It had beensix days since Midas brought Elowen to his cave.
Outside, the world moved on, but in the cave, time was slow. Life thinned itself down to the barest essentials: warmth, breath, water, pain, rest, healing.
Midas had not left the cave once.
He had no need to, of course. He had been gathering things for her for weeks now—slowly trying to work up the courage to show her that she had a place amongst hishoard. But suddenly, that hoard held no pull, not when the most precious treasure he had ever known was an injured, fragile thing nestled in the coil of his tail.
He watched her sleep for hours. Not in a possessive way as he guarded his treasures, but in a vigilant way, for he would not let the cruelty of the world touch her again.
Now, when she woke, she smiled at him. Always smiling. And his tail, scaled and heavy, always moved with her. It was safer than interacting with her with his wings or his claws, for his tail possessed more fine dexterity than the rest of him. It was his way of shielding her.
He could not say it in her language yet, but Elowen could see it in his actions. Moreso, she saw it in an alcove carved into the cave walls, where the little treasures Midas had shared with her sat like a shrine. The pretty stone, a fresh rose, one of his scales, and even the dried flower crown she had made for him.
Elowen reached out, her hand trembling with emotion as she brushed her fingers along the delicate dried blooms tinged brown from age.
Midas watched quietly, his liquid gold eyes softening with her gentle presence alone. Her fingers left the flower crown to touch the sensitive patch of flesh just under his eye.
He leaned into her touch, and rumbled to her all the things he wanted to say to her, but did not have the human words for yet.
Twenty
It had beenthree days since Elowen last spoke of what the village did to her.
Midas had felt the weight of it in his chest. He had not asked her to talk about it, but when she cried quietly in her sleep when she thought he could not hear, he’d simply curled his tail around her more tightly.
She did not once ask to leave, but neither did she choose to stay. He had brought her here for safety, for protection, but her silence made it hard for Midas to understand what more she needed. What more he could do to convince her to stay with him.
Now, as the moon hung high over the lake outside the cave, Midas sat alone beside the fire, his body folded into a shape that could almost pass as human. His horns casted sharp shadows across the stone, his long tail coiled neatly beside him.
Elowen slept nearby, her back rising and falling in steady rhythm, her face soft in the firelight.
He’d protected her. That much he knew. He’d broken her bonds. He’d carried her through the storm and licked her wounds clean with the only tenderness his body understood. He had brought her safety where others would bring her harm.
But was that care, or was it ownership? Dragons did not ask to keep things, and theycertainlydid not ask humans tostay.
But Elowen was more than gold or gems to be hidden in a cave. She was not prey or prize or offering. She had chosen to save him when no one else would, and he had mistakenly pushed her away for it. He had no reason to assume she would forgive him for that. She had whispered gratitudes to him many times for saving her, but Midas knew that in the human tongue, thankfulness and forgiveness were not the same thing.
Earlier that day, she had gathered some of the things he’d collected for her and organized them in a basket near the fire. He had felt the cold edge of panic then, afraid she would leave.
But he did not stop her, nor did he ask her to stay, because if she wanted to leave and he tried to stop her, she would never come back.
And that fate would be worse than losing her to the village.
Midas rose slowly and crossed closer to her sleeping form where he knelt beside her. He inhaled her scent like the first breath of summer. Carefully, with the very tip of his tail, he reached for her and brushed a single strand of hair away from her face.
“Stay,” he begged quietly in human words. She stirred,but she didn’t wake. Instead, her hands shifted in her sleep and found the curve of his tail near her. She hugged it to her chest and exhaled with a deep breath of serenity.
Midas thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen, for it was the first time he had ever been trusted.
Chosen.
He closed his eyes, whispering to her again three of his favorite words:
“Stay. Elowen. Safe.”
Elowen awoke slowly,the fire casting its warm glow across the stone walls of the cave. She blinked against the dimness, the flicker of firelight soft against her vision. Midas wasn’t far. She could hear the low rumble of his breathing—the slow, steady sound of safety. She shifted slightly and turned her head.
He was curled nearby, not quite asleep. His eyes glowed faintly in the dark, slitted gold set deep into the contours of his not-quite-human face. She wondered how long he’d been watching her.
