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Captive

Ozyn

T hough not of my choosing, my union with my new husband was amicable for the first few years at least. Being well treated made it easier to be away from my family, though I thought of my sons daily. Often I would be reading and think of the discussions I would have about books with Nhil and Gedith. While playing music, I would think of Rezoth’s talent with the violin. Every little thing reminded me of either my brothers or children.

Perhaps naively, I had assumed it purely to be a political marriage, that Glorin would get around the terms in our contract to have liaisons with others. That we were a marriage on paper only. Imagine my surprise when he embarked on a campaign to woo me into his bed.

Glorin was not as cold as I had thought him to be, or maybe he was just that good at lying. He allowed me a measure of freedom inside the castle, yet I was never to fly in my dragon form, I was always to repress my other form. Though most fae could fly, they had little hope of keeping up with a determined dragon. Thus I was grounded. It chafed to see my brothers take their twice yearly visits, knowing I could not join them in the sky.

We got to know each other like I supposed people in arranged marriages did. I had an impression of the fae which was quite different to the facade he wore in those early years.

There were dates. We traveled the kingdom together when it was safe to do so. The fae were often at odds with the elves, making it difficult to visit the border towns. When Glorin went there, he did not allow me to come, pacifying me with promises of other trips, and excuses about keeping my people out of his conflict with the elves.

Long, romantic dinners, walks, shows, flying with me in his arms. The fae did it all to make me feel something for him.

Then there were the gifts. Dragons are known for their covetous natures. We, like magpies, adore shiny trinkets. Many hoard things, gems, gold, art, to appease their inner nature. As the king, I was no different. Glorin plied me with jewels and finery until I needed another room to hold the wealth I’d amassed. My brothers sometimes took smaller pieces home with them when they came to see me, to give to my boys.

Allowing my brothers to visit was another way to weaken my resolve not to fall for the fae king. If he had cut them off from me, then I would never have bought any of his lies. Though seeing them was sometimes a barb to the heart, I did love our visits. Hearing about my people, my children, made it easier to bear being away from them.

Never once did I think of inviting any of my boys even though it cut into my heart to go so long without them. They were safer far away from the machinations of Glorin. Truthfully, I did not want them to see me as a trophy. To be brought low was a blow to my ego.

Glorin was an attentive husband. No need of mine was too small for him to attend to me. Lavishing his attention on me did more than anything else.

When I woke the morning after our first night together, still naked in his bed, I found myself in cuffs.

Each metal bracelet was welded shut with magic. The runes on each one ensured I could not perform even the most basic of spells. While I still had my strength, I was basically human.

I could not summon my other form.

My husband had taken my body, my freedom, then everything from me.

Without the ability to shift, I was diminished. Dragons, unlike shifters, do not have two souls intertwined inside of them. We are dragons, always. We are one soul. Taking away my ability to shift was removing a limb, a sense, half of myself.

How I raged! I tore the room apart. I longed to tear Glorin to shreds. He waited to face me until I was utterly spent, hopeless after days of trying everything I could do to remove them.

“Why?” I had begged of him, desperate to understand why the person I had grown feelings for had betrayed me in such a cruel manner.

He cupped my face, swept away my tears, and whispered honeyed words into my ears as he wrapped me in his embrace.

“Oh, my sweet husband. My dear Ozyn. You are my treasure. These foul things are only to ensure you cannot be stolen away. Why would anyone want a dragon who cannot fly? Who has no magic?”

“Please!”

“Shh, it is not forever.” He allowed me some modicum of space, watching me with those ice-blue eyes as if I would turn on him at any moment, when he was the one who had turned on me.

“What must I do? I signed the contract. I have been a dutiful husband.” Clasping his hands, I pleaded for him to be merciful, when, deep in my heart, I knew better. Glorin had betrayed me. He had lied. All his kindness had been a trick.

His gaze turned shrewd, calculating. “Ah, but there is one thing you have not provided.”

“Tell me what I can do. If it is within my power—“

“An heir. You must give me an heir.”

My heart stuttered in my chest. How could I possibly have a child with such a monster? He had shown himself to be entirely without care for me. How could I inflict such a parent on an innocent child?

When I had my precious children, I chose their alpha parent carefully. He was a man of honor, one of principles I respected. I was grateful to him for my boys.

“Why me? Why not any of the hundreds of pretty courtiers who flutter around you constantly? Any of them would be grateful to carry an heir for you.” I tried to get him to see reason. Surely there was an easier way for him to get what he wanted.

He did not tell me then. Did not admit his failure. He had tried. Glorin had bedded a thousand of his fae without one heir to show for his abuse of power. The elves, too. I would learn about his crimes against them later. Their animosity made more sense in the greater context. The fae king was a monster.

“What could be more powerful than a child borne of the union between a dragon and the king of the fae?”

It struck me then how he had diminished me with his words. I was no longer the king of the dragons, nor his beloved husband. I was just a nameless, faceless dragon. A thing to be used. A commodity he owned until he had no use of me. He had no feelings for me like those he had carefully cultivated in me.

“What if it is impossible for us to have a child?”

Glorin stroked his smooth chin, mocking an expression of thoughtfulness I knew to be a lie. This man, this liar, was cold, calculating, and several moves ahead of me in this chess game.

“We will find a way. Your people’s future depends on it.”

There was the threat I expected. I had to warn my brothers. This far away, there was no possibility of them hearing me. I resolved to tell them at their next visit.

However, still a step ahead of me, there was no visit. My brothers were forbidden from seeing me ever again. They raged. They tried to rescue me, yet Glorin held our lives in his hands. Our marriage pact had never included visits, and until that point, he had kept to the terms. Glorin threatened my family with war if they tried to rescue me again. Unable to put our people at risk, my brothers stopped trying.

My feelings, the tender bud of love I held for him, withered and died.

For months, then years, Glorin kept me by his side as his trophy husband. I played my part, letting him use my body for his enjoyment, though it seemed like neither of us took much pleasure from our couplings.

An unfortunate side effect of losing my magic was my inability to maintain my own heat schedule. As a dragon with plentiful magic, I could choose to go into heat unless I had a consensual mating bite from a dragon. Without the power to push my heats back, I suffered with two a year for two decades. Each of them attended to by my husband.

The fae king tried everything to make me pregnant, unaware I was conserving what little magic I could store into blocking conception. A few times, I had to force my body to end an early pregnancy. It was heartbreaking, but I could not in good conscience bring a child into our union. Not just because I feared my life would end when theirs began outside of my womb, but for the child themselves. No one deserved to have Glorin as a father.

When those incidents happened, it emboldened Glorin. He rightly believed we were compatible enough to create a baby. It made him treat me better, as his mask had truly slipped.

My husband had become incredibly controlling. I could not speak to another man. My attendants were all women or fae who presented as female. Whenever he was in the castle, I was to be directly by his side or in his line of sight. When he was away from home, he did not take me with him. He confined me to my rooms with only books and music for company. No one was to enter. They passed my meals through a hatch in the door. All very undignified for a king consort.

All of this was to ensure I was faithful to him and that any child I bore was his. Not that he was faithful in return. It took me some time, but I finally found proof of his infidelity.

When I presented my ironclad witness statements and other evidence to the court as I stood, humbled, by Glorin’s side, he truly broke character for the first time.

He struck me to the ground. His fist flew out and connected with my jaw. I cupped it as I stared up at him. The shock of the motion kept me still as he raged above me. I was still trying to make sense of things as he ranted and raved that he was divorcing me, ending our marriage there and then, in front of the stoic witnesses. None of them moved to help me.

He then pronounced me a prisoner of the fae kingdom.

Guards dragged me to a freshly constructed cell. I knew then that Glorin had been preparing for his next move. I had denied him a child for three decades of marriage. His patience had run out.

I took to my imprisonment peacefully, hoping, without real hope, that Glorin would leave me alone.

Of course, he did not. He was king. If he willed it, even a bastard child could still be declared an heir. He had no other spouse, after all, to contest it.

Glorin soon learned a lesson: do not cross a cornered dragon. I still had my strength and made sure to use it. I beat him bloody, almost to the point of death, before they could get me off him. He did not visit me alone again. It was too risky for him to try to impregnate me, so I won that victory, at least.

Of course, I had to be punished for harming the king. After they were done with me, I almost wished to die, but somehow I knew I could not. The fire in my soul was still a flickering ember. I would not let it go out.

It came to me in a dream. A voice told me to hold on. She said in a whisper that sounded like the wind across my wings to hold on. My mate would need me. There would be a time in the years to come where his survival relied on me getting to him.

So I pulled my strength inwards, held all the magic I could for that far off day. All while slowly losing my sense of self, becoming more beast than person.