Book 15: Chapter 91
“King Troy, do you hate me?” asked Irina
I looked at Irina, who was in my arms, surprised. The sudden inquiry left me speechless. I considered the question before. It was just that I was caught off guard, since she asked me the question after finishing our romp. I looked at her face. What was even more surprising to me was how serious she looked. It wasn’t that sort of random, strange question, but a serious question that caused her anxiety.
“Truthfully, I have hated you and your mom before. We trusted you so much, yet you betrayed our trust. You poisoned my mom, locked me up without any consideration for my feelings, fed me drugs and forced me to do things against my will. My original plan was to return home in under a month, but it’s been close to a month now as a result of what transpired. I told you that I have a wife and children, right? When I miss my mom, wife and children at night, I’ll hate you both for everything you did.”
I hesitated for a bit at first, but decided to be forthright. There was no point in hiding it, after all. True, I did hate them before. I hated them enough to want to kill them. If I could kill them, I would’ve done so no doubt about it. My plight was only because I couldn’t triumph against them. I was still stuck as their prisoner. I was merely a prisoner who had been given more comfort. There was a saying that phrased it well: being a slave isn’t scary. What’s scary is finding joy in being a slave. Irina became poison. I couldn’t allow myself to sink any deeper.
A melancholic look flitted across Irina’s eyes. She tightly gripped my arm. She muttered, “Sorry… We didn’t want to resort to this… It’s just… just… that Mom had no other way… If you didn’t comply… we wouldn’t have a future. Mom had no choice… Sorry…”
“There’s no need to apologise. I know your reasons, and I know that you don’t want to kill us or hurt us. Otherwise, Mommy Sylvanas wouldn’t be alive until now. You’ve treated me well, except the fact that this is kidnapping and imprisonment hasn’t changed. If you release us before Mommy Sylvanas wakes up, we might be able to become friends.”
“Will you come back?”
“Unlikely.”
That was a stupid question. Why would I ever come back…? I really wondered if Irina still didn’t understand. I had no sympathy for the dragon race. Zero. I never considered myself a dragon, and I never shouldered their safety. I always considered myself a human being. Perhaps I was used to it since I always lived as a human. I was in the dragons’ territory. The dragon race was a hazard for the North. Not a friend. If it wasn’t for Dragon Mom, I’d be in the Imperial Palace plotting how to kill the dragons; I wouldn’t be lying there.