Treasure Of Dragons, Royal Dragons Book 1 Chapter 67

 Drago

We are actually going into town tomorrow to see Dr. Surenka, who’s getting a scan to see if we can detect the gender of the twins she’s currently carrying. That will include a trip for the kids to see Aunty Natalia, and then we will stop in the cafe. We helped Helena do a huge renovation a few years ago with our growing family she needed to expand. The youngest 4 who aren’t in school will be the ones we take with us. Braden is 5 but he turned 5 in November, too late for this year, but he’ll be in next year. 

Now that the kids are older, the townspeople are loving that. Ria is much more restricted in her verbal tongue lashings of them when the kids are around, as she doesn’t wish to badmouth us. They fully take advantage of that, much to her anger. She tries to keep the kids away from them as much as possible, but she can’t completely isolate them. She always has a hard time with it, and her night terrors are brutal after trips to town with the kids. 

She's been the same way with her talking about all of us dads to the kids. She is extremely careful to never say negative things about us to or around the kids. She’s said before that anything she would say would hurt the kids and do more harm than anything. What would be the point of pouring all of that out to kids, they are not supposed to give her emotional support. So, she will never tell them anything about her relationship with us. If they ever ask her something, she gives them a completely vanilla answer and leaves it at that. 

So, now that the whole doctor's visit is finished we head to the cafe to meet up with Natalia and the kids. As soon as the little ones see Ria they go nuts calling mama. She smiles and hands out hugs and kisses. Aiden and Nisha are strapped into high chairs, Nicoletta is in her booster seat and Braden is a big boy sitting in the chair all by himself, and he is proud as punch about that. 

Ria takes her normal seat at the back in the corner, and Helena sets tea and crackers in front of her knowing that any time she’s pregnant, that’s her staple when we come here. Helena turns and looks at me putting her hands on her hips.

“Well?” She just watches me.

I smile, “Two more girls” The whole cafe cheers and Ria rolls her eyes, concentrating on taking care of the twins we have right now. 

Next month I have volunteered to attempt a vasectomy with Dr. Patel. I can understand that after so many children, never having any type of birth control, working for more than just over 2 years, and pregnant yet again, she wants us to figure out something. Dr. Patel honestly thinks dragon healing will keep it from working, but I’m willing to try for her. If it fails she swears she’s going to demand we wear condoms at all times. I just smile at that, because that will work when we are together as humans, but it won't work when in dragon form. 

Ria like always, is prepared with snacks for the kids in the diaper bag, so she gives out some cereal pieces to the babies, and Helena takes the orders for everyone at the table, laughing at the kids the whole time. The little ones get sippy cups of juice, and Ria sips on her tea. Looking at her, and watching her be such an incredible mother to all of our kids makes me think of our oldest 3.

They still aren’t really talking to us dads much. We get the yes or no answers when possible, if it requires more than that it is short, and to the point, with no emotions given in the answer. We don’t get smiles anymore. The strength of their reactions still floors me. 

The other families were also taken by surprise at the absolute epic meltdowns of the girls, and the fact that they were ghosted for the rest of their visit during their birthday celebrations. I keep hoping that eventually as they settle into the idea this will all blow over. 

When we get home from town, all of the older kids ask what we found out, and we let them know that the twins are girls. Then the kids start arguing about names for the girls when they get here. Ria just laughs and takes the kids out to the gardens to run around for a while. 

I was so incredibly surprised and so were my brothers, that in the last 2 years, the whole situation with the girls has never settled down. For the last 2 years, the relationship we had previously had with the triplets is history. They have never forgiven us for setting up the agreement. None of us could have predicted in a million years that they would react like this. Of course, Ria just tells us, she told us this would happen. I am glad she doesn’t make it worse than it already is. She actually encourages the girls to talk to us about it and let us know how they feel. 

Today is their 15th birthday party, and once again the other Royal Dragon Families are here to visit with them. We thought it would be good to let the girls at least have some contact with them before the agreement takes place on their 18th birthday.

The girls have avoided them completely and any time they even catch a glimpse of them hysterical tears follow. The girls stopped eating or speaking to anyone, even Ria for days. The 2nd day before the families left we actually tried to force the issue.

We made the girls sit in the family living room with them and it was hysterical crying, in fact Mari made herself sick and ended up throwing up on the rug. Elizabeth was the only one who even spoke and that was strictly yes or no. She hurried the others out of the room as soon as Mari started to get sick. We counted that as a total failure. 

Ria hasn’t added any fuel to that particular fire, and I’m glad. I know the other families think that her attitude about the agreement has influenced the whole situation. I have been able to tell them that we have heard her actually encouraging them to talk to all of us and be honest about how they feel and why, not to just shut them out. The girls know that she hates and disagrees with everything, but she doesn’t exacerbate the whole thing, which I appreciate as it’s fucked up enough. My triplets are no longer the happy smiling girls they used to be. 

How can we fix this without war or throwing away years of cooperation? What will happen when they turn 18?