The Dragon King’s Substitute Bride
Chapter 112

HERA

I tell myself that it is all in my head.

When Leo's hands cup the small of my back and pull me against the lean, muscular frame of his body I tell myself that it is my mind overworking, overthinking...under reacting. I tell myself that I all I need to do is simply to shut it off and just feel.

That perhaps if I stopped trying to think, my heart might race the way it does when Midas kisses me.

That my knees would crumble and that the liquid pool of lust that forms in my belly even when he simply looks at me might make an appearance.

Only one problem stands in the way.

Pulling at the seams of my mind and fraying the edges of my anger induced stubbornness.

I try to push it down, to sink it below the weight of my rage and hurt.

But like a body bloated and filled with air, the thought always floats back up.

With him, the dragon king who shattered my heart, I have never have to work to shut down my mind.

All he has ever had to do is stand close to me and my would brain immediately forget how to process thoughts.

The way his golden eyes would darken when I brushed up against him.

The way he looked at me, watching my every move even from across the room like he was simply dying to get me alone.

The way his mere presence made it impossible for me to focus on anything but him.

Unable to think about anything but wanting him.

Needing him.

And when he touches me...

Gods above when he touches me.

A tiny breathless sigh escapes my lips and Leo takes it for encouragement.

He deepens the kiss, sliding his hands into my hair.

But it does not feel enough.

Not enough to make me forget.

So I squeeze my eyes as tightly as I can and lift myself on the tip of my toes.

Leo takes the the hint and lifts me off the floor and properly into his arms.

He tastes different...the second kiss of my entire life.

Like spice and danger...and guilt.

And he is gentle.

The way he takes my lower lip in his mouth, the strokes he makes with his tongue even as his hands grip my thighs that are wrapped firmly around his waist. So gentle it is almost hesitant.

So gentle it makes me want to groan in frustration.

I want him to wrap my hair around his hands and tug at it.

To press my against a wall and drag the sharp edges of his teeth along my neck until he left tiny red marks behind.

To say my name in that part longing, part frustrated voice that makes me absolutely weak in the knees and causes me to throb and ache with barely disguised wanton desire. I want...

Oh for Hades sake stop it Hera.

Concentrate.

He broke your heart and trust, he barely even believes you and yet here you are.

Fantasizing about him while in the arms of another man.

My Grandmother, callous cold woman that she could be, used to say this one thing.

That the greatest fool of all, was the one who tried to lie to themselves.

I am almost certain that were she able to see me now, she would most certainly change her mind.

The greatest fool of all, is the one who thinks she can get over the only real happiness she has ever known by making love to his right hand and best friend.

Well, no one ever said being foolish was difficult.

Somehow we have made it to the bed and Leo lowers me down gently.

His mouth fixed on my mine.

As he presses me down into the softness of the sheets, I pull on his lip and he groans into my mouth.

Then he breaks the kiss, his fingers brushing the hair from my face.

I can feel him staring at me but I do not open my eyes.

If I open my eyes I might come back to my senses and right now, the last thing I wish to do is apply common sense.

He places a kiss at the corner of my jaw. His breath deep and heavy beside my ears.

Almost like he is struggling to get it under control.

"Your highness..."

"Don't you dare."

He chuckles. Rich and dark into the crook of my neck.

"Hera..."

"Yes?"

"Are you sure?"

I swallow and shake my head, my eyes still closed.

He kisses the hollow on the center of my neck. His words mumbled against my skin.

"I should stop."

"So why don't you?"

"Because I have wanted to do this for so long.."

His fingers deftly slip beneath the thin sleeves of my dress, "wanted to touch you, kiss you..."

He pushes them down, finger tips cool as they trail a path down my arms to my wrist.

"....and now that I have you here, I do not think I could possibly stop again. No matter how utterly insane it is."

At first he had kissed me like I might be breakable and he is afraid to hurt me but now he was taking control. Pinning my hands above my head when they reached for him and sliding his tongue into my mouth.

Teasing and tasting so that the next time I moaned it was not entirely distracted.

I arch and strain against his grip around my wrist, my back lifting off the bed.

My mind might be resisting. Desperate to tell me how big of a mistake I am making.

But my body, betrayer that she is, is done fighting.

And when he thumb brushes across the tip of my hardened n*****s, I actually feel my toes start to curl.

Until...

Gods above you have got to be f*****g...

The thought never fully forms.

The pressure slams into my head like a barrel of something packed and packed hard.

My neck snaps forward and I am nearly knocked off from the horse I am suddenly now riding.

My scream is lost to the howling wind as I jerk forward, grabbing almost viciously at the neck of the brown, colossal animal I would never in a million years have tried to ride.

The sky above is noisy and grey. The clouds churning and swirling like a witch's caldron of poisonous brew.

"What in all the realms..."

Wind, biting and sharp and bitter blows up in my face. Snatching the words from my mouth and making it difficult to even keep my eyes open.

Dirt and tiny rocks kicked up by the horse's pounding hooves swirl around in the air..

Blurring my vision as the stead gallops at neck breaking speed towards the capital.

My heart is racing and my mouth is dry.

I whip my head around, watching through squinted eyes as dragon mount and it's castle rapidly becomes smaller and smaller.

I turn my head back around but before I can make sense of why I am alone, riding across a dragon realm that looks to be on the verge of some catastrophe, the pressure slams into me again and the scene changes. I am suddenly now riding through the dragon capital.

But the streets are empty.

Doors locked, windows barred and not a single soul in sight.

"Gods above...what is going on?"

This time the pressure knocks me clean off the horse.

I shout and flail my arms but I never reach the hard, cobbled streets.

Again I jerk forward, the force of being pushed into my own body almost sending me to the ground.

The horse is gone.

So are the rolling fields and the capital I was so furiously riding through but moments ago.

But I am not back home.

I gasp and stagger.

I know this place.

I know the path of cobbled stone leading up to long, wide, numerous steps glowing a pallid grey in the waning light.

I know the four colossal pillars covered in the creeping greenery that flutter and writhe like snakes in the windy darkness.

And I recognize the fierce horned dragon made of pure stone with it's sinister snarl and bared teeth that sits on the top of the dragon temple.

The temple of the fire gods.

Where Midas and I were bound to each other.

Where I was made queen of the realm that now so obviously sits on the verge of chaos.

The pressure slams into me again and I cry out.

Parts pain, parts frustration.

Danger.

I can feel it on my skin.

Can taste like a coating of metal upon my tongue.

But I am not entirely certain why I feel so afraid.

Then I hear it. A far off sound like the rushing of wind except more deliberate and controlled.

As I watch I see a darkness in the grey sky.

A patch of shadow far off in the distance, growing closer with each second.

The darkness draws closer and with it my sense of doom grows.

Expanding and swelling until it threatens to choke out my very heart.

The darkness takes shape, forms....solidifies...and lands.

"Oh thank the gods."

I know that dragon. Recognize it.

But before I can move towards it, someone slides down its back.

Someone with skin as pale as bone and lips as red as blood.

I stagger back, pressing my hands over my mouth to keep from shouting.

It can not be...

What are they doing together?

The pressure, harsh and relentless slams into me again and the scene changes for the umpteenth time.

I stagger and blink furiously.

My head struggling to keep up with speed at which I am being knocked from one premonition to another.

I am still in front of the temple.

The sky is darker, the wind louder.

Blowing my own hair into my eyes, sand into my mouth.

The dragon and it's rider are gone and in their place.

And in their place I see...

"Midas!!!...Midas!!!"

But the dragon king does not hear me.

I try to run to him but my body is suddenly unable to hear me, unable to move.

Because of course it is.

******g gods.

Forced to do nothing but watch, I see him glance around.

He looks enraged and worried as he jumps down from his horse.

Blood streaming from wounds that were not healing as fast as they are supposed.

He races towards the dark, yawning entrance of the dragon temple.

"Midas...no don't. It's a trap!!"

I am not sure how it is that I know this. I just do. With every fiber of my panic stricken being I know that should he go in there all of us are doomed.

But it is no use.

He cannot hear me.

And he passes by me. Barely inches away and straight into the arms of whatever awaits him within the temple.

What happens next happen so fast that I am unable to even fully process it.

Like flashes of lightening or like glimpses from out a hazy window...

I see the arch deep within the temple.

The one beneath which I had pledged my allegiance to the dragon realm.

The two dragons, the one of pure gold and the one of ruby red intertwined together

I hear a peel of laughter.

Laughter so dark it causes my skin to pebble and crawl.

A necklace...

Swords drawn...

"Let her go!"

Midas' voice yelling...

I see the coils of darkness reach out from the churning, rippling mass beneath the arch.

I see them wrap themselves around the dragon king.

Gripping firmly, pulling...

Sinking their tendrils into his very soul.

And then blood. Oh skies above so much blood.

I think I scream. I am not certain.

My eyes fly open and I awake to myself pressed into the bed and soaked in my own sweat.

I lift myself shakily unto my arms, my head aching, my mouth tasting like I have been chewing on ashes.

And the sinking feeling that I had to go to Midas and I had to go to him now.

"You would not stop saying his name."

My head snaps to the side.

That is when I remember.

Oh crap. Leo.

He is standing off to the side. His face shuttered.

Still partly dazed and disoriented, I pull up my dress and crawl off the bed.

"When you kissed me back and made those tiny sounds of pleasure it was not me you were thinking of. It was him wasn't it?"

I swallow and struggle to keep the panic out of my voice.

I push back the premonition I had seen.

The dragon on which Hermani had arrived at the dragon temple.

It just could not be.

I grab at his hand.

"Leo I am sorry but Midas...we have to...I need to..."

"Go to him?"

He scoffs. Loud and bitter.

"Why?"

"I..."

"Even after everything he is has done, you still want him...still choose him. He shatters your heart and makes you cry over and over. He does not even know how to trust you let alone love you..."

"Leo..."

"The dragon king does not possess it in him to care wholeheartedly for anyone but his kingdom. To love you...or anyone else for that matter."

"Leo you know that is not true."

"I know that I love you Hera."

"Leo..."

"More than anything that I have ever loved before. I tried to hide it, to fight it, to bury in the deepest and darkest parts of my mind. Forced to stand by and watch you struggle and fight while yearning... craving to give you everything you could ever possible desire. Tell me Hera, how am I supposed to watch you give yourself away for someone who is not even capable of returning it."

"Leo..."

I squeeze my eyes tightly, my voice tiny and strained.

He grabs my hand between both of his. His eyes searching mine... reaching into the very depths of my soul.

"Come away with me. I promise on everything I have.. everything I own...everything that I am, that I would spend the rest of my days showing you exactly what it means to be loved."

I stare up at him.

At the broken sincerity I can see spilled all across his face.

I stare at him and I think about the premonitions I had just seen.

About the chaos and the blood...and the death.

And for one stupidly insane moment, I am tempted.

To say yes.

To turn my back against all of that pain and fighting that awaits me.

To run far far away and leave it all behind.

To forget.

I cup the bristled face of the chief Ryder in my free hand and stroke his cheek with my thumb.

"You do know that I love you don't you?"

He closes his eyes and sighs into my hand. "Not in the way that I want you to."

I smile up at him, finger tips reaching out to brush against the scar above his eyes.

"You deserve all the happiness in the 7 realms Leo. And one of these days, you will replace one who is more deserving of all of the love in your heart and when you you do, you will be infinitely glad I said no."

"Hera..."

"Leo... He needs me... He needs both of us"

"And me... does what I need not matter even in the slightest?"

Before I can think of how to respond to that he is backing away.

He face closed off and emotionless.

The face of the chief Ryder who had taken me to the cellars.

Eyes like steel and almost just as cold.

I can feel myself losing him.

To what I am uncertain.

I reach for him but he steps back.

"I apologize for my indiscretions your grace."

"Leo..."

"I believe you will replace the king in his study."

And with that he walks away.

I do not watch. My eyes remain fixed on my hands in my lap.

I hear him reach for the door and pull it open.

Hear him stop and turn back.

"I would have loved you until the farthest ends of the seven realms."

I twist my fingers, watch them bend. "I know."

It is a barely a whisper yet I have no doubt that he heard it.

"And now your highness, I can only hope that you do not regret this decision that you have made."

And then the door closes gently behind him.

I want to go after him but my body refuses to move.

I am uncertain how long I sit there trying desperately to swallow past the lump in my throat and the tears threatening to spill out my eyes.

Enough Hera.

You made your choice.

And if I did not get up now and stop him from making any other mistakes, I might never get the chance to make things right again.

But before I can take a step out of my room, I notice how dark it is starting to get.

I try to think about how many bells I have heard.

Certainly not enough for it to be this dark already.

I run to my window and look out and my blood turns to ice.

Jagged, tearing ice.

Oh Gods above...

Whatever is coming.... It had already begun.