The Selection: Bride Of The Dark Dragon

MIRA

“What the f*****g chaos?!” Dargen roars looking at the now missing wall in shock.

And I know exactly what is going on, so not wasting any time I summon fire once again, aiming at his hair and face this time! I just need to win a few seconds! And now I am the one enjoying the moment!

Fire comes easily and the Crown Prince of Gerdian Empire falls off me screeching in pain. But I notice something strange for the first time now – the flames that came to my call are dark…

“You stupid w***e!” Dargen shouts and sends a wave of dark magic at me, knocking me off the bed and slamming across the opposite wall. He stands up and moves in my direction. Which only makes me smirk because he doesn’t see what I see!

And I see a dragon in the distance that flies at us with tremendous speed! I’ve seen this before, on the battlefield back in the Kingdom…

Rien starts shifting while he is still in the air but it’s his human form that steps into the broken room. And as soon as he is here, dark flames hit Dargen in the back, sending him to k**s the wall right next to me.

“Rien!” I cry and run into his arms.

“Mira, oh gods!” he embraces me tightly, breathing in my scent. And then he distances himself from me and looks me up and down. I bet it is some sight to see! Broken l*p, forming bruisers, torn dress, my breasts are hardly covered with what’s left of it. And my legs are on display since half of my skirt was torn away.

“I am fine!” I hurry to calm him down, “He didn’t manage to…”

“The chaos he didn’t!” Rien shouts and throws himself at his cousin. He doesn’t use magic anymore – just raw physical power. He tosses Dargen on the floor and sits on top of him making punch after punch after punch. The Crown Prince tries to struggle at first but soon stops or probably just not able to anymore and only makes painful sounds every time a fist meets his face, which gradually turns into a bloody mess. Rien knuckles are covered in dark gerdian b***d as well.

He is going to kill him! And at first, all I think is that the world would be a better place without Ryden Dargen. But then I remember our conversation with the emperor. He will be furious. Or maybe things are even worse and this is some kind of a trap for Derrien. Everything is so messed up here!

“Rien!” I call for him but he doesn’t even notice, his eyes are flashing with dark magic as if it is ready to burst out of him.

“Rien, please! You need to stop!”, I carefully come closer but he still pays no attention to me.

I put my hand on his shoulder and he turns to me in fury, growling like a beast – his eyes are full of magic and there are scales forming at the sides of his face, areas above eyebrows are protruding rapidly. I shrug as I have never seen him like this before – realizing that he is in his mid-transformation. But suddenly something changes. It’s as if he recognizes me again and his face goes back to normal.

“Rien?” I call him and he nods quietly, still holding Dargen by his hair. The Crown Prince is unconscious the whole time.

“Rien, I don’t think it’s a good idea to kill him,” I say and quickly add, “Yet.”

“He deserves it!” my fiancé growls.

“Yes, he does. Trust me, I want to strangle him myself,” I say, “But it’s all seems… off. Don’t you feel it? It feels like a trap. And I can’t figure out what and why… But I have this lingering feeling inside…. Rien, let’s go back home and think everything through! In your dragon form, you can kill him whenever you like anyway.”

Derrien finally opens his fingers and Dargen falls to the ground.

In no time the man I love is back with me, taking off his coat and wrapping it around my shoulders. He takes me into his hands and flames of dark magic surround us.

Back at home, we take a long shower together. Just shower and nothing else. For the first time ever none of us is in the mood for this.

Derrien carefully cleans my body and checks every inch of it, swearing when he sees a scratch or a bruise. When we are both clean enough, he wraps me into a soft towel and brings me to the bed. He gets a hairbrush out and starts carefully brushing my hair, drying it up with his magic at the same time. I close my eyes and just enjoy this feeling of being safe and taken care of. And when he is done, we lie in bed together. None of us says anything, we just enjoy the closeness and watch the flames in the fireplace. And don’t even notice how we fall asleep.

The next day no news come from the palace and no one summons Derrien or me to come back there. The whole next week is quiet, although it does feel like it’s the calm before the storm.

We spend all our time together – thinking, discussing, planning… But however much we plan, we still haven’t figured out how to get out of all this mess.

“You should have become the emperor yourself!” I snort while going through the bookshelves in our library, picking something new about dragons. Derrien has a vast library but unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of books about dragons that are not just novels or products of someone’s imagination. And the few books that could be found here are mostly about lower dragons. And lower dragons are just beasts, they don’t have human forms and can’t shift, they can’t communicate and the only common thing about them and Rien is that they all could fly and breathe out fire.

“I am afraid this ship has sailed,” Rien chuckles while he waits for me. In the past few days, he didn’t leave me alone even for a second.

His conversation with the emperor hasn’t gone too well… Although I don’t know all the details…but that only signifies the fact that if I knew, I wouldn’t like it.

My fingers traverse through the old tomes, feeling the cold leather of the covers. Until something catches my eyes. I get out a book that looks more like a journal. And looking at the cover I come to the conclusion that it is exactly that – a very old journal, handwritten at that. I open the first page and gasp.

“Arron Brookland!” I say out loud and look at Rien with excitement.

“What?” he looks at me, not impressed at all.

“Rien, it’s the journal of Aaron Brookland!” I try to explain to him, but his expression is still blank.

“So?” he raises his brow.

“He is a famous traveling knight of Akyria! The legend!”, I almost want to jump, “And another important thing! He is a great-great-great-great-many-greats- grandfather of mine!”

“Really?” Rien chuckles seeing my excitement.

“Yes!” I nod vigorously, “We are relatives through my mother. She was a Brookland before she married my father. I can’t believe you have this! This is… This is supposed to be a national treasure of Akyria! Or at least my family! How did you get this?”

“I have people who bring rare things to me,” he just shrugs it off, “Don’t get too emotional about this journal though. It’s in some ancient language! I couldn’t read it…”

I quickly flip through pages and smile, “Well, Derrien Derwood, then you are in luck! This is ancient Akyrian. It goes back to times when people were not speaking the common language! And I was taught it since I was about five years old!”

“Seriously?” he looks like he is not bored for the first time since we are here, “You can understand what’s there?”

“Well, I am not fluent,” I admit, “But yeah, I think I can understand. My mother was teaching me since I was young. This is a common practice for Brooklands. While Freyns are famous warriors, Brooklands are known as scholars and scientists.”

“That explains a lot!” Rien grins at me and I blush. I still blush when he looks at me like that, “Take it, and let’s go.”

We have another perfect quiet evening, curled up on a sofa together, reading and drinking wine in front of our fireplace.

I eagerly start to read the journal of my ancestor, finding out about his adventures and translating interesting bits to Derrien. He listens to me with curiosity, not minding me interrupting his own reading every other minute.

He plays with my hair as I speak, kissing the top of my head from time to time and I realize that I could live like this forever. I really wish it could be like this forever!

It’s getting really dark, so I am surprised when a maid knocks on the door at such a late hour. Usually, no one dares to disturb us after dinner if we are together.

“Come in,” Rien orders as I look at him with worry in my eyes. He smiles at me reassuringly but his face tenses when he sees that the maid brought a letter.

Even from the distance, I can see the royal stamp on it… Black with a b***d-red seal that could only mean one thing…

Oh, no! Please, gods, no!