Page 39 of Crown of Draga

She took one last shaky breath and thanked Mala for giving her a moment of peace to gather herself without witnesses. Adelina stood. She would have to trust Giselle to manage on her own. Her control was shaky and precarious at the moment. Her sister would be fine without her. None of them actually needed the coddling.

Tomorrow her sister would leave Draga Terra and Adelina envied her.

Adelina took the servants’ stairs down four flights until the first sub-floor opened up before her. The panic still waited, the whispers reaching her no matter how careful she was about the mark. It was too much. She rushed by until she reached Ian’s door. She slapped her hand to the wall and the scan couldn’t identify her quickly enough. The door slid open and she rushed in, letting it close behind her before slumping against it with her hands covering her face.

Goddess, how could she have forgotten?

Tea hadn’t lasted long enough for the mark to disappear and her mother and sister never said anything as a reminder. Was it on purpose?

“Lina, what’s wrong?” Ian’s soothing voice reached her before his warm hands did. She felt him checking, looking for the damage.

She didn’t want to move her hands from her face. He would see her cry; those traitorous emotions of hers.

Ian held her wrists gently. “Please, Lina,” he begged. “Let me see.” Adelina allowed him to pull her hands away but she couldn’t look her brother in the eyes. She was so ashamed.

The mark was not as bad as the tears on her face. Goddess bless Ian, he pretended not to notice. “Let me get the spray,” he murmured.

Nadyah pulled Adelina farther into the lab, settling her on the couch and wordlessly going for a pot of hot tea.

Ian’s gentle voice reached her through the fog of shame. “Let me take care of it,” he said softly, taking her hands in his again. “Don’t worry about the tears. We all have difficult days.” Ian sprayed the healing serum on her cheek and instantly the dull ache disappeared.

He wiped the wet salt from her face with a thumb. “There you are, perfect once more.” Ian kissed her on the cheek and then stepped back to allow Nadyah to put a cup in her cold hands.

She shook her head as the scene replayed in her head over and over. “I ran right into the prince. Quite literally.” There had been courtiers before him. “No doubt someone noticed the mark on my face, if not the argument with Nash.”

Ian brought a small glass over and she downed the alcohol. It burned her throat but Adelina was grateful for the warmth in her belly. “Thank you,” she murmured. Ian always took such good care of her.

Nadyah grimaced at the idea of the gossip they would have to deal with later. “Hopefully if anything was recorded, the monitors will cut it out before it hits the livestream. You couldn’t help being alone with him in that moment, but I am rather irritated Alpha was not by your side.”

Adelina sipped at the tea and set it down. It wasn’t as good as the alcohol but there was still so much more she had to accomplish that day which she couldn’t do inebriated.

Adelina had her seal to receive and the design to finish for Raena. “Alpha’s schedule has changed since I came of age,” she explained.

Nadyah snorted in disagreement. “Until Raena’s attention is no longer focused on you and her reign is secure it seems prudent to be extra careful. I will speak with your guard on the matter and see if he can be stationed based on your schedule.”

It took effort not to roll her eyes in exasperation. Instead Adelina focused on her brother. “Did you manage to get some sleep, Ian?”

The bags under his eyes were a testament to how hard he’d been working. Ian gave her a rueful smile. “I managed a nap before your courtesan came barging in here.”

Adelina gave Nadyah a look. What could she have possibly needed from her brother?

The beautiful woman shrugged without an ounce of guilt on her flawless face. “I had samples he needed to take before they were contaminated.”

With an eyebrow raised she turned back to her brother. “Samples?”

Ian stood and set his shreve on his desk. With a double tap, a three dimensional display popped up over the device. A few more motions with his fingers and the display was projected to the center of the room. Another wave of his hand and the lights darkened. Adelina had no idea what she was supposed to be looking at.

“Now I’ve studied my own genetics, but courtesans are notoriously secretive with their medical files. They train their own physicians and seal the records. As a result of this I’ve never been able to identify exactly what each marker in my genetics stood for. Even with samples from my mother Elara, I could not cobble enough together to get an accurate analysis.”

Ian came up to the display and it cast an eerie green glow across his face. His long finger flicked and the image changed. “This is a side-by-side comparison of my genetic workup, Elara’s, and Nadyah’s. With two full-blooded courtesans I was able to pin down the rest of the analysis. Here is the marker which is currently in the ‘on’ position for both Elara and Nadyah.” Ian frowned and shook his head. “It appears Elara’s mate marker has been activated which means she is either father’s mate, or mother’s.”

Adelina’s jaw dropped open in shock. She had suspected something of the sort, but to have it confirmed?

Ian continued on, ignoring her and Nadyah’s reactions. “When it’s compared to Nadyah’s you can clearly see the difference. As for my own genetics, it looks like I have the marker for a mate but it hasn’t been activated.” He sounded oddly sad about it. “Which means P’draic is most definitely not my mate.”

Ah, Adelina understood now. Ian loved P’draic and had for cycles. What he would do now though she wasn’t sure, but she only hoped he would be careful with his heart.

“For your information, here is father and mother’s genetic analysis next to Elara’s and my own. As you can see there are a few differences marking the subtle changes in our humanity, enough to make us two different races despite being the same species. With a further comparison, this is what a Corinthian human looks like next to a Draga royal.” Ian pulled up a fifth analysis and placed it next to their father’s.

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