Page 49 of The Dragon of her Dreams

Damon heaved the rock up, then walked over to me, placing it into my waiting arms.

I swallowed the groan of pain caused by lifting the fucker of a thing myself. Instead, I went up and lifted the boulder above my head, placing it on the wall regardless of the strain. If my old man could do it, so could I.

Damon handed me the mortar which was a tacky sludge that would securely fill in all the gaps between the rocks.

I applied it over every crack, smoothing it down into the crevices and by the time I was done, he was back with another boulder.

We worked that way for hours, finishing more than double what I’d aimed to get done on this day.

The king—my father—was an incredibly strong man and tenacious as all hell. He didn’t stop, even when I could tell he was sore and tired. He worked like a soldier, a true laborer, unrelenting in— the face of stress and physical torment.

When the sun set over the forest and darkness fell, we stood side by side, panting hard, taking a moment to silently appreciate our hard work and what we’d achieved.

“Do you want to come back to my house?” I asked him, handing him my almost empty canteen of water. “For a drink?”

He nodded, wiping sweat from his brow.

And together we staggered the short distance back to my home.

When we entered, I tried not to feel ashamed of the interior of the house. Vanya had been incredibly uncomfortable here, amongst the peasants.

But Damon walked in and sat down as though he’d been here before, groaning with the strain of the day. “Damn,” he said. “I haven’t worked that hard in a long time.”

I poured us both a glass of water and handed him one. “But you can still do it,” I said to him, lifting my glass in gratitude. “Thanks for the help.”

Damon nodded in acknowledgement.

Then we drank our water in silence as the moments ticked by.

I began to wonder what else I could offer him. “We could get some dinner?” I offered. “I don’t have much here, but I eat at the local most nights.” We had a cheap but good little tavern not far away, and I had a lot of my meals there.

Damon smiled. “Thanks, but Cass wants me home for dinner.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at how absurdly casual he sounded. “You say that like you’re going home to your wife, just like any other normal man.”

Damon frowned at me, his lips twisting. “That’s exactly what it feels like, too. Yes, we have servants, Cass isn’t the one doing the cooking, and my house is bigger than most... but it’s still the same, Jaegar.”

I sat down on the armchair, my muscles protesting at the movement. “You know, I don’t think I’ve worked that hard in years either.” I stretched out my arms, feeling the tight and painful pull of a torn muscle.

“You should come up to the castle,” Damon said. “You could use a long, hot bath.”

“I’m fine here,” I said stubbornly. “I have a bathroom. I’ll have a shower later.” I didn’t have a luxurious tub to luxuriate in of course, but I had all the basic necessities I needed.

Damon nodded slowly but didn’t speak. And he didn’t leave either.

“Did you come to talk about something?” I asked him. “I hope you’re not trying to make me become king after you, because that isn’t on the cards for me. I’m sorry to disappoint.”

Damon chuckled. “Really? Have you checked in with Marienne on that?”

“Oh, well...” And Anthony’s vision flooded back to me of Vanya’s birthing scene, inside the castle’s walls. I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. That life isn’t for me. Besides, Anthony said their visions change all the time. It’s not like they’re set in stone.”

Damon sighed. “Jaegar, you don’t have to be king. You don’t even have to live in the castle if you don’t want to. But—”

“But what?” I demanded to know. Why had he bothered to put in a hard day’s labor by my side if he wasn’t going to be straight with me now?

“But you’ll miss out on things if you make that choice.”

I lifted my chin. “Dymitri and Lucian live in town, here, with me,” I pointed out.

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