Page 10 of The Ruby Dragon Prince
“I plan to go every night,” Rumi said with a wink.
“We’ll all go with you,” Selle said happily as he took off his glasses and shrugged out of his shirt.
I had a feeling the six of us would spend what felt like far more time in the magical world than we did in our own world for the foreseeable future.
Chapter
Three
Rufus
Every minute since the one where my sweet, feisty omega, Tovey, had run away from me had been a torturous exercise in patience.
“Stop pacing the floor or you’ll wear a trough in the marble,” my brother Emmerich laughed at me from the table where he and our cousin Gildur were playing chess. He glanced up at Gildur and said, “It’s like he’s never found his fated mate before.”
Gildur snorted with laughter, but I wasn’t the least bit amused.
“Of course I’ve never found my fated mate before,” I growled. “Each of us only has one fated mate, and we only meet them once. Just because you stumbled across yours accidentally last month doesn’t mean the rest of us are suddenly mewling whelps unworthy of your attention.”
It was meant to be a set-down, but Emmerich and Gildur only laughed harder.
“You have all the time in the world, Rufus,” Gildur said as he moved a piece across the board to capture one of Emmerich’s pieces. I had no idea which piece was which or whether the move was a good one. I had no patience for things like table games.
“You’ve more time than most,” Emmerich agreed. “Dragons live for centuries, millennia, even, and as soon as you’ve bonded with your omega, he’ll live out all those centuries with you.”
I growled, and even though it showed an embarrassing lack of control, twin puffs of smoke curled up from my nostrils.
I walked away from my kinsmen and their game and went to stare out the window at our kingdom, wiping my nose discreetly on the back of my sleeve to clear the smell of smoke. Emmerich and Gildur would only make fun of me if they knew I was so agitated that I was unintentionally smoking.
Staring out the window made my heart and gut clench with longing, though. The parts of our vast kingdom that I could see were beautiful and verdant. It was springtime, and nature, along with the enhancement of the magic that grew in every cell of every creature and living thing in the land, had made it beautiful. The sun was low against the horizon and dipping lower with each minute that ticked past. It would be night soon.
I could just make out the sapphire lake and the dancing pavilion on the island at the bottom of the hill where our castle stood. The castle was large and comfortable with more than enough room for all of my brothers and sisters and cousins, but if given a choice, I preferred to spend time in my lair, which was out of sight to the west of the castle, deep in the forest.
I’d wanted to be around my family while my heart and gut writhed with impatience, now that I’d found my fated mate, but they weren’t turning out to be the comfort I’d hoped they would be.
“I’m glad that your fated mate arrived with the rest of those sad, sorry omega princes, the other day,” Gildur said, then added, “Checkmate,” for Emmerich.
Emmerich huffed impatiently, a thin trail of smoke coming from one of his nostrils.
“They are sad and sorry,” I said, turning back to their finished game with a renewed burst of frustration. “From everything I’ve heard, their father, King Freslik, is horrifically selfish and evil.”
“He only cares about money and the power it can buy him,” Emmerich agreed.
It didn’t soothe me to have my brother agree with me.
“You’ve been up there,” I said, striding toward him and facing him aggressively as he stood. “You know the sort of peril my Tovey and his brothers are in. You’re fated for one of them.”
“I am,” Emmerich said, suddenly smiling with all the besotted affection of a dragon in love.
“Then why aren’t you champing at the bit as hard as I am to go up there and rescue them from that sort of misery?” I demanded.
“I’ve done a fair deal more than you have,” Emmerich argued, still smiling. “I gave them the door.”
“You should have sealed it behind them once they came to us,” I said, furious. If my omega had to suffer one moment more humiliation at his father’s hands, it would be Emmerich’s fault.
Instead of arguing with me, like I wanted him to, Emmerich rested a hand on my shoulder and said, “The time has not yet come when the princes will join us. There are wheels within wheels at work here.”
I pushed his hand off my shoulder and stomped away. “Don’t give me your thin platitudes when every day that passes brings my omega closer to disaster. The time to storm the cruel world and take what is ours has come.”
