The Dragon King’s Substitute Bride
Chapter 110

MIDAS

The dragon king has never actually thought of himself as a violent being.

Strong-willed...yes.

Ruthless... sometimes.

Bloodthirsty...perhaps.

But never violent.

Until today.

He does not realize the exact moment he had known that something was not right.

No, that is not true.

As he had lain in that bath, surrounded by the steam and heat, his head had suddenly began to feel foggy and clouded.

His mind a murky pool of thoughts he struggled to chase after but could never manage to grasp.

And then she had shown up.

The single focus of all of his existence.

Yet from the minute she had kissed him the second time, he had known that something was wrong.

She looked like his Hera.

Sounded like her even.

But when he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against the hardness of his bare chest made slick by the lather and the water, she had not felt like her.

She had not made those tiny sounds that drive him insane with need or kiss him in the way that makes all the blood rush to his head.

She did not smirk at him or call him "dragon king" in that admittedly disrespectful manner that even though he would never admit it, made him feel like she actually saw through him. And when he pulled her bottom lip softly between his teeth and slid his tongue into her mouth, she did not taste like the woman who set his blood ablaze and his heart aflame.

He had stiffned and frowned and told himself that perhaps he might be more exhausted than he realized.

But even that did not make it feel right.

And that is what Midas loves the most about his human tether.

The way being with her always feels right.

Even when he had been desperately fighting against it.

So he had pulled away slighty from the woman in the tub who had somehow managed to get herself naked. "Hera..."

She had not answered, so intent had been her concentration on trying to kiss him and force herself down his throat. "Hera..."

"Yes. My Lord."

The crease between his brows had intensified.

Was he perhaps going insane or did she no longer sound the same?

She would not stop trying to kiss him.

Would not stop trying to touch him even though he had stopped responding.

He struggled to to drag himself out from beneath whatever unnatural haze that seemed to have clogged his head. But it had been hard.

Like clearing spider webs that have somehow managed to wrap themselves around ones face.

Difficult and elusive.

Wrong...wrong...wrong

"Hera..."

"What is it...I mean yes my Lord."

"That night in the Elder forest, do you remember it?"

A pause.

And then she had lowered her head, her mouth grazing his shoulder, his neck.

"Of course my Lord. How could I ever forget?"

Midas struggles not to shudder at the feel of her tongue against his skin. Struggles and fails.

"Do you remember how frightened you were when you first saw my wings?"

Her hands slide down his chest. "Oh most certainly, they were big and scary. Much too hideous and complex for my tiny human mind." Midas nods.

He remembers how he had saved her from falling out of that tree by catching her in mid-air.

He recalls how he had refused to look her in the eyes because he had been absolutely certain that she would be scared out of her mind.

Knew she would think him a monster, would look at him like he was one.

Everyone else did.

Except that was not what had happened at all.

Instead she had leaned in. The tiny human slave who should have been frightened of him.

She had reached out and brushed her fingers against the darkness of his dragon's wings.

Her eyes locked on his had held not fear but fascination and wonder.

And to the ruler of the fifth realm who was used to being looked upon with fear and trembling, it had felt like she had seen past the dragon king and the monster and to the man who lay beneath. She had touched the very fibers of his soul.

Even though he would not know it for many moons to come, It was in that moment, with her injured ankle in his hands that Midas had first began to fall in love with her.

Whoever this person was, she was not her.

And another thing...

His Hera, would never, ever, call her mind tiny.

His hands start to shake.

Anger and rage driving away the rest of the haze around his head.

He grips the arms of the woman whose face is hidden in the crook of his neck.

She froze.

And then she raised her head.

Her eyes green and flat and much too bright to be sane.

Then she had smiled sweetly at him.

"Your highness."

The urge to fling her across the room had been immense but he needed answers so he settled with pushing her away from him and out of the bath. "Minth. How. Dare. you?"

She had landed on her rump, her hands falling behind to break her fall.

But instead of looking afraid or contrite, she had continued to smile up at him.

He reached for his trousers, wet and soaked as he was and angrily pulled them on.

"I should have you drawn and quartered. What did you do to me?"

Rather than answer she had gotten up and gone towards him. "Nothing that human witch has not already done."

"Speak of her like that again and I will kill you where you stand."

"Oh your highness. Do not be this way. Surely you can already see how much better I am at everything than she is."

He had pushed her hands off.

Hard enough that she stumbled back.

But she is dragonkin material and she had not fallen a second time.

She followed him.

Followed him when he walked around the bed to pick his shirt.

He pushed her again and she fell on the bed, giggling and laughing.

Crazy and insane, he wanted her as far away from him as he could get but he also needed answers.

How did she...

The answer had come even before he could finish asking himself the question.

The f*****g tumbler of mead.

He whirled on her.

"What did you put in it?"

She had not answered.

Instead she had leaned back.

That incessant, smile appeared to be carved almost perfectly into her face.

Her lips stretching in a way that had been oddly familiar.

Familiar and wrong.

Yet he had not realized how wrong everything was.

Until he had tried to reach for Er'gan.

Tried and failed.

Tried...and failed.

Fear as cold as ice wrapped itself around his heart.

He roared and the dragon king does not roar...not without the anger of his dragon.

He pinned her arms to the bed.

Teeth bared and eyes blazing.

"What have you done?"

But she would not answer. She had only laughed and smiled and asked him to sleep with her.

He had nearly killed her then.

And perhaps he would have.

If Hera had not walked in right at that moment.

He knows now that even if he lives for a 1000 years more, he would never forget the look on her face.

Or the fact that he had been the reason.

Maybe that is why when Leo had barged into his study, angry and raving, he had let his chief Ryder hit him twice.

Why he had hit him back only once.

His best friend who is so clearly in love with his tether.

Perhaps the gods made a mistake.

Perhaps they should have given her to Leo Instead.

Leo would know how to love her.

How to never hurt her.

Not Midas, with his sharp, rough edges and brash tongue.

With the crown that bent his neck double and threatened to snap his back.

But immediately he thinks it, he hates it.

He knows he does not deserve her. Knows he still has so much to learn.

But the thought of her being another's is a thought so painfully enraging that Midas would rather not even consider it.

If he has to learn to love it has to be with her.

It just has to.

The bell rings for the 13th time that day.

He should go to her.

Perhaps she is calm now, and would be more inclined to listen to him.

He would rather spend this rest of his immortal life trying to atone for his mistakes that give up on her.

The one good thing he still had left.

But the dragon king is flesh and blood.

And he has had barely any rest in the past three days.

So what had begun as feverish thinking, exhausting enough to make him rest his head on the table of his study, eventually slows down and stops completely.

But It is not the sound of the bell, loud and sudden that so jars him awake.

It is something else.

The sense that something terrible is about to happen.

"Er'gan can you feel that?"

But Er'gan is still silent and the dragon does not answer.

Midas tries again.

Trying and reaching out more times that his heart has strummed in the past few minutes.

Nothing.

At first he had almost panicked but after a few moments of clarity, he realizes he can still feel the dragon inside of him.

It is just... asleep somehow.

Whatever was in that brew that witch gave him, it must have affected Er'gan too.

Put the dragon to sleep so it would not warn the king.

But that would have to be powerful magic.

Immensely powerful magic.

Where would a member of the dragon court get such....

Midas' blood runs cold.

"Oh by f*****g Hades."

And as he paces the length and breadth of his room, wanting to go after Hera and make her understand, yet unable to do so least seeing him would only hurt her more, Midas realizes what about Minth smile had unnerved him the way it did.

Hermani.

It had looked exactly like the smile of the dark elven queen locked away in the far end of the castle.

Gods above.

If she managed to get to one...there is no telling the amount of damage she might have already done.

The number of castle inhabitants she has managed to turn to her side.

He should have killed her when he had the chance.

Deep down he knows why he did not.

Because he had wanted to prove to Hera that he is not the bloodthirsty monster everyone thinks him to be.

Now look where it had gotten him.

He has to replace out what is going on.

Now.

And gods help him if that darkness ridden elf has done anything more to destroy his realm, he would slice of her head and send her body in pieces back to her sister.

His tries to mind link Leo but his chief Ryder remains strangely silent.

Unable to wait any longer he makes to leave the room.

He should not have let Minth go before getting the truth out of her.

But he had been completely distracted.

His attention completely on the woman he loves who he had just seen him holding a naked woman who was not her.

That, and falling asleep is why up until now he had not gone to replace the dragonkin witch who hexed him.

Now it is no longer an option.

He has to replace her and replace her now.

But before he can step out...

He feels it.

A tingling in the back of his neck.

Down his shoulders.

Burning as it travels the length of his arms until it becomes tiny pricks of heat on the tips of his fingers.

A portal had just been opened.

A portal at Mount Anikanii to the east of the dragon castle.

But who...

Midas blood runs cold.

Because just as he had started to think, another one had been opened.

Then another...

And another...

And another....

"Impossible..."

Someone is opening portals all over the dragon realm at almost the same time.

Again he tries to mind link Leo and once again the Chief Ryder is bloody silent.

Midas reaches for his swords and slides them into his back.

"Er'gan..."

Silence.

"Er'gan... Are you there?"

"Goddamn it Er'gan...wake up!... please"

But the only thing the ruler of the fifth realm gets is silence.

And as he rushes out of the castle and into the courtyard, calling loudly for his men and assembling his soldiers against a threat he does not yet understand,

Midas realizes that for the first time in his life, he feels well and truly alone.