A Pet for the Dragons

165.

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"What do you mean they took her?" Ivret roared, "You two were supposed to look after her!"

"Oh yeah? Tell me what you were doing, diddlebum? She was with you when you were talking to Mavie!" Zorge replied. I ground my teeth fighting the urge to swat their silliness away.

They always argued in moments like this instead of calmly and quickly assessing the situation.

I tried to ignore their bickering as much as possible and focused on melting the cuffs. However, this situation also tested me. Waking up in the dungeon without Arika made me panic internally.

My dragon was a wreck, anxious about Arika. To add to this, being in this part of the dungeon triggered some dark memories— memories after the war when I'd been captured and enslaved here for how many days I didn't remember until I was released and I went into hiding. I tried to force those memories away as I focused on melting the metal.

"Mavie took her to the sanctuary," Ivret said. This made me stop even though I was trying to ignore them.

Why would they take her to the sanctuary of all places? My mind was suddenly flooded with all the bad things they could do to her at the sanctuary.

"But why?" Zorge asked, echoing my naked question.

"She's pregnant," Ivret growled.

Suddenly, time seemed to have stopped by Ivret's words. A second seemed like an entire year as my mind processed Ivret's words.

She is pregnant.

Arika is pregnant.

I couldn't believe it at first, but slowly and steadily as my senses returned to reality, Ivret's words dug deeper and deeper into me.

"No—"

"She's pregnant. Samhog confirmed it too," Ivret gritted.

"But she was still in heat," I asked. There must have been a misunderstanding. Samhorg was one of the oldest and most skilled healers, having healed generations of royals. He was least likely to make a mistake like this, but still... there must have been a misunderstanding.

A female couldn't be in heat and pregnant at the same time. It didn't make sense but again, Arika was human. Maybe, this was possible for them? But I couldn't find the nerves in me to believe this.

I had too many questions but grew increasingly restless, wanting to leave this place and find Arika.

Ivret was most likely the child's biological father because he'd been the one to mate with Arika while she was in heat, but it didn't matter. The child was ours. It'd grow up to call all of us fathers.

"It was because she still had unfertilised eggs," Ivret answered.

"We need to get out of here now," I growled. "We cannot waste anymore time,"

"If you haven't noticed yet we're cuffed," Zorge said. "You're talking as if we're sitting here ideally,"

"Do something," Ivret gritted, jerking against the cuff despite the pain from the special enchantments. "I'm useless here,"

"Aren't you always useless?" Zorge roared. "Why didn't you tell us before? You knew this and you hid it from us!" I couldn't help but agree with Zorge.

Ivret must've known about the pregnancy and the reason for the heat since the very beginning but never discussed all these things with us. This enraged me.

"We could've avoided this," I growled, baring my teeth at Ivret. "You kept it from us,"

"I... I—" Ivret was momentarily speechless and the guilt was evident in his eyes.

"Why?" I roared. I couldn't help it. My veins were coursing through rage suddenly and I wanted to snap at someone or something. I jerked hard against the cuffs and heard a crack in the wall behind me. "Why did you keep it from us?" I demanded.

"Mavie tempted you, didn't she?" Zorge accused, but Ivret was quick to snap back.

"She didn't tempt me. She couldn't tempt me. I was..." Ivret looked lost at that moment, but I couldn't care. I was so mad at him for keeping such an essential thing from us that I was sure I'd have snapped his neck if the cuffs weren't holding me back.

"Why?" I demanded. Even though escaping this place was higher on the priority list, I couldn't help but focus on this now. The more I thought about the situation, the more I realised this could've been avoided. "We wouldn't have taken her to meet Mavie if we knew!"

"Why did you bring her to Mavie?" Ivret snapped back at me. "You were supposed to keep her away from Mavie!"

"Arika wanted to talk to Mavie about us," Zorge answered, his eyes unfocused. He seemed distracted, as if in the middle of a deep thought.

"And what made you think that would work?" Ivret shot back.

"It doesn't matter. We need to get out of here quickly—"

"—oh, now you want to get out of here and—"

"— could you fucking stop. I sense something—"

"— of course, you do. Can't take the heat anymore?—

"— oh for fucks's sake!" I roared, unable to take their banter, but it kept on going and soon, we were distracted and yelling at each other, unaware of what was about to come.

"I should've thought more carefully before trusting her in your care," Ivret growled. "I should've—"

"— says the guy who got fooled by her not once but twice!"

"Don't act like she didn't fool you as well!"

I tried to tune out their bickering as I focused on the strange smell in the air. I heard faint footsteps somewhere outside our cell, approaching our way. I tried to focus on them as Ivret and Zorge continued to bicker. I wanted to punch them both and shush them for once, but that would only worsen things.

The two stopped bickering when they noticed the footsteps and the strange smell in the air.

"What's that?" Zorge asked, turning towards me. Ivret looked at me, but he looked worried. I could tell he had a faint idea of what it could be. I closed my eyes and tried calming my nerves just as the footsteps rounded the corner and stopped outside our cell.

"The three of you were throwing quite the ruckus there," A deep, gravelly voice spoke. A pair of bloody red eyes blinked at us from the dark. "If I were you, I'd be as quiet as a dead mouse,"

The curls of the shadows peeled back to reveal the face of the Empress' Guard of Honour under the faint pale light of the enchanted torch.

"Nerved," I hissed as a phantom pain seized my heart with dark memories of him. 

~

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