The Dragon King’s Substitute Bride
Chapter 9

HERA

I hadn't always been a slave but I had always been a fast learner.

It was how I had learnt to adjust when scarcely three days to my 16th Moon Harvest, my father after losing all we had to gambling debts, died of a heart attack.

When the creditors had come to seize everything we owned, forcing my mom, my siblings and I desperately clutching one another's hands to flee the capital with barely the clothes on our back.

After the rest of my family died in the Ryders' fire, it was what had taught me to keep my head down, to observe my surroundings, knowing when to run and when to kick and scrap my way on the streets of the same capital that had spat us out.

It was what made me learn to be light on my feet and quick with my fingers, stealing from stalls and carts so that my orphaned brother and I could have scraps to fill our bellies and a place to lay our heads.

And when a royal merchant caught me fist first with my hands in his purse and ordered me to be flogged and thrown in the goal, it was my quick thinking that had kept me out of a cell, cutting a deal and becoming a palace slave instead, scrubbing floors till my hands bleed.

Learning to bridle my sharp tongue and take every hurled insult and striking blow with nary a whispered word was the hardest of all my lessons but even that I learnt soon enough.

Which is why just one day in the dragon realm, half of which I had spent unconscious has already taught me a few very important things;

I would die before I let myself be thrown into the cellars of the 5th realm a second time.

The dragon King could hide his emotions with startling speed but if you were watching closely which I was not, the moment just before his face became a mask completely devoid of expression; his eyes always gave him away. Always

And absolutely under no circumstance could I ever let him kiss me like that again.

My body still hummed and buzzed with the madness of it all.

The way his mouth and tongue took with reckless abandon made me feel craved, desired....breathless with need.

I had placed my palms on the hard planes of his chest, painfully aware of the alluring firmness of him below my fingertips, and fully intending to push away from him Then his hands were...everywhere.

Firmly and confidently fraying the edges of my control until my bones became liquid beneath the urgency of his touch and all I could do was moan against him.

It was too much and not enough at the same time.

And when for a few dizzying moments, the evidence of his desire pressed against my center, everything else faded.

Melting away in the heat of my need till there was only him and it is the realization of this one thing that snaps me to my senses and brings me my fourth lesson.

In that moment I wanted Midas.

I had wanted the man responsible for all the hurt in my life.

More than anything I had every longed for before then.

It was a craving from somewhere deep inside me and it was unforgivable.

It could never ever happen again.

That is why even now, as he stares at me, hands that had just moment ago made me come so dangerously close to forgetting, gripping my arms and holding me in place; I force myself to remember every single reason why I hate him until resentment pushes every other thing to the background.

I didn't want anyone to see them; The marks on my back.

Least of all him.

But the angry, possessive way he asks the question, voice like bottled thunder as if he isn't ultimately the reason for their existence, makes me boil with rage and lends venom to my voice. "You...you did this to me"

His face is a blank slate of deliberate disinterest now but seconds ago I had seen the confusion that had clouded his hypnotic nectar-gold eyes and it filled me with a perverse sense of satisfaction. He lets me go. "You're lying. You know very well what I do to people who lie to me."

I do. The freshly tended cuts on my feet are more than enough proof but I press my lips together and say nothing more.

Tears sting my eyes, threatening to fall and I furiously blink them away.

The scars across my back are from a memory I still fight so desperately to forget and if I had to talk about it to him of all people, I don't think I could bear it.

And just when I begin to fear I can't hold it in anymore, someone knocks soundly on the door.

I could kiss them.

He turns his head towards it and I angrily wipe at the wetness on my cheeks with the heel of my hand.

"My Lord, there is an urgent matter requiring your attention in the throne room."

Midas frowns slightly, returning his gaze back to me. "Can it not wait Chief Ryder?"

"I'm afraid not your grace, the dispute is getting out of hand and the two clans are moments away from taking up arms against one another."

He swears quietly under his breath

Please go.

He looks at me for a second longer before walking out of the room without so much as a backwards glance leaving me with my clenched fists. My lips still tingled and my blood still boiled.

Two completely different feelings that resulted in nothing short of a messy soup of confusion and a pounding headache all thanks to one person. I collapse on the bed with a sigh, truly alone for the first time since I was brought here.

My relief however, is short lived and I've scarcely began to calm my erratic pulse when the doors swing open and Midas appears once more.

I fight the urge to scream into my pillow.

But he doesn't spare me more than a fleeting glance as if to make sure I'm still here before beginning to undo the strings of his shirt.

Look away Hera I tell my stubborn brain but a tiny part of me isn't interested in doing so and when he takes it up and over his head in one fluid motion, his wavy winter hair falls in tangled, frizzled waves and my mouth goes dry. Skies above.

I have no idea what the gods were thinking when they made him but they must have been in a very...very good mood.

He is an absolute beast of a man carved entirely out of stone with weathered tan skin peppered with battle scars and pulled taut over bulging muscles positively begging to be touched.

Not just with my fingers.

And when my roaming eyes follow the smoothness of his chest to the tapered V of his waist disappearing somewhere below the folds of his trousers, a dull throbbing begins in parts of me I didn't even know could ache. Oh for crying out loud get a grip Hera, you are practically drooling.

I don't realize to what degree I'm ogling him till he catches my gaze and folds his arms, sending the muscles bunching up and rippling in protest.

If he means to discourage my staring at him he is choosing the worst possible way.

"So you are permitted to watch me undress but when the table turns I am to look away?"

Luckily, I'm saved from having to chase after my thoughts and come up with any kind of sensible, coherent response by a page boy who comes running in with the King's garments folded in his arms. Something sharp and acute slices through the region of my heart and I look away.

Images of my brother, light brown hair of the exact same shade flashes in my mind's eyes.

I wonder what they told him, when he woke up that morning without me by his side. I wonder if they kept their promise.

His voice cuts through the grey fog of my gloomy musings. "I am leaving the palace to settle matters concerning the realm. A maid will be here to tend to your needs."

My snaps up to face him. I couldn't have cared less about the maid. The only needs I have is to get out of here and all I hear is that he hopefully will be gone for the rest of the day.

"Under no condition are you to leave this room before I return."

"No...condition?"

He sighs and stares at me. "I would think my words were clear enough."

"What if there were to be a fire?"

"That would be quite unfortunate but rest assured your charred remains would be well taken care of"

Heartless bastard.

Irrespective of what he says, he will be far from the palace ground for the rest of the day.

It is more than enough time.

He must see the hope shinning in my eyes because he frowns. "But because I know you are already thinking about disobeying me..."

"I am not!"

The false indignation in my voice does not deter him.

"...a guard will be stationed outside your room to ensure you don't."

I turn to scowl at him.

I expected him to be dressed in his amour with the terrifying horned helmet that hides his face and turns him into the stuff of nightmare but he isn't.

The glistening silver metal plates on his shoulders and short bands around his wrist of the same material are the only protection in sight.

That and the two heavy obsidian swords with their bejeweled hilts strapped to his back.

He is every inch the embodiment of a warrior.

A dark, handsome warrior as terrifying as he is magnificent.

He crosses the room and throws apart the heavy red drapes with their vivid tapestry of bright shimmering colors.

Bathing the slate gray walls and everything in the vast royal chambers in dazzling bright sunlight.

I instantly feel less imprisoned.

He strides across the room again, my eyes following his every step as he opens the door. "I shall be back by nightfall and upon my return you will be introduced to the rest of the palace." "As what?"

He pauses and I silently curse my inability to keep my thoughts in my head.

Then without bothering to answer he stalks out of the room, slamming the doors hard in his wake and I can still hear the echoes long after he's gone.