Treasure Of Dragons, Royal Dragons Book 1 Chapter 124

David

It actually ended up being quite a bit later by the time she and I settled down in the solarium to talk, and she had her notebook to write shit down. I was having to really work to keep my dragon in check, and myself to be honest. I wanted so bad to kill every single one of those mother fuckers. 

Today one of the things we did this evening was have fun with the kids. The babies were in the nursery, but the remaining ones gathered out at a fire pit they had built by the garden. It was rather huge, and there were stone benches built in a big circle rather than chairs, which with so many I could very well understand. So, they lit a big bonfire, and the kids made s'mores. 

Ria was helping different ones, but so were the guys. I could see and watch their children be enamored of them. This in fact spoke volumes about my daughter. Yes, I could see they were loving hands-on dads, and I gave them props for that. However, being a dad is only one part of how you are with your kids, the other half of that is how they see you with their mother. I watched that dynamic and it was difficult.

I could see they were all trying, and I saw gentle touches and affectionate gestures, far more so with the guys, but I did see Ria making a conscious effort to give some back, although hers was more forced and not as smooth, I could tell it was truthful. I still needed to understand far more about all of this shit. I could see, however, her saying that if I hurt them, I would be hurting the kids, so I held my hand for my grandchildren’s sake. I was sure there were many times Ria had held her tongue for the sake of the kids as well. 

Now, we were here relaxing in the solarium, the kids taken care of, with cups of coffee and Ria with her notebook. We took a few moments to just relax and be in each other’s presence. This was new for both of us. We had both been hurt by the loss of the other, although I in no way compared my suffering to hers. I was devastated at what had happened to her in my absence. I know there was nothing I could do about that, and I hadn’t known what was happening or that she was truly even alive. However, my father's heart screamed in rage and pain that my baby had been hurt and I hadn’t been there to protect her. 

“So, you had been talking about Beth earlier, and I know you talked about her and your foster brothers and sisters yesterday. I know that is a hard subject for you to speak of because of their loss, in more ways than one. In a lot of ways you have had to grieve their losses twice, once when you were taken and lost being with them, then again when you learned that one way or another they were injured or deceased.” 

She nodded, “Yeah, I never told the guys, but when I read that news article and they talked about how Cin had harassed the police, insisting that I wasn’t dead, that it was someone else in that car, I knew exactly why she thought that. I had told Cin so many things, and she knew so many things about me. Two things blatantly told her I wasn’t the one driving that car. The first was that Natalia’s car had been a stick shift, and I didn’t know how to drive one, so the idea that I would have borrowed her car and gone somewhere was stupid. The second was that I didn’t drive at night, like ever, I had a huge thing about it because of some things with Braun, I would have massive panic attacks if I tried to drive anywhere at night. So, for me to not only borrow a stick shift that I couldn’t drive, but to do so at night, all alone, in a non-emergency situation, just to run to the store or something, was absolutely absurd, and she knew it.”

“Wow, yeah, and as your sister no doubt she was determined to find out what had really happened to you. I can definitely see that.” I sighed heavily at the implications.

“I would have done the same for her, and she knew that too. We didn’t make the distinction that we were foster siblings. She was my sister, full stop, that was it, my sister. So, yeah, the tie with us was very strong.” I could see her struggling with that. 

“So, you had been presented with a full-ride scholarship to one of the most prestigious colleges on the East Coast, and so of course you took it. Natalia was your roommate, how did you two get along?” I hoped this would be a rather low-key subject, but when she gritted her teeth I knew that wasn’t the case.

“Yeah, at first we were great, and I had started to trust her and consider her a friend. I had gone with her a few times to the house where her brothers were staying for a barbecue, and they had taken me out for dinner with them a couple of times. I had started to get nervous as I felt the dynamic changing, they were being more flirtatious, and trying to do more things one-on-one, not without the group present, but just separating me out from the group to talk to me more by themselves. I was so confused too. I thought there might be a fight between brothers because they were all flirting with me. Also, just the changing dynamic freaked me the hell out. Of course, they knew exactly jack shit about anything. I had never wanted anyone to be able to associate my name in any way with Braun or the investigation into him, so I had used my hacking skills and erased any record of myself involved with anything around his arrest and why he was arrested. Then I got rid of my foster records. So, there was no way they would have ever found anything to do with Braun and me other than the fact he was my stepfather and he got arrested when I was 14, nothing else.”

I laughed a little, “I am actually so impressed with that. I am not overly good with computers, so it’s all confusing to me how you do that, but I am still impressed. So, you erased all the records, so they thought you were just an average everyday foster kid, now at college, and there was nothing to blow up in their faces.”

She sighed, "Basically yes.” 

“That’s not what happened though is it?” I watched her and she shook her head, and I saw one tear streak down her cheek.