Page 3 of The Ruby Dragon Prince (Omega Fairy Tales #1)

Chapter

Two

Tovey

I flinched hard at the slam of our door. The six of us had been shut away so many times before, but something about the finality of the bang and the gut-wrenching turn of the lock gave me a sense of foreboding that I’d never felt before.

“That’s it, then,” Misha said, sinking back from the door, still clinging to Obi. “We’re doomed. Our lives are over.”

“Our lives are not over,” Leo said, rolling his eyes at Misha. He looked far more nervous than his words sounded, though.

“Father means it this time,” Selle said as we all turned away from the door and wandered aimlessly through the space of our circular room, none of us knowing what to do. “He’s going to keep us locked away for the rest of our lives.”

“No, he isn’t,” I said, unhappily. “He’s going to keep us locked in here until he finds alphas to sell us to in marriage.”

My brothers glanced at me in horror. All but Rumi, who had moved quietly to the foot of his own bed and had his back toward the rest of us.

“That can’t possibly be true,” Obi said, more like he hoped it wasn’t true. “Father wouldn’t be so cruel.”

“Father is evil,” Selle said with a snort.

“And I think he does mean it,” Misha said in a panicked voice that was barely audible. “He forced me to dance with Lord Anise tonight, and Lord Anise told me that I would be his as soon as he bargained for my hand.”

“Lord Groswick said more or less the same thing to me,” I said, sinking into one of the chairs in the center of the room. I had never felt so hopeless. I couldn’t see how the six of us would be able to escape our fates.

“I don’t want to marry an old, cruel, ugly man,” Obi said, his lip wobbling, like he was trying to be brave and not cry over our fates.

“It’s Rumi’s fault,” Leo said at last, turning to glare at our brother. “If he hadn’t recklessly courted that servant, in front of Father and everyone, then none of us would be in this position.”

We all turned to Rumi. My stomach roiled. I hated it when any of my brothers fought. We were all that each other had and turning against each other made all of us weak.

“You shouldn’t have dallied with your beau in full sight of Father and everyone,” Selle agreed with Leo, but gently.

“He’s turned us all into prisoners,” Leo said, marching over to where Rumi was only just shaking out of his thoughts and realizing we were talking about him. “And all for what, a servant?”

Rumi glanced from the rest of us to Leo, his excited look turning into a frown. “You would criticize me for finding love and enjoying a moment of joy where I found it?”

I pushed myself to my feet and moved quickly to the brewing confrontation, hoping to stop it. The others came with me until we were all standing around Rumi.

“You’ve condemned us all,” Leo said.

“I’ve done no such thing,” Rumi said, shaking his hand. “And Emmy is no servant.”

“Emmy?” I asked.

Rumi smiled. “My completely ordinary man.” He turned to Leo. “He confessed to me that he is actually a prince, and he intends to save me, save us all.”

“That’s preposterous,” Leo growled.

“He gave me this,” Rumi said, holding up what looked like a large, emerald marble.

I leaned in to get a better look. The marble was bright and felt warm, even though I wasn’t touching it. There might have been images in the swirls that filled the inside, but I didn’t get enough of a look.

“A marble?” Leo said, snorting. “You condemned us all to imprisonment because of a marble?”

“It was Father who condemned and imprisoned us,” Selle pointed out. “Rumi was just following his heart.”

“Following his hole is more like it,” Leo snapped.

I knew my brother well enough to know his outburst was from despair and fear rather than anger. Leo was the fiercest of us, but sometimes that ferocity was his own enemy.

“Emmy promised to save us,” Rumi insisted. “He wouldn’t lie to me.”

“And why not?” Leo demanded. “All alphas lie. It’s what they do. They lie so they can get one thing from us, submission. This trinket has spelled our doom.”

He swiped at Rumi’s hand like he would take the marble.

Rumi pulled away, but fumbled the marble. It spilled to the floor with a loud crack, like an object that weighed much more than something that could be held in one’s palm. Rumi gasped and bent to pick it up, but his toe touched the marble, sending it flying under his bed.

“Look what you’ve done,” he scolded Leo, then dropped to his hands and knees like he would reach under the bed to retrieve the marble.

A sudden, pulsing flash of green light began to grow under Rumi’s bed. I gasped and stepped back, clinging to Selle, as the light spread. It was like some sort of green sun was rising up from the floor to envelop Rumi’s bed in light. I could smell the fragrance of forest boughs and night-blooming flowers along with it, and I swore I could also hear the distant, inviting strains of music as well.

The light became so blinding that I had to close my eyes and turn my head away. The others did, too. My curiosity quickly turned to fear, and my heart beat furiously in my ears.

Along with its beat came a deep, alluring voice that whispered, “Come to me. You are mine.”

As quickly as the light had started, it ended. The room returned to normal without a single flicker of the lamps hung around the walls.

“What happened?” Obi asked, his voice shaking. “Did the marble explode?”

“No!” Rumi said with a gasp, still on his hands and knees, looking at something under the bed. “No, it’s much better than that.”

He jumped quickly to his feet and raced around to the side of the bed.

“Help me push it aside,” he told Leo.

Leo rushed to join him, as did I. Together, the three of us pushed the bed out of its place…and revealed a large, ornate door under the bed where only floorboards had been moments before.

We all gathered around the door with gasps and sounds of wonder. The door was green, but it shimmered with other colors as well, red and blue, silver and gold. An ornate carving of a tree that seemed to be hung with raindrops or gems took up most of the space in the middle of the door. I could have sworn that it was swaying gently in a breeze.

“What is it?” Misha asked, half hiding behind Leo.

“It’s a door,” Leo said, pretending to be unimpressed. I could see the sparkle of intrigue in his eyes, though.

“Where does it lead?” I asked.

Rumi glanced at me with a mischievous grin. “There’s only one way to find out.”

He shifted so he could grab the handle, which was shaped like some sort of dragon’s claw, and pulled. The door opened without any resistance.

Again, we all gasped and exclaimed in fear and surprise as opening the door revealed not a dungeon or the storeroom we all knew took up the space of the floor under us, but a narrow, gilded staircase that descended into a forest. I could smell the delicious scent of growing things along with a perfume that defied description. The light emanating from the forest was like that of the most enchanted full moon.

“What do we do?” Obi asked, glancing at all of us in turn for guidance.

“We explore,” Rumi said, beaming with excitement.

Without waiting for any sort of discussion about whether we should go or not, Rumi hurriedly descended the stairs into the forest.

“Wait, Rumi! You can’t just go through a magic door like that!” Selle called after him.

“If he’s going, I’m going,” Leo said, stepping onto the staircase.

“I’m going, too,” I said with a bright smile. Anything was better than staying in our room until Father decided to palm me off on Lord Groswick.

The thrill of excitement that filled me as I descended the golden staircase into the forest was like breathing in the scent of winter biscuits and spiced wine, knowing the winter solstice had finally come. My mind raced to accept and interpret the things I saw around me as the world of our bedroom retreated behind me and the much vaster world of the forest surrounded me.

The door was clearly magical. When I looked back to make certain Selle, Obi, and Misha were following us, I nearly tripped at the sight of the door suspended in the sky. There was no ceiling above us, just an endless, beautiful, star-studded sky. As soon as Misha came through the door and carefully shut it behind him, the door seemed to disappear entirely, and when he reached the bottom of the stairs, those, too, disappeared.

“How do we return to the castle?” Obi asked in a panic.

“Why would we want to return to the castle?” Leo snorted.

“We don’t know what we’re going to find here,” I cautioned him. “It could be worse than what we had before.”

“Nothing could be worse than what we had before,” Selle said with a wary look.

“We have responsibilities to the people of Father’s kingdom,” Misha pointed out. “We might not have much power, but we have some. We have people who need our protection, if we can give it.”

Rumi frowned, then seemed to get an idea. “How do we go home?” he asked the forest.

As soon as the question was asked, the golden staircase and the door reappeared.

Rumi smiled and nodded to it. “There you go. I suspect that when we want to return home, we simply ask for the door to reappear.”

“Do we have to be in this spot when we ask?” I asked.

“Let’s find out,” Rumi said.

He turned and started off through the forest at a fast, adventurous pace. We all followed him. I looked around at the specific trees and markings of the place where our door had appeared, hoping to memorize the area in case we did have to return to that exact spot to get home.

I needn’t have worried. It became clear within a few minutes that we were following a path that led from the place where our door appeared to…somewhere. The stones were iridescent green and easy to see in the moonlight.

As soon as I was no longer worried that we would be lost in the enchanted forest forever, I relaxed and began to look farther than my immediate surroundings as we walked. The forest was like nothing I’d ever seen. The trees were not ordinary oaks and maples and pines. They were something else entirely, with beautiful, sturdy trunks and friendly, spreading canopies. The branches held not only leaves, but gems, too, just like the tree on the door. Some of them dotted the ends of branches like fruit, but others had long cascades of jewels, like necklaces and bracelets, hanging down and catching the moonlight.

“It’s beautiful,” Obi said as we walked. “Like something out of a dream.”

“I definitely feel like I’m dreaming,” I agreed.

I could hear the music that I’d heard when the door appeared under Rumi’s bed as well. The scents I’d caught in that surprising moment were all around us now with more joining them. I could smell roasted meat and sugary treats, like there was some sort of feast ahead of us.

We continued through the forest until the trees gave way at the edge of a miraculous lake. The waters looked like they were made of liquid sapphire and diamond. The grassy banks around the lake shone like emerald. In the center of the lake was a large island with a massive pavilion that seemed to be made of silver and gold and pearl. It shone bright from lamps that I couldn’t see but that illuminated what I could only describe as an enchanted ball taking place there.

“What do you think?” Leo whispered to the rest of us, as if he didn’t want the ball guests to discover us. “Are we invited?”

No sooner had the words left his lips than a bridge of the same emerald grass we stood on appeared spanning the water.

“I guess that answers that question,” Rumi said. “Come on.”

He and Leo rushed ahead, crossing the bridge boldly. I followed, gesturing for the others to come as well. I could feel in my soul that we were most definitely invited to the ball.

Everything felt light and wonderful once we made it to the island and the pavilion. The dancers were alphas, omegas, and betas, both men and women. They were all dressed in the finest clothing I’d ever seen made from the richest silks and satins. I was wearing palace finery from our father’s ball, but I felt underdressed.

Among the dancers were servants with trays of refreshments, just like in our father’s palace, but the quality of the sweet and savory treats far surpassed anything he had ever served. The servants all looked happy and glad to be there, unlike ours. Everyone seemed to be genuinely delighted with the ball, dancing away with joyful exuberance.

“Masks?”

I turned to see a small table near where we’d entered the island that held a variety of gilded, bejeweled masks. Indeed, all of the guests seemed to be wearing them, so I and my brothers stepped over to the table and picked masks for ourselves. I ended up with one adored with rubies and pearls and edged with gold.

“This is amazing,” Selle said once we were all masked and stepped closer to the dancers. He’d had to fit his mask over his glasses, but it was as if the mask he’d chosen had been specifically constructed for him. “I’ve never seen a ball like this.”

“Me either,” I said, my heart beating fast.

“I want to dance,” Leo said, already bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I feel like for the first time ever, I might actually get to dance with someone handsome and good.”

“I just want to dance with someone who is actually good at it and won’t tread on my feet,” Obi said with a laugh.

It was so good to see my brothers at ease and excited to be around other people for a change. I could feel the goodness of our company, and more than a few of the dancers smiled at us and gestured for us to join them.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I loved dancing and Obi was right. It would be a treat to dance with someone who was graceful and kind for a change.

We blended in with the rest of the dancers quickly and joyfully. I saw a handsome gentleman with a beard bow to Misha, inviting him to dance on one side, and a young, spritely man extending his hand to Leo to bring him into the swirling, laughing, happy throng of dancers as well.

I didn’t have to wait long for my first invitation. A beta close to my own age gallantly asked if I needed to be taught the steps. I took him up on his offer and blended into the dancers with him.

It was glorious. It was everything I’d ever dreamed of a ball being. I danced and laughed and talked with the other guests for hours, though no one seemed willing to answer my deeper questions about where we are and how it was possible for that place to exist.

The whole time, as much as I enjoyed myself, I felt a pull that I couldn’t explain. I glanced into the crowd as if looking for someone, checked over my shoulder every time I took a break to meet up with my brothers again for refreshment and to discuss how the night was going. I could feel a presence somewhere, and I knew that it was meant for me somehow.

“Is time passing at all?” Selle asked at one point when we paused for a drink.

“It must be,” I said, looking up through the latticed ceiling of the pavilion. “The moon and the stars have moved.”

“Time most definitely passes here,” a deep, warm voice said, drawing my gaze down from the stars. “I know, because it has felt like a thousand lifetimes of waiting for this moment.”

My heart caught and my stomach flipped as I gazed at the heartstoppingly beautiful alpha who had come to stand in front of me. He was head and shoulders taller than me with a broad chest and powerful thighs. His face was strong and chiseled, and he had vibrant, red hair and a red beard. His green eyes shone with an intensity that felt like fire, and for a moment, just a moment, his pupils seemed to be vertical slits instead of round.

I blinked and they looked normal again, but the alpha was still astoundingly gorgeous. I was so bowled over by the sense that I, too, had been waiting my entire life to meet him that I couldn’t speak, even though I opened my mouth and tried to form words.

He laughed, the rich, almost predatory sound enveloping me. “Would you care to dance?” he asked, extending his large hand to me.

I wasn’t bold and brave, like Rumi or Leo, and I certainly wasn’t shy and timid, like Misha or Obi, but as the redheaded alpha took my hand and led me out to join the dance, I didn’t know what to do. I considered myself strong enough to stand on my own two feet, maybe not with Father, but certainly with people like Lord Groswick. I didn’t know what to do with myself around the redheaded alpha, though.

“It’s always enlightening when new people find their way into our kingdom,” the redheaded alpha said as he swept me partially into his arms for the first steps of the dance.

It was one of those dances, like the one I’d danced with Lord Groswick, where we barely touched as we executed the intricate steps around each other. Unlike my dance with Lord Groswick, I very much longed for the redheaded alpha to take me into his arms.

He laughed again, making me feel foolish for being unable to speak. “Don’t worry,” he said, his eyes shining as he watched me intently through the dance. “Newcomers often feel overwhelmed.”

“I’m not even certain where we are,” I said, finding my voice at last. I didn’t like how weak it sounded, so I cleared my throat and tried again. “One moment, my brothers and I were locked in our bedroom in the palace, and the next, a magic door appeared under my brother Rumi’s bed.”

The redheaded alpha hummed and nodded, as if that explained everything. “You were brought here by true love,” he said.

“Really?” I answered, smiling. “I’ve begun to lose hope that true love exists.”

“Oh, it definitely exists,” the alpha said.

I felt his words down to my core. They seemed to lodge in my womb and make my hole flutter, though I was months yet from my next heat.

“I’m still not entirely certain how this forest can exist underneath my father’s palace,” I said as the steps of the dance brought us closer together.

“It’s not under your father’s palace,” the alpha explained. “It’s nowhere that is a part of the cruel world you inhabit. It is somewhere else entirely, separate in time and space, from the world you know.”

I sighed longingly. “Can I stay here, then?” I asked. “I don’t want to be part of that world anymore.”

The alpha chuckled, and I felt it within me once more. “Of course you can stay here, my gem,” he said. “You can stay here with me forever, as far as I’m concerned.”

Feeling more confident by the moment, I sent him a sly look. “I don’t even know you,” I said.

“Of course you do,” he argued. “You’re wearing my mask, after all.”

I had one hand free as we took a turn in the dance, and I touched it to my mask. Now that I thought about it, the design and patterns of my mask matched those of the alpha’s clothing and his mask. Had I picked this particular mask for a reason?

“I put on the first mask that came to my hands,” I said, trying to be coy.

He smiled, and again, I thought his pupils changed shape. “All the more reason to believe fate has brought us together,” he said. “Fate is rarely wrong about these things.”

“Fate is speeding things along a bit, don’t you think?” I flirted. “I’ve only just got here, and already you’re talking about me spending the rest of my life here, with you. Shouldn’t we do all the fun things in between, like learning about each other, spending time together, and discovering if we have any shared interests?”

“I like to dance, you like to dance,” he said with a shrug. “I like clever, spritely omegas with soulful brown eyes and kissable lips, you like?—”

He raised his eyebrows, leaving the second half of the sentence up to me.

“I like brave, kind alphas who would allow me my freedom,” I said, thinking of the life I knew waited for me back in my father’s palace.

I was beginning to question why any of us would ever return to that prison and that life when some unseen clock began to chime loudly, filling the joyful space of the pavilion.

“What does that mean?” I asked, jumping closer to the redheaded alpha, as if I instinctively knew he would protect me from whatever danger I had to face.

“It means the ball is coming to an end,” the alpha said, breathing in my scent as he slipped one arm around me. “But that doesn’t mean our time together must end.”

I could feel what he wanted in my heart and in my womb. My hole fluttered, and I panicked that slick would leak from me so obviously that navigating the room of people would be an embarrassment. I wanted him, though, and for a moment, I toyed with the idea of giving everything up and pledging my life to a completely unknown alpha.

“Tovey, come on!” Rumi called to me from the side of the room, shaking me out of those thoughts. “We have to go.”

My brothers had all gathered at the end of the grass bridge over the lake that would return us to our forest path. They’d returned their masks to the table.

I’d only just met the redheaded alpha, but already, I felt torn in two. Every instinct I had told me to stay with him, that we were destined for each other, and that my life would be so much better once I came to know my fated mate.

I loved my brothers, though, and I couldn’t abandon them when things were so bad for all of us.

“I have to go,” I said, prying myself away from the redheaded alpha and dashing toward my brothers. I had to run, because I knew in my soul that if I faltered or turned back for one second, I would stay with the redheaded alpha forever. Taking off his mask and returning it to the table was painful.

“It looks as though I’m not the only one who’s found someone,” Rumi teased me as he took my hand and led me across the bridge and into the forest.

I laughed. “Now I know why you were willing to risk everything for your beau,” I answered.

The journey back through the forest was quicker than I thought it would be. Maybe the forest sensed the urgency with which we wanted to get home. Surely, Father or one of the guards would have tried to get into our room, with breakfast or just to shout at us some more. There was no telling what Father would do when he discovered the magic door.

But by the time we called for the golden staircase and ascended into our bedroom again, everything looked exactly as it had the moment we’d left. Instead of the light of morning shining through our bedroom window and the sound of morning larks in the garden, it was still dark, and we could still hear the faint sound of our father’s ball.

“Only five minutes have passed!” Obi exclaimed, gaping at the clock on one side of our room. “We’ve been gone for what feels like hours and hours, but only five minutes have passed here.”

“Thank the gods,” Leo said, flopping onto his bed with a groan. “I’m so tired I don’t know if I could face tomorrow without more than a full night’s sleep.”

“It looks like we’ll be able to get that,” Misha said, sitting on his bed with a yawn.

“I’m glad,” I said as I helped Rumi push his bed back over the door, which glowed far less now than it had, “but I want to get back to that magical kingdom as soon as possible.”

“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.