Page 41 of Regal Rising

Regis told her, “Because Niko’s dragon wants Alexi to have a dragon that can have daughters.”

Avor murmured, “Fucking hell.”

They walked quickly to the spot where the dragons were standing and conversing with Alexi in their midst.

Regis walked up and said to Win, “Have you made him a dragon yet?”

Win blinked and blushed. “No. Not yet. Why?”

“Don’t do it. Don’t give him a dragon that can have girls.”

Avor sighed. “A female dragon will bring the djinn and their army here en masse to stamp them out. This gathering that you see here is due to one single dragoness and one single heat. If she had a mate here, this world would have been lost under wings and fangs.”

Niko froze. “Why are the dragons asking for it?”

Avor chuckled. “It is ridiculously simple. Mating flights. There is a heady rush from mating in your actual form, but dragons can never accomplish it. A mating flight clutch could produce over a hundred eggs at one laying. If there are female dragons in the clutch, they can start laying in twenty years.”

Niko’s eyes widened in horror. “Even one out of a hundred with their mother still laying.”

Avor said, “The reason we are born with the dragons as part of us is to temper them. A female in the mix would destroy things.”

Rikkart asked, “Why didn’t the original female keep laying?”

“Her mate was a djinn, and I think she loves him.” Regis figured it out and smiled at Avor. “I wasn’t aware of her emergence, but her life has brought you all here today.”

Avor said, “If we had still been together when she appeared, she would have been bound, much as the emperor has done it now. No full form, no mating flights.”

Regis looked to Win. “That is why they developed the smaller form.”

Win blinked. “Oh. So, it was a compulsion that I had. What was pushing it?”

Avor looked at her and grinned. “You could have been a dragon. The children you have will need to be watched. The restriction will need to happen, and if they want open flight, you can go to the moon to do it. Somewhere horny males can’t get them.”

Win stared. “The moon?”

“Dragons are space flyers. Atmosphere is not required.”

Win swallowed. “What would happen to a female dragon where you come from?”

“She would have a few flights, and when she had signs of her first heat, her wrists and neck would be bound so that a full shift wasn’t possible, but her wings would still be at her disposal.”

“If she got loose?”

“Destruction. A female dragon with a mate can destroy a world in five generations.”

Win swallowed. “Understood. I will focus on passing the magic along.”

Avor smiled. “Sensible.”

Alexi chuckled. “Niko, you are going to have to choose something else.”

Avor cocked his head. “You are a beta?”

Alexi nodded. “He has altered me a little with dragon fire, but Win is under a compulsion.”

Avor blinked. “A moment please.”

He flexed his wings and flew over to Vaayu. He spoke for a moment, and then Regis blinked as her son-in-law appeared next to her.

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