Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
“But you thrived.”
He shrugged again and ate a piece of succulent beef. “I found my place. Perhaps it was Mom’s influence, perhaps it was because I knew from the moment I could form coherent thought I was destined for the throne, but I was always serious. There are two things that happen at Red Lair. One is that they have ways to be certain who remains is supposed to remain. The other is the boys find ways to get out if they don’t want to be there. I’ve known some who were smart enough to best the studies, physically and mentally capable enough to excel at the drills and exercises. And they still found ways to get expelled. The challenge of an advanced curriculum coupled with the physical challenge spoke to me. It was something I understood integrally. I was in my place. My brothers were just not Red Lair males.”
“But I sense your brothers were culled, they didn’t find ways to get expelled,” I noted.
“Tim was culled. Rol tried, but he just wasn’t smart enough and couldn’t endure the physicality of it.”
“So…what? They just never grew up?”
“I haven’t yet explained about our beasts.”
Ah.
“I’ve seen Aleece’s,” I told him. “She’s fierce, but so beautiful.”
And she was. Pearly-white scales with gold horns and claws, feathered rather than webbed wings and blue topaz eyes.
Stunning.
Unusually, though I’d never thought about it before, since the royal family occasionally featured their dragons during special events, I had not seen either of the princes transformed.
I wasn’t very interested in them, so I didn’t think about it much. I’d just always thought, through some trick of genetics (Queen Calisa’s beast, it was known, was a red fox), meant their beasts weren’t dragons.
“They aren’t what you’d think, considering their personalities. We are all the blood of the first True Heir. I’m not sure there’s been a royal dragon that could not do its part in defending the throne.”
So they were dragons.
“Okay, so I don’t get it.”
“When did yours first come out?” he asked.
“When I was five.”
He nodded. “Between four and seven, usually. Tim’s didn’t come out until he was nine. Rol’s came out at seven. Tim had a complex about his late transformation, and I think that was why he transformed all the time once his beast appeared. But our creatures used to tussle. Play.”
“And yours always won,” I presumed.
He shook his head, but said, “As you know, we don’t always have complete control over them, especially when we’re younger. So yes, mine bested theirs. It was bigger, always. And I was older, also always. And mine was with me when they’d fuck with me, and he didn’t like that, so perhaps he took it too far occasionally.”
I tried not to smile, but I had a feeling I failed.
“Not sure they didn’t deserve that, Aleksei.”
“I’m not saying they didn’t, but it was easy, and everyone has pride. Tim, too much. Rol, it was too easily bruised. Although they have strong, handsome creatures, Rol’s is quite small. And Tim’s is smaller than mine, larger than Rol’s, and mean. It plays dirty. This is something that might get you ahead in schoolyard bullying, in a street fight, but in battle, there’s only so far you can get using nasty little shortcuts. You need to think on your feet. Be able to pivot. If a strategy you’re using isn’t working, you have to have dozens more you can try. There are only so many tricks you can roll out. Eventually, it comes down to strength and intelligence. Someone has to win. I always won. And they’re very poor losers.”
“So in all things, you bested them, and rather than finding their niche, their vocation, some mission, something that set them apart from you and could give them a calling, they decided to be fuckboys.”
“It’s arrogant to assume it’s all about me.”
“But they didn’t have to make their beds.”
He seemed relieved that I got it.
“Mom tried, but Dad wasn’t happy she did it with me. He put his foot down with them.”
“And as such, they never learned inner accountability,” I deduced, then carried it forward. “And since you have, and due to your position in your family and your popularity, you’re used to covering their foibles and missteps, which puts more pressure on you to be perfect. To perform. To put yourself out there when you prefer privacy.”
I just knew this was going to spoil my appetite.
And it did, as I harked back and put together times when Aleksei would show up at a youth ring ice match after Timothee stole some pit ball player’s girlfriend then promptly dumped her, making her cry prettily on social tape while he squired around another pit ball player’s girlfriend he also stole.
Or when Aleksei was walking a street during some village’s septuacentennial, accepting flower bouquets from little girls and smiling at crowds waving handheld Night’s Fall flags with its purple dragon on black, doing this after the Palace allegedly paid off some males who got in a back-alley shifter fight with Errol and some of his bros.