Page 2 of The Sapphire Dragon Prince
I woke with a start,shouting something. It might have been Azurus’s name, but as I came out of the horrific nightmare, I was uncertain of everything. I had bedsheets wrapped around me so tightly that they felt like ropes binding me. I thrashed and kicked at them, struggling to get away, my breaths heaving.
“Misha?” My fear spiked at the sound of Azurus calling my name from the other room.
I continued to struggle against the bedsheets, scrambling up to the head of the bed as a thumping sound came from the other room, followed by footsteps. By the time the door separating my bedchamber from Azurus’s swung open, I was cowering against the headboard, sobbing and shaking as if everything in my nightmare had been real.
Because for me, it was real. It had been real for a very long time.
“Misha, darling,” Azurus said, his voice softening as he rushed to the bed.
He was my fated mate, the one alpha I should have been able to trust above all others, but I shrank away from him and hid my face behind my trembling arm.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Azurus said, sitting on the bed close to me, but not too close. He reached for me but deliberately didn’t touch me. “Was it another nightmare?” he asked so kindly. “You know you’re as safe as safe could be here in the dragon castle.”
I gulped in a few breaths, doing everything I could to force myself to be calm as I remembered the situation I was in. I was not in my father’s castle and I hadn’t been for weeks. After the battle and Cousin Osric’s retreat to regroup, my brothers who had participated and I had been taken back to our father’s castle. We were locked in our bedchamber again, but we had escaped into the magical world through the enchanted doorway under Rumi’s bed.
I had chosen to stay in the magical world, like my brothers Tovey and Selle had and like Leo would until Cousin Osric needed him, since he’d bonded with his fated mate, Diamant, and borne an egg. Rumi and Obi had returned to our father’s world to help Cousin Osric’s cause from there.
Azurus had taken me to the dragon castle near the dancing pavilion where we’d all begun our journey in the magical world. It was the safest place any of us could have thought of for me.
I slowly lifted my head from my arm and peered around. The bedchamber I’d been given was cozy and warm. It was decorated in light colors and had several tall windows. It almost felt as if the room itself knew I needed comfort and cheering, so it had gone out of its way to radiate peace and joy. As I looked around, the first light of dawn was peeking through the shimmering curtains that grew more transparent in the daytime.
I was safe. I was cared for. Nothing could harm me, let alone my father, when I was in the dragon castle.
I was still terrified and sick at heart, and it made me burst into tears.
“There, there, sweet one,” Azurus said, scooting forward and opening his arms as if to offer a hug I did not need to take if I didn’t want to. “It was only a dream.”
I did want Azurus’s arms. I’d carried the burden of my fear and anxiety for too long on my own. I pushed away from the headboard and all but threw myself at my fated mate. It was embarrassing to dissolve into the form of a frightened child because of a nightmare, but I had lived so long under my father’s shadow that his menace was too real for me.
Azurus wrapped his arms around me and pulled me all the way onto his lap. The bedsheets that I’d been tangled in were suddenly gone, and it was just me and Azurus and Azurus’s amazing alpha scent, like the rain on hot stones, cooling everything and making it better.
And yet as comforted as I felt in Azurus’s arms, as delicious and alluring as I found his scent to be, I was still cold without even a spark of heat coming over me.
It wasn’t the way things were meant to be with fated mates.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
“Whatever for, sweet one?” Azurus asked, incredibly calm and patient. He had been that way from the start. He was everything an alpha should be, strong, brave, and powerful, but he was so caring and gentle with me. “You are not upset by a dream, are you?”
I sniffed, fighting against myself to be the sort of omega, the sort of man a dragon like Azurus deserved in a mate. I knew I came up short in every way, though.
“I am better,” I said, willing myself to believe it and pushing back so that I could sit on my own. “You are right. It was just a dream. I’m feeling much better now.”
It was a lie, and the way Azurus stroked his hand around my face and studied my expression told me he knew it.
“Whatever it was,” he said, “it’s passed now. Morning has come, you are awake and with me in the magical world, and nothing, not even your father, can ever harm you again.”
I tried to smile. I wanted to believe him. I knew in my mind that his words were true. My father was an entire world away and had no means of accessing the magical world. But I was still terrified, because as far away as my father was, the deepest feeling of danger was inside of me, and I feared it always would be.
“I will be well,” I said, smiling bashfully at Azurus. I meant it as a reassurance, but I prayed it was a prediction as well.
“You will be,” Azurus assured me. “I have you.”
He swept his hand around my face once more, then paused before leaning in to kiss my lips.
It was a lovely, warm kiss filled with promise and devotion…and I felt nothing from it. I kissed Azurus back as best I could, but as comforted as I felt, my fated mate’s kiss did not fill me with lust and desire the way it should have.
Something was wrong with me. I was hopelessly broken.
