Page 3 of The Diamond Dragon Prince
“Someone’s made a right mess of it,” Tovey said, shaking his head.
“That was Father’s guards,” I told him. “Father got it into his head that we were hiding the two of you in there somewhere.”
“I do not miss that man at all,” Tovey sniffed.
“Oh! Look!” Obi went on. “It’s not just our bedchamber. That looks like Father’s bedchamber.”
“What is he doing?” Rumi asked, then suddenly said, “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
I might have laughed and made a joke about what Father did at night, but a warm tingling began to spread through me and my heart began to race. I caught my breath and stood straighter. I knew what that feeling meant. Even though we hadn’t bonded yet, I knew when my fated mate was nearby.
I dragged my eyes away from the scrying glass and took a few steps deeper into the pavilion, away from my brothers, searching this way and that. I’d met him early on in our time in the magical world. We’d danced together once and I’d known in my heart and in my womb that the two of us were meant to be.
Unlike Tovey’s and Selle’s dragon mates, Diamant hadn’t rushed in to claim me immediately. Part of me wished he had, but as he’d whispered to me in a moment when the dance had us curled around each other, palms topalms, our lips only a breath away from each other, sometimes the dance was as beautiful as where it led.
I caught my breath when I spotted him striding toward me from the far end of the pavilion. Diamant was one of the most magnificent alphas I’d ever seen. He was tall with broad shoulders and strong legs. The fine clothing he wore couldn’t disguise the power of his body underneath. He had white-blond hair that seemed to glitter like diamonds in certain light, and his eyes were ice blue, and yet somehow filled with fire.
When he spotted me staring at him, his shapely mouth formed into a rake’s smile. He slowed his steps, approaching with swagger, like he had already claimed me and was on his way to retrieve his property.
The feeling that an alpha already believed he owned me was strangely thrilling. Not because I longed to be claimed, like Tovey, or even like Misha, who was as afraid of the claiming as he craved it, but because I longed to challenge Diamant’s insistence that he owned me. I pulsed with excitement at the idea of butting heads with my dragon.
“Well, well,” Diamant said as he reached me. He rested his weight on one leg, crossed his arms, and caressed me with a glance. I was certain he’d worn tight breeches on purpose so that the bulge they concealed was more pronounced, like he was flaunting his alphaness at me. “Aren’t you looking full of yourself tonight,” he said, meeting my eyes with a fiery grin.
“Just tonight?” I asked, crossing my arms in imitation of him. “I’m full of myself all the time.”
Diamant laughed. The sound had my blood pumping and slick threatening to pour out of me. His rich, alpha scent, like expensive, exotic spices, intensifiedmy body’s reaction to him.
My womb seemed to wake up inside me, which was slightly disconcerting. I didn’t see myself as an omega brood mare at all. Tovey and Selle might be happy to have babies, or rather, eggs, but I wanted more from a bond with my fated mate than that. My body’s reminders that it didn’t care what I wanted created anxious sparks in the back of my mind.
I pushed them aside in favor of flirting with Diamant.
“Why am I not surprised?” he asked, coming forward and offering his hand as the musicians started into the opening strains of the next dance.
As soon as I took his hand and our skin touched, my body seemed to dance with light. Especially when Diamant tugged me closer with exciting force, leaned close to my ear, and whispered, “Of course, I’d rather you be full of me.”
I wanted him so desperately that I was breathless for a moment. My hole squeezed like it longed to milk him, and if it were not for the reinforced pants I wore under my trousers, I would have embarrassed myself with slick stains.
It was completely unlike me. I’d never been attracted to arrogance or anything close to the indifference to responsibility that radiated from Diamant. But the fact that he was so different from the sort of mate I’d always thought I might end up with, if Father had allowed it, felt like a delicious challenge.
“And what if it is I who wishes to claim you?” I whispered right back, tempted to bite his neck the way Tovey and Selle had described their mates biting them when they were claimed.
Diamant laughed, the sound warm and inviting as it rumbled through him and vibrated through me. “I think I might like that,” he said.
I could hardly breathe. I loved the arousal that Diamant sparked in me. I loved the promise of all the ways we would enjoy each other when the seduction we’d begun months ago reached its consummation. I ached for that day.
At the same time, I knew my heat was growing nearer with every day. I wanted it, but I feared it, too. Diamant would take me through that heat, I was certain, but I’d seen what had happened to Tovey and Selle. One glance to the side and I could see the eggs they both now had with them.
I wasn’t a papa, I was a warrior. I wanted to mate with my dragon and claim him as he claimed me, but I didn’t want to then end up floundering in ordinary papahood when I knew the world needed me to be a fighter.
“Do not worry, my fiery omega,” Diamant whispered against my ear. “I will be gentle with you.”
I shook myself out of my thoughts and grinned at my dragon, aroused all over again. I loved this kind of flirting. I loved that we were growing bolder and bolder with each other as we got to know each other better.
“How do you know I want you to be gentle?” I asked him, arching one eyebrow. “I’ve no intention of being gentle with you.”
Diamant’s eyes lit up. “You make me question my decision to wait with you,” he growled.
“Yourdecision?” I gave him an incredulous look.
