Page 40 of Crown of Draga

Nadyah shifted and Adelina looked at her sharply. “Is that Prince Nash’s analysis?” she asked.

“It is, Princess. I gathered it today.”

That was why she’d rushed to Ian’s lab. Adelina did not want to know how it was acquired. The anticipation and nerves started to build as she realized they would finally have some answers. Information she desperately needed.

Ian looked to Adelina with a question on his face. She nodded for him to continue since she didn’t want to press the matter.

“This is your genetic analysis, Adelina.” Ian shuffled the six different workups so that she was placed between father and Ian with Elara on her brother’s other side. He highlighted the different markers with her name glowing underneath.

None of it meant anything to her, but the patterns started to emerge and…

“What in all the hells?” Adelina muttered as she leaned forward to get a closer look.

“Essentially my own reaction.” Ian highlighted more patterns and finally it became clear.

“By all the gods, how is this possible?” Adelina exclaimed. The nerves made way for panic as her entire world shattered. She was not her mother’s child, but she wasn’t Elara’s either.

Somehow she was both.

“Can this be real? Elara and Adele, they are both my mother?” Adelina felt dizzy and she sat back with a hand to her forehead. It was slick with cold sweat. No wonder they’d kept it a secret, she was some kind of hybrid monster. “What does this even mean?”

Nadyah shook her head. Her skin paler than Adelina had ever seen it. “They created Adelina in a tube then?”

Suddenly she felt sick. Adelina was a tube baby, a human considered less simply because she wasn’t a natural creation.

Her brother didn’t look disgusted as he considered the information before him. “I assume so, but I couldn’t say for sure. Somehow they managed to mix the DNA of the two females and fertilized it with father’s DNA.” Ian looked to Adelina. “You are still a true Draga, but you are also something else, something a little bit more.” He cocked his head. “It’s fascinating really and explains your lack of dominance.”

Her brother moved quickly with excitement, flipping through more data before he landed on what he wanted. “This is a magnification of your markers and I’ve noted what each is and what it does. It appears your coloring was selected to ensure there was no suspicion of another heritage. You have the marker for a mate, but they’ve placed it in the ‘off’ position which I assume is to ensure you were never accidentally mated.”

Breathing was difficult.

It was too much, but her brother didn’t stop.

“As part courtesan your dominance is ever-changing, unlike mine. You are what others need you to be, Lina.” Ian looked at her, eyes bright with understanding and the satisfaction of solving a puzzle. “You are truly submissive, but it seems it’s only around the royal family. There are too many dominating personalities so your genetics have been attempting to balance the rest of us out your entire life.”

It made too much sense. A true submissive was rare, but a Draga submissive? That was unheard of. “So…I can be dominant?” Adelina asked, her voice wavering as she tried to process.

“You are a natural dominant as a royal Draga,” Ian clarified. “But only when it is required. Your scent was chosen to ensure you do not smell like cactus blossoms as all courtesans do which would have been an obvious tell. I’m not sure if your scent can change throughout the entire spectrum from jasmine all the way to the darkest rosanera, or if your natural jasmine changes as the cactus blossom does.”

Ian stared at the data with a wondrous look on his face. “You’ll have to let me know,” he said softly.

Adelina could barely move as she tried to absorb all he’d said. A true submissive, but she was also a true Draga dominant? Then somehow, she was a child of both Elara and Adele. Elara had to know about it. It would explain the extra attention she’d received from the courtesan her entire life.

“Are you okay?” Nadyah asked. She frowned with concern and Adelina couldn’t stop looking at the floating data long enough to reassure her.

“My mate marker is off?” she finally managed. This was why she’d asked him to do the workup in the first place. It would be prudent to ensure she knew everything she could about it.

Ian shrugged. “Yes, you are capable of being mated if I was to flip the switch, but that would be up to you.”

She shook her head. “No, leave it off. It simplifies things.” It meant she wouldn’t be mated to Nash if anything were to happen between them. Not that it mattered now with him absolutely furious with her. “I do wonder though, could a scan still confirm whether someone is a mate or not, even with the gene inactive?”

Her brother cocked his head as he considered. “I suppose so, but would it matter if you intend to leave it off?”

Adelina didn’t respond. She tapped her sharp nail against her thigh as she contemplated. Part of her wanted to know if Nash was her mate, to see if that was the explanation for the strange draw she felt to him. The more logical part told her the answer would only make things worse.

Either Nash was her mate and she would have to marry someone else knowing this, or he wasn’t and then she would have to come to terms with the knowledge her attraction to him did not make him her mate. What if she did end up marrying him one day despite the almost non-existent chance? In the back of her mind she would constantly wonder who her mate really was, and what it would have been like with them.

“No,” she finally said. “Don’t scan Nash’s DNA. It doesn’t matter as you said. I will have to marry whoever Raena deems fit. It would be better not to complicate that more than it already is.”

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