Page 8 of The Diamond Dragon Prince
“It should be,” I said. “But it won’t last forever.”
He nodded. “Stay safe,” he told Leo.
“I’ll stay as safe as is right when people need our help,” Leo answered.
The brothers embraced to say goodbye, then Leo and Istood where we were for a moment, watching the other two princes disappear into the darkness.
Once they were gone, he turned to me with a fire in his eyes that glowed even brighter with the reflected light of the bonfires that had been lit in the square.
“I’m not going to let them get away with this,” he said. “These are my people as much as my father’s, even though omegas cannot be kings in this realm.”
“A gross oversight on someone’s part,” I said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “You would make a fearsome omega king.”
Leo laughed, but the sounds of the villagers being forcibly moved brought both of our attentions back to the matter at hand.
“We need to follow them and do whatever we can to foil their plans,” he said as we crept out of our hiding place, keeping to the shadows as we followed the contingent out of the village and along the narrow, country road.
“I won’t let any harm come to them,” I reassured him. Whatever my omega needed me to do, I would do, even though I could tell it meant my life of idle pleasure was over.
Chapter
Three
Leo
My heart raced with excitement as Diamant and I chased through the night, following the mercenary soldiers who paraded the poor people of the village through the darkened countryside. I loved the thrill of the mission before us, the feeling that people needed me to rescue them, especially as it was my father who had brought them harm in the first place. My pulse also hammered with rage that my father could stoop so low as to take his own people captive in order to manipulate the others into doing what he wanted.
“I can feel your anger from here and we aren’t even bonded yet,” Diamant murmured to me as we lay almost flat in a clump of bushes close to where the soldiers had finally decided to stop and rest for the night.
I twisted to look at Diamant, first witha frown that was born of my indignation over my father’s actions, then with a smile for the heat in his eyes. They seemed to glow white-hot in the night. Clearly, my fated dragon mate was a man of passion.
I’d known Diamant was my fated mate almost from the moment I’d spotted him across the pavilion on one of those first occasions my brothers and I had ventured into the magical world. I could have dismissed the attraction I felt as a natural draw, because Diamant was an extraordinarily handsome alpha. But after hearing Tovey and Selle talk about their feelings towards their dragons and how instantaneously they had formed, I knew that something greater than base lust was at work.
Of course, watching both Tovey and Selle fall into what I considered more traditional omega roles in a mated couple had made me question everything I felt. I wasn’t that kind of omega. I wouldn’t be satisfied with settling down and raising babies. It was fine for some, but I no more wanted to be trapped in a prison of domesticity than I wanted to be locked in my bedchamber in my father’s castle.
That was why I’d kept my distance from Diamant for the last two months instead of flinging myself into his arms, the way Tovey and Selle had with their alphas. I felt the pull to give myself to Diamant in every cell of my body. I’d lain awake, sweating and restless, as thoughts of what it would be like for Diamant to take my next heat assailed me. I’d even slipped behind pillars at the pavilion or out into the night to kiss Diamant a time or two.
But I didn’t want to become his docile houseomega anytime soon.
“You wear your thoughts in your eyes,” Diamantwhispered as the commotion of setting up a camp began to settle as the soldiers tucked in for the night.
“I do not,” I protested, heart and womb both fluttering at the way Diamant looked as though he wanted to devour me with his compliments.
“Oh, yes you do,” he chuckled. “I can see the love and concern you have for your people, even in the darkness, and I can see your frustration that you were not born an alpha.”
I tried to swallow, but my throat had closed up. Perhaps Diamant could read me after all.
“Someone needs to stand up against my father and take the throne,” I whispered. “For the benefit of all the people of this realm. But the laws of our kingdom say it cannot be me.”
It was something I regretted deeply. I’d had dreams of rising up and changing the laws so that omegascouldbe kings, but if that time was ever to come, it would be so far into the future that I would be dead and gone. And now that I knew my future would be in the magical world and not this one, I wished even more ardently for someone who would do what I could not.
Diamant reached across and rested a hand over mine as it splayed on the dirt of our hiding place. “You are doing what you can, my brave omega. That is more than most people ever do. It is more than what I would do on my own.”
I smiled, warmed by my dragon’s confidence in me, but something about the comment didn’t sit right.
“You’re a dragon,” I told him. “Of course you are a warrior and a leader.”
Diamant shook his head, a touch of sheepishness that wasn’t at all dragon-like making his face look sad. “I’m adiamond,” he said. “We’re pretty and entertaining but more or less useless.”
