Cole
I had watched Ria for hours while we watched and waited for the medication to finally stop her contractions. She had remained completely quiet, except for when the girls were here, but she had kept her interactions to the girls only.
I know she had heard Drago explain to me about what happened to cause the contractions, so I knew she was aware we had all had a hand in the decision about today. So, I had thought I might have angry words hurled in my direction, but instead, she was completely quiet.
So when she had left the room I and Dr. Surenka cleaned up and talked about what we needed to do to keep the situation monitored. Then I went upstairs to see if Ria was with the guys or what was happening.
When I got there the guys were there but there was no Ria,"Is Ria in here?" I asked them.
"No, when did she leave the clinic?" Drago asked me.
"She left a good hour ago at least, after she left I stayed and we cleaned the room and equipment and talked about what to do in order to monitor the situation." I told all of them.
They looked at each other and I knew we were all worried about her and her reaction to today,"I will go check the nursery." Cinder said.
We kind of stood around not quite ready to talk about the elephant in the room. We had honestly thought she would be miffed, but we didn't know that her reaction would be so dramatic as to cause her to go into early labor.
"She wasn't in the nursery, the girls are still asleep in their cribs, but there wasn't anything that showed she had been there, though I am sure she was at one point." we all nodded at Cinder's report.
"Do you think we should try to find her, or just leave it alone for the night?" I asked all of them not knowing what the best move would be.
Drago just hung his head and thought for a minute,"I think if we leave it, she might interpret that as we don't care, or reinforce whatever she is thinking, so we should try to find her, and see if she will talk to us."
"We should try the tower bedroom, she goes there sometimes. She could have taken the monitor from the nursery." Ash expressed, and I thought that was a good thought.
We all looked at each other as Drago led the way up to the 4th floor to the tower room. We had the staircase leading to the battlements filled in when she went up there and jumped, but her bracelet wouldn't let her do anything like that anyway.
We made it to the room, and Ria was there, but looking at her face, I was sure this wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation, and I wasn't sure what the fall out of today would end up being.
Ria
I knew they would eventually come looking for me, but I wasn't sure if it would be tonight, or in the morning. I was still just sitting on the loveseat watching the flames of the fire when I heard the door to the room open. Well, it seems tonight it is.
"Hey baby, we were wondering where you were. Cole said you left the clinic, but you didn't come up to bed, so we wanted to check and see if you were doing okay." Drago tried to play it off.
"I'm fine, the contractions have stopped, so the baby is fine, your incubator is working as it's supposed to. Oh, tomorrow you need to find a nanny. She will be going with you to town from now on, I would still demand it not be someone from town if you even care what I think, but I'm sure you will do whatever you wish anyway." I kept my voice monotone.
"We have told you before you are not just some incubator, you are the mother to our children, and our mate." Ash said with irritation.
"No, the mother of your children and mate would be consulted about things that concern those children, you have repeatedly decided my opinion is not valid and therefore, chose not to seek it, or ignore it when it was given. That proves that what you just said is a lie." I didn't even look at them when I said it.
"It's not a lie. I know you didn't want the girls to be held by people in town, but that's just because you have such a strong prejudice against them. They wouldn't hurt them, you know this, so they kept wanting to hold them and see them, we thought it would be okay. We knew it would upset you, but I never in a million years thought it would bother you as much as it did." Drago said while trying to read my face.
"Actually, that's bullshit. I am not just prejudiced against them. I despise them. I also think that they most certainly would hurt my daughters, even if it was by omission. If someone tried to hurt the girls they would all turn away and let them be hurt, and they wouldn't feel an ounce of remorse at doing it either. I don't trust any of them. Roman is a corrupt cop. He has never once done his sworn duty to uphold the law, so he is not trustworthy to look to for law enforcement. So, if someone tried to hurt the children, he would probably just have another fucking piece of pie and pat them on the fucking hand, but he wouldn't do shit about it." I knew my anger was growing and I made the effort to calm down.
"Fuck baby, you know that is not the truth. Okay, they didn't get you out of here, but there was nothing they could have done. They couldn't get you to the US, they couldn't take you to the embassy, they couldn't have done anything. They also knew you were pregnant, and our mate, and dragons mate for life. So, they knew we wouldn't let you go anywhere." Cinder sounded distressed and I found it amusing honestly.
"They didn't even try. I could have forgiven failure, but I'll never forgive apathy. They didn't even care. They didn't try to help me. They didn't offer condolences or anything, most acted like I should be grateful the great royal dragons chose me to violate. I asked a woman once if it was her daughter if she would be thrilled she had been chosen to be kidnapped, raped, and held prisoner. I thought she would vomit on her shoes. So I guess she wouldn't, but it was okay because it was me and you guys."
They would never change my mind about these people, and I would dig my heels in about our new arrangements. So they could fucking deal with it.
They should have thought this through. Now they had to deal with the consequences.