Page 23 of The Diamond Dragon Prince
The carriage jostled as he and the other guards jumpeddown from the driver’s seat, then one guard came around to open the door, revealing the four of us.
An alpha with a rough face and a smarmy expression stepped into the open doorway. His smirk immediately turned into a look of shock when he saw us. “The omega princes?” he gasped.
“King Freslik wants to teach them a lesson for constantly trying to escape,” our guard said.
“They’re to be sent to work with the rest of these useless peasants?” the alpha asked.
Our guard shrugged. “That’s what the king wants.”
More guards had gathered around as the four of us were wrenched out of the carriage. Being manhandled like that only made me feel worse. I despised the feeling of any other alpha besides my mate touching me. My knees nearly buckled once my feet hit the ground.
“Like they’ll be good for anything,” the alpha in charge snorted. “Take them to the barracks. Work is done for the day, but they can at least eat with the other swine.”
If I’d been feeling better, I would have given the alpha in charge a piece of my mind over the way he treated princes. As it was, the best I could do was to stay on my feet as my brothers and I were dragged away from the carriage and into the work camp.
For a moment, I forgot all of my aches and complaints. The work camp was larger than I’d supposed it would be and far more daunting, but I was excited to get a good look at it.
The central part of the camp, where our carriage had arrived and where we were dragged off to, was made up of several longhouses with crudely thatched roofs and few windows. They stood in rows like soldiers, and indeed, soldiers guarded them. I caught sight of a few peoplestaring forlornly out the windows or being led from the fields that surrounded the center of the complex, all of them looking weary and defeated.
The fields must have been part of the work that the villagers who’d been taken prisoner were meant to do. It was the wrong time of year for planting, but from the look of things in the light of the setting sun, a vast amount of empty wasteland where the camp had been built was being cleared for later cultivation. It wasn’t a bad idea to cultivate that land, but forcing peasants to do the backbreaking work, almost certainly without compensation or any right to the land, was evil.
There were a few other buildings that didn’t appear to be lodgings. I supposed those structures held other types of work, perhaps for women or even children, which I saw too many of as my brothers and I were brought to one of the longhouses. My father’s cruelty knew no bounds.
“What are we supposed to do with them?” a grizzly old soldier who looked like all the other mercenaries we’d fought back in Berk asked as we were taken into the dim, smoke-smelling building. “They look too fancy for this place.”
“They’re King Freslik’s omega sons, you dolt,” the alpha who I was now certain was in charge of the entire camp said. “He wants them kept here for a while to teach them a lesson.”
“The…the princes?” the grizzled guard looked nervous, as he should have been.
“Yes,” the alpha in charge said, calculation in his eyes as he rubbed his stubbly chin. “And I think I know just what they’re good for.”
Beside me, Misha shivered and let out a low moan that he quickly swallowed. I felt sorry for my gentle, sweetbrother. Rumi and I could face this sort of a situation and rise above it. Even Obi had hidden depths of strength. But Misha was all sweetness and softness. He was far better suited to papahood than being a prisoner.
Part of me wished our situations were reversed, but I wasn’t about to give up my dragon to anyone.
Thoughts of Diamant bolstered my flagging spirits. I closed my eyes for a moment as the guards debated how we should be treated and called upon him through our bond.I don’t know where you are, my love, but I could use you right now.
“Keep them here until I give further orders,” the alpha in charge snapped. “It’s up to them whether their own people embrace them or curse them, since it was their father who landed them all in this position to begin with.”
He raised his voice at the end, speaking to the crowd of bedraggled villagers clustered along the sides of the walls of our new prison. The vicious smirk he wore hinted that he hoped the other prisoners would hate us.
I had more faith in people than that.
As soon as the alpha in charge and the other guards turned to leave, slamming the barrack’s door behind them, I turned toward our new companions.
“We’ve been hoping to find you all and this camp for days now,” I said, pretending that we’d arrived to liberate them instead of to join them in captivity. If I had anything to do with it, that’s exactly what we would do. “We’re here to help.”
The villagers just stared back at us at first. They were mostly young or very old, and there wasn’t an alpha among them. A few appeared to be betas who might have had mental and physical strength, but who looked far more beaten down than I wanted to see.
“This is our father’s doing,” Obi told them as we walked deeper into the room to join them. “Believe me, we’ve been working for a long time to counteract everything he’s done to harm our people. He’s treated us just as badly as he’s treated you all, though.”
I winced, uncertain whether it was best to start out with that.
“What can you tell us about this place and how you got here?” Rumi asked, far more sensibly.
The villagers looked at each other, as if trying to decide what they made of us. Most of them ended up glancing at a particularly tall beta who was around my and Rumi’s age.
“If you’re here to help us,” the beta said, “why haven’t you come before? Some of us have been here for months.”
