Dragongrove_Mated to the Dragon King

by Imogen Sera

  “Relax, love,” she murmured. “Babies take time.”

  “I’m excited,” he said, grinning down at her.

  Her heart melted at that, and she took his hand in hers and squeezed it.

  After there was no response, she banged on the door loudly again. “Please, we need the midwife!” she shouted.

  There was a shuffling sound behind the thin door, and a tremulous old voice answered. “Come back in the morning. It’s not safe in the dark.”

  “We can’t wait until morning, there’s a woman in labor. It’s perfectly safe out here.”

  “She can cross her legs until morning. It is NOT safe, dragons have been spotted.”

  Ingrid sighed. “Agatha it’s me, Ingrid, from Dragongrove. I’m here with a friend and I promise you’re safe with us. This woman has never had a baby before and she needs you.”

  “It’s Ingrid?” She could practically hear the sneer in her voice. “I’ve heard of what’s going on in that house of yours. He told everyone. Dragon fucker.”

  Ingrid’s eyes widened and her fists clenched. “Listen you old fucking hag,” she punctuated the word with a hard kick on the door. “Get out here right fucking now or so help me I’ll-”

  “Agatha,” Helias suddenly boomed in a low voice that she’d never heard him use before. “Open the door.”

  Ingrid was shocked when she obeyed. Helias stepped into the small house, stood over the old woman, and positively glowered down at her. “Get your supplies,” he said in that strange voice. “We leave in five minutes.”

  The hateful old hag looked defiantly up at him; and suddenly power was radiating off of his huge body, and fire and fury flashed in his eyes. The woman scuttled off obediently.

  He stepped back outside to Ingrid and she gaped at him. He shrugged self consciously and pulled her close.

  “That’s an interesting trick,” she said.

  “I feel a little bad about this,” he murmured into her hair.

  Ingrid shrugged. “Annie needs her, I don’t know what else we’re supposed to do.”

  He nodded, still looking uncomfortable.

  “She won’t give us trouble, will she?” Ingrid asked.

  He shook his head. “She’ll obey until I let her stop. After my nephew is here I’ll bring her back with a pile of gold to assuage my guilt.”

  Ingrid kissed his palm softly. “Don’t feel guilty.” She thought a moment. “Who do you think she meant when she said he?”

  Helias shrugged and Agatha emerged from her house then, a doctor’s bag at her side.

  “Can you ride with her?” he asked, looking at Ingrid.

  Ingrid nodded and moments later they were on their way.

  . . . . .

  “No babies ever,” Ingrid said, looking pointedly at Helias. They were sitting on the floor outside of Annie’s room, and in the last hour the moaning inside had turned into grunting, and now nearly endless wailing.

  “Some babies?” he replied, looking so purposely pathetic she kissed him.

  “This feels like a conversation that we shouldn’t have outside of a laboring woman’s room.”

  Helias laughed and pulled her closer. Augustus was in the room with Annie and Agatha, and also, oddly, Mira. Annie had asked for her and Mira had seemed flattered to be chosen to offer support.

  Lily and John were in the hallway, chatting pleasantly, as was Tarquin, not chatting at all. Most of the other residents were in the parlor, and Ingrid could hear laughter and chatter drift up the stairs occasionally. There was a palpable excitement in the air, there hadn’t been a baby born at the house since Ingrid’s younger sister. This one was even more exciting, somehow, and Ingrid had overheard bets from the downstairs about whether the baby would be born with wings.

  Caelian was in the infirmary with Margaret but he’d asked to be kept updated. Rebecca had volunteered gladly for the role of messenger; the poor girl hadn’t realized that he had eyes for no one but his unconscious mate.

  The night wore on, and eventually John and Lily left, and only Tarquin remained with them. Ingrid was finally able to convey her odd conversation with Annie, and Helias had a strange look in his eyes. He asked if Annie had described her guard, and seemed disappointed when Ingrid shook her head.

  Ingrid pressed against him, and suddenly her stomach was flip flopping and her body felt too small to hold her.

  “This is exciting,” she said taking his big hand in hers. “Can you feel it in the air? It feels like change.”

  He glanced at her strangely. “You’re not usually one to acknowledge feeling something in the air.”

  She shrugged. “Lily’s rubbing off on me.”

  Ingrid must have drifted off, because she woke a time later resting comfortably on Helias’s lap. The door to Annie’s room was open, and from inside there were hushed, angry voices. She looked up at Helias in alarm, and his jaw was set determinedly.

  “Oh god,” she breathed, sitting up quickly. “What’s happened?”

  “It’s a boy,” he said flatly, then gestured for her to go into the room, and she did, scarcely daring to breathe. There was Annie, looking exhausted and dazed, but well enough, and Augustus standing next to her, hand on her shoulder; and there on her chest was the precious baby, and Ingrid could see that he was breathing. She whispered a silent prayer of thanks, and then she held back a gasp as she saw his tiny face. He was perfect— with a pouty little mouth, a tiny upturned nose, and dark eyes that were already open. He was perfect except for the telltale boils that covered his darling little face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Helias was gone when Ingrid left the room, but Tarquin stood outside the room facing her.

  “Do you know what you have to do?” he asked, and she nodded.

  She went straight to the library. She found Helias there; pacing, muttering to himself, misery all over his beautiful face. He turned to her when he heard her come in, and he looked at her as if he wanted to break down and cry.

  “We have to do it now, Ingrid,” he said before she could cross the room to him. “It has to burn now.”

  She nodded, and kept her distance. He was agitated.

  “You don’t understand,” he began, “it’s dragon fire. It won’t- it won’t leave anything untouched.”

  She watched him, waiting for him to elaborate, eyes wide.

  “We have to do it, but I can’t hurt you like this,” he said, shuddering.

  She walked to him then and let him envelop her in his arms. “You mean the house, don’t you?” she said, her head pressed against his chest.

  “The house, the grove… I don’t know.”

  She shivered. “When will you do it?”

  “Soon, it has to be soon, we don’t know how the illness will affect a new baby and-” he made an odd jerking movement then, and Ingrid realized it was a sob. Her heart felt like it was breaking.

  She pulled back from his embrace and held his face between her hands. “Half a day, alright? Noon tomorrow. That gives us time to move the patients and some time for the residents to remove their belongings. If the baby seems to take a turn for the worse then we’ll do it as soon as the patients are safe.”

  He nodded and took a deep breath. “I should be comforting you,” he said, holding her hand.

  “Shh,” she said, smiling at him. “This is my house and I’ll decide what happens here.”

  He held her against him for a moment before she pulled away again.

  “I need to get word out,” she began. “Will you find Caelian and let him know the plan?”

  Helias nodded.

  “Have him start preparing the patients to be moved. We’ll probably need you and your brothers to actually move them, it will be much faster…” she trailed off. “I’m just thinking out loud. Find Caelian, I’m going to find John.”

  She set off then, determined. There was a deep ache in her chest when as she walked down the hall, wondering if that was the last time she would ever set foot in her father’s libra
ry. She pushed the painful thought aside and strode off toward the parlor.

  . . . . .

  Ingrid had sent Ian to town to return Agatha with her payment, and to try to bring back as many carts and horses as possible, promising to pay their owners well for the favor. He had done his job well; there were sixteen carts of various shapes and sizes, and almost all of the patients had been carefully moved to open land just north of Dragongrove. Margaret still remained, as did Annie and her baby, but they were next to be moved. After that the residents would have the remaining two hours to collect their things; then they would join the patients there once time was up, so that they were a safe distance from the dragon fire. After that Ingrid didn’t know. She looked around at her friends, at the people she’d made into her family over the last eight years. Ingrid pushed the thought carefully from her mind, so as to not reel from the consuming pain in her chest. Helias was watching her carefully whenever they crossed paths during the morning’s work, and she forced a smile onto her face every time she noticed.

  Finally all of the patients were moved. Augustus and Caelian remained with them while the others emptied the house of what they could. Helias and Tarquin were tasked with saving what they could from the library, and an entire cart had been reserved for the ancient tomes. Helias kissed her passionately before setting to his task, and then she had wandered slowly to her room, wondering how she could possibly choose what to save.

  She would have chosen to save it all, stone by stone, each as precious to her as the last; if only she’d had the time. She opened the door to her room and surveyed it as if she was seeing it for the first time. There was her mother’s vanity, complete with her hand mirror and perfume. Ingrid had never worn it, but she liked to spray it sometimes and shut her eyes to pretend her mother was near. The perfume then, and the mirror. They were both small enough to not be a burden.

  Over the fireplace was a portrait of her father, and she pushed her stool over to retrieve it and add it to her pile. On the other wall there was a smaller portrait of her whole family, even Emily, although she had only been an infant when it was made. She removed it and smiled sadly as she rubbed her fingers over the once so familiar faces that were nearly faded from her memory.

  There was a ledger on the table in the corner that she had carefully not touched all these years. She lifted it now and blew off the dust. The book itself wasn’t special to her, but inside was her father’s handwriting. She held it to her chest briefly and added it to her growing collection.

  She looked at the bed, then. The bed itself was a masterpiece, carved by hand by her grandfather, to please her grandmother. It was the bed that, as a child, she would climb into at night after she had a nightmare. It was the bed she’d crawled into, weeping and broken, after everyone was burned away. It was where she had first given herself to Helias. It obviously wouldn’t be coming with her, so she retrieved a small knife from the bathroom and spent some time trying to cut off a piece of it. She succeeded in cutting her thumb and hacking off a rough edge that looked like a scrap of wood, but she added it to her pile anyway, and then laid her head against the big headboard one more time.

  “I miss you,” she whispered into the wood, not entirely sure who she was talking to. She missed them all so much that it made her ache all over, and she pulled herself away as tears came to her eyes. There would be time for grief later, now she needed to collect what she could.

  On the bed was the quilt that her grandmother had made and gifted to her parents at their wedding; it was folded neatly and added to the other items. She turned her attention to the cupboard in the corner, another item that she had carefully avoided since the plague had come. She opened it now and inhaled the scent of her father; it made her stagger briefly before she composed herself. Inside were neatly folded linens, and she searched through them until she found a small pink crocheted blanket. Her mother had learned to crochet upon learning of her pregnancy with Emily, and had made this for her younger daughter. It was full of dropped stitches and smelled of dust and smoke. It was precious to her. Ingrid looked around the room. There was so much- so much she would be leaving to the fire.

  She laid her chosen items on the bed, and then left down the hall toward the room she hadn’t ventured into in nearly a decade. She opened the door and sunlight was streaming in through the windows, illuminating the heavy dust in the air. She took a deep breath and stepped in. She looked down at the small bed, dusty sheets still rumpled, piled with long forgotten stuffed animals. She smiled a watery smile and lifted the pillow to her nose. There was no Emily scent, just dust; Ingrid was almost relieved. On the nightstand there was a cup and a small red hair ribbon, Ingrid took the ribbon and pocketed it. She turned to open the closet and searched through the hanging clothing for her second favorite of Emily’s dresses. Emily had been burned in Ingrid’s favorite.

  Her mother’s handwriting on a high shelf caught her eye, on a box labeled ‘Ingrid’s Belongings’. She stood on her tiptoes to retrieve it, then opened it curiously. There were some small dresses, a blanket, a large ring- no, a tiny bracelet. She shut the box and rested it on her hip while she retrieved Emily’s dress.

  “Goodbye, sweet girl,” she whispered into the forgotten room, then shut the door carefully and carried her treasures back to her bedroom.

  Helias was there, now, examining her small collection of things. He smiled sadly at her, and she tried hard to keep her composure.

  “I still need to pack some clothing,” she said, and he silently followed her to the closet. She picked out a few practical things, while he found the pretty pink dress she’d worn to the inn on the day they had met and the nightgown that she’d worn the night she’d first kissed him in the garden. He looked sheepish as he held up his selections, and her chin trembled.

  She found a large traveling bag, and Helias helped her fill it with everything she had collected. It sat on the bed looking small and inadequate.

  “That’s everything,” she said, looking at her bag and swallowing the grief that threatened to erupt in her. She turned to her mate and embraced him briefly. “May I have a minute?” she asked, and he smiled sadly, kissed her forehead, and left the room.

  Ingrid stood in the familiar room for the last time, and was overcome with a sense of finality. This home had been her family’s for as long as anyone could remember. But not anymore.

  “Goodbye,” she said to the empty room. “I’m sorry.”

  Then she left the room one last time, descended the staircase, and walked through the front door into the sunlight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Ingrid ran down the list of names a third time, ensuring that no one remained in the house. After finding everyone present she handed the list to Lily and asked her to check it, too. Lily teased her briefly, but after seeing the look on Ingrid’s face she became serious, hugged her friend tightly, and began her task. A moment later Lily gave her a thumbs up from across the group, and Ingrid approached Helias, who was deep in conversation with Tarquin. She put her small hand on his arm and he turned to her, sorrow in his eyes.

  “Everyone’s accounted for, it’s time,” she said, not quite making eye contact. He tilted her chin up gently to look into his eyes. Her chin trembled. “I’m trying to keep myself together, Helias.”

  He took her hand and led her a short way from the group, then cupped her face with his big hands. “Ingrid,” he began, his bright eyes intent on her, “you’re wonderful and you’re kind and you’re selfless. What you’re doing matters.” Her chest tightened.

  She glanced over at poor Annie, looking dazed, huddled with Augustus and clutching her baby to her chest. She nodded at Helias and he kissed her, hard but quickly, and then walked back to collect his brothers.

  Ingrid stayed where she was until they disappeared from view, and when they took flight she came over to Annie and sat next to her. John came to sit on her other side and clasped her hand tightly. “Thank you for sharing your home with me,” he said quietly, an
d she turned and gave him a tremulous smile.

  The group watched in silence, but as the brothers soared toward the manor Ingrid turned her face to the baby in Annie’s arms.

  “He’s so beautiful,” Ingrid said to her, and Annie touched his sweet little nose and agreed. She could hear the roar of flames, and even from here could feel the heat. She concentrated on the child’s clear dark eyes and tiny pink mouth. Long minutes later Ingrid heard a deafening shuddering, groaning noise, and she knew the house was gone. She kept her attention on the baby, his tiny clenched fists, his shock of red hair.

  After another moment there was silence, and when she looked up from the baby Annie had a hand over her mouth, watching the destruction. Ingrid didn’t want to see.