20. Tempi

CHAPTER 20

TEMPI

W e barely exchange any more words for the next few hours of traipsing through the forest neither one of us knows. The longer we go, the more certain I am we're not in my world, and Midas doesn't seem to know it either. All he says is it's not the Enchanted Forest and it's not Under. I'm not an expert on the forests back home, but I don't think any of them have dangerous black slime growing in them.

We see more and more of what Midas calls the Scourge. It crawls along the branches, and oozes along the ground. Every so often, we see small animals with the black slime spreading along their fur. The animals make me sad when we see them. They didn't have an Underworld King telling them not to touch it. Poor things.

After hours of seeing the sad scenes of decay and the sun slowly changing positions in the sky, both of us seem to realize that one of the magic portals isn't coming. At least not yet. This might be the longest it's ever gone without taking me. The fact that this is new makes it difficult not to panic. What if they never come again and I'm stuck in this world?

Worse, what if I'm stuck with Midas?

I glance over at the arrogant asshole and narrow my eyes as he looks around for a place to camp for the night. I consider declaring somewhere else is better than this to mess with him, but I'm tired and I really don't know anything about camping in a forest at night. I've never even been camping. I can't imagine I'd know how to do anything necessary to survive in the woods. Break your arm? I got you. But building a fire? Nope.

"This seems like a good place to camp for the night," Midas declares after he looks around a small clearing. It's barely big enough for the two of us to lay down in, let alone build a fire in.

"Are you sure?" I ask, frowning at how small it is.

Midas glances at me. "I don't speak if I'm not certain."

" I don't speak if I'm not certain ," I mock back. " Dios mío , do you ever relax?"

"No," he answers.

"Wonderful. Perfect. Thank you for your honesty," I grunt. When I look around the clearing, I put my hands on my hips. "You know how to build a fire?"

"I do," he nods. "You don't?"

I shake my head. "I know the mechanics of course, but no, I've never done it. I can stop you from bleeding out, though. If you asked nicely, of course."

The corner of his lips quirks up. "I'll make sure to ask you very nicely to patch me up if I'm bleeding."

"We're nothing without manners," I say, and I can't help the smile that curls my lips. When Midas sees it though, I wipe it off, choosing to glare at him instead. It only makes his smile grow.

"There are many ways to start a fire," he begins, describing what he does as if helping me understand. I'm tempted to tell him I don't need to know, but I watch anyways. I've always been a sucker for learning, so I kneel down in front of him and watch as he piles a small bundle of sticks there before grabbing a tiny stone. "You need a spark, and you need dry wood. If it's wet, it won't catch, and you'll wear yourself out trying to light it."

"Makes sense," I reason, watching. He pulls his crown from his head, and I furrow my brows. "What are you doing?"

It's almost strange to see him without a crown on. His hair remains perfectly intact, but without the crown, he almost looks like a normal man. Almost. If normal men were hulking older men with broad shoulders and golden eyes.

"We need a spark," he repeats, and strikes the stone against his crown as if it's not made of gold.

"What are you doing?" I gasp. "You're going to ruin your crown!"

He chuckles. "I can always get another, Tempest. It's fine."

He strikes the crown again and a spark leaps off to land on the pile of kindling. For a second, nothing happens, and then it catches. Midas leans down and blows on it, encouraging it higher, until we have a small flame in between us. The sight of him leaning over the fire, blowing, might stir something in me. I've definitely lost my mind. What's next? The way he sneezes turns me on?

"Well, look at that," I muse. "The king actually has survival skills. Who'd have thought?"

He settles the crown back on his head. My eyes latch onto the small dents he put in it with the stone, but he doesn't seem to care.

"I was not always a king," he murmurs.

"You weren't?" I ask, tilting my head. "What were you?"

"A man," he replies, settling down to sit. I sit in front of him, watching as he stokes the fire bigger. "I was just a man."

"And so how did you become a king?" I ask, watching him.

His eyes dance up to mine. "It was a long time ago. It doesn't matter now. I'm not even a king now."

"But you wear a crown," I point out.

"For nostalgia sake. King is not my title in Under."

"Then what it is?" I ask, frowning.

"God," he shrugs. "I'm one of three."

"King Midas, the God of Under," I speak out loud. "That does have an interesting ring to it."

"Not the God. Just a God," he corrects. "Hades would have a field day if he wasn't the God."

I nod. "Hades sounds like a prick."

"Oh, he is," Midas agrees. "He's the biggest prick you'll ever meet."

We fall into silence as we stare at the growing fire, our eyes showing the dancing flames reflected back. As the fire grows, we move further back, allowing it room. Midas continues to throw sticks on top of it, feeding it until it's large enough to provide light to fight away the growing darkness around us. The moment the sun disappears completely, the sounds of the forest change. It goes from singing birds to screeching beasts. I move closer to the fire just in case, my mind tricking me into thinking something is going to grab me from the fire and drag me into the darkness if I'm not careful.

"Do you have a family?" Midas suddenly asks. When I look up at him, he clarifies with, "back in your world?"

I consider not telling him. It's not really any of his business and I don't like to talk about it, but he asked and there's nothing else to do but talk. So I sigh and wrap my arms around my knees.

"I used to," I murmur. "I don't anymore."

His face softens. It's so small, I would have missed it had I not been looking at him. "What happened?"

I look away because this is always the part I hate. The pity. The "things will get better" words. The "they're in a better place" comments. I hate them. They're not in a better place because they're not with me. It always felt like such a slap in the face. I was glad when people stopped saying it, when they went back to normal and pretended it never happened. They could do that.

I never could.

"I'm a paramedic," I murmur. At his answering look of confusion, I add, "it's like a healer, but. . . an emergency one. I show up, stabilize people, and get them to a regular healer as fast as possible. That's what I do in my world."

"That seems like an adrenaline rush," he comments.

"It can be," I nod. "And I'm damn good at it. I've been doing it for. . . shit, I think it's been twelve years now. We get calls and we answer. We help as many as we can." Midas listens raptly, his eyes on my face as I explain. "But none of this answers what happened to my family." I sigh again and look into the flames trying to avoid his pity. "About five years ago, we got a call, and we were the closest rig. When we showed up, it was a car I recognized." I swallow. "It was mine."

"Were they okay?" he asks softly.

"No," I answer honestly. "No, they weren't." My fingers clench in the material of my pants. "My husband was driving. My daughter was in the passenger seat. The truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and ran a red light." I have to clear my throat. "The coroner said my husband, Gilroy, died instantly, but Bella. . . she took a little longer. Neither one of them made it to the hospital."

Silence falls and I wait for the lines, the ones everyone says when they don't know what else to say. As long as he doesn't tell me it was god's plan, I won't lose my cool. What kind of god plays such cruel games? Not mine.

"I understand loss very well," he says after a few moments. "It can destroy you within a second, and you'll never feel whole again."

My eyes trail back up to his. "You had a family?"

He smiles gently. "A daughter, Marigold. She was the most perfect daughter in the entire world. I couldn't have asked for a better one." But then his smile falls, and he looks away. "She died before I ever found my way to Under."

"I'm sorry for your loss," I murmur. "Us parents, we're not supposed to outlive our children."

"We're not," he agrees. "And yet we do."

We fall into silence again, both of us lost in memories of our past, of the family we lost. Something shifts inside me knowing that he understands. He's perhaps not so bad, after all.

"We should get some sleep," Midas murmurs. "We'll sleep in shifts, so nothing intrudes."

"Is it wise to sleep?" I ask.

"Nevertheless, we need to, especially you," he answers, glancing up.

"You saying I look bad?" I tease.

His eyes trace over my face. "On the contrary, I'm saying you need your rest to remain as beautiful as you are."

I open my mouth to respond, but the compliment arrows directly to my heart and renders me speechless.

"You keep the first watch," he orders. "Wake me up in an hour. Keep the fire going. It'll keep many monsters away. Not all, but some."

"Great," I grunt, settling in. "I hate this."

"This isn't even that bad," he says as he lays down on the ground. "There are worlds far worse than here."

"Like Under?" I ask.

He hesitates. "Yes," he finally admits, "like Under."

I watch as he closes his eyes and starts snoring, just like that, despite the sounds of monsters out in the forest howling and screaming at each other. I stare at him, at the way he sleeps so easily, at the way he looks so much more peaceful.

He's pretty like this. But I'll never tell him that.

No, it would go straight to his big, fat, crown-topped head.