The road back to my estate went about as well as anyone could’ve guessed.

  Horrible. But productive.

  Quiz time!

  How does an angel sit?

  Answer: It doesn’t. It floats.

  How does an angel blink its giant fucking eyeball?

  Answer: Correct! It does not!

  It...she, or whatever that floating eyeball was, just kept staring at me when Elowen and I had to, yet again, sleep in the same bed.

  I didn’t sleep that night.

  And I couldn’t sleep in the carriage either. Partly because of Myrsky, partly because of the Angel… and partly because of its damn master.

  My beautiful, psychotic fiancée, Elowen.

  Myrsky demanded early the next morning as we traveled down the road.

  “Already?” I whispered, intentionally not looking at the eye. “You just ate one yesterday.”

  At my refusal, the Wyrm tightened her coil around my neck, lifting her small head until her eyes met mine.

  she said.

  “How dare you?” I pushed her head away with a finger. “I am not cheap!”

  …The second part, unfortunately, was harder to argue against.

  Still, I couldn’t let her win that easily. So I resorted to my final weapon: insults.

  Whenever I felt myself losing the argument, I attacked Myrsky’s character until she gave up.

  she huffed.

  With that, she uncoiled herself from my neck and moved her face away, promptly falling asleep back on my shoulder.

  Which was when I remembered something very important.

  I was not alone in that carriage.

  Elowen was staring at me.

  Dumbfounded. Baffled. Shocked beyond belief.

  The blunder of the century. That was what this was.

  I still wasn’t used to speaking with Myrsky inside my head. No... I had been whispering every insult out loud, while hearing her replies directly inside my smooth damned brain.

  From Elowen’s point of view, I had been verbally abusing a poor, innocent Wyrm for no apparent reason.

  She hadn’t heard the insults Myrsky threw at me in return. And believe me, that beast had the tongue of a snake and the swearing repertoire of an Eastern European teenager.

  To Elowen, however, as daughter of the Arch-bishop, calling a Feralium Beast, a gift from the World and the Goddesses Themselves, a “scaly gold-digging bitch” was probably the moral equivalent of blasphemy.

  “Y-You...”

  “Elowen,” I muttered, my voice far colder than the situation warranted. “Let me explain.”

  Before I could say anything else, she surged forward inside the carriage, closing the distance between us in an instant.

  “I will kill you if you do not apologize.”

  She bared her white teeth like a cornered beast, a sharp pin appearing from somewhere down her sleeve. One hand pressed it lightly against my neck, while the other forced my chin upward.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but pain exploded inside my skull, deafening any thoughts I had.

  A headache unlike anything I had ever felt slammed into my mind as Valen’s body rebelled violently against the situation. My muscles screamed for action. For dominance. For punishment. To remind her of who she was threatening.

  But I was not Valen. I was not the bastard he had been.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  I would not harm another person over wounded pride, especially when she was, by most standards, justified.

  Peace now meant survival later.

  Still, restraint did not mean silence.

  “You are crazy,” I muttered, staring directly into her yellow eyes.

  Besides the time she woke up sleeping on my chest, or the moment I caught her from falling, this was the closest physical contact we’d ever shared.

  She was… even prettier up close.

  Well… There were two additional reasons contributing to that impression, but my point still stood.

  “And you are a godless, horrible human being, Count Valen,” she spat. “How dare you speak to her like that?”

  Myrsky giggled like a delighted child, tilting her head just enough to better enjoy the scene.

  I managed to snap at her inside my head.

  Myrsky replied lazily.

  I shot back mentally, cutting her off before she could try her games.

  She clicked her tongue audibly, her small wyrm chest puffing out in clear disappointment, before falling silent once more to observe.

  “Elowen,” I said aloud, carefully. “You are mistaken.”

  “Mistaken?” She laughed sharply. “Pray, tell me how? Show me your lies.”

  “She,” I gestured toward Myrsky. “She was trying to-”

  “Oi! Watch out!” the coachman suddenly yelled from outside, yanking the reins hard as the carriage lurched to the side.

  Now… quick question.

  As I felt the carriage tilt sharply to the side, threatening to roll into some roadside ditch, did I, dumbass incarnated, try to catch Elowen before she fell and hurt herself? Or did I do exactly what I had just said I would days ago, and let her fall?

  Answer: The second.

  Not only would that rid me of the LETHAL WEAPON currently scraping my skin, but it would also humble this beautiful lunatic.

  I said I wouldn’t hurt her.

  But if she fell on her own… well. That wasn’t on me.

  More importantly, if I did try to help her, there was a very real chance she would actually kill me.

  So yes. The second.

  But…

  The moment the carriage tipped past the point of balance, moving far too fast for recovery, my body moved on instinct.

  I reached out.

  I know. Judge me however you want.

  I’m fairly certain that in the chaos, when the carriage slammed violently into the road, she stabbed me in the left shoulder by accident with that pin of hers as I wrapped my arms around her and Myrsky.

  But honestly?

  The impact knocked me unconscious anyway.

  So… good night.

  The moment I woke up, I found myself in the grass, standing under the shade of a tree on the side of the road with Myrsky casually sleeping on my chest.

  I raised my pounding head from the ground, trying to look at her.

  At least, when she was sleeping, she looked cute, like a proper pet, instead of the storm-infused-gold-digging-sassy-beast that she was.

  I even tried reaching out to pet her. Big mistake.

  “Agh,” I groaned as sharp pain travelled from my left shoulder, numbing the headache.

  My hand could barely move.

  “I don’t suggest you do that again,” a familiar voice uttered from nearby.

  So of course, I had to check.

  Elowen stood on the ground near the base of the tree, a floating eyeball beside her.

  A pity the fuckery didn’t get wounded. Even worse, I could swear that Angel was somehow laughing at me. It was hard to explain.

  Still, I turned back to Elowen.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  For a moment, a frown painted her forehead before it vanished just as quickly, her eyes traveling to my face.

  “Is that your first question?”

  “You can ignore me if you don’t…” I tried getting up, but failed. “...feel like talking.”

  She sighed at my remark, “I am fine. You, however, are not.”

  “Good for you, then,” I chuckled in pain, hissing air into my lungs. “Go on, take the pin you stabbed into my shoulder and finish the job while you can.”

  I call this reverse psychology.

  Inviting the devil into your own home.

  Fucking with the unfuckable.

  Watch as it does its wonders.

  “Don’t tempt me,” she replied, showing off the pin still smeared with my blood. “I might just do that.”

  Hold on now, miss. I wanted pity, not action.

  “But…” she continued. “I’ll give you at least this. Tell me why you were cursing the beast.”

  “Because,” I somehow managed to push myself up, catching Myrsky with my good hand, holding her in place, “This little snake tried extorting more dragon hearts out of me, ensuing a cursing contest between the two of us. Telepathically, of course.”

  Elowen blinked, dumbfounded at my reply.

  “Is that it?” she asked.

  At her question, Myrsky woke up, yawning and stretching her long body before slowly coiling through the air toward my face.

  I stared at her.

  She… stared back.

  And for a second, Myrsky turned toward Elowen, before she proceeded to bite my nose.

  “You… bitch,” I groaned, the pain in my body tripling in an instant.

  she hissed in my brain.

  “What do you mean?” I asked out loud. “You are to blame! How am I supposed to make a dragon heart appear out of thin air? Wait until we get back home, you floating slug.”

  Myrsky gasped at my words, both audibly and in my head, rushing to the air back toward my face.

  But I caught her in an instant, keeping her mouth tight shut.

  A grave mistake to forget this Wyrm was magical. A mistake that I quickly learned when I felt every muscle contracting under the electrical shock Myrsky was sending through my body, paralyzing me for seconds, and breaking free of my grasp.

  But the indomitable human spirit was strong within me. I couldn’t go out without a fight.

  “Eel bitch…”

  I passed out again.

  But after a few seconds of napping, my beauty sleep for the day, I found Elowen crying and laughing on the ground near my body.

  “F-Floating slug…” she stammered, barely able to breathe in between laughter. “Eel b-bitch.”

  It was weird. Charming to see her like this.

  It may have hurt both mine and Valen’s pride, but… for some reason, Myrsky and I just stared at her laughing, enjoying the moment.

  When she saw us staring, she got embarrassed, wiping tears, sniffing her nose, and straightening her back.

  She cleared her throat, turning and watching as the guards finally managed to push the barely functioning cart back on its feet.

  “So… Should we?”

  “What?” I asked, my face turning serious despite all that had happened. “Not killing me anymore?”

  With another sniff, she pushed to her feet, walking a foot inside the ditch, before she turned back to face me.

  “Not this time,” she smiled.

  And with that, she walked back toward the carriage, leaving me flat on the ground with a Wyrm and an Angel staring at me as if I had the answers for what the fuck happened.

  I did not.

  But, at the very least, after I somehow managed to get back up and get into the half-broken carriage, no further incidents happened until we reached my estate.