Claimed by the Dragon King

Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Strange World

POV: Gift

My head hurt. That was the first thing I felt before I even opened my eyes. It felt as if a heavy shelf full of bread had fallen directly onto my head. Every part of my body ached, and a cold breeze brushed against my skin, making the hairs on my arms stand up.

Slowly, I moved my fingers, expecting to feel the soft and familiar fabric of my old blanket in the apartment, or the warm and smooth scales of Vharkan and Lumi, who often curled up under my arms in the early morning. But there was no soft bed, no loving baby dragons. Instead, my palms touched hard, rough, freezing concrete covered in dust.

I suddenly sat up. The shock rushed through my entire body like electricity. I opened my eyes, which felt heavy and painful, as if the veins inside them were still throbbing, and then I realized that I was inside a dark, dirty, and frightening place. The room I was in had no windows, no table, and no furniture at all. The walls were made of huge blocks of black stone, and in front of me were thick, hard iron bars reaching all the way to the high ceiling, as if only a giant could possibly reach the top.

Tears immediately filled my eyes, something I was not used to feeling, but this cell was not made for humans.

“Hey! Where am I? Why… why does this look like a prison for monsters?” I shouted as fear slowly tightened around my throat.

Then, in the blink of an eye, everything came rushing back to me. The bakery. The man. The extremely tall and grumpy man named Kaizito who had destroyed my door. Flying through the sky toward a spinning portal in the heavens. And that old man with the big belly—where was he?

“Vhan? Lumi? My babies!” I called in a rough and hoarse voice as I sharpened my hearing and searched every corner of the dark prison.

“Babies? Where are you?”

No one answered. There was no soft growl and no cheerful little laugh from a white baby dragon.

The only thing I heard was my own voice echoing against the stone walls. My children were gone. They were not beside me.

At that moment, the last bit of control I had completely broke. The fear I had desperately tried to hide and suppress was no longer something I could keep inside. All my calmness disappeared.

“Vhan! Lumi!” I shouted again before quickly standing up, even though I was still dizzy and felt as if my entire body was filled with air.

I ran toward the iron bars and grabbed them tightly. “Where are my children?! Give them back to me! Don’t take them away from me!”

I started losing control. I threw my body against the bars and repeatedly hit the hard metal with my palms until my hands began to sting and turn red. My bravery meant nothing if the children who depended on me were in danger. I was not even sure if that Kaizito really was their father. What if they were scared right now? What if that arrogant man was feeding them things they did not want to eat?

“Let me out of here!” I screamed, tears finally streaming down my cheeks. My voice had become hoarse and broken from crying so much. “You aliens! You kidnappers! Thieves! You have no right to separate us!” I shouted so loudly that my voice echoed through the entire hallway as if a monster might appear at any moment.

The sound of footsteps suddenly echoed from the dark hallway outside my cell, making me fall silent. Every step against the floor sounded terrifying, as if I had suddenly become part of a horror movie.

A familiar figure slowly emerged from the darkness.

Kaizito.

He was wearing a beautiful cloak that looked like an expensive tablecloth covered in golden embroidery. His long black hair was loosely tied behind his back, making his handsome but grumpy face stand out even more. His eyes were no longer glowing blue. He stood in front of the bars, staring at me without any emotion. His face was like ice, cold, hard, and completely uncaring about my tears.

“Be quiet, human,” he ordered angrily. His voice was low, but it was enough to make me nervous.

I felt like a mouse that had wandered into a lion’s den.

“Your noise can be heard all the way to the great hall. Prisoners in this place have no right to scream.”

“I don’t care about your great hall, so don’t interfere with my screaming either!” I shouted back.

I pushed my face between the two bars so I could glare at him more closely, “Where are my children? Where are Vharkan and Lumi? If you did anything bad to them, I will kill you! I will report you to the police! No matter how rich or powerful you are, you have no right to take them away from me!”

Kaizito frowned, and his blue eyes narrowed in irritation at my response. He still looked at me with hatred, and his mind was still full of suspicion about who I really was.

“You have a lot of courage to threaten me inside my own palace,” he hissed, taking one step closer until I could feel the intense heat coming from his body.

If this was what standing at the mouth of a volcano felt like, then this was definitely it. My face felt dry from the heat of his closeness.

“The ones you call Vharkan and Lumi are my heirs. They are safe in the royal nursery, far away from a dirty mortal like you. And do not test me, because with a snap of my fingers, I can end your life without anyone ever knowing.”

“Mortal this, mortal that! Your face is the dirty one! Is this your kingdom? It is as ugly as your personality! What is beautiful about this kingdom of yours? It is so dark in here!” I angrily replied, “Show them to me! How can I be sure they are safe when I am locked inside this dirty place? If you really are their father, then why are they afraid of you, huh? They chose me because you have the personality of a monster! You really are a monster! A dragon monster!”

I heard him growl softly. His eyes suddenly flashed. He raised his hand, and I saw the iron bars I was holding quickly begin to heat up. I gasped and immediately let go because they literally turned glowing red within a single second because of his power.

From behind Kaizen, I heard soft footsteps and the sound of an old wooden cane. Grumblewick approached, holding his cane with a wide smile on his face.

“Well, Kaizito, it looks like you are starting your daily grumpy ritual again.”

“Grumblewick,” Kaizito warned without turning toward the old man, but his tone was already clearly irritated.

Seriously. Didn’t this man have hypertension? He was always angry at the world for no reason.

“I am here to remind you, my very kind and beloved king, that the children upstairs are causing chaos and crying loudly,” the old man said as he walked toward the front of the cell and looked at me with sympathy and respect.

King?

Kaizito was a king? That explained why he acted like this, but he was a terrible king. It seemed like he wanted everything to go his way, and his ears were completely closed whenever someone tried to speak.

“They refuse to eat anything the royal nannies bring them. And what is worse, they have started destroying the expensive pillows in the nursery because they are looking for their… mama. They are biting them and breathing their cute little fire all over the nannies,” Grumblewick looked at Kaizito, “It seems that your ‘dirty prison’ is not helping the situation. If the twins find out that you locked up their mama, they might completely start seeing you as their enemy instead of their own father.”

The king stopped moving. His fists tightened so hard that I could hear his teeth grinding together. He was forced to face the truth that even though he controlled this entire kingdom, he had no power against the wishes of his own children.

Kaizito turned toward me again, and his expression slowly became even more frightening. “Well, Kaizito. Who is winning now?” I teased him.

“My name is not Kaizito! It is Kaizen! Don’t talk to me as if I am just an ordinary man from your world. You are talking to the Dragon King.”

“Oh. Okay, Kaizito,” I teased him even more because he had lost.

“I rule the entire Dragon Realm.”

“And I am Kaizita, Queen of Bread,” I replied sarcastically, and I noticed that Grumblewick looked as if he was trying not to laugh.

“Let her out!” Kaizen shouted through his nose at Grumblewick.

“Oh, you only have one heart. I heard you, Kaizito. I told you, I am not deaf.”

“I will take you to my children, human, but do not think that you are free. You will stay inside this palace under my watch. And if you make even one wrong move… I will make sure you never see the light of day again.”

I stared at him while wiping my dry tears with the sleeve of my blouse. I did not know what kind of world I had entered, but one thing was certain, this Kaizen would have to go through a needle without a hole before he could ever make me kneel before him.

“Even if your eyes turn white from watching me, I don’t care. My children are what I need, not your world or your palace!” I replied angrily before tossing my hair behind me in a dramatic way, causing it to hit his grumpy face as I walked past the now-open iron bars.