Page 23

Lightning was an apt analogy. Freslik felt it as well.

He couldn’t seem to let go of the dagger, which was lodged nearly to the hilt in Nazeing’s back.

He shook and hummed, and within a few seconds, not only had all the color drained from his face, his eyes rolled back in his head. Then he began to smoke.

“What’s happening?” Rumi shouted, rushing to me and grasping my arm.

I had no idea, but I had a guess. “The blade must be enchanted,” I said. “It must be capable of neutralizing and killing someone with magic.”

“But where did my father get it?”

I sucked in a breath as the most likely answer to that question struck me.

Nazeing had probably created the dagger himself and given it to Freslik to use against me and my brothers, and Osric as well.

But as Nazeing shuddered in the throes of death and began to shake as well, the irony of it all was apparent.

After all his efforts to grab power and overthrow the natural order, Nazeing had been the instrument of his own demise.

I grimaced as the two evil men, Nazeing and Freslik, who had just destroyed each other in their power-grasping, crumpled to the ground in a smoking, putrid heap. That was how evil ended more often than not. It destroyed itself.

A shriek split the air a moment later, and I glanced up quickly to find not one, but five glittering dragons circling the ceiling of the Great Hall. The soldiers who still battled throughout the room stopped and looked up in wonder and fear.

“Dragons!” somebody shouted.

The battle was over in an instant. Freslik’s men tried to run for the exits, but Osric’s men stopped them and took their weapons.

“It’s about time you lot showed up,” I called up to my brothers as they circled above.

“Azurus!” Misha cried out, reaching for Azurus’s glittering, blue form above him.

“Gildur, get down from there!” Selle laughed a moment later.

As my brothers descended and resumed their human forms, rushing to their mates and taking them into their arms, I turned to find Rumi.

My mate had stepped cautiously forward and crouched beside his father’s still-smoking form, likely checking to see if he was truly dead.

When I approached enough to rest a hand on his shoulder, Rumi glanced up at me and nodded gravely, then stood.

I pulled my mate into my arms, hugging him tightly and vowing to myself that I would never let him out of my sight again.

“That bastard omega cast a spell over us,” Rufus growled as I led Rumi back to the expanded circle of his brothers and mine. “Then he locked us in that closet over there.”

“He locked it with magic,” Gildur explained. “Whatever broke the spell that had us so confused didn’t unlock the door.”

“Nazeing wasn’t savvy enough to block our magic, though,” Diamant said. “We made a doorway into the magical world to escape, then popped right back into the castle through another one.”

“We would have gotten here sooner,” Argus said, as unflappable as if the entire battle that had just taken place was a minor inconvenience, “but the castle is swarming with baffled soldiers and newly rescued noblemen and merchants.”

“It’s chaos,” Azurus added, hugging Misha tightly.

“I can end that chaos,” Osric said, stepping over to join our group. “Now is the time to end every bit of the chaos that has gripped this kingdom for too long.”

As Osric spoke, a hush seemed to fall over the room. My mate and our brothers weren’t the only ones who turned to listen to him. Every soldier and guard in the room, bruised, bleeding, panting, and exhausted, turned to listen to him, to listen to their new king.

Osric glanced around at them all to make certain he had their attention, then walked over to Freslik’s and Nazeing’s now charred forms. He squatted to take a close look at them, as Rumi had, but he was careful not to touch them or the dagger that stuck out of Nazeing’s back.

Once he was satisfied with what he saw, he nodded and stood to face the room full of people watching him and waiting.

“King Freslik is dead,” he announced in a voice of command. “The evil tyrant who has kept you prisoners in your own lives with an iron grip is no more. This age of struggle and fear that you have all lived through is over.

“I am Osric, Freslik’s nephew. My father was Florian, Freslik’s omega brother, and my grandfather was Austrius, the dead king’s father. I am now king of this realm by right of birth and battle. Is there anyone here who wishes to dispute this?”

The Great Hall went as silent as a tomb. Freslik’s soldiers glanced around at each other and Osric’s men as if waiting to have hell rain down on them for supporting the losing side. But nothing happened, no one rushed to subdue or silence them, or to order them thrown into the dungeon.

Then one of them called out, “All hail King Osric!”

Within moments, the Great Hall was filled with shouts of victory from Osric’s men and even a few bursts of joy and relief from the men who had fought for Freslik.

The sound was even louder than the battle, but what was more, the jubilance that filled the air seemed to make the whole room brighter, even though night had long since fallen.

“I pledge to you this day that I will be a fair and just king,” Osric continued his speech when the cheering died down.

“In the coming days, I will examine and rewrite the law codes that have kept so many people repressed. I will meet with the leaders of towns and villages to determine what can be done for everyone in this kingdom, from farmer to nobleman. I will review the actions of those who supported Freslik and determine who should face justice and who might be pardoned. And most of all, I will do everything within my power to help this kingdom thrive and be happy again.”

More cheers filled the air. A few of the soldiers even tossed their helmets or gauntlets, or the helmets and gauntlets of the animated suits of armor, which had all gone back to being just armor and statues upon Nazeing’s death, into the air .

“But first,” Osric called out, inviting silence again, “we will clean up, bury and mourn our dead, and most importantly, we will rest.”

“Rest at last,” Obi sighed, leaning happily against Argus. “That’s all I’ve ever really wanted.”

“Really?” Argus asked him with an amused voice, sliding his arm around his omega’s waist. “I thought you wanted happiness and family, and a few other things that I’m not inclined to talk about in front of my brothers.” He winked at me.

I shook my head, but my heart felt lighter than it had in ages.

That lightness only lasted for a moment, though. It was eclipsed by a sudden burst of pain coming through my bond with Rumi. Worse still, Rumi groaned and nearly collapsed in on himself.

I rushed to hold and support my mate as he doubled over, clutching his belly.

“Oh no! Rumi, are you alright?” Obi gasped, breaking away from Argus to help his brother.

“It needs to come out,” Rumi moaned, trying to straighten enough to look at me.

There was no question in my mind what he meant.

“We’ve waited too long already,” I said, scooping my mate into my arms. I sent Nazeing’s crumpled body one last look before turning to Argus.

“I need to get him back to the castle so we can birth our egg,” I said.

“Considering the spell I cast last year, it might already be too late.”

“Go,” Argus said without hesitation, even conjuring a doorway for me. “We’ll mop up here.”

I nodded to my brother in thanks and rushed through the doorway, straight into my bedroom in the dragon castle, praying it wasn’t too late to save the life of my omega and our child.