Midas set Elowen down gently in a pile of coins, for he had nothing softer for her. Her back was a ruin of flesh—long red welts that bled from the ripped skin.
Midas didn’t know what to do. She lay broken there because of him, wheezing in pain. He lowered his great head near her back, and even his breath fanning across her bare back made her flinch violently.
A sound rose in his chest. A sound of grief—wild and terrible. Hesitantly, his tongue flicked out and he began to lick the wounds. He was soft and careful, like a lion grooming her cubs. It was instinct. It was an apology. It was a promise that he would never doubt her again.
She whimpered. Midas stilled. He watched her soft,slender fingers twitch and moved to meet her eyes, half-opened and leaking tears.
“Midas,” she cried softly. He pressed his snout gently into her fingers. He made a soft sound of sorry, and her mouth twitched into a joyless smile. “Thank you.”
Then, she slipped into sleep once more.
And Midas, ancient and mighty and ferocious, curled around her like a fortress of scales and fire. He thought of that village once more, and his body tensed with rage. If Elowen had not been in such a state, he would have stayed and razed it to the ground.
They had tied those same gentle hands that mended their wounds and healed their illnesses to a post and struck her until her blood pooled on the stones.
He had scorched villages for less.
She does not belong to them anymore, he thought.She is mine now.
But not as a treasure. She was not his to be locked away or hoarded or hidden. She was his like fire was his.
Midas ached to groom her wounds again, but did not want to wake her to pain.No, he had to learn softness. He had to learn tenderness.
He had to learn all the things he almost lost when he forced her away.
Nineteen
Elowen woketo warmth at her back. It wasn’t the heat of fire, though one cracked softly nearby in a crater carved into the stone. It also wasn’t the burn of the lashes down her back, for that was aching and wrong. This warmth was…different. Soothing, almost like being held in a dream and gently coaxed awake.
She blinked slowly to the sight of moss above her head and the smell of earth surrounding her. And…something else sharp and wild.
She shifted and winced, her body shivering with white-hot pain. She trembled as she moved, and her body broke into a new sweat as her skin pulled tight at her back. The simple act of breathing made the pain worse.
But she was alive, and somehow, she remembered why.
The pain had stolen her cries for mercy, and yet, Midas had still come for her. She remembered the flash of him in the lightning, the way the world went quiet at his approach.
She turned her head, just slightly, and he was there.
He wasn’t sleeping of course. He never truly rested where she was involved. He was coiled around her like a living barricade, one of his wings hovering above her to block out the light from the fire in case it was too bright for her tired eyes. His body radiated heat, and his breath was slow and controlled as his golden eyes watched her.
Her lips cracked painfully when she tried to force a smile. He dipped his head at once, the tip of his snout gently nudging her hairline. He inhaled, checking for the stench of sickness, of infection.
“Midas,” she whispered to him, just so that he knew she saw him, that she still trusted him, and that she felt safe there wrapped in his tail. He rumbled back to her, quietly, answering in his own way.
Her lips smacked together, dry and crusty. Midas nudged a shallow clay bowl closer to her mouth with his claw, and even slightly tilted it so that she wouldn’t have to strain to take a drink.
With the burn in her throat cooled by the water, her eyes met his again. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I tried to warn you. I would never hurt you, Midas.” Her throat closed as tears pricked in her eyes once more. “They forced me to make the poison.”
His chest rumbled again, and he simply offered her more water, staying there unmoving until she finished the bowl. His way of showing that he believed her.
With the help of his tail, he propped her up slightly, and that’s when she got her first real look at where they were. It was a large, cool cave, every inch of the walls piled high with golden coins and other treasures. In the corner nearestthe fire, there was a small pile of what she could only describe ashuman things: dried meats, a basket of fruits, jars of creams that smelled of potent healing salves, water, and even a pile of clothes, pelts, and blankets. Not things a dragon would make space for, but things he had gathered for her.
Elowen suddenly began to sob into his scales, hiccuping thank yous in between breaths. Midas simply tightened his tail coiled around her, careful not to shift her too much or too quickly.
She drifted in and out of sleep after that for a few more hours. When she would wake, Midas would always have another bowl of water ready. Once, she stirred awake to find a perfectly ripe pear, crushed by his claws so that she didn’t have to force her teeth through the skin.
And all the time, she clung to him like she was afraid it was all a dream.
