21 #2
My mouth almost fell open when the Alpha decked his nephew. I realized it wasn’t others who had gone after him… It had been his uncle.
“This is about the future of our country. I believed you when you told me you understood that and fine, you talk out of your ass sometimes, but—you think you’re going to educate her? I’ve seen her give guest lectures and she’s an actual fucking genius, you tool!”
“Everyone needs to start holding each other accountable,” Thorn said firmly. “I’ve heard people suggest using that drug on themselves to influence the queen with their pheromones.”
I wasn’t the only one who looked at his uncle when he started chuffing… And we all looked at him accusingly.
He clearly realized it and tried to play it off. “I’m disgusted people would even think that.”
Yeah, right.
Thorn didn’t react and kept talking. “Yes, we’re competing to possibly mate the queen, but it is what is supposed to be best for Thovudin and cheating isn’t.
Usurping isn’t. She’s queen ruler. Playing it off that she’ll basically birth the next king and one of us will be in charge until then—that’s taking over and the media is eating it up. That’s dangerous.”
“For all of us,” someone else added.
“And it makes idiots bold,” Onyx added. “I’ve told the queen—none of us would have thought Lori would have been the one to pull something like that.
It’s time to stop acting like—it’s time to just stop.
” He glanced around at the other candidates.
“I’m basically done with helping Protesia.
You don’t have to worry about Thorn punching you anymore if you step out of line. ”
Because he’d put them in the ground. That was obvious from his tone… Unless they were idiots who didn’t get that.
And Eloise swooned, my face flushing as well. He did a double take when he saw that, others catching my reaction as well and clearing their throats or coughing.
Oh, they could stuff it. Yeah, I liked it when someone treated me with respect and fought for me instead of assholes like Wilder.
Shocking, right?
“No more lies. No more bullshit. This is a fair—I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but competition,” Dray said, and gave me an apologetic look but also half shrugged.
“I cannot be the only one who remembers the unrest with our families years ago. It wasn’t that many ago and it was popular to hate on Alpha families.
“We could be back there in a flash after Lori and Kole. One more and—three strikes is a popular adage for a reason. So while I hate Wilder gets quietly handled, we all agree we start throwing down and no more of this. No more—if she only mates because she gets stuck with the fucking leftovers, then all of Thovudin loses out.”
“And no more of this multiple mates demand,” I added.
“The public is not accepting of that from a woman. You want me to accept more than one? You start working on fixing that because I will not be queen whore like that one story title in a major newspaper. That’s what they print about me regarding this and it’s not even happened. I won’t do it. I won’t.”
“Yeah, I can’t believe how far they’re taking it,” someone grumbled.
That was because they had a penis and had never had to deal with sexism.
They seemed to all accept it and were definitely on board for handling liars and cheats since that benefited them. Wilder’s uncle shot me a few looks and I realized why when Darren started chuffing and practically dragged the man off to the side.
“He was really going to be so stupid as to ask to switch out the candidate, wasn’t he?” I mumbled as I stared after them.
“I think it’s best to not go there for your mental health,” Onyx whispered and moved his hand to my lower back. “Let’s eat. I’m annoyed I only got one shot on Wilder before his uncle elbowed me out of the way and you had your super-secret meeting to start.”
I swallowed loudly, feeling guilty that he didn’t know I had actually called Galan and discussed him coming to visit. I honestly didn’t plan on mating Galan, but… It was a good ploy for both of us.
And I was serious about possibly making Cohen a vassal state of Thovudin. It would protect him and get the ministers under control, and there was a lot we could gain from that deal.
Onyx managed to sneak in to sit with my group, and I basically shrugged it off to the others wanting lunch more than issues.
It was a pasta bar to show the Alphas what their relatives had talked about living in the castle, and it was amusing to watch as they were educated how other cultures and countries enjoyed food.
Some dragons really were just boring.
Onyx chuckled as I built a massive bowl with white sauce topped with salmon and shrimp. I loved a good alfredo and then added more cheese just because I agreed with him that everything needed extra cheese.
But also, I got the treat when I was so stressed from idiots.
“Okay, this is seriously amazing,” Maple praised, having copied me. “I’ve traveled and—we really do need more culinary range in Thovudin.” She glanced over at Darren’s lunch. “Oh, I want tomatoes in mine. Yes, diced tomatoes in a white sauce with salmon and shrimp? Perfect.”
“I thought so,” he chuckled and wiped his mouth before standing. “I’ll get you some.” He told me he would for me as well knowing I would want the same without even needing to ask.
“Something is going on with him,” I muttered as I looked after him. “I don’t know but—”
“But you have enough else going on, darling,” Maple said gently.
I met her gaze. “So something is going on.”
She sighed and shared a look with Fraser.
“We don’t know, but I heard there’s a bit of a shakeup in the Gurren family,” Fraser answered. “Your grandfather started some trouble or something.”
“About Darren being my advisor?” I worried. I’d never even met my grandparents—none of my mother’s relatives besides him really. Not that I could remember. They didn’t believe in… I honestly wasn’t sure.
Father had always said they worried about influencing the royal family, so they stayed out of things and our lives after Mother mated him. That never seemed like the full truth to me, but I knew it upset Mother, and she always said Darren was stronger than the others to go against her father.
Whatever that meant. She came from such a loving family—she was so normal and that family was like the model of what families should be like in Thovudin. A lot of people praised them for making sure they didn’t benefit off of being mated into the royal family.
I thought it was horrible they left me without a maternal side of the family to have, but I just wanted someone to accept and love me. Darren always did, so maybe in my mind I’d thought the rest of them would have?
“Probably, but it’s for him to worry about,” Maple answered, winking at me as Darren came back within hearing range.
Fair enough.
I changed into something I didn’t care about shredding when I shifted, but all of the Alphas had made it clear that if anyone took a picture of me in my castle, all of them would pound the person. It was against the law and one slip was stupid.
More than one was a fucking disaster.
So not that they really cared about me and my privacy, but they wanted to protect the opinions of Alpha families.
It still worked for me, but what a bunch of assholes.
I let out a long breath and glanced up at the gods asking for patience before shifting forms, apologizing to Eloise like always that it would be Iris.
I hated that it would be her only that ever took off from our home.
It was so beyond unfair that… Eloise was honestly as abused and neglected as I was.
Not that Iris wasn’t, but she was “normal.”
“Let’s focus on the very abnormal objective of dealing with all these men,” Iris said gently in my mind before Eloise and I got distracted in our upset. She was honestly the adult sometimes that kept Eloise and me grounded.
But then she huffed when Onyx somehow made sure he was first. She hated how pushy he was. She basically acknowledged him but snorted in his face when he tried to get friendly with her, especially publicly.
His dragon was not happy about that, and I agreed with her when she put him in his place, baring her teeth and basically reminding him of his place in life. I couldn’t deny my attraction and now feelings for Onyx, but it was an understatement to say things were complicated.
And I didn’t like him trying to pee around me like this.
She responded better when his rock dragon basically pouted and plopped down, sulking and hanging his head. He even went further and flopped down submissively and just stared up at her.
Even Iris wasn’t completely resistant to that sort of attitude and booped his snout with hers before moving on. We rolled our eyes when his dragon chortled more than chuffed, clearly amused at her antics as well.
Thorn went next and while Eloise still liked him, Iris and I were pissed. She basically gave him a nod and kept moving.
His dragon wasn’t happy… But it didn’t seem to be focused on us? Was his dragon mad at Thorn?
Oh boy. That would be drama to deal with later.
I kind of recognized Dayan and Cosmo’s dragons from flying and acknowledged them. I did remember Zev’s from the fight when I saw him change.
I went over and booped him, making it clear that I did see him now. His dragon studied me and seemed to catch on, sitting and looking happy.
It was honestly kind of endearing.
Iris was distracted when Joris changed and was immediately all about him, upsetting more than a few people. His dragon was just as friendly, and it was probably pretty fucking clear to everyone there that we were intimate.
Well, that backfired. I hadn’t considered that, but also… I was fairly sure most figured that out after I was drugged and went off with Joris.
Was anyone that dense to not have figured it out?
Maybe, but hopefully it made people behave better instead of how things had been going.