just so you know dragon king, if you do miss your step and send me hurtling to the floor I intend to kill you."

He raises one amused brow. "Finally the truth."

But instead of laughing, she looks away.

Midas frowns. "I was merely jesting."

She nods weakly. "I know." But still refuses to meet his eyes.

So he pretends to stumble with her in his arms.

She screams and then slaps at his arms when she realizes that he did it on purpose.

He laughs, full and hearty.

She is fuming but she is also looking at him again.

Good.

He pushes open the door to her chambers and as they walk across the room, they both suddenly fall silent.

One knee sinks into the soft mattress as he lowers her gently unto the bed, neither one breaking eye contact for even the briefest of moments. Her legs unwind from behind him but her hands remain clasped behind his neck.

"Hera..."

"Don't go. Please."

He is so surprised that his eyes narrow and he frowns, hard.

"You want me to stay?"

"You sound like I have just have just asked to eat your liver in some sweet sauce."

In all honesty, that would make more sense to him.

She should hate him, not want him in her bed. He does not understand her.

She bites her lip nervously, watching him, waiting for a reaction.

That darn habit

He gently pulls her hands off of him and straightens.

Then he moves away and her face falls.

The door knob is cool in his palm as he carefully pushes the open door shut.

"Have I even told you how bad you are for my health and my sanity?"

"Only a thousand times my Lord."

And then because he replaces it impossible to sleep fully clothed, his shirt drops unceremoniously to the floor and he climbs into bed with her.

Pulling her to him, warming her with the heat of his body.

She sighs quietly against his chest and her eyes drift close.

His hands, unable to stay still stroke her hair, travel down her back and over the skin peppered with scars.

"When did you first know?"

His voice is a whisper above her head and the question is vague.

But she is not asleep and somehow he knows she requires no further explanation.

She sighs again but this one is different; shaky and weary and in response, he holds her tighter.

"The first time was the day before my seventh moon harvest."

"Moon harvest?"

"It is what your people call a year."

He nods, absorbing her silence and letting her continue when she is ready.

She takes a deep breath.

"The first time I had a premonition was the eve of my seventh moon harvest and that night...that night I saw my father die in my dreams. Of course I did not know what it was at the time. But it goes without saying that I was beside myself the entire day." Her voice is mechanical, stiff and her hands are tracing absent minded circles on the surface of his chest.

He lets her. Knows that she is trying to distance herself from the words and the events so she does not relive them.

"I cried so much I fell terribly ill but they said it was merely a dream, said I was being dramatic and after a while I also started to believe it. Perhaps I was making a big deal of nothing. Especially since my father would not die until a full nine years later. Never mind that it happened exactly the way I had dreamed it would"

Her voice shakes, no longer as emotionless as she has been trying to keep it.

"But in all that time, those nine years, I had many more...episodes. That is what my mom would call them when I came crying to her and the rest of my family about some nightmare I had, some image I had seen."

"They did not believe you."

It is a statement not a question.

She scoffs, harsh and bitter. "They told me I was making things up, seeking for attention. So I learnt to dismiss them, to keep them to myself. And for a while...for a while they seemed to stop. The dreams and visions going away just as quickly as they had appeared. I even started to forget, to believe it had been nothing more than been a passing childish phase. Until...."

Midas can sense the climax is coming.

She shifts away from him slightly, out of the circle of his arms and he instantly misses her even though she is technically still there beside him.

Her eyes are fixed on a point above them. "Until... the day your Ryders attacked our village."

She swallows and Midas almost tells her to stop, that she does not have to do this if she does not want to.

But somehow he knows that she needs it. That this is important.

For her and for him.

"I had a dream the night before, I saw myself standing at the door of our tiny hut or what was left of it. The entire village itself was up in flames and I could smell ashes and the burning flesh and feel the heat on my skin and I was sad..."

Her voice cracks and she sniffs. "...even in the dream, I was so sad that I woke up in tears...unable to breathe."

His hand reaches across the space between them and touches hers. A large hand covering her own.

An apology, comfort.

He expects her to pull away, after all he is reason for the hurt in her voice, the pain etched on her face but she does not.

Instead her fingers grip his, holding on, replaceing stability.

She sighs.

"I wanted to tell them... by the gods I did but I did not want them to look at me like they used to; crazy, attention seeking Hera. But I was also too afraid to stay there the whole day with the dream looming over my head. So when my mother announced that she wanted to take our small flock of geese to sell in the capital, I offered to go in her stead."

She finally turns to meet his eyes.

They are dry, completely devoid of tears but what he sees there causes his chest to tighten painfully.

Hot white pain, her pain, rushes through him.

"I ran away. I should have at least tried, screamed and cried until they listened, until they left with me. But instead I left them to die."

He wants to pull her closer, to hold her until she stops shaking but instead he just stares at her.

"They would not have believed you."

"Maybe. But maybe they would have and now we will never know because I was too much of a coward to try."

And then the tears finally come.

Huge, racking sobs that make her shoulders shake and quake.

Pain so deep that she is unable to even cry out loud.

And in the midst of that, she reaches for him.

Even though he is the very reason why she is this broken.

So he takes her in his arms and holds her even though he has no right to.

He holds her until she stops shaking and her breathing becomes even again, whispering her name into her hair.

"It was not your fault."

Her voice is tiny, muffled against his shoulder.

"I know that now. It is just sometimes, it is difficult to remember and guilt, guilt is a really strong feeling."

Midas knows exactly what she means.

He tilts her chin up so she is looking at him. "Hera I..."

She interrupts him. "May I ask you something?

He blinks. "Anything."

"Why do you hate humans so much?"

A sigh. Deep and heavy.

How is he supposed to answer this without seeming like a blood thirsty fiend?

How does he tell her that when he had found out that humans had killed his parents, the king and queen who had gone to the 2nd realm to help them, he had gone blind with rage?

That he had made a blood bond not to rest until he made every single one of them pay.

How does he tell her that he has carried that hatred around for so many years that he no longer even knows how to let it go?

So all he does is sigh again. "It is...complicated."

But instead of get angry at his silence, at his refusal to answer, she simply nods.

Midas sighs for what feels like the one hundredth time.

And then she smirks up at him. "See what I did there dragon king?"

He scoffs because he knows what is coming. "No I did not. I am going to sleep now."

She ignores his pretence at ignorance. "You see how I am not threatening to lock you up until you tell me everything?"

He closes his eyes ignoring the way she keeps poking him repeatedly. "I am fast asleep and can no longer hear you."

She laughs. "Fine. Be that way."

Her head falls back to rest against his chest. "Midas..."

"Hmmm?"

"Whatever it is that we did to you...on behalf of my people... I am sorry."

And because he again does not know how to respond to that and does not understand why his throat suddenly feels clogged up, he simply kisses her forehead softly, unable to say anything more.

He barely gets any sleep.

His mind is much too busy.

So when she tosses and turns, thrashing fitfully in her sleep, he is awake, calming her gently, stroking her hair and whispering her name until she finally stills against him.

He wonders if she is having another vision and if that is why tears are rolling down her cheeks even though she is still fast asleep.

He wants to wake her but he is unsure if he should do so.

The morning comes much too quickly and he waits quietly with her in his arms.

Waits for her eyes to open so he can kiss her and make sure she is okay.

But just before the 5th bell he feels it, a slight pressure in his head.

As master of dragons, he is the only one who possesses the ability to directly mind-link a dragon or a dragon Ryder.

However, in cases of extreme urgency, his chief Ryder can attempt to reach him.

Similar to the way one would knock on a door, until Midas opens the link and the words can follow through.

He does so now, frowning deeply.

No formalities.

"Speak."

"Your highness, it is Adarin and Rardath."

Midas sighs and takes one last look at her, knowing immediately that he will not be there when she wakes up.

He pulls away from her and gets up.

"What about them?"

"Adarin's son my lord...the lad is dead."

And Midas knows instantly that this new day with the sweet scent of mountain roses and the warm rays of cheery morning sunlight streaming in through the window, is about to become one of the longest days of his entire life.