Hear me out on knight!Reader x Dragon!Ghost
“What if I go instead of princess? Would that be okay?” You are tired and sweaty, mud caked on your boots, weighing down your steps when you resign and offer him your last option.
Damn you for riding all this way out and damned be your long tongue.
But you are out of options and out of time, because he has cornered you and the girl behind your bank — princess barely of age, trying not to sob in your cloak when you tuck her back under it.
And to think that you almost got out of his lair, just to get caught right when the freedom was glowing with the rays of sunlight through the crack in his lair’s wall.
Big enough to fit through a person. Small enough for him not to be able to claw you out.
“You want to be dragon’s bride?” Ghost tilted his big horned head to the side then, huffing out smoke through the snot. “You sure ‘bout that?”
Ghost is a big dragon and a big menace, you think to yourself, jaw tight when he snaps his tail against the ground.
Makes the trembling princess nervous on purpose. Grins when she starts hiccuping.
Ghost is a cautionary tail lurking in the night and dragging people up his mountains to pay some debt that no one knows of.
Ghost is a nightmare for everyone around him, because he steals a princesses out of boredom and demands a kingdom, three horses and a title purely for the sake of it.
He doesn’t need gold, he doesn’t need horses and he doesn’t need a title.
But he still asks for it because no one can tell him no and no one has succeeded in killing him.
So when he easily agrees to your offer, you should have guessed.
Should have known better, because you offer to marry him instead of a girl he dragged off and Ghost says ‘yes’.
Ghost nestles his big horned head in your lap and curls around your body.
He refuses to fly and refuses to let anyone close to you, torching the ground under the legs of the first royal messenger that tries to hand something over to you.
If they want to give you something, it can be leaved at your feet like a gift.
Or a sacrifice.
Ghost demands reverence which you aren’t used to. Which you do not need but have no choice but to accept.
It’s a short farewell when you pass the scared princess back to the court and receive your reward, people shrinking back from the Ghost. People kindly offering you to trap him under the mountain.
But deal is a deal.
You are not foolish enough to try and kill him.
And he is not foolish enough to think that you won’t try if given the chance.
Ghost is a bastard who makes a show out of carrying you away, promises to the king and the whole court that if you disappear then he will be back.
That he will bring fire and ruin and death.
Ghost makes sure no one in their right mind helps you if you decide to bolt from him. No, luv, you offered him a deal and you agreed to the terms.
Time to lie in the bed that you made.
“I thought that most dragons have…human forms.” You squeak weakly as his massive form moves on top of you, spiked tail curling around your leg to pull you down and keep you in place.
No running from him now, not if you want him not to snap your ankles as a precaution.
Simon gives you a slow satisfied blink, pressing his massive head between your neck and shoulder, voice cords vibrating with satisfaction so primal you can feel the heat of it in your stomach.
“Most.” He says simply and drags forked tongue up your neck, picking out a place to bite down and hold you under him.
Picking out a spot for a mating bite that won’t kill you as soon as he closes his jaws.
