Zevran
I was pumped after our date. Sure, I would have liked a goodnight kiss or even a real hug or… Anything, but she needed patience. That much was clear.
And this wasn’t like any other dating experience I’d had.
Her either.
Which is actually a good thing given how horrible Kole was. I shivered just thinking about the fucked texts he sent her. I really hoped he wasn’t the only man she’d been with. That would be horrible for him to have been her only experience or—you never forgot your first time having sex.
That person always had a piece of you.
For Kole to have that piece of her would be traumatic all in itself.
I’d had to stop reading the texts a few times, and I was used to my dad being a bastard and saying gross things.
But threatening to rape Sagan’s daughters—women who could be Kole’s cousins if she mated with Onyx—was another level of horrible.
Sagan was really impressive though. She was completely unfazed by the attack the day before. I was honestly bummed we hadn’t talked about it at all. I’d hoped to… Well, yeah, talk about it.
I couldn’t with my friends, and the other candidates weren’t my friends before we were “battling” for Sagan. Now I wouldn’t tell them my thoughts on just about anything, much less how I couldn’t sleep after what I’d seen.
Checking my phone, I saw one of my friends send me video from the attack that someone they knew had taken personally. They’d been in Nerthus for a shopping trip and had been doing some tourist stuff. So they actually had more than their phone and a real camera that could take video.
And my buddy promised that the friend deleted the naked pictures of Sagan… Though I would have liked to have seen them.
Fine, I was a perv, but I was a man. Same thing really.
I’d seen the live version and fuck, she was hot. Like the queen was hawt.
“Yes, but keep your hands to yourself. You saw her naked because of an attack and she was forced to date any of you. You won’t even get to know her acting like an idiot,” my dragon lectured and I nodded. That was fair.
It was just really hard. No one wanted to be on a date with someone who didn’t want to be there. Part of me wanted to remind her that no matter how it had happened, she’d agreed so… Act like it.
Fine, I was an asshole, but I also wasn’t wrong.
Maybe?
I was glad my buddy said I could share the footage with Sagan and her people, but his friend didn’t want to be named. He wasn’t going to share it—basically leave him out of it.
Yeah, fair enough.
The media had a lot of footage already. Something else had been going on—like always in a huge city like Nerthus—and they’d been gathered only a few blocks away when the attack started.
I learned that Sagan and Benson had done a good job managing to get the attacking dragons positioned over the large park in the middle of the capital. It was smart to reduce any possible casualties or like taking out a whole fucking skyscraper.
From what was being reported, there was honestly minimal damage done.
I sat down in the guest room I was in for now and loosened my tie as I flipped through the news stations. I chuffed as one kept replaying Sagan shifting back to a woman even if they blurred out what they legally had to. They were doing it to be salacious and scummy.
Not one word about how powerful she was or how awesome her dragon had been. No, it was focused that she’d been so crass to flaunt her naked body after killing an elder, his mate, and half his family.
Right, the ones that attacked her.
I flipped channels and was glad at least that station was impressed she could have killed an elder. None of the guards or people flying with Sagan had said anything to the press, but they’d gotten a few unnamed comments from officers who had been on the scene.
At least they were all impressed with her too.
One actually gushed about how amazing Sagan was at checking her surroundings and protecting people while handling such an attack. He had seen her battle tactics and couldn’t get over how well her dragon was prepared.
It also made him wonder how effectively King Rhys would have handled the same situation. Was it him who made her prepare that way or working with the ancients who had come to help?
I smiled as a couple of young girls excitedly rambled to a reporter talking to people on the street that the queen was awesome.
A few boys their age joined in, and one boasted that his dad was mad because the queen was a better flyer than him and his mom kept saying clearly he needed to remember female dragons were stronger.
Oh shit. That kid was in trouble later, but it was great.
I smiled though, I really did. She deserved some good coverage after all the crap she’d been getting. Especially for something so horrible.
Which was why I chuffed when I changed channels again and they had pictures up of all the attackers with their names and it was…
Disgusting didn’t cover it. The “news” reporter was essentially doing a segment about how unhinged Sagan was for taking out an elder family and bloodline basically like there weren’t tons of them still.
Probably. I didn’t really know.
“You act like it’s an Alpha or royal bloodline,” the other in-house reporter shot back.
“Elder isn’t a bloodline or—fine, they were a wealthy family with a long lineage, but an elder isn’t a born title.
An elder family wasn’t a thing until these past decades where they became corrupt.
It was supposed to be a rotating honorary position that—”
“That’s semantics, and we know it was always the same families,” he drawled.
“No, it wasn’t actually,” she argued, ignoring the annoyed looks from the two other men as well.
“He was the first of his family. All the elders were first of their family. It was people who were the best in their field or the different areas who could serve the ruler and Thovudin to keep peace. Honestly, Darren Gurren is a perfect example if he wasn’t too young to be an elder. ”
“That’s just nepotism,” one of the other men sneered.
“Right, but we live in a monarchy, so kind of hard to throw stones at that then,” she drawled. “Ignoring he’s the queen’s uncle, he’s one of the most successful businessmen in Thovudin. We’ve done features on him and used to gush about how amazing he was until the queen named him an advisor.”
“I think you need to remember what the program is about tonight,” the first bit out.
She snorted and sat back in her seat. “You mean get with the program and talk trash about the queen or you’ll threaten to fire me again?
Go ahead. You’re not actually my boss, and I’m paid to give accurate information and my educated opinions on situations.
And I have a better education than you, so your being male shouldn’t make you be the one we listen to. ”
“I think you should calm down and—” he seethed.
“I’m completely calm. You’re the one emotional,” she said with a smirk. “Anger is an emotion and you’re pissed. Red face pissed and ready to smack me. You should maybe calm down and get a grip. This is a serious situation—”
“Okay, let’s remember the topic at hand,” the second guy cut in.
“Yes, the fact the leader of Thovudin was attacked,” she agreed.
“An assassination attempt in broad daylight is serious.” She gestured to the first guy.
“And he’s upset they died. The criminals.
The elder who brought his whole family to try and take out our ruler.
He’s on their side and annoyed… The queen survived? ”
“I didn’t say that,” the first guy snapped. “I’m saying she didn’t have to kill him and be—”
“You weren’t there, and it’s a capital crime to try and assassinate the queen. What does it matter if they died then or later? You have one less reason to tear her down?” She snorted when the dragon chuffed. “You’re just pissed that Prince Fraser can’t take over like you want.”
“He’s a much better option than her!”
“Yeah, she just has to die for him to take over and he—”
“So what? Good!” he yelled. “It wouldn’t be a loss or anything bad if she died. We’d be better off than some freak whose own parents sent her off and—”
“Okay, let’s cut to a commercial,” the third guy finally interjected. “And reset—cut to something else.”
The woman snorted. “And we’re too emotional and can’t handle ourselves? A few holes poked in your stupidity and you admit live on air that you want the queen to die. And you’ve looked down on me for years as being dumb?”
It finally hit the guy what he’d said and he went pale.
“Oh fuck,” I chuckled as the live news broadcast cut to a commercial. I texted what I’d just seen to Myriam and even Andra since she could probably talk to Sagan faster than I could.
Luck was on my side because I caught Sagan at the gym the next morning and there weren’t a bunch of people like normal. She was never alone, but most of the candidates had stopped hanging around there constantly trying to catch her.
They probably realized it was creepy and she never even talked to them, just ignored their staring. It creeped me out too like they were trying to get information on her rather than actually get to know her.
“Good morning,” I greeted, careful not to be loud or distracting as she bench-pressed what was way more than it looked. I didn’t take offense when she basically grunted, Belinda and another ancient taking over her training and pushing her harder.
I did wait until she was done with that set though so she could talk to me.
Belinda studied me. “He has something interesting. Take a longer break after this set.”
I studied her right back. “How much do you see? Or is it like telepathy?”
She snickered. “I don’t tell my lovers that, child.”
Fair enough.
Sagan sat up and wiped her face with a towel as she gave me a look to say what I wanted to.
So I did.
“I sent Myriam the information about the female news reporter pushing back against some bullshit report and how it went off the rails—”