Page 4

Chapter

Four

Diamant

M y omega. My incomparable, delicious omega. Mine.

I breathed in Leo’s scent as the first hints of morning sun dappled down through the leafy canopy above us. He felt so perfect in my arms, his warm, naked body pressed against mine. He belonged there, and I would move heaven and earth in this world, the magical world, and every other world to keep him there for as long as possible.

I breathed him in again and stroked a hand down the lean line of his side. It was a shame he wasn’t in heat, although I could feel it whispering in the background, ready to break out in flames at any moment. I wanted to take my omega again, claim him with a bite and burst the bond that was latent between us wide open. Leo might fight me over that claiming, but nothing thrilled me more than the idea of vanquishing a more than worthy opponent.

Not even vanquishing, really. I might have been an arrogant, aggressive dragon, but I relished the idea of a mate who could challenge and master me. Deep within, I had wanted someone who would see more in me than a pleasant dance partner or a good lover. I had always wanted that.

Now there he was, in my arms, snoring gently and adorably as sleep lightened over him. I would tease him about the snoring bit. As soon as he woke fully, I would poke him in the ribs and tell him he was so noisy he woke half the forest. Then I would flip him to his back, lift his ankles up around his ears, and plow him like?—

The sound of shouting jolted me from my heated thoughts and sent my already hard cock softening. Leo snorted and sucked in a breath as if he’d heard it, too, even though he was just waking up.

I pushed myself up on one arm and turned my head to listen as the shouting sounded again.

“What is it?” Leo asked drowsily.

A moment later, he burst into a smile as memories of our frantic lovemaking from the night before returned to him.

“My dragon,” he murmured, reaching for me.

I couldn’t resist the urge to roll on top of him and to kiss him until we were both breathless. But when more shouts sounded, Leo heard them and tensed.

“The soldiers,” he said, sitting as I rolled to the side. “They’ve discovered our tricks.”

“They must have,” I agreed with a nod, reaching for the tunic I’d tossed aside the night before .

I’d never fully removed my trousers, so it was easier for me to dress and push myself to my feet. I used a bit of magic to clean myself and Leo from our activities of the night before, then helped Leo back into his rumpled clothing.

We made our way to the edge of the trees, crouching to observe the camp.

“It looks like our efforts have borne fruit,” I said, humor in my voice.

I was right. The camp was in disarray. Many of the soldiers were just waking up to find their boots or trousers gone. I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of some of them dashing around in just their drawers, or with nothing on the bottom at all. Someone had discovered a pile of destroyed boots in the ashes of a burned-out fire. Someone else had found some in the stream. No one had located the weapons yet.

“What is the meaning of this?” Rottum shouted above the confusion. “Where is my horse?”

No one had an answer for him. The horses were long gone.

Better even than the confusion and distress of the soldiers, I noticed that the number of villagers sitting in the center of the camp was greatly diminished. In fact, as far as I could tell, there were only a handful of them, all of them alphas.

“The rest of the villagers must have escaped in the night,” Leo whispered beside me. “And it looks like the ones who remain are there to fight.”

“Good,” I said, reaching across the grass for Leo’s hand.

I was so proud of my omega, so proud of his bravery and cleverness. I was proud of myself for taking a stand against evil as well. It was a new feeling, as new as my communion with Leo. Leo took my hand and squeezed it as if the feeling were mutual. We made the perfect partnership.

“This is outrageous!” Rottum continued to shout and stomp around the camp. “What is the meaning of this chaos? I knew I should have chosen better men from among you.”

My and Leo’s grins dropped and we both turned back to the camp.

“You asked for volunteers from the main army,” one of the soldiers, who had found his singed trousers and hopped around as he stepped into them, said. “We volunteered for this.”

“Volunteered to avoid the main battle, I assume,” Rottum’s deputy said.

I frowned. It made perfect sense that this motley band of fools wasn’t the only force King Freslik had working for him. I didn’t like the implication that there were more mercenaries out there, though.

“Resolve this mess as swiftly as you can,” Rottum shouted. “We need to rejoin the rest of the army before their attack on Berk.”

Leo sucked in a breath. I glanced at him in question.

“It’s one of the larger villages in the west,” he told me, scowling as if Rottum had offended him personally. “They are good people, prosperous people. The village is strong enough to stand up against Father, but not if they’re overrun with mercenaries.”

“Then we need to go ahead and warn them,” I said, shuffling back and pushing myself to a crouch.

Leo pulled back as well, but he wore a look of confusion. “How?” he asked. “Berk is at least a day’s ride from here. We don’t know where the rest of the army is or how close they are to attacking the village. ”

“We can find out,” I said with a broad smile.

I could tell by the curious look in Leo’s eyes and the excited smile that tried to take his mouth that he had some idea of what I was talking about. I gestured for him to follow me away from the line of the trees, moving as swiftly as I could in the undergrowth while still being quiet.

“I trust the men who stayed behind from the other village to do whatever they clearly have planned to escape from those fools,” I said once we reached a small clearing deep in the trees. “As for us, we have an entirely different means of escape at our disposal.”

“You don’t mean—” Leo started.

Before he could finish, I drew in a deep breath and felt the prickling of scales and the cracking of bones as my body transformed from human to dragon. The moment of transformation was always uncomfortable, but once it was complete and I stood on all fours in the smallest version of my dragon form, it felt good to stretch my wings.

Leo’s mouth had fallen open as I transformed, and he let out an exultant laugh as he looked up at me. “You’re magnificent!” he gasped, eyes wide.

All dragons were magnificent, but diamond dragons were some of the flashiest of our kind. My body shimmered with an iridescence that was almost white as the sunlight glinted off my scales. My face and form were a bit sharper and more angular than some of my brothers, but it had its advantages.

“Climb on,” I said, my voice lower and deeper, but with the same overall sound as before.

I lowered one shoulder and positioned my arm so that Leo could mount my back easily. My ferocious omega wasted no time in running to me and scrambling up until he sat astride my shoulders, leaning down to grip my neck tightly.

“Tovey and Selle have told me that riding a dragon is one of the most thrilling experiences of their lives. I know you won’t let me down,” he said.

I laughed, then with a powerful push, I leapt into the air.

As soon as I was above the trees, I exerted my magic to grow in size, to secure Leo to me so that he couldn’t fall off, and to cloak us so that we would appear like a cloud against the morning sky.

I should have come up with some way to muffle sound as well, because Leo whooped and laughed with joy as I soared far above the land.

“It’s incredible!” he shouted, shifting to the side so he could look down past my neck to the rolling fields, clusters of woods, and meandering streams below.

I couldn’t help but show off. Flying was such a thrilling, freeing thing. I turned circles in the air, speeding up at one point and diving closer to the ground at others just to show my mate how dexterous and swift I could be.

Leo loved every second of it. I could tell without even having a bond between us. He laughed and shouted, gripped my body tightly, leaning into it when I dove, and sitting straighter to feel the wind in his hair when I ascended again. I felt very much like he was the valiant warrior that he was, riding towards certain victory.

My joy and Leo’s sobered slightly when we spotted the army we’d been looking for stretched out across the land below us.

“They’re close to Berk,” Leo shouted, pointing at the hill where the front of the army had amassed. “It doesn’t look like the people of Berk know they’re coming. ”

Leo was right. The hill concealed them from the view of the large village. I could see what were probably a few shepherd lads running from the hill toward the village as if to give warning, but it was still early, and I doubted the people would be ready before the army arrived.

“Lucky for them, they have a dragon and a prince on their side,” I said, pulling my body in tight so we could zoom toward the village.

We made it there just as the out of breath shepherds came within shouting distance of the edge of the village. Thanks to the concealment I’d conjured for me and my omega, once I transformed back into my human form, we looked like any other villagers who could have see the army from the hilltop.

“They’re coming!” one of the lads shouted as Leo and I joined the crowd forming near the edge of the village. “An entire army! They’re coming.”

“It looks like there could be five hundred men or more,” Leo added without hesitation. “Berk will need to mount some sort of defense against them. My father has plans to kidnap villagers and hold them hostage at work camps in order to force the rest of you to do his bidding.”

The confused and frightened murmurings of the villagers stopped and all eyes turned to Leo.

“It’s…it’s Prince Leo!” one of the ladies at the edge of the crowd called out.

“Your Highness,” a middle-aged alpha said, dropping quickly to one knee.

The rest of the villagers followed as word that Prince Leo had arrived among them began to spread.

“Stand, please,” Leo said, though it sounded more like an order. “There isn’t time for deference. We need to work together to make certain Berk can defend itself from my father’s army of mercenaries.”

“What do we do? How do we do that?” the alpha asked.

“We’re villagers, not soldiers,” someone else in the crowd said.

As valiant and well-meaning as Leo was, he didn’t have any military experience. He glanced to me with a look that bordered on desperation, breathing fast.

“You’ll all need weapons to begin with,” I said, trying to think things through. “And every entry point into the city will need to be barricaded and defended.”

“I know how to build barricades,” another alpha said, raising his hand.

“We have a few weapons in the village hall,” a female alpha said. “They won’t be enough for everyone.”

“Pitchforks will work in a pinch,” Leo said. “The most important thing is to block the army from entering and to keep those who are vulnerable protected in the center of the city. From what I was able to observe, there are more of you than there are of them, even if they seem more powerful at first glance.”

“We’ll fight to protect what is ours,” the alpha said.

His words were met with shouts of determination. That determination shifted to action as the villagers organized themselves into teams and as those teams moved out to spread the word and set about mounting defenses.

“I think we can do this,” Leo said, panting and pink-faced as the two of us went with the group heading to the village hall to distribute weapons. “We can defend this village from my father’s cruelty, and from here, we can keep the rest of the kingdom safe.”

“We can,” I said, blooming with pride in my mate.

There was more going on with him than met the eye, though. Leo worked as tirelessly as everyone else finding and distributing the weapons. The villagers were in awe of him, despite him being an omega, and followed his orders without question. Leo rose to the challenge, as a true leader did, and helped the different armed groups take up positions along the perimeter of the village.

“It would be better if the village had walls,” he said as he moved on to help one of the groups that was piling broken boards and debris on top of an old wagon that had been rolled into the space where the main road leading out of the village opened. “But we can defend the place regardless.”

He stopped as soon as he’d finished speaking and nearly doubled over. He rested his hands on his knees and breathed quickly, then forced out a longer breath.

I knew what was wrong. I could smell the heat wafting from him without even standing close to him. Our lovemaking the night before had done exactly what I should have been able to predict it would, given that we were fated mates, and sent him into heat.

“Leo,” I said in a warning voice, striding closer to him. “You might not be able to stay for this fight.”

Leo growled and straightened. “I have to stay. I cannot abandon these people just as they are about to be attacked.”

“You are a prince of this realm,” one of the alphas who had been helping to build the barricade overheard us and said. “It is not right that you should risk yourself on our behalf.”

“I have to stand up for you,” Leo said, distress painting his face as he stood. “Someone has to stand up for you.”

“I heard there was a sorceress trying to overthrow King Freslik,” a lovely young omega woman said as she bravely helped a man who looked like her sire pile debris on the wagon. “She might be the one to save us.”

“No,” Leo said, shaking his head and pacing in agitation. “I have never known a sorceress to fight for the side of what is right.”

Leo had to puff out his breaths to steady himself as the wave hit him. The seat of his trousers had turned slightly damp. Some of the other alphas were taking notice as well, though they were good men who were fighting to contain their reactions.

“I heard that there is someone else, another king, possibly a dragon, that has vowed to overthrow King Freslik,” a beta who had rushed onto the scene with a bucket containing drinking water to relieve the workers said. “Though I shouldn’t say such things in front of you, Prince Leo, since he might want to overthrow you, too.”

“There’s no such thing as dragons,” another villager scolded the beta.

“I think there might be,” someone else said. “I’ve been hearing more and more about dragons of late. I think they might be possible.”

“There are no dragons here,” the alpha who was in charge said. “Just a village that needs to defend itself from an army. Look!”

He pointed out toward the hill. We all turned.

Sure enough, the mercenary soldiers had just rounded the top of the hill and were marching straight for the village.

“Hurry!” Leo shouted, turning back to his people, though he was dripping in sweat and reeking of ripe fruit. “Man your positions. Take up whatever arms you can. Keep the most vulnerable away from the edges of the village.”

Everyone moved at once, following Leo’s lead. I wished my mate could have seen how bold and powerful he seemed to those around him. He was a natural leader.

At least, at any other time he would have been a natural leader. As the two of us hurried back into the town to see to the other groups of defenders, he had to stop more than once to breathe through the ache I knew kept filling him. It was a fiery, hollow ache, one that demanded to be filled. The way Leo kept looking at me was all the proof I needed that he knew precisely what he needed to fill it.

“You can’t fight this fight, my love,” I told him when the pains of his first heat wave nearly brought him to his knees. “You’ve done everything you can. It’s time to take care of you now.”

“No,” Leo said, shaking his head and trying to force himself to walk on. “I refuse to be a weak omega at the mercy of my body. I am a leader, a fighter. My people need me.”

“You have already done so much for them,” I told him, attempting to reach for him and pull him into my arms.

Leo dodged away from me, and I was reasonably certain why. His heat was coming on fast and hard, and if our skin touched, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from giving in to his natural needs.

“I have to fight,” he growled through clenched teeth.

“No, my love,” I said, striding over to where he’d gone in his attempt to get away from me and grasping his face in my hands. “You need to breed.”

Leo made a frustrated sound of anguish. Then he threw himself at me, wrapping his whole body around mine in a way that forced me to lift him off his feet.

“Damn you,” he gasped and panted, kissing me as if he would devour my tongue and jerking his hips to rub his hard cock against my body. “Damn this body of mine. ”

“It’s alright, love,” I told him, flicking my wrist to open a door to the magical world beside us. “I’ve got you. We’ll take care of this together.”

As the first shouts of battle sounded behind us, I stepped with Leo through the door.