Page 31 of The Sapphire Dragon Prince
I cowered back, but I didn’t like the way that made me feel. I knew this wasn’t my father any more than the initial reflectionI’d seen in the mirror was really Azurus. The Black Mirror was playing tricks on me. Or maybe it was my own mind playing tricks on me and the mirror was reflecting them back.
Either way, I was done with it. I’d been in pain for too long and fought too hard against it. More than that, Azurus was somewhere on the other side of the glass, hurt and in need of my help. I didn’t care what happened to me as long as I could reach my alpha somehow and save him.
“I don’t believe for a second that you’re really my father,” I shouted at the specter as it came closer to me. “I don’t know what you are or where you come from, but I want nothing to do with you. I chose to come into this world for a reason, to get away from you and your evil. I will not allow you to follow me here and ruin the beautiful thing I have now.”
My father laughed and sneered. “You cannot get rid of me,” he said. “You’re too weak. I will always haunt you.”
“Maybe,” I said, standing firm and tilting my chin up. “But maybe I will have other things in my life, other joys and other love, that will make your threats into nothing but old echoes. I’m stronger than you think.”
“Pitiful omega,” my father sneered, still coming toward me. “No one could ever love you. You are utterly unworthy of love.”
My heart faltered for a moment. All my brave words hadn’t seemed to do a thing. Father was right. I was too broken for anyone to love, no matter what I did. I stumbled back, nearly tripping over my pack as I did.
The top of my pack fell open, and a few of the things that were near the top spilled out. One of those things was the small, slender dagger I’d taken from the storehouse, the one that reminded me of Papa.
Tears suddenly sprung to my eyes and my throat closed up as I bent to pick up the beautiful dagger. It was hardly worth the title of weapon, but holding it in my hand, feeling all the love andstrength my papa had bequeathed to me, whether he was there or not, made it feel like the most powerful sword that had ever been forged.
“I am not a pitiful omega,” I growled at my father. “No omegas are pitiful. We are strong. We love fiercely and we protect what we love.”
My father continued to huff and sneer as he came closer to me, but his image seemed to shift and lose focus. The same dark, yellowish gleam that came from the glass separating me and Azurus shone from him.
“I might not be perfect,” I went on, “but I am loved just as I am. I am worthy of love. I have always been loved. Papa loved me so much. You might have destroyed him, but you didn’t destroy the love he felt and gave to me and my brothers. He’s the reason we’re all so strong. He’s the reason that you can lock us in our room and give us to horrible alphas as prizes, but he’s also the reason you’ll never defeat any of us. We know what love is because of Papa, and because of the dragons who love us.”
“Those dragons don’t love you,” the increasingly shimmery image of my father said, or at least tried to say. “You’re weak and broken. What sort of dragon would love a?—”
I didn’t let him finish. I charged at him, Papa’s dagger raised, and slammed the slender blade down hard where my father’s heart, if he had one, would have been.
The moment the blade made contact, not only did the image of my father shatter into a million pieces, but the impossibly large and thick wall of glass separating me and Azurus burst with a deadening roar into more shards of glass than there were stars in the skies.
Chapter
Eleven
Azurus
Watching my beloved, terrified Misha cowering in fear as his father emerged from the shadows and circled him was far more painful than any blow that could have been landed on me. I would have rather endured the agony of a thousand sword slashes or been burned with my own fire than see the omega I loved suffer for another second. Misha deserved so much more than to be tormented by his father’s cruelty.
“I will save you!” I called out, approaching the glass again, though I knew I couldn’t touch it. “I won’t let this thing harm you!”
They were brave words, but they rang hollow to me. How could I save or protect my omega when every bit of magic I’d once possessed had drained away from me? What was I without magic? Was I even a dragon anymore?
I was shaken out of my own misery by a slight flickering in the glass. Misha still cowered on the other side, sunk into a ball as his father stalked him, hurling harsh words at him that I couldn’t hear. But at the same time, I saw something else in the mirror. It was as if there were a second layer behind what I was seeing, and in that layer I saw Misha standing and proud. He confronted his father rather than cowering from him. His expression held bravery instead of pain.
I took a step back and blinked, then squinted at the mirror as the image of a strong Misha faded and only the cowering Misha remained. I no longer trusted what I saw before me, though. The Black Mirror was deceptive. It was known for showing people the worst of what they were trying to see.
“Misha?” I asked, stepping toward the mirror again.
A different sort of determination filled me. I couldn’t reach my beloved where he was, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help him. For those few seconds before the mirror had crashed down between us, I’d felt the beginnings of our bond. We might not have forged that bond through the excitement and pleasure of Misha’s heat, but we’d certainly been through the fire together.
I might not have had magic, but I had Misha. And if what I’d seen beyond the image the mirror showed me was true, Misha had all the courage he needed to fight his own battles. I could help him, but only if I was brave myself.
“You can do this, my love,” I said, stepping back up to the mirror again. “You are so strong. Your father will never be able to truly defeat you.”
Even though the mirror was still showing me a crumpled and defeated Misha, hugging himself into a ball on the ground as his father shouted at him and kicked him, I held the image of a valiant, powerful Misha in my mind as I raised my hands. I knew it would hurt me, because that was what The Black Mirror did,it caused pain, but my pain didn’t matter anymore. I needed to give everything I had to my beloved to help him fight this battle.
“I love you, Misha,” I said, then closed my eyes and placed my hands on the dark glass.
Searing pain, like being burned by the coldest ice, shot from my hands, down my arms, and through my entire body, but I held strong, sending every bit of love I had through the glass to my omega. I didn’t know if it would do any good, it certainly wasn’t like imbuing my beloved with magic, but my heart told me it was right.
