Ria:
I sit with my back to the wall. My knees are pulled up to my chest with my arms around my legs, and my head on my knee.
After I threw up again, everything got fuzzy. I know I'm in shock, but I'm not quite clicking on getting everything to stop.
I can feel my body trembling slightly, but I'm honestly not sure if I'm cold or my body is skitzing out.
I can see the guys talking amongst themselves, but I'm honestly not listening to them right now. I am, however, glad that they have put on clothes. I don't remember when they did it, but I'm glad they did. That's one hell of a thing to be glad about.
I just found out I am alone, in a foreign country, all I have are the pajamas I'm wearing, I've been betrayed, kidnapped, and raped by 4 brothers, with their sister's help. The sister I had thought was my friend. So, yeah, my brain is done for a few minutes.
I know I need to figure out what to do. I need to find a way home. I am smart and resourceful. I will not let myself drown in this. I need to let myself freak out and process, then I'll pull myself together.
"Ria, we know this is overwhelming, but there are things we need to explain to you. Do you think you can move to the chair so we can talk?" Drago is squatting down, talking to me. He's in my line of sight, but staying a few feet away.
It's like I'm thinking through mud; it's just sluggish. I don't think my voice would work right now if I tried, but I don't want to give him that.
I look over at the armchair. Its back is to the corner, so if I angle it just a little, I'll be able to see everyone, and no one could get behind me.
I get up, walk to the chair, maneuver it into place, and sit down. Once again, I curl in on myself and put my chin on my knee.
The guys move slowly to sit on the couch and the other armchair.
"Ria, we are going to tell you things you probably won't believe, but we can give you proof." Drago draws in a breath and sighs.
Then goes on, "We will also explain everything else, so it's gonna be a lot."
I stare at him and say nothing. I don't know what the hell he expects me to say to that anyway.
He rubs his hands over his face. "You are going to think I'm nuts or bullshiting you, but I'm not."
After a dramatic pause, "dragon shifters are real, and everyone living here is one."
I blink. I mean, of all the things I thought he would say, that wasn't on my radar, fuck, that's not even on the same planet.
"I'm going to prove it to you, but please try to stay calm."
He stands up in front of the armchair and holds his hand out. As I watch, his hand shifts. Black shiny scales start to cover his skin. His fingers elongate and curl, and vicious-looking claws start growing out of the tips of his fingers. He looks at me, and his eyes have become completely reptilian, and black scales are appearing around them. I watch his jaw bulge and change, and his teeth sharpen and grow. Then, as suddenly as it started, everything retreats and goes back to normal.
My brain goes completely offline, just completely shuts down. I can tell I'm dissociating. I used to do it as a child. I just shut down my brain and my emotions. I am here, nothing more. There's no thinking or feeling. I stare at him.
He watches me. I think he is expecting me to say or do something, but I'm not sure what. I couldn't do that anyway. That doesn't work anymore. I'm just here.
He looks really puzzled and scratches his head before he starts talking again.
"You're a dragon too, in fact, you are the rarest and most special dragon in the world. You are a Royal Dragon Female. There hasn't been one born in almost 100 years."
I just watched, "Myself and my brothers are of the Royal line, we rule here in Romania. We also work with governments around the world to help police all the supernatural species."
I blink, I'm just here, nothing more.
"Some of our people ran across you and knew what you were. Our dragons respond intensely to you. So they told us. Then we wanted to meet you, get to know you, and court you. That's what we've been doing."
"We can only mate and breed with Royal Females. So you are incredibly precious to us," Cole adds. I don't move my head; it's wasted movement.
"We had every intention of letting things just play out while you went to school. However, we found out that one of the other Royal families, a rival family at that, discovered you existed." Drago picks it back up.
"They issued a formal petition to have you presented to all the Royal families for the chance to mate. Basically, they wanted to have a free-for-all where they all fight and compete for the right to claim you." I watch.
He looks puzzled, but I'm not sure why, "if we didn't comply, they would declare war. We couldn't risk war on our people, but we couldn't let them near you either. The only choice was to claim and mate you ourselves immediately."
They mated me, huh? That's confusing, but it doesn't matter right now. So, I keep watching.
"So, Natalia tricked you, we took you to our private jet, and each of us made love to you and bit you, claiming you forever as our mate, as a Dragon's mate for life, and we're immortal. This ended the petition and risk of war."
Wow, he talks a lot. That's a lot of words; words are wasted. Words are not needed. We're just here, nothing else. It doesn't matter. It's all blank.
It's finally quiet. No one says any more words; that's good. We sit here and be. Nothing else, we just be here, no words, no nothing.
I hear something, but it's not words; it's soft. I like it. It's not harsh or bad, it's just there like me. It's just there.
One of them moved to sit in front of me. He is looking at me, but I'm blank, nothing to see.
Drago:
What the ever-loving fuck is happening? She is just sitting there, no reactions, no expressions, nothing, just humming softly.
Cole moved to sit in front of her, "Ria, can you hear me? She's dissociating. It's a trauma response. She has shut down to protect herself." He looked at me, "Were there any indications of past trauma?"
"No, there is some missing time in her records, and Constantine is digging into it. I haven't talked to him in the last few days."
"What do we do?" Cinder asked
"The best thing to do is just let her calm down, possibly sleep. She needs to feel safe, and then it will correct itself."
"How do we do that, Cole?"
He looked at me."We need to leave her alone. Let's bring her some comfortable clothes so she doesn't feel so naked. We can bring her some food and water. Let's lock this door. She's not familiar with the house, and she could get lost or hurt wandering around in this state."
I nodded my head. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to call Victor and have him bring a selection of drinks and snacks. I headed into the closet to get her clothes.
I laid a flannel, long pants, a long-sleeve set of PJs, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, clean underwear, and a bra. I set them on the couch so she could see them.
Then Victor came in with a tray of water, soda, juice, blueberry muffins, chips, some fruit salad, and cheese and crackers.
Then we had him use his master set of keys to lock the closet and bedroom doors.
Then I went to talk to Constantine. We were all very subdued as we left the bedroom.
"Hello?"
"Constantine, it's Drago. I wanted to check in regarding any more information you might have found about Ria."
"No, nothing yet. I think someone might have purposely erased some things. Eventually, I'll find it. Welcome home, by the way."
"Thanks, okay, well, just let me know when you find anything."
"I will, Drago. Need anything else?"
"No, that's it right now." With that, he hung up.
Then I called Natalia, "Drago?"
"Yes, it's me, how are you?"
"Well, that depends, how's Ria?"
"She didn't react well, so we're letting her have time to just digest everything, and sleep off the rest of the drugs."
"Do you think she'll forgive me?"
"Natalia, I'm counting on her forgiving all of us."
"Okay, well, Senator Keeting was here. Everything is taken care of. I gave a statement, and everything has been handled."
"Okay, I will have the jet bring you home tomorrow. Do you think you'll be ready by then?"
"Yeah, I've been cleaning and packing since you guys left, so that'll be fine."
"Okay, we will see you tomorrow, hon. It'll be okay, sis." I hadn't called her that in a while.
"Okay, bye, Drago." She hung up.
Senator Keeting was supposed to meet us here with everything we needed, so I decided not to call him. I was tired and stressed out.
I was worried about Ria, and I didn't know how to help her. My dragon was upset because we weren't with her. I will go check on her in a little while. Hopefully, she will be in a better place then.
When we checked on her later, she was dressed, wrapped in blankets, pulled off the bed, and sleeping in the corner of the room, with her back against the wall, with the armchairs in front of her. We just let her sleep, not moving her. All we can do is wait for her to snap out of it.