Chapter 1
Viol
“I’m not fucking doing it.”
All around the table, my brothers stared at me. Some of them look worried, or shocked. Some of their big dumb mouths were agape. I hoped they stayed that way so their stupid expressions matched their stupid idea.
Aurum closed his gaping mouth, but then was the first to demand, “Why not?”
I wasn’t going to justify his idiotic question with a response. I stood up from the table, ready to ditch this conversation before it even started.
“Hey!” Aurum called, offended. “Did you see that? He ignored me.”
“Because you asked in an obnoxious way,” Crimson muttered, then cleared his throat. “Viol, don’t walk away yet. Let’s all sit down and discuss this like civilized dragons.”
Crimson’s asinine comment was even less deserving of a reply. I took two steps towards the door.
“Haha, he ignored you, too,” Aurum teased.
I was seconds away from grabbing the handle to leave when Cobalt’s huge body swung in front of me, blocking my path.
I glared up at him. “Move.”
Normally I wouldn’t speak so rudely to my eldest brother, but this setup put me in a foul mood. They’d brought this upon themselves.
“Viol, I know this is difficult,” Cobalt said calmly, “but it’s for your own sake.”
Saffron leapt up to join him. His stupid sunny face was twisted into a concerned frown. “Yeah, we just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy,” I snapped.
Saffron raised his brow while the rest of the room fell into doubtful silence.
“What?” I added, raising my voice as I whirled around. “Do any of you have a problem with that?”
“No, but I have a problem with lying,” Crimson said.
My lip curled in anger. “Are you calling me a liar?”
Crimson arched a brow. “Well, yes. Because you are.”
Fury welled up within me like a volcano about to blow. I took one rigid step towards Crimson, seated smugly in his chair, before I felt Cobalt’s large hand on my shoulder, holding me in place.
“Ignore him, Viol,” Cobalt soothed.
I exhaled hard through my nostrils, but I didn’t feel any calmer. If anything, I wanted to punch Crimson’s lights out even more since he’d had the last word. How dare he call me a liar?
“I’m not lying,” I ground out through my teeth.
Crimson barked out a laugh that pierced my ears and reignited my rage. “Come on, Viol. Be serious for a second. You’re not happy—you’re angry.”
“I am now,” I spat.
Crimson met my glare head on. “You were angry five minutes ago. Honestly, you were probably angry when you woke up this morning, and angry when you fell asleep.”
My fists clenched.
“Crimson,” Cobalt said in a warning tone. I felt his hand tighten on my shoulder, like I was an aggressive dog at the end of a taut leash.
“What Crimson is trying to say,” Jade intercepted, shooting our suit-wearing brother a stern look, “is that we want you to be the happiest version of yourself. Nobody is implying that your life is bad. We simply know it can be better. More fulfilling.”
I snorted. What a snake. Jade was essentially saying the same shit as Crimson, just dressed up in prettier words. But his silver tongue wouldn’t work on me. Not about this.
“Answer’s no,” I stated. “Now let me out of here.”
Before I could slip out the door, Saffron got in my way with a pleading look.
“Viol! Don’t you want your mate?” he asked.
Something about his phrasing made me pause. He didn’t say to find your mate. He said ‘want your mate’—as if he already knew who that person was. That angered me on a deeper level than Crimson calling me a liar.
“I don’t care,” I spat roughly.
Saffron looked hurt, but I was unsympathetic. It was a hard-learned lesson not to push my buttons, especially when I was already in a bad mood.
As usual, Aurum came to his twin’s defence. He stood beside Saffron, doubling the amount of brats blocking my exit.
“Dude, stop freaking out,” Aurum said. “We’re only talking. Besides, you’re the last one of us who doesn’t have a mate. You should’ve known you’d be the final bachelor.”
My patience was frayed, and Aurum was bouncing up and down on my last nerve like it was a fucking trampoline.
“I never agreed to that,” I snarled. “Get out of my face.”
The twins didn’t budge. I didn’t actually want to hit either of them—only because they’d have to greet their young children with bruised faces, and I’d rather not traumatize the poor kids.
Since they were obstructing my way, I stormed back to my seat at the table and sat down with my arms crossed. Maybe if I bored them to death, they’d all leave me alone.
Thystle sat beside me. He was the only one who hadn’t said anything yet. He was young, but unlike the twins, he had more than half a brain cell and didn’t bother trying to sway my opinion. He gave Jade a wordless shrug.
Jade sighed, pushing up his glasses.
I saw him gearing up to give me another speech, so I interrupted: “Don’t bother.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Jade replied calmly, although it was an obvious lie.
A strained silence fell over the room. Now that I wasn’t trying to make a break for it or punch my brothers in the face, Cobalt slipped back into his seat. The twins also sat down awkwardly.
I could tell everyone at the table wanted to look at me, but kept their gazes averted.
Good. Maybe if they stewed in their own discomfort long enough, they’d let me out of here.
I didn’t care either way. Unlike my brothers, I didn’t have important shit to do.
They were wasting their precious time trying to convince me to be the bachelor when they could be spending time with their mates and kids instead. How idiotic.
I never asked to be part of the Dragonfate Games. I never agreed to be the final bachelor. Why the fuck did they care so much?
The awkward silence was broken by Saffron clearing his throat. “So, uh... If Viol won’t do it, what about Gaius?”
“It’s called the Dragonfate Games, not the Gryphonfate Games,” Crimson countered in an unnecessarily snarky tone. Our little tiff clearly got on his nerves. “Nobody wants to burn their retinas watching a season about Gaius and his heinous outfits.”
I relaxed in my seat. Thank Holy Drake I wasn’t the topic of conversation anymore. If they kept this up, their stupid plot to place me as the bachelor would blow over.
But that viper Jade wasn’t willing to let it slide. “I’m sure Gaius would make excellent television,” he agreed. “But skipping an obvious dragon bachelor won’t do. The audience will wonder why Viol didn’t have a season.”
I slammed my palm on the table. “I don’t give a flying fuck about the audience. I’m not doing the Games, and nothing you say will change my mind.” Before Jade wormed his way in with honeyed words, I went on. “You all have mates. The Games were a success. Why do you even want a final season?”
“Because you don’t have one,” Saffron said, nearly pouting. He was such a baby sometimes, despite being a father.
“I missed the part where that’s your problem.”
Saffron’s frown deepened. He shot Aurum a look, but his twin shrugged like he’d given up.
“Guys, lay off,” Thystle said. “Viol’s not gonna find a mate just because you force him into doing something he doesn’t want to do. How do you know he even wants one? He could be aromantic for all we know.”
I was surprised to hear Thystle stand up for me. Although his suggestion was totally wrong, it might steer me out of the limelight.
“Are you?” Crimson asked casually.
I glared at him. “None of your fucking business.”
“How charming,” Crimson said in a dry tone. “Actually, I agree with Viol. He should not be the bachelor. Can you imagine how cruelly he’d insult the omegas? It would tarnish the general public’s image of dragons forever.”
The hairs rose on the back of my neck. Now he was pissing me off for a different reason.
I didn’t insult strangers for no reason, but I didn’t bother defending myself.
If being perceived as belligerent and hostile was enough to dodge the Dragonfate draft, that was fine with me.
I refused to participate in their bullshit.
“Are we done here?” I asked.
Nobody voiced a halfway decent argument in time, so I stood up and trudged towards the door.
As my hand reached for the handle, Cobalt spoke up.
“Will you at least tell us why?” he asked.
I paused, my fingers hovering in midair.
They wouldn’t like my answer. More so, I knew they wouldn’t accept it. Their minds were all turned to saccharine mush by their fresh romances. A couple years ago, they were all single. Now that they all had mates and children, they thought love could solve every fucking problem in the world.
It couldn’t.
Their love stories were all perfect. Perfectly matched alphas and omegas. Their biggest problem was running out of peanut butter, or some stupid shit like that. They had wealth and security and a warm body to hold every single night.
It wasn’t like I wished tragedy upon them. They were family, and I’d always fight to protect them from harm. I just couldn’t relate to my brothers. Any of them.
Without turning around, I said, “I have no fated mate. That good enough for you?”
“I’m sorry, Viol, but I don’t believe that,” Saffron cried.
Fuck, he was naive. And annoying.
“Believe whatever you want,” I muttered. “Just stop forcing me to listen to it.”
“But—”
“Oh, let him go,” Aurum said, waving it off. “Crimson’s right. Put Viol in a room with a bunch of strangers and he’ll bite their heads off. Let him be lonely for the rest of his life, if that’s what he wants.”
Asshole. Of course I didn’t want that.
But I bit my tongue. Let him and the others think of me as a rejected outcast. I’d bear any untruth to escape this situation.
“All right,” Jade finally said. “I won’t pressure you into the Games if you don’t want to participate, Viol.”
I felt relieved that he’d dropped it. “I don’t.”
“Just know that we’re here for you.”
That kind of overly sympathetic drivel made my skin crawl.
“Yeah, sure,” I muttered before finally escaping the room.
My adrenaline slowed as I stormed down the hall towards my bedroom. As I reached it, I reconsidered. If any of my brothers wanted to restart that annoying conversation, they’d know exactly where to find me. Instead, I turned on my heel and walked out the castle’s front door.
The summer sunshine baked against my skin, stifling and hot. I shed my human skin and leapt into the sky as a dragon. I pumped my wings until I approached the tropical mountain overlooking the rest of the island. Nobody would bother me there.
I perched on the peak and stared out into the endless sea. It stretched out in every direction, sparkling as it reflected the sun’s light. Usually the sight of it calmed me, but I was agitated from being trapped in that room and forced to talk about my feelings.
My brothers didn’t understand. Nobody did.
Except one person—one who wasn’t here.
One I could never have.
My claws sank into the rocky ground. How much did my brothers know? Were they trying to set me up?
A hiss coiled in my throat. I refused to be their puppet. It didn’t matter if they were trying to help or not. They couldn’t control my fate. It was already written in stone.