By the third month of the pregnancy, I’m pretty much clinging to my list of grievances from before he turned over this new leaf, looking for any reason, any reason at all not to give into this.
Sure, he’s spectacular in bed. More spectacular than a 15K virgin has any right to be. But it’s not like I would have ever chosen to have sex with him if he hadn’t forcibly arranged for himself to be there when I went into heat. I’ve got to remember that.
The day after I decided that both this baby and me are going to live, I came downstairs to find him at the desk in the receiving room, tapping with two index fingers on Colby’s laptop. When I get closer, I see there a document called up on the screen with the words, “OLA’S FAVORITE DISHES” at the top.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Looking over the recipes the chef at your old Detroit kingdom house gave Colby after I god spoke him.”
“You mean Antonio?” I translated. “You hypnotized my old cook?”
“Yes, how else would Colby know how to keep you in the comfort you deserve as the Queen of Drakkon?” he answered, still scrolling.
I blinked. “I thought all this ‘my queen’ business was about my North Dakota title. You’re trying to make me the queen of dragons, too?”
Finally, he looked up from the screen to answer, “There is no trying, Reverence. You were the queen of our race from the moment you became pregnant with our next ruler. Our son will be the King of both drakkon and wolves, whether our subjects like it or not.”
I hold up my hands. “Wait, the other dragons aren’t on board?”
“It matters not whether they are on board or not. I am their king. They will show you proper respect.”
“That’s, like, the opposite of how wolf royalty operates,” I let him know.
“Yes, I’ve pointed out the design flaws in your species many times before,” he returns.
“Yeah, just like I’ve pointed out you can be an arrogant asshole. Looks like we both need to keep on posting them reminders,” I shoot back. But then I think of Xenon’s top-secret twins and have to ask, “And what if it’s a girl?”
“It’s a boy,” he assured me.
I narrowed my eyes at his too quick answer. “Is this science or a feeling?”
“I will make these Eggs Antonio for breakfast and lamb stew for lunch and perhaps dinner if there is any leftover,” he said, instead of answering my question.
And damn if his Eggs Antonio (also known as Eggs Benedict with scrambled eggs outside the Detroit kingdom house) weren’t delicious. Probably because unlike me, Damianos had enough attention span to actually follow a written-out recipe from start to finish.
I scarfed down every bite.
But then my eyes fell on the kitchen’s other knobbed door. More specifically the new bit of hardware now attached to it. A padlock.
He’d asked me to trust him…and then made sure I would, rather I wanted to or not. I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s Damianos. The real Damianos.
I had to remember that.
Other than the padlock, our lives went back to the same old routine, but this time with sex.
We still go on walks every morning after breakfast. Or as I began to call it after another four weeks passed my daily waddle.
Damianos shortens his stride and slows his pace to a crawl to accommodate me. He also began complimenting me excessively on still being able to walk after I reached my third month.
And when I told him I was able to carry what feels like a thirty-pound medicine ball because all of the strength training I used to do, he says, “It is as if both of our designers collaborated to give me you as a gift, one I will treasure always.”
As compliments go, that one didn’t suck. And it was a lot better than all the people who used to try to body shame me because I don’t look like other girls who work out regularly.
But his compliments don’t mean much, I often remind myself. I’m only pregnant with the heaviest baby ever because he manipulated me and so many other people to knock me up. I’ve got to remember that.
He reveres me all day and (in my best R&B bass baritone) all night. But he’ll never give me the chance to compare him to anyone else.
He cooks my favorite things…after he god spoke my chef and the Fenrir Wolf knows who else.
He grants my every wish, except letting me out of this collar.
I’ve got to remember that.
I’ve got to remember that.
I’ve got to, got to, got to remember that.
“Reverence, whatever are you doing?”
That morning while I’m making breakfast, the dragon king's voice suddenly appears in my head, frantic and harsh.
I look up from the stove, to find him at the door leading out to the living room, his eyes glowing even brighter than usual.
“Oh, I’m making us grits and, like, a ton of ham for breakfast,” I answer. “What’s up with you?”
His glowing eyes shift from me to the stove. “Why would you do that? I am your acolyte everlasting, especially in these late days of your pregnancy. You should have left the making of these grits and ham to me.”
“Wow, no thank you,” I answer. “These are my Great Granddad’s grits, boy. And while I’m all for super-evolving both our races like Xenon said, there are some things black people just aren’t capable of letting white people cook for them. Especially if that white person isn’t from the south like my Great Granddad. Or an actual white person at all. Because he’s a dragon from another planet.”
It’s a joke. I’m expecting him to rumble laugh like he does so often. But he just stands there, staring at me with a wounded look. Like I’ve stabbed him in the neck again.
“When I woke up and saw you were gone from our bed, I thought you had made another attempt to run. I feared you were hurt.”
“Oh…” I say, suddenly getting it.
I turn down the burner. “Listen, I get it. For the first few years after my dads got back from the Viking age, Fensa and me would freak out every time they left the house. But…”
I gaze up at him, making my eyes soft and sincere. “Do you see how fucking pregnant I am? I can barely waddle around the house. You do not have to worry about me running away. And even if I did, all you would have to do is walk out the door. You’d probably catch up with my slow ass in one or two minutes tops. You wouldn’t even have to pop your wings.”
He gives me a chiding look, but then gives in with the rumble laugh I was expecting before. “How you amuse me, Reverence. In truth, I am eager to try these grits.”
“In truth, they are going to blow your fucking mind. Nobody on earth made grits better than my great granddad. Like all black people say that about whoever made them grits growing up, but this is the only case where it’s true. Fight me.”
“Why would I…oh, this is another one of your euphemisms,” Damianos realizes before he finishes asking the question. “I will make the ham while you attend to the sacred dish only black people can make.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Thank you,” I say, wiggling my butt as I go back to stirring my grits.
I stay in a great mood, even though Damianos only takes a little nibble of the straight manna I made before declaring it, “Quite tasty for an unnecessary grain,” and going right back to his huge plate of ham.
I hadn’t been lying when I said he could catch me if I ran, easily. But…
“I woke up early with a lot of energy for some reason,” I tell Damianos as I’m finishing up my first bowl of grits and he’s cutting into his second plate of ham. “I feel like I could take a really long walk, or”—I wiggle my eyebrows at him—“take you on a very nice ride.”
It’s been over a week since I’ve had enough energy to do anything but lie on my side like a beached whale during sex as Damianos took us both across the finish line. So I’m expecting him to be like, “Yassss, Reverence! Let’s do this!”
But instead, he lowers his fork, and a certain dread floods my mate bo
nd.
“What?” I ask, putting down my spoon.
“You are within days, or perhaps mere hours of labor. The Betrayer King explained that before Golden Son was born, his treasured mate also had a sudden burst of ecstatic energy. It is your body flooding you with adrenaline and endorphins to aid you in your labor.”
Okay, well I put my fork down, too. “Wow, really? Because that’s the basic opposite of human and wolf births. We’re just in a lot of pain.”
“Perhaps your original designer was so surprised by your race’s outrageously high reproductive rates that they made birth painful to discourage you from replicating like rabbits,” he says with a thoughtful look.
“What did you just say?” I start to ask.
“There is no time for questions, Reverence. I must prepare a nest for you of blankets and pillows, so that you may lay our hatchling. We’ll also need towels and other necessary sanitation tools.”
He starts to leave the room, but then he stops and looks back at me.
And his expression…there’s no way to describe it. Not anger, I realize right away after checking in with our mate bond. It’s more like distress with a weird layering of grief on top.
If I wasn’t sitting right there, I’d think I’d already died from the way he’s looking back at me.
And I find myself asking him, “What’s wrong?” even though I’m the one whose apparently in the early stages of labor.
He doesn’t answer.
And I’m starting to get scared. Really scared. So scared that for the first time ever, I push into his head. “Damianos…baby…what’s wrong. Talk to me. You’re scaring me.”
He jerks his head as if my words inside his head have ripped him out of some sort of trance.
Then he says, “I…I can’t do this. I shouldn’t do this. If anything goes wrong, it is once again my fault.”
“What?” I ask for what feels like the umpteenth time this morning.
He turns all the way back around and walks over to where I’m still sitting with my empty plate.
“I must…I must grant you access to your family,” he says, his voice quiet inside my head now. Somber. “If this labor does not go as planned and there is any chance they might help you…”
He reaches his hand out to my collar and presses into it with his thumb.
And just like that, the collar loosens around my neck.
With a noiseless whomp, my head suddenly fills with the sounds of my rebooting system.
“Your GoGen chip was turned off without sufficient notice,” a perfectly modulated voice informs me. “Running emergency diagnostic check…”
I look at Damianos, unable to believe he did this. He gave me my freedom. Just gave it to me, without any warning at all.
“So you’re letting me go?” I ask, a weird ugly emotion washing over me. “What happened to one of us having to be dead?”
“I’ll never truly let you go. Until my dying day, you will remain in my heart.” His voice is little more than a harsh whisper inside my head now with all the rebooting notices popping off. “But I do not want our hatchling born to an imprisoned mother. I want what I envisioned for us, a wedding in front of your wolves and my drakkon. What you talked about during our last round of heat sex…the matching yellow flame you call love. I want that for him. And I want that for you. And therefore, I cannot make the same mistakes as before. This is a second chance, and this time I must do right by you.”
I stare at him. Not knowing what to say. Or what to do.
“Alert! Alert!” my biochip screams at me. “You are in the early stages of labor. Please proceed carefully to the nearest hospital. Would you like me to call an ambulance for you?”
He’s let me go. Because he sees it.
And suddenly….
I see it, too. How amazing these last three months have been once we stopped battling. And what we could be if I choose him like he’s chosen me.
A ride-never-die couple. An epic love story.
The happy ending my soul has been craving all along.
No, I didn’t ever make any promises to him that I would feel obligated to keep. But I didn’t have to.
My heart…he was right. From the moment our eyes met, it belonged to him. I belong to him. We belong to each other.
Vows…no need. Him and me are the fucking vow.
It’s been a while since I had access to thought commands, but somehow, I immediately know what to do. “System Power Down,” I say both out loud and inside my head, then I swipe my eyes sharply to the left to push enter on the command.
By the time my eyes swing back, my dragon king’s expression has gone from determined to shock. “You turned your biosystem off.”
“Yeah,” I answer inside his head, just as shocked as him. “I turned it off.”
His eyes suddenly drop down my body. “And your flame…it is burning yellow. Does it…?” He looks back up at me, his eyes tender and scared. Like he’s afraid to hope. “Does it burn yellow for me?”
I nod wordlessly.
“But why, Reverence? Why have you decided to bless me in this manner?”
Still not a crying bitch, but there’s definitely some sheen in my eyes as I look up at him. “I guess it’s like you said. This love. Us. It wasn’t ever a decision. Not really. I think you’re right about us being fated mates, even if we didn’t do the whole gate thing. And if my people come, this ends. Right here. Right now. I don’t want that. I want you. For the rest of my life, just like you promised. So now, I’m making you a promise. We’re going to make this work, you and me. We’re going to kill this family beef, so that we can get married in front of my wolves and your drakkon, just like you envisioned. You’ve got my promise on that, and I never, ever break my promises.”
“Oh, Reverence…”
His beautiful, perfectly symmetrical face…how could I have ever thought it as cold as a statue? It’s now soft with gratitude, disbelief, and all the other things that make up that ineffable feeling called love.
“You are my fated mate,” he says, taking my face in his hands. “The most perfect female in all galaxies. And you honor me. You honor me so verily with your flame. I promise you as you have promised me, I will do whatever it takes to make both your wishes and mine come true.”
Okay, well, I’m descended from a whole bunch of crazy epic happily ever afters. So I know what comes next.
This is the part where after having both finally gotten out of our own ways, my love and I uncomplicate everything and simply resolve to be together forever. No more drama. No more misery.
The dark night of the soul has passed. Damianos has proven himself to me. And now we get to kiss the hell out of each other, knowing that no matter what his subjects and my family think, this happily ever after will be forever.
Damianos isn’t from around here, but I can tell he gets it too by the way his eyes glow as he looks down at me, adoring and intense.
“I love you, baby,” I say quickly, wanting to get in those final words before we do this happy ending shit.
“And I love you, too, Reverence. My flame will burn yellow for you until the day it extinguishes.”
“Wow, you are so much better at sweet talking than me. Will you just get down here?” I grab the front of his shirt to pull him the rest of the way down for our final kiss.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what I said before about wanting drama-free love. I know that this is the opposite of that—not to mention all kinds of wrong.
But it feels right.
This wrong love is what I want.
What my soul needs.
And I close my eyes as we make it happen.
Only to open them again a few seconds later, when the kiss never comes.
The sweater Damianos was wearing…it’s now hanging slack in my arms. And there are a pair of pants lying in a pool on the floor along with topsiders and socks.
What the Fenrir Wolf?
I look all around, sure this is some kind of joke. A rea
lly bad one, that I’d probably be laughing at right now if my heart wasn’t hammering in my chest due to the sudden disappearance of the male I just pledged to love forever.
But Damianos is nowhere to be seen in the kitchen. Or the living room.
Okay, what the Fenrir Wolf? What the Fenrir Wolf? What the fucking Fenrir Wolf.
Thankfully, the wolf part of me kicks in before I can completely freak out.
My wolf sniffs the air and catches his distinct fire scent. He’s in the house I’m assured. She’s just not exactly sure where.
Cutting my panic attack short, I see what she means. I can’t see him, but I can smell him. Not quite close by. But also, not far away.
I start sniffing in the direction of the door leading to the living room, only to stop when the scent starts to fade. Is he outside then? No… the same thing happens when I start sniffing toward the door.
Now, I’m more than irritated. The baby’s also twisting and turning. Not so much that it’s painful, but definitely more than usual. I think Damianos and my biosystem were right. It’s coming. Soon….
“Damianos!” I yell. “Damianos, where are you? If this is some kind of trick or joke, it’s officially not fucking funny. This baby wants out, and I don’t want to do this without you!”
I wait, all the things he’s said about revering me, about loving me until his flame extinguishes echoing in my head. But no answer.
“Damianos!” I yell again. I clutch my squirming stomach, feeling alone for the very first time in my life.
“Damianos…baby…please…” I plead into mental air, my badass bitch voice totally breaking.
“My queen…”
His voice drops into my head. Small like it’s coming from somewhere far, far away. But I can smell him. I can smell him like he’s in the other room, even though the scent gives out whenever I try to leave the kitchen.
Where else could he be? I look up, trying to think what would be above the kitchen. A bedroom, maybe? A bathroom?
But no, the kitchen ceiling is too high up for his scent to be emanating this big. It’s like it’s rising directly into my nose.
Her Dragon Captor (Her Dragon King Duet Book 1): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 1 Page 21
