The Dragon King's Substitute Bride

Master of Them All

HERA

It lasts exactly one heartbeat and a half.

For that incredibly brief second, with my eyes closed, clinging to the only solid thing in that dark, villainous space, I could pretend everything had been some fever induced nightmare.

That when I open my eyes, I would be back home, with my family who are still very much alive and that the arms around me, holding me tightly against them didn’t belong to the person responsible for taking everything away from me.

But before that second heartbeat is over, I open my eyes and everything is still painfully the same.

The lights from the abysmally few torches scattered around the tunnel walls into which the cells are carved, are barely enough to see with.

Yet when I tilt my head to look up, everything about his face is achingly clear.

I find myself wanting to swipe my thumbs across his cheekbones, wipe the smudges of blood and dirt from his face but I force my hands into tiny fists, digging my nails into the skin of my palms.

He’s staring hard at me and I swallow at the sudden lump that forms in my throat.

I can’t tell if the way my heart is racing is from having my sorry, miserable life, flash before my eyes just moments ago or if it’s something else entirely.

It almost feels like a betrayal when the thought races stubbornly through my head. How could someone who looked so impossibly flawless be so cruel?

My chest pressed against him, rises and falls with each breath that escapes through his parted lips.

He’s looking at me with an expression I do not quite understand or maybe it’s the other way around.

Maybe it’s me refusing to acknowledge the slight relief I see in his searching gaze.

In the way his eyes pore over every inch of me.

No longer red but now returned to that startlingly shade of liquid.

How dare he look at me like that?

Then he blinks and it’s gone, so fast I can’t even be sure I didn’t imagine it.

I push away from the embrace, furious at him for sending me to what would have most certainly been my death.

But I'm even more furious at myself for running straight into his arms despite knowing that.

He gathers up the discarded, blood stained swords that had clattered to the ground when I’d thrown myself at him like some untrained hussy. “Did they touch you?”

“What, now you care for my virtue? Why are you even here?”

Easy Hera, we do not want to remind him to close the door on his way out now do we?

But I’m still too shaken to think properly and it’s either lash out or start crying and I am sick to death of crying.

His brows draw together and he frowns at nothing in particular. “I don’t know.”

I throw him my best withering look. “Maybe you were worried your little band of vile prisoners would not be able to do a good enough job of ending me, is that it?”

“No, they would certainly have killed you.”

The matter of fact way he says the words only serves to feed my burning indignation.

“I am surprised you are not leaping for joy at the very thought. Did you come down to watch and then decide to do it yourself?”

He scowls at my disrespectful tone.

“You would think a slave girl who just got sent to the most dangerous prison in all the 7 realms would have learnt to bridle her tongue and show more gratitude that she gets to keep her pretty little neck.”

Honestly, I would think so too.

But my mouth has always had a mind of its own, and now, fueled by all these mixed emotions, it won’t stop.

Not until I run out of steam.

“You should have let them kill me. What good is staying alive if I’m still going to be married to you?”

The minute the words tumble out of my mouth, I want to catch them and put them back in but it’s too late.

He steps towards me and for all my mouthing off I take a step back but he steps even closer still.

The tension between our bodies is intensified by the heat radiating of him.

A palpable, tangible thing reminding me against my best intentions of what it felt like to have his lips against my skin. The way he had kissed me, possessive and consuming

His eyes are darker now and when he speaks, his voice is rough and somehow, I know I’m not the only one remembering.

I am aware of a shuffling of feet by the entry way to my cell. I know I should call out, warn him but I can’t seem to look anywhere else but at him.

“Because you’re mine Hera…”

A bent over, hulking shape, appears at the door, sneering loudly but Midas doesn't look.

“…no one gets to touch you…

The prisoners charges at him

"...except me.”

And in one single fluid movement, without so much as a backwards glance, the criminal falls on his own back, impaled on the end of Midas’ sword.

Never mind that he just killed a man without even looking.

The sound of my name falling from his lips, like some dark whispered secret and the way he keeps looking at me, sends an ache tingling somewhere below my belly.

It’s a strange sensation, one I am unfamiliar with and yet I find I do not hate it…quite the complete opposite in fact.

Hera, you stupid, stupid girl

He wraps a lock of my hair around his finger. “Besides, killing you would be letting you off easy. Given the severity of your crimes, why would I do that when I can have all the time I need to come up with more suitable…punishments.”

By now, my little betraying blood pumping organ is leaping about in its rib cage so loudly I could swear he can hear it. My mouth is dry and when I open it, nothing comes out.

His nearness is messing with my head in ways I do not appreciate and I swallow hard.

My head is nearing dizziness. Both with fear and with…

No Hera, remember who he is, what he’s done.

Mercifully, the bell rings out before I can make a greater fool of myself and He tilts his head towards the ringing that somehow manages to seem both close and far away all at once.

He turns away and I let out a breath I didn’t even know I had been holding.

Striding towards the entrance, he retrieves his weapon, pulling it with a squelching sound from the body of the fallen man as he exits the small enclosed space. “The morning approaches”

Heavens above don’t let him leave me here.

The bell rings out again and I can hear still hear violent noises from beyond my cell and although they are few and far between but I can’t seem to bring myself to move.

Maybe if I stay very very still…

He reappears at the doorway once more. “Have you already grown so fond of this place that you no longer wish to leave?”

I have to stop myself from running towards him again.

I cautiously step out of my cell behind him.

My eyes have adjusted to the dimness of my surroundings but it’s still quite dark and I lose my footing, stumbling on the uneven path.

He lifts a torch from the wall without so much as a sideways glance, lighting the path for what I can tell is more my sake than his.

I hadn't been able to look around properly when I was first dragged in her kicking and screaming.

The rock tunnel the cells are built into extends behind me, shrouded in an even thicker darkness that has me increasing my pace to stay close to him.

The bell rings out again for the fourth time as we pass dead prisoners and groaning prisoners, bleeding and moaning.

Others still, missing limbs and bearing wounds that could only have been inflicted by a sword.

Or in this case, two swords

There are others even stupidly still fighting among themselves.

Midas makes no move to stop them and they scamper out of his way, sneering and baring their teeth yet shrinking away from the light of his torch, not daring to come closer.

“Did you do this my Lord?”

I didn't care for the question, I cared even less for the answer but I needed to say something.

Now that the initial rush of fear has somewhat abated, I can think clearly enough to know it would not do to annoy the one leading me from this hell hole.

Although I’m whispering, I know he can hear me. He’s just deciding to ignore me.

When the bell rings for the fifth time, the criminals suddenly stop moving and I stop with them.

Then just as suddenly as they stopped, they begin to take on a frenzied pace to reach their cells, pushing and falling over each other .

They are voluntarily locking themselves back in.

Why?

My first thought is that maybe they are simply afraid of him.

But I have since discovered from my stay here, however brief, two very important things.

Whoever had come up with the cellar and it’s peculiar, gruesome brand of punishment was nothing less than a fiend.

I have no doubts it was his idea.

and that while sound travels eerily well in dark spaces, any noise in this accursed place could only spell certain doom.

So when a low strumming sound echoes through the length of the tunnel my heart fairly stops…again.

Oh gods what now, was there to be no end to this nightmare?

The sound grows louder, distorting the air around it and advancing at a rapid pace.

“M…my Lord...”

He stops so suddenly I almost crash into his back, steadying myself at the last moment.

“Stay behind me.”

A loud, bloodcurdling scream rents the air from the darkness ahead of us just as a sudden bright light illuminates the space and a burst of fierce warmth rushes at us.

“Is that…fire?”

I hear Midas mumble something along the lines of “fools” but I’m too distracted and frightened to care.

I don’t even realize I’m griping the sleeves of his shirt till he tilts his head and stares pointedly at my fingers, wrapped around his arm.

But I pretend not to notice.

If he wants my fingers off him he’s going to have to pry them off with a crowbar.

I keep staring into the dim space beyond, waiting, breath shaky for whatever had caused those screams.

And that’s when for the very first time, I see it.

I stand petrified.

I want to run but my feet are rooted to the spot and I can barely breathe.

Narrow openings in the creature’s bony angular jaw and the luminescent jade eyes with their narrow slit pupils shining from within give it a truly frightening reptilian appearance.

Two small horns sit atop its head just above its tiny round ears, its writing serpentine body a mass of scales that crackle with sudden bursts of electricity.

My grip tightens imperceptibly on his arms. He’s staring straight ahead, not moving.

Is he blind, did he not see the massive beast hurtling through the air towards us or did he care nothing if we roasted to death in this dark cramped tunnel?

“M…my lord!!”

Smoke pours out of its snout from two warped wide nostrils.

It opens its large mouth as it draws closer, revealing terrifyingly sharp teeth and from the dark depths of its yawning jaws, I can see a ball of fire beginning to form.

Then it clicks.

He is immortal and I am not.

And just when I think I am done for, the dragon lands in front of us, stirring up enough dust and wind in the tight space, that my hair is blown back, sand and grit finding their way into every opening in my face.

Its horrendous scythe-shaped wings beat with a rush and its massive tail, ending in a fan-like tip begin to swish from side to side.

And as I watch, scarcely able to believe my eyes and ears, a distinct rumbling sound emanates from its throat and when I can finally remember how to make my voice work, its tiny and filled with wonder.

“Is it…purring?”