Treasure Of Dragons, Royal Dragons Book 1 Chapter 81

 Drago

I was at this reception for my daughter’s funeral. If that isn’t fucked up I honestly don’t know what is. I am standing with my brothers, and most of the kids are staying close to Isobel or us. Monica stayed with the younger kids, none of them have a clue what’s going on, they are way too young. I actually envy them for that. 

Ria hasn’t really said much about any of this, and about all of the situations still lingering. She wasn’t willing to leave the cemetery, so we all just let her have her space. I wasn’t sure that I had any words to help with any of it anyway. Right now, I am feeling wholly inadequate as a father and a mate. I wasn’t being able to fix jack shit, I wasn’t even the one really holding this family together, Ria was. She was the one helping the kids, and answering questions, I felt like I was a lost little boy playing dress up right now. 

All of our dragons were lamenting the loss of our daughter, and their distraught emotions are just adding to ours, so all 4 of us are rather fucked up right now. I want to pull it together and step up to help my family, and right now I am being shown rather brutally that I am not the put-together strong leader I always thought I was. 

I see two figures walk into the room and I turn, it’s Ria and Brand is with her. Brand has been avoiding any of us dads since the day we told everyone about Desi. His dragon came out and flew with us when we let them out to grieve. Other than the brief time he flew with us, he immediately left our presence and has subtly avoided us ever since. I see rage written all over Ria’s face, a lot more clearly right now than it has been previously. 

Brand walks to where the other kids are huddled together, and several move to be around their “big brother” as soon as he gets close. He is a very affectionate 17-year-old, and he gives hugs and pats where they are wanted. He glances back to Ria then immediately looks back to the kids, not letting his gaze land on any of us, even for a moment.

Ria is standing next to me and she leans in and whispers angrily, “You need to fucking talk to your son, and you all need to bite the bullet and talk to him honestly, I think he deserves that at least.” Without further explanation, she walks away to take care of our other kids. 

I tell the other guys what she said, so after everyone has left, and it’s just family here once again, I go in search of our oldest son. My brothers are all with me, as I got the impression that whatever we need to speak to him about has to do with all of us. 

I knock on his bedroom door and I hear his subtle “come in” so we open his door. He looks up and the second he sees us he becomes more guarded.

I sigh, “Your mom said that we needed to come and talk to you, and she warned me to be honest, so I guess we’re here to talk about whatever you need to talk about or whatever it is that’s bothering you.”

Brand sits in the chair in front of his computer desk, and subtly twists the seat this way and that a bit while he looks at us, “How could you do it? How could you spend this many years with a woman, watch her have your children, and still hurt her all the time?”

I almost swallowed my tongue at that question. That was not anything like I thought he would possibly say when we walked in here, and before I can even manage to utter a single sound, “I know that my mom is not here because she wants to be, she hasn’t borne 19, soon to be 20 children, because she ever had a choice in it. I know you hold her prisoner, and it has to do with that cuff she can’t take off. So, I guess that’s what I’m asking. How do you rape your own mate?”

The others move to sit in different areas of the bed with me, and we all sigh, this conversation will be a hard one, Ria knew that, that is the whole reason she told me to be honest, she knew this was coming. 

I sigh and look at the ceiling, “It never started out that way Brand. We never once thought that we would do that either. We love your mom, we always have. We met your mother when she went to college and your aunt Natalia was her roommate. We’ve told you kids how incredibly rare Royal Dragon Females were, and that our populations were nearing extinction. Royal Dragon Males can only ever breed Royal Dragon, Females.” I saw a subtle flinch at that from Brand.

“So, when we met her we had planned to get to know her, to date her, to do this all the right way. Then we got a threat of war from another Royal Dragon Family, and they threatened to try to take her away from us. So, we made the decision, to avoid war, and avoid losing her, to mate her. We honestly thought that we could explain everything to her, and it would be okay. She would understand why we felt we had no choice but to avoid war and our people dying. We never imagined when we did that, that she would never be able to forgive us for any of it.”

“So, what’s the deal with the bracelet? Why did you put it on her and why can she never take it off?” he looked at each of us as he asked that.

I sighed again, “You have heard some things about the foster family your mom had?” he nodded, “Well, to keep them from finding out she was a dragon shifter, and about all dragon shifters, we had to keep her family from looking for her or discovering any of this. So, we faked her death, and so all of her legal documents and everything showed her as deceased. It was supposed to help with a clean break, her family, thinking she was dead, would grieve, but then move on with the rest of their lives. Your mom would then stay here with us, and by then she was already pregnant. When she found out about being pregnant, that she wouldn’t be allowed to see her foster family again, and that the mating was permanent, she tried to kill herself. To save the triplets, and keep her from killing herself, or killing us, or running away, I put that cuff on her after I had a strong spell woven into it.”

I saw the look my son gave us. Fuck, this wasn’t even the worst of it yet.