Royally Exposed Read online

  “Oh, your brother stole one of your girlfriends? I should hear this story,” I said and smirked at Rhys.

  He folded his arms across his chest and glared at me. “My pain brings you joy?”

  “Do you wish to have her back?” I asked, smirk still in place.

  His arms lowered. “No.”

  “So, Rhys was sixteen,” Andras said, instantly launching into the story, and draped an arm across my shoulders as we walked into the mansion. This mansion was even more luxurious than the Elders’. The chandelier above us looked like it was made with real diamonds and not crystals, but I didn’t want to ask for confirmation. The hallways were bustling with activity, but everyone stepped aside as we walked, most bowing to us.

  Would I ever get used to this?

  “Rhys’s girlfriend was always into me. I tried to tell him that when he first introduced her as his girlfriend, but he didn’t listen. He caught her flirting with me, and me reciprocating, and lost it.”

  “You mean Rhys got mad at another female for flirting? So, I’m not special?” I teased and gave Rhys a fake pout.

  He rolled his eyes in response.

  “Ah, but for you, I think he might challenge me. For her, he just told her to have fun and left.”

  “And what happened to this girl?” I asked Andras, sensing they were not still together.

  He shrugged. “Who knows? That was more than a decade ago.”

  We turned down a hallway and I stopped at the first picture I saw. It was of Rhys and eight others in dragon form posing together.

  “That’s the entire family,” Rhys told me.

  “This is your mother,” I guessed pointing towards a dragon who looked just as fierce, but less muscular, and had the same piercing gaze.

  “Yes. How’d you know?” Andras asked.

  “She’s a tad less muscular and her eyes are the same,” I said.

  “Which is Rhys?” Andras asked.

  Immediately, I pointed to Rhys. “There.”

  “That’s pretty impressive,” Emrys said.

  “Why?” I asked. “Rhys has distinct markings on his face. There are two small black spots on the edge of his snout.” I reached out and touched the right and left side of Rhys’s nose.

  “Which is me?” Emrys asked.

  I had never seen him in dragon form, but I looked at the picture and pointed at the one on the far left, the opposite side of the family from Adelaide. “Here.”

  “Holy shit,” Andras said. “Which one is me?”

  This was harder. I studied Andras’ face and then looked back at the picture. I was having trouble between two of them and finally just admitted it to them. “You’re either this one or this one,” I said and pointed at the two on either side of Rhys. “I think you’re the one on the right, but I can’t be sure.”

  “Dad,” Rhys whispered.

  “I know,” Emrys whispered back.

  “Why do I get the feeling that most people can’t tell dragons apart?” I asked them. “I mean, you’re all different colors.”

  “What?” Rhys asked.

  “All of you have slightly different mottling to your colors,” I said. “It makes you all different colors despite having the same color scheme.”

  “That’s something only dragons are able to discern,” Rhys told me. He looked at his dad and asked, “Do you think it’s another ability from being bonded to me?”

  Emrys shook his head. “No, I’ve never heard of anyone outside of a dragon being able to see that much and tell dragons apart without having seen them as a dragon before.”

  “Well, you keep telling me I’m special,” I teased Rhys to try to break some of the tension that had built between us. Just one more thing to mark down as odd about me.

  “Come, let’s eat,” Emrys said and led the way.

  “Am I in trouble?” I asked Rhys softly.

  He chuckled and linked hands with me. “No, my queen.”

  “I feel like you’ve replaced ‘Love’ with ‘Queen’ just because you know it makes me uncomfortable,” I mumbled.

  “I would never do such a thing, my queen,” he replied and kissed my cheek.

  “Liar.”

  “You’re the liar,” he shot back in a high-pitched tone.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Real mature.”

  “I’m rubber and you’re glue-” he said and was cut off by Andras’s laugh.

  “You two are adorable,” Andras said.

  I looked at the other pictures, all family pictures, and was surprised that there were none of them as children. Did they only leave up the newest pictures? Why not leave up one from each decade?

  The dining room we entered was unlike any I had seen before. There was a large table on one side and couches on the other side situated in front of a giant fireplace, the mantle at least six feet tall. The table had silver settings and a full feast.

  “Didn’t he say he had snacks for us? This is a feast,” I whispered as softly as possible to Rhys.

  “This is a snack for us,” he told me. “You forget how much I eat alone. Now, picture nine of us plus you here. How much food do you think we need for us to have even a snack’s worth?”

  That did make sense. The Others ate a ton of food, and ever since I started using their powers, I had begun eating a ton as well. Nico said it was necessary to keep the magic reserve in our body. That they required a lot of fuel to keep the storage going. I asked if starvation would cause the reserves to shrink and he nodded.

  “Please, sit,” Emrys said and pulled out a chair for me next to his at the head of the table. I sat and he pushed me in before taking his place. Rhys sat next to me and Andras sat across from me.

  “Food!” Emrys bellowed, the silverware and plates shaking briefly from the rumble that felt like an earthquake and tornado approaching at the same time.

  “Coming!” a few different voices yelled. Soon, four males and one female came into the room and took seats at the table. The female was a teenager, or very early adult. One of the males was also a teenager, and the other two ranged between Rhys and the teenagers. They were all wearing sweatpants and tank tops, which made me wonder if they had been training. The female and one of the males looked like Rhys and Andras, but the other two looked much more like their mother.

  “Oh, a guest!” the teenage boy said happily. “I didn’t know we were having a guest!”

  “Quiet,” Emrys ordered him.

  The boy didn’t say anything, but he was still smiling wide and practically bouncing in his chair.

  “Swear an oath of silence,” Emrys ordered them.

  The four newcomers gasped and looked at each other as well as Rhys and Andras.

  “Really?” the female teenager asked. She swept her long black, curled hair over her shoulder and studied me. “Is this human pregnant with one of these idiots’ kids?”

  I laughed hard, getting a disapproving look from Andras. “I like her already,” I told Rhys.

  He smirked. “I knew you would. You two are similar in several ways.”

  “Who is she?” one of the middle males asked.

  “Obey!” Emrys snapped angrily, his power shooting through the table and making me gasp in pain for a brief moment as it went through me.

  “Sorry,” Rhys apologized quickly. “I didn’t realize he was going to do that or I would have shielded you.”

  “It’s fine,” I whispered and rubbed my chest.

  “We swear an oath of silence on all things to be said henceforth. Our tongues shall not work to reveal the secrets divulged and our hands will fail should we try to bypass words,” all of his siblings said as one.

  “I’m sorry, Jolie,” Emrys apologized after giving his children one more hard stare. “I forgot that you would be affected by my powers.”

  “I’m fine,” I assured him. “It just stung a bit.”

  “Father,” the female whispered. “We swore.”

  “Jolie, I’d like you to meet the rest of my children. The impatient
female is Rhian. She is the youngest. The fidgeting teenage male is Gavin. He is one year older than Rhian. To Rhian’s right is Mawrth and to his right is Brenin. Children, this is Jolie. Jolie is the Princess of the Four Clans and Rhys’s Queen.”

  “Queen!” Rhian gasped. “Why? What? She’s human!”

  “Rhian!” Rhys growled. “Show some decorum. Humans are not less than us.”

  “When did this happen?” Brenin asked calmly. His eyes were cool and calculating, measuring me in in a way that was slightly unnerving. Whatever weaknesses I had, I was certain he could see them all.

  “At the meeting when she returned the necklace to us,” Rhys answered.

  “She’s also the other three’s queen, isn’t she?” Gavin asked, his smile still in place. Was he like Fox and perpetually happy?

  “Yes,” Emrys replied before Rhys could.

  “Are you mates?” Mawrth asked.

  “Ew,” Rhian whispered.

  “No,” I answered.

  “Not yet,” Rhys mumbled under his breath.

  “Why is she here?” Mawrth asked.

  “I invited her so that she could come see our clan and learn more about us. Also, because I want her to show you something,” Emrys told them.

  “Dad,” Rhys groaned.

  “They need to know everything about our clan that they can,” Emrys said and I knew that was his way of telling Rhys the discussion was over.

  “Let’s eat,” Emrys said. “Jolie will answer your questions after she eats.”

  Rhys took my plate and piled it high with food and his siblings watched in silence. As soon as he set my plate down, everyone began scrambling for the food at the same time. Apparently, it was common practice for them to allow guests to get food first. I was perfectly fine with that. The food looked amazing and smelled even better. Roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, green beans, brussel sprouts, tri-tip, and some kind of fish were all on my plate.

  My stomach demanded it be filled with the food, which turned out to taste just as amazing as it smelled. When I scraped the last food off my plate, Rhys took it and added another roll, green beans, and some more potatoes and gravy. He had been doing things like this a lot recently, knowing what I wanted without me saying it. Obviously, it was the bond, but it felt incredibly one sided since I never knew what he wanted unless it was poking me. Heh.

  He set the plate down and then chuckled. “I did it again, didn’t I?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said and patted his hand. “Thank you.”

  “It’s not a conscious decision,” he said.

  “I know.”

  I ate my food, enjoying the buttery goodness of the roll slowly.

  “She eats a lot for a human,” Rhian muttered.

  “You’ll see why,” Emrys told her. “Make sure you drink that glass of water,” he told me.

  I obeyed, chugging the entire glass before wiping my mouth and smiling at him. “Thank you. That was delicious.”

  “I’m glad you liked it. Now, let’s go outside,” he said and stood. Rhys pulled out my chair, but Emrys took my arm before he could.

  “Even my own father,” Rhys said with a sigh.

  Andras laughed and patted him on the back.

  We went out a door that I had not seen in the corner of the living room. It led to a rose garden, and just beyond that, a huge fighting arena. A fenced in area large enough for two fully shifted dragons to fight.

  “Clear the area!” Emrys ordered everyone.

  This time, the order didn’t touch me.

  “Thanks,” I whispered, not sure if it was him or Rhys.

  “I can direct it if I think about it,” Emrys told me.

  “That’s handy,” I said.

  “Especially when you have this many children,” he grumbled.

  “How do you feel?” Rhys asked me.

  “I feel great. Why?”

  “He wants you to shift,” Rhys said, meaning his father wanted me to shift forms.

  “Dragon or wolf?” I asked.

  “You can shift forms?” Andras asked.

  Emrys’s orders had been carried out and only the family and I were at the arena now. “Please, show them,” he requested.

  Rhys picked me up and jumped over the arena fence in one leap, landing on bent knees on the other side. He set me down and leaned back against the fence.

  I walked farther away from him, still not sure of my exact size, and then focused on Rhys through our bond. The bond I had, forked off four different ways, all connected to my heart. I followed the line to Rhys and the magic he carried, which was wild, like Deryn’s, but more fierce, and with a lot more fire.

  I closed my eyes and let the change come. When I had finished shifting, I opened my eyes and Rhys walked to me. I lowered my head and he set his hand on my snout. “You’re gorgeous,” he whispered and stroked his hand from my nostril, up over my eye, down my neck, and stopped at my shoulder.

  “Holy shit!” Rhian yelled. “She turned into one of us!”

  “I’ve never seen scales that color before,” Andras commented. “Can I come in?”

  I thought he was asking me, but it was Rhys who nodded. “Yes, you are all welcome to come.”

  Emrys jumped in first and walked to me, staring into my eyes. “Even her eyes are different. They’re very similar to yours though, Rhys.”

  “How is this possible?” Mawrth asked. “She smells like a human.”

  “She is a human,” Rhys explained. “Since she is human, when we made her our queen, she joined our bond instead of us making a true queen’s bond with her. This allowed her the ability to access our powers.”

  “Can she fly?” Rhian asked.

  “She can, but she isn’t fond of it, yet,” Rhys said with a smirk.

  “Can she breathe fire?” Gavin asked.

  I huffed smoke out of my nostrils and Rhys chuckled. “Yes, she can.”

  “You can shift back,” Emrys told me.

  I shifted back and then covered my body in scales. “I can also do this, and this.” This time, I half shifted, a warrior’s shift. I enjoyed Rhys’s equally surprised face, a replica of his siblings’.

  “I didn’t know you could do this,” Emrys said and poked at my scales.

  “Neither did I,” Rhys growled at me.

  I let my body revert and exhaled, tired from using so much energy. “It’s a lot harder to hold,” I told them.

  “When did you discover you could do this?” Rhys asked.

  “Last night,” I admitted. “On accident.”

  “When the boss killed you the third time we tried to beat the raid, right?” he asked.

  I nodded. How had he known that? I mean, I know I had cussed up a storm on the mic.

  “I felt your anger and thought I felt you more distinctly in our bond, but wasn’t sure,” he admitted.

  “I can’t even do that,” Brenin grumbled.

  “Can you shift into the wolf warrior form?” Rhian asked.

  I nodded. “I can, but I used up a lot of my energy taking the dragon warrior form just now. I need at least five minutes to recover.”

  “You don’t need to shift anymore,” Emrys told me.

  “So, if one of us takes a human as a queen, they’ll have our abilities,” Brenin said while looking at Emrys.

  Emrys nodded. “Yes.”

  “So, this was to show us, so that we don’t make the same mistake as Rhys, right?” Mawrth asked.

  “No, this is just to let you know this is possible,” Emrys said with a soft sigh. “I swear I raised them to be polite children, Jolie. I blame their mother.”

  “This was not a mistake,” Rhys said.

  “Sort of,” I whispered under my breath while looking up at the sky.

  Rhys growled, but didn’t rise to my bait.

  “They are very cynical,” Emrys said. “It is good to understand the negative in everything, or the possible negatives, so you are prepared for all circumstances. However, they should also understand tha
t some things are shown so they understand what happens, not in a negative way.”

  “It’s okay,” I told him and smiled at everyone. “I don’t take offense.”

  “It doesn’t excuse them from being rude,” Rhys growled at them.

  “We’re sorry,” all five of the younger siblings said.

  “Come on, let’s show her the rest of our den,” Andras suggested.

  “Why did we have to swear an oath of silence?” Rhian asked.

  “Because it is not public knowledge that Rhys and the other three princes have a queen. We are keeping it quiet. We don’t want the media finding out,” Emrys told them. “So, you are forbidden from telling anyone. As far as anyone knows, she is simply the Princess of the Four Clans. Understood?”

  “Yes, Father,” all six of Rhys’s siblings said.

  Chapter 2

  We ended up flying to the next part of the den, which was fun because I got to ride on Rhys’s back and look at everything as we flew. The den was huge--hundreds, maybe thousands, of acres in size. They had their own city within the city of Jinla. Amazing.

  There was a large building in the very center, which Rhys said was like their city hall where the family heard disputes and prosecuted those accused of crimes. Each clan was allowed their own legal system, but if the crimes were serious enough and happened in the human city they turned the dragon over to the human courts. Rhys said that it had only happened a few times in fifty years.

  There were several apartment complexes, housing tracks, and a few other houses far out in the wilderness areas. They raised their own animals for food and grew their own crops too. That explained the real reason he had never been to a human grocery store before.

  I still needed to take them on trips to all of the human places I discovered they had never experienced. It was important for them to understand humans, even if I hadn’t met them. Even though they had gone to a grocery store already, I needed to show them the joy of grocery stores with bulk food areas. The second place I wanted to take them was the movie theater, though I hadn’t decided between the regular theater and the drive-in theater. I knew that they would get a kick out of both of them. Third was the zoo. We just had to be sure to keep Rhys and Deryn a distance away from the animals so that they didn’t frighten them.