The Dragon King’s Substitute Bride
Chapter 64

MIDAS

"She is trying to pick her lock"

"She is what?"

His opponent senses his distraction and ducks out of reach of his sword but Midas strikes out in a blur of motion sweeping the Ryder's feet from under him and sending the dragonkin man collapsing to the floor in a haze of dust. Midas barely glances at him.

Red from exertion and nearly drowning in his own sweat, the man is Midas' best swordsman, but even then, no one but his chief Ryder could ever attempt to keep up with him. Especially not when he is in a mood like this one.

One where he is simply training because he wishes to forget, pushing his body to the limit so that he can focus on the pain in his muscles and ignore the one in his chest. "I saw scratches on her door knob. She is planning to escape...again."

It is the best thing he has heard all day.

Enough that he waves his sparring partner away and hands over his swords to a nearby servant..

"Your highness?"

"Yes Leo I am here."

"What will you have me do? Shall I move her to a different room, or place a guard outside of her door?"

"Neither. Leave her be."

"Really?" The surprise in his chief Ryder's voice carries even across the mind link.

Midas steps in the cool shade of the castle.

He had been worried.

Worried that he had managed to break her, to hurt her irreparably.

Yet there she was, trying to break out of her room...again.

He almost smiles.

"Yes really. I should not have..." He sighs.

Regret is still an emotion he is unfamiliar with; another annoying addition to the slew of disconcerting feelings bubbling up inside of him.

"...just keep an eye on her for me but do not let her see you."

"As you wish my King."

He is sweaty and tired.

His clothes are sticking to his back and every muscle in his body is stiff and sore from how hard he has been pushing it.

The sun has since set and Midas knows he should at the very least try to rest but he simply walks straight to his study.

His steward sees him, follows him, trying to convince him to at least request for dinner but he ignores the man, slams the door in his face and collapses into his chair.

He cannot give his mind any free time to wander or he will simply end up going to her.

He should be working.

He has so much to do, both within and beyond the castle's gates.

But how in Hades is he supposed to concentrate when his mind and heart and everything else is locked up in that room with her?

So he immerses himself in his correspondences for the day that he should have attended to much earlier.

Or at least he tries to.

The bell rings out for the eleventh time before Midas finally accepts defeat and leans back in his chair, eyes fixed up at the ceiling.

He was too harsh on her.

He knows that.

The hurt in her voice as he left had nearly knocked the wind out of him.

Even his dragon had felt it, had protested but he had only done what he had to.

He needs to know the truth.

Ironic considering how he himself has lied to her.

He had told her he only slept with her because it was what had to be done, like he did not lay up at night unable to sleep, burning with need for her.

Had looked her in the eyes and told her nothing else mattered to him.

Three words that could not have been any further from the truth.

Yet it does not change the fact that she is hiding something.

Something that fills her with guilt and makes her unable to look him directly in the eyes.

And for both their sakes, he needs to know what it is.

The part of him that wants her by his side is telling him that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this but Midas also knows that when one puts their trust in a human, devastating consequences were sure to follow. Besides, he does not know how to trust blindly, not anymore and he is not willingly to start now.

But every fiber of his being hopes that the prophecy is wrong and that whatever secret hunts her is not something that would pose as threat to his realm.

Because if it is, Tether bond or not, he would have to do the right thing.

Whatever that is.

Midas groans, dragging his hand across his face.

He cannot remember the last time he had a headache yet he has one now.

Worry and need, lust and suspicion, everything mixing together in his head like some sort of deadly cocktail.

This is why he had not wanted the bond to grow any stronger.

Why he should have stayed away and kept his distance.

Why he should not have made love to her again no matter how much he had wanted to.

Well considering what he has just done, Midas knows he need not worry about that again.

He has no doubt that she hates him now, even more than she did before.

Protecting his kingdom is the right thing to do.

He knows this.

It is all he has left of his parents, their legacy and his home.

A burden and a gift wrapped up in one that in a hundred and fifty years has thickened his skin and toughed his shoulders.

He has since accepted that his life, no matter how long, will never be easy.

So why does it suddenly feel so much harder now?

He sighs and opens the book in front of him.

It is written in the flowing language of the fae; An Appendix on the Giftings of the Gods.

Midas has his suspicions about what is going on with her.

The only problem is...it should not be possible.

The gods are fickle beings who act on their whims without any form of restraint and sometimes they could be quite generous with their gifts.

But there were unspoken rules to which even they were subject.

Magic existed in varying levels across the 7 realms.

Its purest, strongest form is in the 7th realm, the realm of the gods and it decreases steadily as it descends downwards.

a result, while creatures like the dragon Ryders of the 5th realm and the elves and fae of the 4th realm possess varying skills of magical abilities, humans of the 2nd realm do not.

Those who did have any sort of skills, like their mages and healers were usually the messengers of the gods who had been granted merely shadows of what true magic really is. So this...what he suspects Hera is able to do is not just strange, it is downright impossible.

Especially for a human.

The ability to see events before they happened is so dangerous a skill that the gods gave it to only one.

The oracle of Daphne.

A nymph blessed by the god Apollo with the ability to see into the future and deliver prophecies.

The flaw with this theory is not just that the Oracle of Daphne is a goddess.

No, the main problem is that the oracle of Daphne is dead.

Has been a dead a long... long time and her powers vanished with her.

It has been so long ago that most creatures in the 7 realm do not even know that she ever existed.

The knowledge of her existence buried in thousands of years and the pages of ancient books written by those long gone.

Could her powers somehow have been transferred to a human of all creatures?

And if that was true, why now...after all these years?

"That is impossible dragon king"

Midas frowns. "Er'gan"

"It cannot be true. Not only does it make no sense but surely the gods would have known if some human was roaming the realms with the ability to see the future." "But what if..."

"There are no buts in this matter dragon king. If there is even an inch of truth in this, this absurd idea running through your head, Hera would be in immense danger. Not just from the thousands of greedy creatures and beings who roamed the seven realms but from the gods themselves."

Midas has never heard his dragon sound like this. Ever.

"What do you mean?"

"The Oracle of Daphne did not just die dragon king. She was killed."

There is a wound behind those words.

A wound so great that Midas can feel the pain of his dragon.

"Killed by whom?"

The only response he gets is silence.

"Er'gan..."

"Do not ask dragon king."

A surge of protectiveness run through Midas and without his knowing it, his hands clench in fists.

He may not understand what his dragon means but he'll be damned before he let any of them touch her.

The bond must be more active than he thought because he catches her scent even though she is nowhere nea...

His heart begins to pound, the blood rushing in his veins.

She is close, he can feel it.

He almost does not get up.

Almost does not open the door.

Because if he does and she is not there Midas does not know what he will do.

But when the door of his study does fly open there she is, standing there, cold and shivering in a night dress than leaves very little to his extremely capable imagination.

But all of his attention is on her eyes, glassy with barely restrained tears and on the words falling from her mouth.

She blames herself.

For something he alone is responsible for.

And Midas does not know if he will ever be able to forgive himself for doing that to her.

She sniffs, tears rolling down one cheek.

"Well, now you have your answer. I hope you are satisfied dragon king."

He has never hated the name more.

"Will you not say anything?"

But what can he say, when his heart is breaking for her.

So he says nothing and simply takes her in his arms.

Wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her up.

Savoring the way she holds unto him, her legs clasped behind his back, her hands around his neck.

"What are you doing?"

He starts moving, away from the door.

"What sort of queen roams the castle barefooted at night?"

She scoffs, so shocked and miffed that she instantly forgets her tears.

"The kind of queen that gets locked up in her room like a criminal."

He stops walking and meets her eyes wondering if she knows that her eyes turn a dark blue when she is annoyed.

She swallows and he hears her heart rate increase by just the smallest of paces.

"What is it, why do you look at me that way?"

"I am sorry."

Three words he has not said in a hundred and fifty years.

She stares at him and he knows she is surprised even though she hides it well.

She cups his cheek with one palm, her thumb brushing across his lower lip. "I do not forgive you."

He kisses her.

Feather soft, barely grazing her mouth with his.

"Good. I am not sure I forgive you either."

And then she laughs and Midas' heart for the first time since his parents died, feels, not whole...not even close but all at once...it is no longer completely shattered.