Moira pulled on a robe, handing robes to Radomir and Jules as well, breaking Jules from his melancholy thoughts.
They’d been using the same robes for years now, only getting Jules new ones as he grew. Moira and Radomir’s nearly threadbare ones now hung off them. He remembered them being much more muscular, without as much gray in their hair, back when they used the garage to spar with swords.
He hadn’t seen them spar with each other in at least five years. His hoard allowed for new robes and more, but the couple seldom spent any of what had been put aside for them, always insisting that Jules came first.
They’d sacrificed for him: their home, their family, their hoards, always, always putting Jules before their own needs to the point where they never actually told him what those might be. They deserved to retire; let him see to them for a change.
If he ever got the chance.
“We don’t know that dragon,” Radomir offered, his voice more explanatory than scolding. “He could have harmed you.”
“He couldn’t have caught me, you know that.” While Jules might be small, he was fast. “Besides, we don’t mix with other dragons, so of course we didn’t know them.” Another dragon. He'd never seen another dragon in their usual shifting spot, but developers had moved in, necessitating a location change. How Moira and Radomir found this spot, he might never know.
What a beautiful alpha dragon, deep bronze, with darker brown mottling. Jules shivered at the memory of stroking his neck along the other dragon’s—something he’d never admit to his guardians.
An alpha. An alpha dragon, like the one supposedly awaiting him in Adrakus. And a male. Something seemed familiar about the alpha…. Some kind of pull affecting both Jules and his dragon.
Thoughts of Elouan interrupted the daydream. Elouan. An uncomfortable sensation lodged in the pit of Jules’s stomach. How could he think about a dragon when he had Elouan? Ordid he have Elouan? He’d always balked at the idea of becoming some alpha's prize. Did alphas have some kind of hold over omegas?
If Elouan had been a dragon, surely he’d look like the one Jules flew with tonight.
“That’s beside the point,” Moira admonished, hands firmly placed on her hips. Her neck had a tendency to rock when she fussed. “He could have hurt you. Not to mention, figured out who you were.” She tutted and entered their tiny cabin.
Jules hung his head. As usual, his guardians were right. He’d been so selfish. Here, Moira and Radomir just discovered their children were gone, and Jules gave them a scare. He wouldn’t tell them about the momentary connection he felt with Donovan in case he’d merely been caught in a bout of wishful thinking. The flash had come about the time Moira dropped the spell, however.
“I’m sorry,” Jules mumbled, following her inside. “It’s just that he’s the first dragon I’ve gotten to interact with besides the two of you.” How he missed growing up with other dragons to play with, learn to fly with, and tussle on the ground like Radomir said he used to do with his siblings, back when the Goddess wasn’t so stingy with eggs.
Everyone Radomir knew in childhood was likely long gone, another reason for Jules to feel bad about his night of rebellion.
Radomir huffed out a breath. In dragon form, the effort might have produced flame. “I’m sorry too, Jules. I wish you could have enjoyed a normal childhood. We brought you here to explore your dragon side, but we’re too old to fly with you for any distance. I can’t blame you for seeking others, though I was told there would be no other dragons here.”
Who had Radomir spoken with to gain such information? “Why can’t I be around other dragons? They don’t have to know anything more about me than that I’m an omega.”
Moira sighed. “How many dragons do you think are golden?”
“Since I don’t know any other dragons but us, how can I know?” Anger boiled within Jules. Sure, they wanted to protect him, but where did genuine concern for him end and “hired by your brother” begin?
“But—” Moira began.
“No, Moira!” The look of shock on his guardians’ faces at his outburst made Jules soften his tone. “Sorry. Look, I know you’ve spent the last twenty-plus years taking care of me, but I’m grown now. Even in the dragon world, a fledgling of my years, or seasons as you called them, would be independent, right? Didn’t you both tell me you’d left home even younger than me?”
“Yes, but our circumstances were different,” Radomir said, resting a warm hand on Jules’s shoulder, adding more guilt for not being suitably grateful. This man, this beta, had done nothing but be a solid rock for a young dragon who'd been cast into a strange place. “We weren’t destined for greatness.”
There went the anger again at the mention of some imaginary greatness. “Haven’t we talked about the possibility that no one’s coming for us? That this is all there is to our lives? That’s why I want my degree and a career. Sure, we have money now, but what about purpose?”
“Our purpose is to care for you.” Moira’s eyes had gone misty, cooling the last of Jules’s residual anger. Yes, caring for him now that her own children were gone. Did she have grandchildren, by any chance? Or any other family?
“Yes,” Jules replied, voice low. “But what ofmypurpose? I have no friends and no future without this destiny you talk about. You say I must save myself for this alpha I’ve never met. Well, what about me? Don’t I deserve to live and make plans, especially if no one’s coming for me? Twenty years is a long time.” Now, moisture stung Jules’s own eyes. “Was the alpha Donovan intended for me someone my brother knew twentyyears ago?” He flinched. Surely not. “If so, he’s so much older than I am.”
“We allowed you to go to college,” Radomir reminded him. “We thought once you got a taste of humans, you’d stay with us.”
Oh, no, he didn’t! “Yes! And do you hear yourself? Youallowedme. I’m of age and a member of a royal house. Why are youallowingme to do anything? The human world is and will probably always be our home. We need to stop avoiding people. We don’t have to throw extravagant parties, but I want to bring friends home.” If he ever made any. He wanted to introduce them to Elouan, who, hopefully, was much more than a friend, or at least well on the way there. “What do you have against humans, anyway?”
Moira huffed out a breath, dragging one hand through her hair. “It’s not precisely what I have against them. You don’t know the old tales, but dragons brought humans to Adrakus as servants.”
“Slaves,” Radomir corrected. “Tell the boy the truth.”
“Alright. Slaves, then. Some dragons treated humans as favored pets; others were cruel, even sadistic. At first, no one knew what the humans were capable of. One day they rose up and used weapons they had devised in secret to kill their dragon captors. Even dragons who believed they were benevolent fell to their wrath. Humans even killed mages. In the end, the humans left to inhabit other parts of Adrakus.”
