The Selection: Bride Of The Dark Dragon

LARA

I felt how my cheeks flushed and tried to distance myself from him but Demir did not let me. Instead, his grasp on me only became tighter. Yet he had to break the k**s when I started taping on his shoulders.

“Stop it!” I hissed, feeling embarrassed. Suddenly I was aware that I was wearing a simple linen dress and did not have any shoes on. My hair was a mess and Demir only had his pants on. It was clear as a day what exactly we were doing while we were missing.

“At least one of you has some sense of respect for others,” princess Primrose rolled her eyes, while her hands were crossed on her chest.

“You want something, Prim?” Demir asked his sister nonchalantly. As if it was not a big deal.

“Yes,” her face looked indifferent but I saw sparks of golden magic in her eyes from time to time, signaling that in fact, the princess was furious.

“Speak,” the man who held me gave his permission and I felt really uncomfortable. The last thing I wanted was to be in a middle of a quarrel between the royal siblings.

“I’d prefer to do it in private and without witnesses,” the princess narrowed her eyes.

“Anything you have to tell me, you can tell in front of my soulmate and the future Empress,” Demir cur her off.

His words sounded like thunder in a middle of a calm day for both of us. I never realized before that moment that being with him could actually make me a royalty. Prim did not look happy about that either.

“So, now we are going to discuss how you abandoned the official event without even making a proper appearance in the middle of a passage hall?” the redhead girl seemed angrier by the minute.

“Look,” I decided to interfere, “I really don’t have to be here. I’d better go.”

I tried to step away, but the emperor pulled me back by my hand, making me slam into his chest.

“Seriously?!” Prim rolled her eyes again.

“Demir,” I put my hand on his chest, “Talk to your sister. If you’d want to tell me later, you will. I trust you.”

He looked conflicted at first but nodded in the end and I curtsied awkwardly to the princess before hurrying to my room.

Inside, Lisa and Sandra were already waiting for you.

“How was it, my lady?!” Lisa asked eagerly but her friend only smirked.

“Don’t you see, silly?” she pointed at my clothes, “It went great!”

I bit my lips and just nodded at them and they both giggled excitedly.

Then they started to lament about how horrible my hair looked now and how much work they have again. They took me to the bathroom and we literally spent hours there. We chatted the whole time and it was mostly Sandra telling us how she was dancing with the dark lords at the ball and how when the masks were off, she ended up in the arms of a knight. She was generally happy with how her once-in-a-lifetime ticket to the higher society paid off.

I was having lunch at my balcony when an unexpected guest arrived. It was a girl, just slightly older than my maids but by the respect they were showing to her, her position was higher. They led her to me and she announced arrogantly, “Princess Primrose would like to invite you for a walk in the garden.”

“Of course,” I smiled weakly, “When…”

“Now!” the girl interrupted me, “She is already waiting for you.”

“Of course,” I sighed and wiped my mouth with a napkin, then put it aside and stood up, “Lead the way,…erm..”

“Lady Fiona,” the girl smiled for the first time, “I am lady-in-waiting for the princess.”

She led me to the garden, where Primrose was already waiting, pacing under one of the ancient trees.

“Your Highness,” I curtsied respectfully as soon as she noticed me.

“Raise,” she commanded and then took my elbow, pulling me deeper into the bushy labyrinths of the royal gardens, “My brother will be busy at the Council meeting for the next few hours, so I thought that you and I could talk finally.”

We walked for a while but stayed quiet the whole time, and I saw that the princess was conflicted.

“I know you are disappointed to see me here,” I sighed and she looked at me finally, “You got me my wings and I am still here… And I am probably not the kind of girl you want your brother to be with… Not perfect, not a princess..”

“You may not be a princess and yet your brother at the White Archipelago is ready to start a war for you,” she looked at me intensely.

“The Council wouldn’t let him,” I assured her, “And neither will Keatar, our leader. It doesn’t work like that. Gideon is powerful but he is not that powerful.”

“Still,” she looked away and we continued walking in silence for some time before she stopped and turned to face me, “Lara, I don’t want you to think that I think about you as not worthy of my brother in any sense. It’s not like that… I see how happy he is with you. I haven’t seen him smile like that for a while. Being the emperor drained fun and happiness out of his life and you… I see that you managed to bring it back for him. But there were other reasons why I thought that the two of you shouldn’t be together…”

I listened carefully, expecting her to reveal those reasons yet she stayed quiet.

“However, after careful consideration,” she made the pause and raised her brow. And for a second, I thought that she was going to banish me from the palace that very moment. “I approve,” she announced, and my lips parted in shock.

“Really, Your Highness?” I gasped.

“Yes, and since you are my brother’s soulmate and future empress of the Gerdian Empire, I insist that you call me just Prim from now on,” she beamed at me and a part of me still thought that it might be a trick. Yet we kept walking and she seemed friendly.

“All right, Your… I mean, Prim,” I smiled.

“So, Lara,” she gazed at me mischievously, “Since you are staying, we are going to be spending all our free time together. I will be turning you into the perfect Empress that the Empire needs so much! And, no offense, but we have a lot of work to do.”

“None taken,” I smiled weakly, “I am not sure though… I mean… we never talked about me being an empress. We did not discuss anything like that yet…”

“Well, what’s there to discuss?” she smirked, “he is the emperor, you are his soulmate. It was clear from the start that you’ll end up being our empress.”

“Not to me,” I gave her an uneasy grin.

“That bad, huh?” she giggled, covering her mouth.

I was about to reply when we heard a few ladies talking loudly on the other side of the green labyrinth wall.

“I am so disappointed that Demir was busy yesterday!” one said and I recognized the voice at once.

“I am sure that if he was there, he would spend the whole evening with you, Camelia,” another lady assured her friend, “Especially considering that your husband was absent!”

“I know,” Camelia sighed, “By the way, have you seen the princess?”

“Yes, so many lords wanted to dance with her! She had absolutely no free time yesterday!” a third lady chuckled.

“See, this is where I don’t get it,” the fourth one interjected, “I know that she is beautiful and all. But going after her is just suicidal! What are they thinking?! No beauty is worth dying young!”

I looked at Prim in shock and she moved her perfectly manicured index finger to her lips, signaling me to stay quiet. I obeyed of course even though I wanted to call those gossips and make them apologize to the princess.

“Oh, don’t remind me!” their voices seemed to be further from us now, “I had so much trouble yesterday making my brother stay away from her. I don’t want her to fall in love with him and sign his death with the dragon gods! No woman is worth it!”

They all burst out laughing and I turned back to the princess to see that she was walking in a different direction. For once this perfect royal had trouble keeping her feeling locked and for a second there it even seemed that there was a little tear at the end of her long lashes. But she quickly blinked it away and sat at the edge of a fountain that we approached.

“Don’t listen to them,” I told her when I joined her, “No offense, but some gerdian ladies have poisoned tongues.”

“Some do,” she admitted with a vague smile that reminded me of her brother, “But they were not lying…”

“What do you mean?” I asked her bluntly even though the princess did not look like it was an easy topic for her.

“Long time ago a dragon Seer said that I will never be with the man that I love,” she looked at the water and touched it, playing with the golden fishes inside.

“A Seer? I never heard of one that was real…”

“Well,” Prim snorted, “I wish I could say the same. But the one in my life is very real. I… Every time I fall in love, something drives me and the man I love apart.”

“I hate to break it to you, princess,” I chuckled, “But that happens to a lot of people…”

“I know,” she looked somewhere distant, “However it’s hard to ignore a prophecy that came to life three times already. Three times I’ve been in love, Lara… And three times my heart was broken…”

“But…”

“Two of them died,” she closed her eyes as if it was painful for her to remember those things, “My first fiancé found his soulmate on the day he proposed to me. It was painful but I got over it in several years. My second fiancé…died at war. I grieved for a long time but eventually, my heart opened to someone else. But when my third love was poisoned… I gave up. It was too much, Lara. Too much pain!”

Her whole body tensed as if she tried not to cry and I placed my hand on hers and squeezed it lightly.

“You know,” I said carefully choosing my words, “I didn’t hear one thing from you now…”

“What thing?” she finally looked at me.

“You never said that at least one of them was your soulmate,” I bit my l*p and noticed how her cheeks blushed slightly.

“That’s because none of them wasn’t,” she said quietly, “But it doesn’t mean that I didn’t love them…”

“I know,” I admitted, “But after I met Demir and found out that I am his soulmate, I came to one conclusion…”

I stopped talking and Prim looked at me with interest, “And that is?”

“Two soulmates will always find a way to be together,” I smiled at her and for the first time, she smiled back.

But at the same moment, the sound of an explosion ruined our beautiful idyllic moment and I turned to see that one of the towers of the palace was on fire…