Chapter 20
Twenty
It had been three 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 they certainly did not ask humans to stay.
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.
“Elowen.” His voice was gravel and smoke. Not quite right, but trying. “You…hurt?”
She blinked at him, and shook her head. “No. I’m not hurting.”
Midas tilted his head slightly. His gaze drifted toward her back, and she followed it instinctively, her breath catching at the memory. The post. The whip. The silence of the crowd. Her father.
Tears burned behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
“Hurt,” Midas repeated, though this time it was not poised as a question. It was a statement of fact. To him, her tears meant she was hurting, and she was, but not in the way he likely assumed.
Elowen shook her head again. She closed the distance between them, her knees resting on his thighs as she faced him. “No. I’m not hurting. I’m…sad.”
Midas made a sound then, somewhere between a growl and a sigh. It wasn’t of anger—it felt deeper than that. His tail curved around her again like it often did, never trapping, but shielding. Protecting.
He lifted his hand to her face, mindful of the claws at the ends of his fingers as he twisted a strand of her loose hair around them. He was careful not to yank it, but he wanted to compare it to his own that he mirrored after hers. His was thicker, darker, and lacked the elegant shine of hers.
“Midas,” Elowen whispered again after a long silence. “I do not want to go back.”
Her words made his breath catch, and he sat a little straighter as he met her gaze once more, golden eyes searching her lake-colored ones. “Stay,” he said. “Safe.”
She nodded. “Yes. I’d like to stay.”
Midas exhaled slowly and lowered his head until he could nuzzle his human-like nose against her throat. It was a dragon’s gesture, Elowen had learned. It meant trust.
She pressed her hands to his cheeks, holding his face in her palms. “You are safe with me, too.”
His tail wrapped around her just a bit tighter, like a treasure he would never lose again. Now, she was no longer a guest in his cave.
She was his. And she was home.