The Dragon King’s Substitute Bride
Chapter 85

HERA

"What is a Tether?"

"What?"

Midas turns to look up at me from the papers and rolls of parchment piled up on his study.

He had been so absorbed in whatever it is he is reading that he had not even noticed me walk in.

And considering how incredibly honed the dragon king's senses are, it can only mean that his mind is in a million places all at the same time. Although truth be told, so is mine.

After the king makers left, the air in the wake of their presence heavy with apprehension, Midas had gone to make arrangements for riding out tomorrow and to organize the small army of Ryders that would go with him. I had in turn also immediately gone up to my room to get ready for leaving with the King tomorrow.

I knew it was doubtlessly going to be a long, early day so I had aimed to go to sleep on time least I fall asleep on my horse riding out tomorrow.

And I had tried.

Tried really really hard.

Closing my eyes, counting moons, singing myself to sleep.

Nothing worked. Sleep continued to elude me.

And it had been largely due to the fact that the entire conversation with the Kingmakers in the throne room kept playing itself over and over in my head.

Drowning out my efforts to do anything but think and fret over what was said and what was not.

Especially what was not said.

And I had tossed and turned until my sheets were tangled in knots around my legs.

One statement in particular coming back to me over and over again.

"f**k the Fates. I will make my own path. One that does not involve nearly killing the woman I lov..."

The woman he what...

What had he been about to say?

As I had laid down, staring up at the ceiling, everything in me had known that the events of tomorrow, whatever they turned out to be, could end badly. Really really badly.

And I knew that is what I should have been worried about.

I mean I had chosen to willingly, once more go into the Elder forest even after my near death experiences in those dark woods the first time I was there. Naive, reckless Hera...

That is what I should have been agonizing over.

And not some half spoken words uttered in the heat of the moment that probably did not even mean what I was imagining them to mean.

Yet my brain had refused to let go.

Like a child whose hands were sticky with honey and could not wipe it off no matter how hard they tried.

Every attempt merely smearing it even more.

The woman I lov...

Could it be?

No it couldn't.

But what if it did

. What if he had indeed been about to say that he....that he....

Skies above...

All my questions had no answers.

At least not answers I could easily deal with.

So I had stayed awake, eyes wide open.

And when I had been unable to take the not knowing anymore, I had slipped on a cloak and made my way out of the room and down the cold stone steps. The air had been crisp and cold as I glided through the still lit corridors.

Somehow I had known he would not be in bed.

I was right.

The door to his study was uncharacteristically ajar and I had stood for quite a long moment watching him.

He looked exhausted but you would never know it from the determined concentration on his face unless you were looking very closely and I was.

And he had not noticed me coming closer until I stood directly in front of his table, my ridiculous question falling from my mouth.

He stares up at me now, and I can see the tiredness in his eyes.

"Why are you still awake Hera?"

"It is not that late. I believe that is the ninth bell ringing out now."

"Still. We ride at dawn tomorrow. You should be resting."

I walk around the table towards his outstretched arm. "As should you."

He pulls me to him and wraps his arm around my middle, his head resting on my belly.

"I am unable to sleep."

I do not tell him that I am unable to sleep either, instead I stroke his hair gently, wondering how a man so hard and weathered manages to have hair as soft and lush as a baby's. "Did you even try to?"

He does not need to answer for me to know that he did not.

"You work too hard my Lord. If something were to happent to you, who would run the affairs of the realm?"

"No one. My people would mourn me severely and the entire 5th realm would descend into chaos. You particularly would be distraught and unable to go on living"

I do not even realize when I burst out laughing.

"Your humility never ceases to amaze me dragon King."

"I am merely stating the truth "

I pull back so I can look directly at him

"Midas?"

"Yes Human?"

"You told the Kingmaker Arydian that I am your Tether. What does that mean?"

He meets my eyes and then glances away.

"You really should be in bed."

His mouth is saying one thing but his hands are pulling me closer and into his lap.

I wind my hands around his neck. "Tell me."

He sighs but he starts to speak.

"Dragons and weredragons are born with only half of their soul. The other half of them is hidden, embedded somewhere, in someone else. That person, the other being is their Tether." I frown, digesting the words.

"How does a dragon or Ryder know when they have found their Tether."

He shrugs gently.

"You just do. some dragons could go many years, almost entire lifetimes without meeting their tethers but like two magnets, fate usually draws them together, forces them to meet." "So when you say I am your Tether that means...".

"That you are the other half of my soul Hera. Mine."

A fluttering replaces the beating of my heart and my belly feels like a thousand and one wings are flapping about merrily inside of it.

"Everything we touch....every time we do this..."

His mouth replaces mine...kissing me softly at first and then deeper.

"...the bond grows stronger. Whatever you feel, I feel it too."

Whenever Midas kisses me, it feels like I'm slipping and sliding. Falling beneath a haze of pleasure and happiness.

And I have to struggle to remain focused.

Because beneath all those good things is dread.

Stealing it's way into my skin and wrapping itself around my mind.

A magical soul tie that pulled two people together and made them feel the other's pain as theirs.

What if...

The woman I lov...

What if the only reason he had been about to say that is because of some so called magic bond and not because that is really how he feels. "Hera... what is it?"

I shake my head and open my mouth to say no but he beats me to it.

"Don't even bother lying. Just tell me what troubles you?"

I twist my fingers, head bowed, chewing on my bottom lip, a bad nervous habit.. "This bond...how...how strong is it?"

He reaches out, frees my lip with his thumb from beneath my teeth and then frowns because nothing gets past this man and he has noticed the shaky tone of my voice. "Extremely so. Why?"

"Strong enough perhaps to make you....someone...think they feel something when all along it has just been some uncontrollable magic force pulling them together."

He stares at me until I look away, blushing.

"You think that is why I am... attracted to you?"

I nod slightly, hating and loving how I could never hide anything from him.

He tilts up my chin.

"Hera the tether bond does not cause you to feel things. It only amplifies them. Makes them stronger, more intense than it would have been with anyone else. By hades I wanted to make love to you even before you open those trechrous blue eyes of yours or leaped at my back and sunk your teeth into my neck."

I blush even harder at the memory of our first meeting.

"So did not know, when we first met that I was...am your Tether?"

Midas stiffens and looks away.

"No I did not."

"Then when..."

He is silent for so long that I start to think he wishes not to answer but he does, albeit reluctantly.

"I found out in the Elder forest. When Er'gan..."

"Tried to kill me."

He clenches his jaw and looks away.

I turn his face back towards me.

"Midas...I do not hold it against you. Not anymore"

"Well you should. I should have known, from the very first moment I saw you. I should have known." "Then why didn't you?"

He sighs. "because...I never thought I would replace you. I did not think I had a Tether and so I..."

"Wait, you said all dragon Ryders are born with only half their soul, why did you not think you had a Tether..." "Because..."

I can see that whatever he is about to say is something that is hard for him.

Something he still struggles to accept.

"I was not born a dragon Ryder Hera. Imagine that. Heir to the dragon throne and I was not born with the ability to transform."

He drags his had through his hair, sending it going every which way.

"It did not matter who my father had been, the dragonkin would never accept me, never respect me."

"Oh Midas..."

But he does not even look at me.

The way he speaks about it, the events surrounding his childhood, It is almost like it is a weight he has been struggling to voice into words and now that he has started, he won't be able to stop, not until he is done.

"My father knew this and so he made a deal, long before I could remember anything. And he had my soul bond to Er'gan, the first dragon to ever exist. All the while, I never knew that I was different."

His hand keeps tracing distracted circles up and down my arm.

"Not until the day of my 18th birthday, when my father took me to fly and my dragon would not awaken. To say my father had been disappointed would be an understatement. I will never forget the look in his eyes..." Midas sighs and shakes his head, once more in control of his emotions.

"Er'gan would not awaken in me until six years later. And so, because I was not born a dragon Ryder, I did not think I had a Tether...much less a human one."

Then he finally looks up at me again, his hand stroking my hair. "But by hades am I glad I found you".

I take those words with me all the way back to my room.

Smiling rather foolishly every step of the way.

The dragon king had told me he would be up in an hour and not to wait up for him so I am surprised when a few minutes after returning to my chambers, I hear a knock on my door.

It is a maid.

One I do not know very well.

I try to quickly wipe the frown a d disappointment off my face least she think me angry at her.

"Yes?"

"My queen, the king has asked that I send for you"

My heart immediately starts to pound.

Gods above what now...?

I wrap my cloak around my neck and step out barefooted. Not even bothring to close the door behind me.

I make to turn towards the direction of his study but the maid stops me.

"No he..he is in the kitchen you grace."

The kitchen?

What in all the realms...

But I do not stop to think long about it.

I hurry there, my bare feet nearly soundless against the floor.

"Midas..." I push open the kitchen door, whispering into the darkened space.

"...Midas you sent for me."

The only thing I get in response is the gentle howling of the cold, biting wind blowing in from the open back door.

The ridiculous one that opens into a gulley that drops many many feet to the ground.

I step further into the kitchen.

"Midas?"

But he is not here.

What is going on?

I turn to ask the maid who had brought me here but the girl is gone.

Something does not feel right.

I step cautiously towards the open back door.

Could he have flown down...

Did he perhaps wish to show my something?

I inch as close to the ledge as I can.

"Midas I can't..."

A firm hand in the centre of my back.

Firm and shoving

I barely even have time to shout.

The next thing I know, the wind is rushing past my ears and I am hurtling down thousands of feet in the air, straight to my death.