Page 7 of The Gold Dragon Prince
He walked off, keeping to the edges of the pavilion so that he could watch the omegas as they took up their masks and glanced around at the evening’s decorations.
The omegas had arrived earlier than usual. I wasn’t certain whether I should be concerned. The castle attendants were still using their magic to complete the night’s decorations of rainbows and small bursts of gentle rain that caught the light but didn’t hit the ground. They all looked amazed at something thatwas, to me, pedestrian.
I took my chance to sidle up to Selle while his attention was elsewhere.
“You look as though you’ve never seen magic performed before,” I said in a low, warm, seductive voice as I leaned close to his ear from behind. His omega scent, like the sweetest paper mingled with honey, filled my senses and sent desire pulsing through me.
Selle gasped and jumped, the way I’d surprised him knocking his glasses askew. “You startled me,” he said, putting a hand to his heart. I could almost feel it racing as I stood close to him and I was pleased that it was racing for me.
I shrugged. “Omegas are infamous for their short attention span,” I said, deliberately riling him.
As I’d hoped, Selle turned fully to me and frowned. “I have a longer attention span than most,” he said, gripping his gold mask tightly. He had been too busy observing the decoration process to put it on straight away. “I have been known to spend hours poring through the books in our castle’s library.”
“That doesn’t take long,” his brother, Prince Leo said with a smirk. “Our father hates books and has all but emptied the library.”
For a moment, I was too shocked and offended to use that bit of information to continue my teasing. “I knew King Freslik was one of the evilest men ever to live, but that proves it.”
Selle softened slightly toward me. “I have my ways of obtaining books,” he said, tilting his chin up slightly as if he wanted me to be impressed with his ingenuity.
“Oh, yes, I’m certain that you require your long string of beaux to bring them to you as tribute,” I said with a sly grin.
Selle laughed. “I absolutely do not have a string of beaux,” he said. “I’ve never even had a single beau.”
I would have been jealous if he’d said he had dozens of alphas courting him. Instead, perhaps paradoxically, my heart ached over the fact that no one else had ever seen the beauty and brightness that was my omega.
“Then no one will object when I ask for you to open the dancing with me,” I said with as close to a gallant bow as I was capable of, extending my hand to him.
Selle smiled. His brothers grinned and whispered to each other as if they knew we were fated mates and my invitation was for more than just a spin around the pavilion. “I accept,” Selle said, taking my hand.
It would have been a charming moment, but Selle remembered his mask, and instead of sliding gracefully out onto the dance floor with me to join the first few couples taking a turn around the floor, he let go of my hand, fumbled his mask, then clumsily put it on, knocking his glasses sideways as he did.
“It fit perfectly the other day,” he muttered to himself. “I don’t know why it’s giving me trouble now.”
I chuckled, so charmed just watching him put on a mask that it made my heart feel like it would leap out of my chest. “Magic in this world takes its cue from the person wielding it,” I said. “If you’re clumsy and uncertain, it will be, too.”
“I’m not clumsy,” Selle insisted, his mask suddenly sliding into place as his determination to prove himself took over. “And I don’t have any magic.”
I sighed, back to teasing him. “Oh, my darling omega,” I told him stepping close and holding his jaw and chin under his half-mask. “I have so much to teach you.”
New though our bond was, I felt a rush of emotion fromSelle. He liked the idea of learning, that much was certain. I could feel his pulse near my fingers increase and light come to his eyes. At the same time, I felt a level of indignation from him that made me smile. Selle was so brilliantly intelligent that even the hint that he needed me to teach him things irritated something within him.
I would enjoy irritating him in every sort of way as we began our life together.
The musicians finished tuning and set off into the first lively dance of the evening. More magical folk had gathered in the time since I’d begun teasing my dear, wonderful Selle, so when I took him into my arms for the amusing, animated, bouncing dance, there were enough other dancers that we had to be careful where we were going lest we jump right into them.
“I’ve been studying the magical world as much as I can while my brothers and I have been locked in our bedchamber,” Selle said, somewhat breathlessly because of the exuberance of the dance, as we made our way around the pavilion.
“How quaint,” I teased him with a warm smile. “And how does one study about the magical world while trapped in a bedchamber in the cruel world?”
“The cruel world?” Selle blinked.
I winced slightly. That was not the formal name of the world my Selle and his brothers belonged to, but it was the name my dragon kin and I had adopted to describe the horrible place King Freslik had created.
“Never you mind, sweet omega,” I said, twirling Selle around. “Matters of the kingdoms are too advanced for your gentle head.”
As intended, my words enraged Selle. “I told you, I am not soft-headed or silly. I always scored higher marks thanany of my brothers when our tutors set us lessons. I have read every book I’ve been able to get my hands on.”
“Books of fairy tales?” I suggested, one eyebrow raised. How else would he feel as though he had studied the magical world.
