Page 39 of The Diamond Dragon Prince
Osric frowned slightly, then glanced to our group. Hedidn’t look at the omega princes, though. He looked at Emmerich, then Azurus, then me.
The man clearly had some idea of who we were and what we were doing.
“Very well, then,” he said, straightening his back and tilting his chin up. “I will return the princes to you, and in exchange, you let me and my men leave here.”
“Very well,” Freslik answered so quickly that magic had to be involved. No smart ruler would let someone with a legitimate case to challenge him simply walk away.
“Emmerich, you devil,” I said, uncertain whether I was teasing or whether I was furious with him. “You said no magic.”
“No magic that would give any of us away,” Emmerich said as some of the guards holding us moved in to escort the princes away. “This magic is designed to protect the most vulnerable.”
“I don’t want to go back,” Prince Misha wept, clinging to Azurus even as the guards closed in to take them away. “I cannot bear it anymore.”
“It will only be for a short time,” Azurus reassured him.
“We’ll rejoin them in the magical world as soon as Father shuts the door on us,” Prince Rumi agreed. “I think we’re safe until then.”
He glanced to Emmerich in question, and Emmerich nodded to confirm it.
“I don’t want to be apart from you,” Leo said, grasping my hand and reaching out to me through our bond. “But if we must be parted for a few hours so that we can be together for the rest of our lives, then I’ll endure it.”
I grinned. “My brave omega. You’re so much stronger than I am.”
“Yes, I am,” Leo said, then winked.
I wanted to throw my arms around him and kiss him until we were both overheated and panting. I wanted to defy Emmerich and make a doorway to take us straight back to my lair.
Instead, I was forced to step back, cloaked by magic, and watch as soldiers poked and prodded my pregnant omega and marched him away from me.
Chapter
Twelve
Leo
For the second time, as soon as I was separated from Diamant, I regretted it. Badly.
“Are you certain you’re going to make it back to the castle?” Rumi asked as he rubbed my back while I curled in on myself as the wagon our father had assigned to carry us home jostled.
“I’ll be fine,” I said through gritted teeth, not sure if that was true or not.
Even though my belly ached, the egg inside me felt bigger by the second, too big to make it out of me easily, and every fiber of my being cried out for my mate, I wasn’t the one of us who suffered the most on that long, depressing ride home.
“I cannot do this anymore,” Misha wept as he sat against the opposite side of the wagon, hugginghimself. “I just can’t do it.”
Obi sat beside him, one arm around Misha’s back, glancing worriedly at Rumi. I didn’t like the feeling like the two of them were all that was left to be responsible for their weaker brothers. I wasn’t weak, I was just…indisposed.
I grimaced at the thought. I hated being sick in the best of times. What I felt now wasn’t sickness, it was a complete change in my life.
As soon as those thoughts pinched me, I felt a wave of stubborn indignation from inside me. It was faint and new, but the emotion of it was so precise that I almost laughed.
“You’re going to be a stubborn one, aren’t you,” I murmured, rubbing my belly. “Just like your papa.”
I caught my breath. It was the first time I had thought of myself as a papa on a visceral level, and it didn’t feel half bad. I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath, pressing my hand against the bulge of my stomach.
Images came to me, whether of my own imagining or through some sort of profound sight. I saw a wiry young alpha boy with white-blond hair, like his sire, running through the garden brandishing a wooden sword. I saw him leading and entertaining several other boys, his cousins, as they staged mock battles against their friends.
The boy was happy, healthy, and strong.
