Treasure Of Dragons, Royal Dragons Book 1 Chapter 105

Drago

“Drago, how would her dragon let her do those things? Is that why it never tried to help me?” I looked at his face.

I cupped her face, “Baby, I don’t know. There are so many things that could be a what-if thing here. She may have found a way to subdue her dragon and keep it from interfering. Perhaps whatever mental illness she had plagued her dragon as well, or maybe it actually pushed her dragon into some kind of dormancy. I don’t know, baby.” 

She gasps, “Drago, my name, is my name real?” 

I looked over at David, who looked as devastated as she did, “What was your daughter’s name?”

David blinked and cleared his throat, “Her name was Rowan Mairin, because she was born with so much red hair and she was our much-wished-for child. They call you Ria, what is the name you thought you were born with?”

“According to the birth certificate that Collette had, it was Adriana Nicoletta Dragoi.” Tears were running down her face.

David cleared his throat again, “Damn, she used her own sister’s name to rename you, that woman was twisted, more so than I even imagined.” 

“Okay, this is getting extremely emotional, and I am sure it will get even more so, how about we breathe for just a few minutes and I will go make coffee. That will at least give us something to hang onto and fortify us. I am going to call Ash, Rai, I’m not sure how long Hope will give you before you need to feed her.” She looked up and tried to smile, but it was very forced, and then she nodded. 

I went into the kitchen and opened cupboards and checked the pantry and managed to find everything to make a pot of coffee, so I got that going. Then I hunted down sugar, and several creamers, and put them on the island in the kitchen. Then I pulled 3 mugs out of the cupboard. While the coffee brewed I called Ash.

“Drago, what’s happening?” Ash answered with that right away.

“Well, it looks like David is Ria’s dad, and it’s a whole twisted mess we’ll have to wade through. How’s Hope, do you think you should bring her so that Ria can feed her?”

“I was actually just thinking about that, she’s stuffing everything into her mouth. I have given her a few pieces of cereal in the diaper bag and she’s taking that, but there’s not a bottle in here for her, so I can bring her and the diaper bag over.” 

“Be sure and keep anything Sarah might need from it, and then yeah, go ahead and bring it over. If it becomes a problem for Hope to be here while we’re all talking, I’ll call you to come and get her. Is everyone else doing okay? I know all of that was and is a mess.” 

He sighed, “I know that Pyre is really upset, so then Ishohalie is as well, then it is just going in circles. I think everyone is trying to salvage the day, but we may all need to just call it a day really early as this is messing with everyone, and the ones of us who are so emotional, are dragging down the ones not in the middle of all of this, and the kids are picking up on the atmosphere. Eli is having trouble with Denali being really upset, so obviously he is picking everything up. I will let you know if anything gets decided.”

“Okay, thanks Ash, I’ll see you in a few minutes.” I checked in on them and they were both just sitting deep in thought, but not talking, just both seeming lost. 

“Ash is bringing Hope to you, that way you can feed her, and the coffee will be ready in a moment.” They both looked at me and nodded, then got up and came into the kitchen. 

When there was a knock on the door I went and opened it, then took Hope from Ash. He patted my shoulder in support then left to go back to the meeting cabin. I talked to Hope who was babbling at me, while I carried her into Ria. The moment she saw her mother she got very excited which actually ended up eliciting smiles from both Ria and David. Right then I saw it clearly, that smile was identical between the two of them. 

I handed Hope to Ria and then got a cup of coffee. I watched as Hope interacted with her mother, giving her a whole baby speech, and Ria just laughed. David moved a bit closer and I watched, Ria could see him, but she didn’t back away or flinch. Hope immediately honed in on this new person in her orbit. She just looked at him, surprisingly serious, but Hope did this. She would get this look on her face like she was looking at something in you, not exactly at you. We had always attributed it to our dragons, that Hope could feel our dragons. With her affinity for animals she had obviously gotten from her mother, hers seemed to go one step further in that she had contact with our dragons, even when they were not close. 

She immediately reached out her little hand and lunged for David. He managed to catch her and pull her into his chest. I heard Ria gasp as Hope had never done that before. She continued to study David very closely. Then she reached out both of her baby hands and put them on his face. Immediately I saw scales ripple across David’s face, and Hope smiled. She had brought his dragon forward.

I heard a soft growl and a light chuff as his dragon spoke to her, and she just grinned at it, then she patted his face more, leaned in, and gave a big, wet, open-mouthed, baby kiss. 

I looked at Ria and she looked back at me as both of us were stunned about exactly what was happening. This was so beyond, I didn’t even know how to catalog this.