Page 7 of The Ruby Dragon Prince (Omega Fairy Tales #1)

Chapter

Six

Tovey

I knew that leaving Rufus’s side was a bad idea from almost the moment when I stepped out of the magical glade, with it’s feather-soft grass and red flowers. Dread over what might happen if I was separated from my alpha and fated mate nipped at my heels as I raced to rejoin my brothers. My belly felt swollen and full, which unnerved me.

The sense of unease stayed with me as we called for and ascended the golden ladder into our bedchamber in our father’s castle. And even though, as was the case the night before, hardly any time had passed since we ran off to the magical world and I was grateful to have a full night’s sleep ahead of me, I tossed and turned, feeling as though I’d done something wrong.

I’d confessed everything to my brothers, of course. We didn’t keep things from each other, especially not things that were so important as finding our fated mate, mating, and feeling as though I should have stayed with him. I was explaining how wretched I felt, how sick to my stomach, as we all sat in Papa’s garden, trying to find solace in the sunshine. Misha was rubbing my back as he and Obi tried to comfort me, Rumi and Leo paced, debating what should be done, and Selle consulted one of his books when Rufus suddenly appeared in the garden.

There are no words for the joy and relief I felt as my alpha, my mate, my dragon stormed right past the guards, who, unbelievably, didn’t seem to notice him. I leapt to my feet and called to him.

“Rufus!”

Everything inside of me felt right again. It was more than just relief. It had been as if the life force within me had turned grey and cold, like flowers struck by a cold rain in November. I’d been wilting, drooping, and starting to worry that leaving Rufus’s side after he’d claimed me would actually kill me in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

That suspicion seemed confirmed by how wonderful and right it felt to embrace him again, to feel the warmth of his body against mine, and to smell his fiery, alpha scent, this time like a warm, inviting fire after a long, snowy journey, all around me.

I told him I loved him before I was aware of the power of those emotions filling me.

“It’s as if what happened between us last night opened your entire heart and mind to me. I know time passes differently in this world and the magical world, but it feels as if we have lived the past ten years of our lives together. I honestly feel as if I have known you that long.”

It baffled me. I didn’t think it was possible to fall so deeply in love with someone so quickly, or to feel as though I’d known them my entire lifetime. On the one hand, it didn’t feel natural. I knew magic must have been involved. But I didn’t feel coerced or tricked into something I didn’t want. It was like my love was a flower grown in a greenhouse, nurtured under perfect conditions to bloom full and wide quickly instead of having to wait for the right season to bloom.

As soon as the beauty of it all hit me, Rufus was taken away.

“There he is! Arrest that man!” Rottum, the head of my father’s guards shouted, marching into the garden.

Suddenly, the ordinary guards shook themselves, as if coming out of some sort of spell, and realized Rufus was there with my brothers and me. They rushed forward on Rottum’s command.

Rufus raised his hands like he would strike them. The breeze began to blow as if he were commanding it. I could only imagine that my volatile alpha was about to hurt the guards, and since not all of them were entirely bad and I hated the idea of anyone being hurt because of me, I shouted, “Don’t!”

The wind died as quickly as it had stirred up. Unfortunately, Rottum and the others were able to rush forward and grab Rufus. In the blink of an eye, they’d dragged my beloved alpha out of the garden, and Rufus did nothing to stop them.

“No! No!” I shouted, starting to run after them.

Leo jumped forward to block me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, also alarmed, but for a different reason.

“I have to go after them,” I said, trying to dodge around him or push him aside. “I have to rescue Rufus.”

“From six of Father’s guards and Rottum?” Leo asked.

I stopped struggling against him and puffed out a breath. He had a point. The six of us weren’t exactly fainting violets—well, Misha was, and maybe Obi—but we weren’t strong enough to fight seven alphas. I certainly wasn’t the way I was feeling.

“We can’t just let them take Rufus away,” I said. “He came here because of me. He’s in trouble because of me.”

More than just that, the farther away the guards took Rufus, the worse I felt. Every bit of greyness and nausea that I’d experienced before crushed back into me. At least I had a sense of where in the castle he was now through the bond that had formed and was growing between us.

“We have to think this through,” Selle said, still carrying his book as he approached me. My other brothers were right behind him, and the six of us formed a tight circle. “There will be other ways for us to rescue your mate.”

“The guards will take him to the dungeon,” Rumi agreed with a nod. “Father has council meetings all day today, and I doubt he’d leave any of those to order anything worse than imprisonment for your alpha.”

“He doesn’t even know he’s your alpha,” Obi pointed out. “Rufus was dressed in servants’ clothes.”

“You’re right,” I said, taking a deep breath and putting a hand over my belly. The strange, sick feeling I’d been feeling since the night before seemed to be centered in my belly. I knew what it meant, but there were too many other things to worry about in the moment other than the possibility of carrying my fated mate’s child already. “We need to make our way quietly to the dungeons, wait until Rufus isn’t being watched, or distract the guards set over him, and then we can free him.”

“He’s a dragon, isn’t he?” Leo asked, one eyebrow arched. “Isn’t that what you were telling us?”

“He is,” I said slowly.

“Then why doesn’t he fight back or transform into his dragon form and breathe fire over everyone?”

“Why doesn’t he make a doorway to return to the magical world?” Misha asked with a puzzled frown.

“I don’t know,” I said, glancing toward the garden door. We needed to get moving if we were going to rescue Rufus quickly.

Selle put a hand on his chin and tilted his head the way he did when he was thinking. “He started to defend himself,” he said, his eyes bright with thought behind his glasses. “He was going to blow the guards over with wind. But then you shouted ‘don’t’, and it was as if his magic stopped.”

I blinked wide. “You don’t think I hurt him somehow, do you?”

“He didn’t look hurt to me,” Rumi said.

Selle’s brow creased and he looked at his book. “I’ve only had a chance to skim it, but this book about dragons seems to say that a dragon’s mate shares their magic and has complete power over them. Maybe when you said ‘don’t’, the magic thought you were ordering him not to use his powers.”

“Then it is my fault he was captured,” I said in despair. I shook my head, then turned and started toward the door. “We have to rescue him. He can’t stay here. You know how Father is about anyone who touches or looks at any of us. Once he finds out about Rufus, he’s as likely as not to execute him just to prove a point.”

It was awful and barbaric, but that was Father.

We hurried out of the garden and into the castle’s hallways. Ordinarily, we wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere, but the alphas who usually guarded us had taken Rufus away, and no one had been sent to replace them yet.

It was strange to have free access to any part of the castle and even stranger to feel as though roaming free in what was supposed to be our own home was so foreign. We were almost never allowed to wander on our own, and it surprised me how uncertain all six of us were about where we were going and how to get there.

We couldn’t ask anyone for directions. I didn’t think it was a good idea for anyone to see us at all. Every time we approached a corner, we paused while one of us checked to see if someone was in the other hall, and when we crossed through the Great Hall, we hid and waited for a full minute to make certain we wouldn’t be seen.

The fact that no one saw us, no one at all, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was improbable that the six of us together, making the sort of noise we were, even though we tried to stay quiet, could travel the length of the castle without being seen once.

Only, it wasn’t just the hair on the back of my neck standing up, the mark where Rufus had bit me and claimed me seemed to be tingling and tickling as well. It had faded considerably since the night before, which was odd, but it had taken on the faint shape of a dragon. I touched it carefully as we hid at the far corner of the Great Hall, while Rumi and Leo whispered their debate about where exactly the dungeons were located. When I pulled my hand away, just like that morning, my palm was suddenly filled with a few small, perfect rubies.

Obi had seen the action. He gasped and whispered, “How did you do that?”

There wasn’t time to answer. I tucked the rubies in my pocket and we all crouched, ducked, and flattened ourselves behind furniture as our father’s voice and the voice of another man grew closer from one of the corridors on the other side of the room.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and prayed that my brothers and I wouldn’t be seen. I shouldn’t have been surprised when the feeling of a soft, silken blanket seemed to descend over us.

“It’s a brilliant plan,” Father said to his companion…Lord Groswick.

I gasped at the sight of the man Father intended to give me away to. My stomach roiled with revulsion.

“And the best part of it is, those stupid peasants will blame each other for whatever hardships they endure,” Lord Groswick said, laughing.

The two men walked over to a table containing decanters of wine and stronger spirits that stood entirely too close to the six of us. I was confident that they wouldn’t see so much as a hair from any of us, though.

“The farmers of my kingdom need to know their place,” Father said as he poured a glass for himself. “They’ve become far too prosperous, have far too much sway over the rest of the peasants.”

“This is what happens when a land enjoys prosperity for too long,” Lord Groswick said with a shrug, helping himself to a glass as well. “Those who should submit get above themselves. They forget that it is the nobility who should rule over them all.”

“It is the king who should rule over them all,” Father corrected him.

“Quite right, quite right,” Lord Groswick said, though it was clear to me he thought himself better than Father. “The entire point of this new tax will be to drain any kind of profit the farmers have made and hobble whatever efforts they might be tempted to make to grasp any sort of power.”

“Poor, desperate subjects are so much easier to rule than wealthy, satisfied ones,” Father laughed.

“I can see you grasp my meaning, Your Majesty,” Lord Groswick said, saluting him with his glass. “And if we make it seem as though neighbor has turned against neighbor in order to reduce their own tax burden, it will sow discontent and distrust amongst the farmers and keep them from banding together to come after us.”

Father snorted. “Farmers are such idiots. All that is needed to control them entirely is to convince them that the ones who have moved into this kingdom from abroad are crooked villains intent on cheating those who have lived here for generations.”

“And to circulate rumors that omegas have no business being farmers at all and should be kept in their homes, making babies and serving their alphas,” Lord Groswick agreed.

“The peasants will be so busy hating each other that they won’t notice that they’re starving.”

“Or that I am building a vast and beautiful mansion by the sea with the money that should be feeding their children,” Lord Groswick laughed.

“They are as stupid as their livestock,” Father laughed along with them. He stood a bit straighter and looked delighted before saying, “Oh! Perhaps I will demand that every farmer’s family give one of their children to the castle to serve for the span of a year. I’ll choose the comeliest omega from every family. I’ll never want for an omega in heat whenever I feel like dipping my wick. And with any luck, my seed will populate the entire kingdom.”

“I should do the same,” Lord Groswick said, setting his now empty glass down and rubbing his hands together. “Though, with your leave, Your Majesty, I will start by having your son, Tovey, and putting him firmly in his place.”

“The firmer the better,” Father said, clapping Lord Groswick on the back. “And now, let us rejoin the others so that we might hear their ideas for taxing craftsmen and guilds in the towns.”

I was quivering with rage by the time the Great Hall was silent again and we all felt safe to move. I wasn’t the only one.

“That plan is outrageous,” Rumi growled as we stood. “The farmers of our kingdom have worked hard for what they have.”

“Despite the rules and taxes Father already has in place,” Selle said.

“They do not deserve to be taxed into poverty,” Rumi finished.

“We have to do something to stop Father’s and Lord Groswick’s plan,” Leo said, nodding to one of the doorways near us so we could exit the Great Hall.

“What can we do?” Obi asked with a hopeless sigh as we hurried into a narrow corridor that must have been for servants. “We’re just omegas, and we’re captives most of the time.”

“Omegas are far more powerful than anyone thinks,” Leo said, storming ahead of us like he was an alpha. “There must be something we can do to protect our people.”

“They’re our subjects, too,” Rumi agreed as we turned a corner and started down a stone staircase. I could smell the dungeon below us, and my sense of Rufus growing closer told me we’d found the right path at last. “We have to do whatever we can to protect our people.”

“But how?” Misha whispered.

His question went unanswered. We reached the entrance to the dungeon at the bottom of the stairs.

We were still trying to be cautious, but anger had caused us all to be a little lax about checking around corners and the like. We stepped into the anteroom of the dungeon without checking for guards first, and ended up face to face with Rottum and two other guards.

Only, they didn’t see us. They went about their business, Rottum sitting at a rotting, wooden desk, scribbling away on some sort of paperwork and the two guards standing at the opening of a long row of cells, oblivious to the fact that six beautifully dressed omega princes had just crowded into the room with them.

“It has to be the magic,” I whispered. I didn’t know whether the blanket of protection I’d settled over the six of us blocked sound from escaping or if it just blocked us from being seen.

My brothers looked surprised for a moment as we all clustered together, but one by one, I could see understanding dawn in each of them.

“I don’t think we’ll be seen if we walk straight through and find Rufus in his cell,” I whispered.

The others nodded in agreement, and slowly, carefully, we tip-toed past Rottum and the two guards to make our way along the aisle between the rows of cells.

The doors of all the cells in that particular section of the dungeon were made up entirely of bars. I assumed it was so that the guards could keep an eye on everything the prisoners were doing. There were only two other prisoners in the dungeon besides Rufus, and they both looked like exhausted servants who might have been happy to have a few moments of peace and rest as they were punished for whatever supposed crime they’d committed.

Rufus was in a cell halfway down the row. He paced restlessly in a tight circle, shaking his hands and grumbling, like he was trying to summon his magic but couldn’t manage it.

“Rufus!” I whispered, rushing up to grab the bars of his cell.

Rufus turned toward the door, then jolted, as if he could only just now see me, see all of us.

“Tovey,” he said in return, keeping his voice as quiet as I figured he was able as he ran to the bars. He wrapped his hands around mine, and without either of us thinking much about it, he leaned in so that we could kiss through the rods of cold iron.

“Thank Goddess we found you,” I breathed out when our kiss ended.

“You little minx,” Rufus said, his smile growing. It was warm and wicked and made me shiver. “You blocked my magic.”

“I didn’t try to,” I whispered.

Rufus laughed. “Why are you being so timid?”

I straightened incredulously, hating to be called timid by anyone, let alone my mate. “The guards might hear us.”

“Not with that clever protection spell you’ve cast,” Rufus chuckled.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” I said, relieved the guards couldn’t hear us or see us. “We came to rescue you.”

Rufus grinned and nodded to my brothers. “So I can see.”

I winced slightly, then asked, “How do we do that?”

“By giving me back my power,” he said.

“I don’t know how.”

Rufus seemed delighted by my utter lack of knowledge and experience with magic. “Say the words.”

I blinked, then said, “I give you back your power?”

Immediately, a rush of wind, like what he’d been conjuring in the garden, blew through the dungeon. I could feel Rufus’s power swell as it returned to him. If the magic I’d used was like a candle, Rufus’s was like the sun.

“Blimey, what was that?” one of the guards exclaimed as the wind blew the torches lining the walls out, plunging the dungeon into pitch darkness.

“Get the lamps lit again!” Rottum shouted.

We heard fumbling in the dark. My brothers groaned or exclaimed or hummed, and I felt them all cluster together behind me.

A moment later, it was as if the bars of Rufus’s cage were gone entirely. He stepped right to me, taking my hand.

“Trust me,” he said in a low, confident voice. To my brothers, he said, “Hold onto each other, and follow.”

I grasped Rufus’s hand with one of mine and reached back to take Obi’s with the other. I couldn’t see a thing, but I trusted Rufus. He walked us in a line, straight through the confused guards and Rottum, although by the sound of things, they were so close that we should have bumped into them.

We didn’t, and within a minute, Rufus had calmly walked us out of the dungeon and up to an empty corridor in the servants’ quarters.

“There,” he said, pulling me into a hug once we were safe. “Now we can return home and forget this incident ever happened.”

As beautiful as that sounded, I knew it wasn’t possible, not yet.

“I can’t go with you right now,” I said, pulling back.

“What?” Rufus demanded. I could have sworn I saw smoke curl up from his nostrils. “You are my mate. You need to be with me.”

I glanced back over my shoulder at my brothers. “I am a prince of my father’s realm. I need to stay here and protect my people.”

“We, er, we just overheard a nasty plot our father is hatching with Lord Groswick to make the lives of the farmers miserable and to turn them against each other,” Rumi explained respectfully.

“I have to stay behind and work with my brothers to foil this plot. At least for now,” I added.

Rufus huffed in frustration and rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve come all this way?—”

He stopped, and his expression shifted, like he was remembering something someone else had once told him.

He huffed again, then said, “Fine. I have to have patience, I know. Others are working to solve this problem as well.”

I was curious about who those others were and how they might help us, but Rufus didn’t give me time to ask questions.

“I’ll return to my kinsmen and consult with them,” he said. “We can come up with a solution together. And then I’ll return for you and bring you home to my lair, where you belong.”

He nodded, and before I could say more or ask what his plan was, he scooped me into his arms and kissed me soundly.

The kiss was so encompassing and so perfect that by the time he put me down, I didn’t have the wherewithal to even remember that I had questions, let alone ask them.

“Until we meet again, keep yourself protected,” Rufus said.

Without further ado, he opened some sort of invisible door in the air, stepped through, and was gone.

I let out a heavy breath, blinking rapidly and wondering what had just happened.

“Your alpha doesn’t waste time, does he,” Leo teased me.

“I think I might need to teach him patience,” I sighed.

As mad as the moment was, I wanted to laugh. Rufus was a beautiful hothead. I was beginning to feel like he needed me to keep him out of trouble.

That would have to wait for later. In that moment, we had to rush back to Papa’s garden as quickly as possible to make it look like we’d stayed where we were put, like dutiful little omegas. We also needed to plan. The farmers of our kingdom needed us, and once they were safe, I would go to my alpha mate and stay with him forever.