Page 41 of Dragon Mine (Dragon Kings 2)
Vaughn’s memories took him back to that day immediately. He could hear his lover’s painful screams, feel her hand squeezing his as she pushed during a contraction. More than that, he remembered the hope that had filled the room. Until…
He closed his eyes, trying to halt the memories, but it was too late. Vaughn lifted his lids and looked at Eurwen. “After over twenty-two hours of labor, the bairn made his way into the world. Unfortunately, he was stillborn. His mother swore that she had felt him move inside her. None of us could determine when the lad had passed. My grief was palpable, but hers was gut-wrenching. She never recovered from losing our child. Within a few months, she, herself, was dead.”
“I’m so sorry,” Eurwen said in a soft whisper.
“After that, I made sure to use magic to ensure that I couldna get anyone with child again. No’ only because of what it had done to the mortal, but because of the pain I endured, as well.”
Eurwen briefly pressed her lips together. “Then came the war with the humans.”
“There was a lot of heartache and anger on both sides. It might have begun with Ulrik’s mortal female who betrayed him, but it ended with us. Few Kings didna side with Ulrik and attack the humans. Myself included. Eventually, Con got all of us back on his side, one by one, until Ulrik stood alone.”
“And my father banished Ulrik.”
Vaughn snorted, shaking his head. “It was much more than that. The two were the closest of friends, brothers for all intents and purposes. Con was King of Dragon Kings, and Ulrik refused to obey, leaving Con no option. No one, especially no’ your father, wanted to strip Ulrik of his magic or banish him from Dreagan, but Ulrik wouldna listen to reason.”
Vaughn walked to one of the carvings. “Ulrik is responsible for most of these. He did the largest one at the opening. We all wanted to save him, but we couldna. Then he ordered his Silvers to ignore Con. Four of them did. Those are the ones we captured and put into a deep sleep here in the mountain. Humans killed more and more dragons, those trying to protect the mortals from the Silvers. Those dragons didn’t defend themselves because we had ordered them to safeguard the humans. Their murders broke us.”
Eurwen took his hand in hers and squeezed.
“Everything we did, we did for the humans. The hate and fury that filled us when we saw the slaughtered dragons, when we watched one being hacked by hundreds of mortals as it screamed in pain, was too much. Every King understood in that instant that there couldna be peace. No’ now. The humans had a taste for blood, and they wouldna stop. There was nowhere the dragons could go and be safe. There were too many mortals. And we wouldna lose any more.”
Her voice broke when she said, “You sent them away.”
“It was the single hardest thing any of us has ever done. They didna want to go. We didna want them to go. But in order to regain our world, we had to do something. Our only other choice was to annihilate the humans. We considered it, but as I said before, we’re no’ murderers.”
“You would’ve been protecting your people.”
Vaughn smiled sadly. “And destroying the very thing that made each of us Dragon Kings. Maybe that’s what we should’ve done. The dragons would’ve remained, and the magic would have chosen others to challenge each of us, defeating us and thus becoming new Kings. But that isna what happened. We sent the dragons away and hid on Dreagan for a handful of millennia, waiting for the time when humans would forget us.”
“Without your involvement in keeping them contained, their population exploded,” she said.
Vaughn made a sound in the back of his throat and started walking hand-in-hand with her. “The way they fought each other over meaningless, insignificant things…we thought for sure they would eradicate themselves, and we could bring the dragons back. Yet, somehow, the mortals have managed to remain and continue their spread around the globe, happily destroying natural resources and slowly killing the planet. We watched it all from the sidelines and under the radar while mourning the realm we once ruled. But, more importantly, our dragons and the ability to have families.”
“Some of the Kings have married humans, be they Druid or not.”
“And Fae,” he pointed out. “It’s only recently that we learned of the first pairing of a Dragon King and a Fae that produced Melisse. The other King of Kings held her prisoner for eons until Con released her. Then we heard about you and your brother. All the time in between, we believed we were the last of our kind. That we would never know what it meant to hold our children in our arms or watch them grow.”
She was silent for a moment. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Then perhaps you can try to imagine how your parents felt when neither you nor Brandr would see them.”
Shame flashed across her face. “It’s one of the reasons I created the doorway.”
He paused outside of the entrance to the cavern. “You did a good thing.”
“I hope so.”
“Come,” he told her and pulled her after him to where the four Silvers slept.
She gaped and rushed to them, putting her hand on each of them one by one. “They’ve been here all this time?”
“Aye.”
“They should be with the others on Zora.”
He nodded. “We agree, but they’re Ulrik’s clan. He gets the final say. None of us have liked keeping them like this, but having them here has been a balm during the hardest times. But it’s time they get to enjoy freedom and carry on with their lives.”
“All of you deserve that,” she said as she met his gaze over the dragons.
“That willna happen as long as we remain here. And we willna leave. This is our home. The magic that created us thrives here. Our dragons have found a new home, which makes all of us happy, but we’re still protectors of this realm and everyone in it.”
She walked around the cage to stand beside him. “Do the humans know you waged war against the Dark Fae for them?”
“You know they doona, and they never will. It doesna matter how advanced the mortals get, they can never know of us. If they learn, the majority will want to throw us in cages and dissect us to figure out how we do what we do.”
She looked at the Silvers. “So, you hide.”
“So, we hide.”
