Page 33 of The Diamond Dragon Prince
It was curious to watch Rumi interact with Emmerich. I knew they were fated mates and I knew my brother well enough to see that he wanted to be with his dragon right then and there, just like the rest of us who had found our mates. Why Emmerich didn’t simply take him was beyond me.
Then again, despite having bonded and mated with my dragon and having his egg inside me, I was far more determined to see the people of my father’s kingdom saved from tyranny than I was to go play happy house with Diamant.
I didn’t want to go into battle without Diamant by my side, though, and fortunately, I wouldn’t have to.
“You will tell me at any point if you feel too ill to continue,” he said as we waited for the bulk of the army to beready to start out. “I don’t want you to suffer any longer than you need to.”
If not for the genuineness of concern that I felt from him through our bond, I might have been annoyed with his fussing.
“I will be fine,” I told him, reaching across to grasp his hand. Every touch of my skin against Diamant’s gave me courage and made me feel loved. He made me feel as if I could do anything. “This child of ours will end up being a great warrior at this rate. They started their life as part of the most important battle this kingdom has known for years.”
Diamant huffed a laugh and squeezed my hand. “The two of you will run circles around me, I’m sure.”
“Move on!” one of Osric’s deputies called out in his astoundingly loud voice, breaking the otherwise sweet moment between me and my dragon.
The entire army surged forward, moving as one entity. I was impressed by how closely all the soldiers obeyed Osric’s orders. I’d only ever known guards and soldiers to grudgingly obey my father’s commands on pain of punishment, and they’d never done a very good job of following.
Osric was a good leader, though, and he would be a good king. Just as I would have been a good king if I’d been born an alpha.
If only I’d been born an alpha! I could have risen up and overthrown my father years ago. I could have made life better for everyone in our kingdom and spared so many people so much agony. I could have given my brothers the lives they deserved as well. I wouldn’t be consumed with worry about what would become of me when there was nothing left for me to do but raise children and be a papa, someone I never imagined myself being.
But if I’d been born an alpha, I never would have met Diamant. If I’d been in charge of my brothers from an earlier time, Rumi never would have met Emmerich, and Emmerich never would have given us the doorway into the magical world. None of us would have met our dragons.
It just seemed like an unbalanced trade that I should have to become someone I wasn’t certain I could be because I hadn’t been born who I wanted to be.
“You are brave and strong, Leo,” Diamant said quietly as we rode over the crest of the first hill. “We will find our way together, you’ll see.”
I sent him a sideways smirk, pretending I was more at ease with everything than I was. “I’m not certain how I feel about this ability of yours to read my mind,” I told him with a wink.
Diamant laughed. “We’ll grow used to each other. Or so I’m told.”
We continued on for a few hours, as the sun rose all the way to its zenith. The work camp was half a night away, if my memory of the journey the night before was accurate. We had a while to go, and whether it was the strain of the endeavor or the egg growing within me and sapping my energy, I just wanted to get there and get everything over with.
I didn’t have to wait as long as I’d thought I would for something to happen.
“What’s that on the horizon?” Obi asked less than an hour after we’d resumed our journey after a quick midday meal, standing in his stirrups and pointing forward.
I’d thought the shadows near the top of the next hill were animals of some sort, but they were moving too fast and more of them continued to appear over the crest of the hill.
“They’re people,” one of Osric’s deputies said.
He was right. The closer we came to the hill, the more we could see people running over it, looking like they were fleeing.
“I don’t like the look of that,” Diamant said, walking his horse closer to me. “They look like the villagers from the camp.”
I glanced at Diamant for a moment. His eyes were slitted like a dragon’s, which must have improved his vision.
“Perhaps they’re trying to return to their homes,” I said.
It was wishful thinking, and by the time we met the group of fleeing villagers, my hope that things would be easy and go our way began to fade.
“We had barely begun sorting ourselves and discussing how to return home when the soldiers returned,” one of the bedraggled betas from the group told us as Osric ordered his men to stop so that the villagers could be fed and looked after.
“They had more soldiers with them,” another said. “Men from a separate part of the army who had gone off on a mission but returned.”
“Could that be Rottum’s men and the others who attacked Berk?” I asked.
“They very likely were,” Diamant said, frowning. “Which means the battle you’ve been anticipating could happen sooner rather than later.”
