Chapter Seventy-Eight: A Dragon’s Kin III
1702 Words
There was a period of silence as the first prince turned to the fully stocked liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink.
Returning the dagger in my hand to its initial slot, I fixed my mussed hair and undid the laces of my cloak, then plopped it down the cold floor before stalking further into the house.
“Clothes don’t go on the floor.”
“Wow, lessons from a kidnapper. How far from the light does one need to stray to get one of those?”
I rolled my eyes.
He placed his clear iced liquid aside and then walked behind me to pick up the garments I dropped, only rather than hand them back to me, he kept them on his lap after he made his way to the sleek, modernly designed living room.
The furnishings were on the minimalistic side. In the room, there were simply two long black couches, a golden carpet with navy blue coloured embroidering, a glass coffee table and a crystal vision mounted to the wall. There were no flowers or artwork to accentuate the room’s beauty.
He took his glass from the table, then after a sip, he turned his gaze to me, then my belly.
“Sit.”
“How about no?”
“I am not asking you, Countess. Sit.”
I rolled my eyes, the conversation would go nowhere with him waving his d**k around, so I asked the question, bugging me.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you have my things shipped to Kranis?!”
“Because I paid for them.”
“Excuse me?”
“Is that what you want to hear?”
I crossed my arms. The movement must have made the slight swell of my stomach more visible because his gaze dropped once again.
“Your highness, you have absolutely no right-.”
“Because tomorrow morning, you, Mitchelle and I will need to have a proper conversation like grown-ups. I will not tolerate any more escape attempts from you, so until we have hashed out all the details of this whole situation, your goods will remain in my possession.”
“Hashed out what? What exactly is there to ‘hash out’? You are not anywhere in the picture of what I intend to do, so don’t feel the need to put on airs and just-”
He sipped his drink, and then banged the glass holding the liquid on the table. The noise effectively shut me up.
“You will agree to a quick, contractual marriage for five years. After which, when the child is old enough, perhaps around four-five years of age, we will divorce and I will marry my own specie.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, slow your roll.”
I chuckled at his absurd logic.
“Buy me dinner first before you propose.”
“You keep laughing as though I have said something amusing. Do I amuse you?”
“Oh? You do not find yourself funny? Must be the accent then, because from where I am standing, you proposed, no…rather you told me what to do, a suggestion to which the answer remains fairly obvious, so it rather feels pointless to discuss it through. Are we done here? Are we all nice and satisfied with the outcome of the conversation? Can I go now?”
“I do not recall granting a solution where I made it sound as though you had a choice in the matter. Is my accent that thick?”
He c****d his head to the side and then stood his titan-like muscle-massed body, practically obscuring my view from much else beyond him.
“The child you are carrying-,”
He tried to continue but I interrupted.
“Is one I bear no certainty of carrying to term.”
“What do you mean ‘you bear no certainty’? Of course, you will carry it to term.”
Cracked laughter escaped me.
“Excuse me? Gods! Get a load of this c*cky piece!”
I took a step back to examine him more exaggeratedly.
“Your highness, has none ever informed you that you carry grandiose audacities? ‘Of course, you will carry it to term.’ Dear gods! Have you utterly lost your mind? Or..is this your way of volunteering to carry the baby.”
“Oh then, by all means. I implore you to hold a strong enough opinion since you are the one squeezing a full-sized watermelon out of your hoo-ha!”
At first, he was livid, which was made obvious by his growing sneer, but then he tilted his head to the side and gave me a confused frown.
“Do…do you not know?”
“Know what?”
“You cannot terminate a dragon’s seed past two weeks of insemination.”
There was a period of silence, then utter confusion washed over me.
“What?”
“Yes. If you attempt to, by taking medications, the child will be born with permanent scarring on their face. This is common in my community and it is a sign that they are unwanted. You will not do that to my child.”
“Wait…what… I do not…?”
My hand gripped my belly and as unstably as possible I walked to the couch offered prior.
‘It isn’t my intention to scar them.’
“What about surgery?”
“Surgery will result in the foetus gripping your organs, taking them hostage if you will. If you do that, you will die alongside the child.”
I buried my hands in my face.
That makes no sense. That’s hardly a fair choice.
If I die, I go back to the ballroom, the plus side being I can undo my choice in bedding the first prince…the downside, however…I have to go to war again, relive what I have lived…again.
‘Maybe this time I can marry Harell? Maybe this time I can avoid severing my connections with the Empress’
My hand reached for the gentle swell, a swell I had gotten too accustomed to its comforting presence.
An image of the chubby boy the witch showed me flashed before my eyes and the ease of the decision wavered.
The choice should be harder. I should agonize over this harder yet…
‘Gods…I can’t believe it.’
‘I am going to have a baby!’
An unexplained thrill gripped me.
Though I postponed the decision, I never consciously let myself hold enough excuses to…
‘Oh, thank the-,’
“I cannot believe you tried to have my child scarred.”
‘Ah right…this…this is the father.’
I threw my head back on the couch and let out an exasperated sigh.
“Alright, I see your point.”
I began.
“I should have done more research on the effects of terminating kin of your species. That being said, your highness, I want this child to be mine, alone. I do not want you involved in any way.”
I have no idea how he moved from where he stood to where I rested in the blink of an eye.
The first prince turned my head to face him so harshly that I was certain he pulled a muscle. I nearly raised protest at his forcefulness when he whispered in a sound too threatening to dare.
“That is where you are wrong, Countess. I will not have my child borne a bastard!”
“If it is name-calling you fear, then I will marry a commoner, basically someone…no, anyone else, and have them sign a contract to agree to be the father of-,”
“Of what? My child? You think I will let you do that?”
In the large and empty chalet, both of us spoke in whispers as though yelling would give out how truly out of control we felt.
“let me rephrase that for you, your highness. I’d sooner tell them their father died at war than have them…”
He laughed bitterly, drowning out the last of my sentence.
His grip on my face lowered to my neck.
“If I can sense my child, what makes you believe they cannot sense me?”
“Then I will ban them from entering Kranis…”
‘Then send them on a scavenger hunt after my death; that makes for a good backstory to a game character…perhaps then, they will not feel borne of misfortune.’
I took a deep breath to calm my racing mind at the absurd ideas sneaking past my unconscious mind.
“And how, pray tell, do you intend to keep me from Clay?”
“Why? Why is this so important when everything loses its significance once you mate?”
He stilled, and the hand trailing down my neck stopped.
“Because I want to give them what I can. How do you think this will play out? You have a child whose origin is unknown, as it is the rumours surrounding you are terrible. You, to all of high society, are deemed a harlot. I cannot have my child suffer such burdens, become a social pariah all because their moth-”
“All because their mother what?”
I brushed his hand aside, stood from the seat, and proceeded with the piece I wished to share, giving him no chance to clarify.
“As I said, it doesn’t have to be you, it could be anyone else.”
“But it is me. I will not let anyone raise my child.”
“ And I don’t want them to know you.”
‘I don’t want them to know you, only for you to leave and start a more preferred family of your own. I do not want, in this life, for someone I love to suffer from abandonment.’
But the fullness of my words remained unsaid, even as the harshness of his gaze softened to disappointment.
“If you insist on raising him with me, the marriage to avoid his bastardisation needs only two years.”
‘Children don’t remember past three, right?’
I expected some protest from him; instead, the first prince’s entire face softened.
“It is a boy?”
- Writer
