Page 13 of The Sapphire Dragon Prince (Omega Fairy Tales #4)
Chapter
Seven
Misha
W e had the cherry pit. It was one step in the right direction.
I’d been uncertain about the quest Queen Gaia had sent us on when we’d first set out, but successfully obtaining the cherry pit had given me hope that between me and Azurus, we would be able to obtain the other two items and Queen Gaia would be able to fix me.
One thing was certain, though. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything without Azurus.
“We should make camp for the night,” he said as the sun dipped low to the horizon, about an hour after we’d started away from the cherry orchard.
“I know you’re in a hurry to finish the quest so that Mother can make you well again, but I don’t think she would have wanted us to walk all through the night. ”
“I don’t mind walking with you,” I said, smiling up at my mate. I even reached over to take his hand.
So far on our journey, Azurus had reached for my hand whenever I had a moment of doubt or anxiety.
It was nice to reach for him just because I liked being with him and wanted that physical contact.
It gave me hope that my heat might finally come and we could bond the way fated mates were supposed to.
Azurus smiled back at me. I hoped it was the promise of a perfect future between us that had me warming and almost shivering at the emotion contained in his smile.
Azurus really was gorgeous. He was tall and had broad shoulders and strong muscles, like most alphas.
Unlike most alphas, he had a kindness in his eyes and a ready smile that always made me feel like there was hope the world could be righted again.
“I love walking with you, too,” he said, then laughed lightly and added, “but I would like resting for the night with you even more.”
I laughed as well, happy in the moment.
Queen Gaia must have somehow been watching us or known where we were in our journey.
No sooner did Azurus and I make the decision to stop and make camp for the night when we came across the perfect clearing in a glade of trees by the side of the road.
It was ideal for camping, complete with a circle of stones that had logs already stacked to build a fire.
“I think your mother is helping us,” I said with a cheeky look as we stepped off the path and into the clearing. “She has to be the one who created this spot for us.”
Azurus chuckled as he shrugged the pack he wore off his back. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Mother is the essence of love and caring. She wants us to succeed in this, and she wants us to be happy together.”
That raised a few questions in my mind. “Why didn’t she just cast some sort of spell or lay her hands on me to make me stronger and braver?” I asked as I, too, shrugged off my pack and placed it beside a stump off to one side of the circle of stones. “Why send us on a quest instead?”
Azurus grinned as he went to check on the fire pit. “It’s Mother’s way,” he said. “She could fix everything with a smile if she wanted to, but there’s always some higher purpose to the way she does things. I’m certain there is more to this quest than either you or I know.”
I tilted my head to the side, considering that.
It was true, and so far, I hadn’t been disappointed in the quest. Planting a hundred cherry trees had been a challenge, but looking back on the day, it hadn’t been unpleasant.
I’d been together with Azurus, working and chatting with him the entire time.
More than that, I’d been out in the sunshine and fresh air all day, using my body and working my muscles.
The same couldn’t be said for my life as a captive in the bedchamber I shared with my brothers in our father’s castle.
Sometimes, that sense of confinement that Father had subjected us all to was so strenuous in its own way that I’d wanted to scream.
At least my brothers and I had had Papa’s garden for fresh air and exercise. At least until the last few months.
Come to think of it, my fear and anxiety had started to grow exponentially as soon as Father had confined us to the bedchamber and forbidden us from going outside.
If we hadn’t been able to escape into the magical world through the enchanted door under Rumi’s bed every night, I wasn’t certain I’d’ve been able to keep my sanity.
“Do you suppose that?—”
I turned to where Azurus stood next to the firepit, but my question died on my lips.
Something was wrong. Azurus had his hand stretched over the pile of logs and he wore an expression of concentration, but that was it.
His concentration turned into a frown. He shook his hand and held it over the logs again, but again nothing happened.
A quiver of new fear shot through my gut. “Is everything alright?” I asked.
Azurus’s frown turned to confusion for a moment before he pulled his hand back and glanced up at me with a smile. A tight, almost fake smile. “Everything is fine, my love,” he said.
“Are you certain?” I asked, the tight feeling in my stomach turning into a knot. “Do you need help lighting the fire?”
Azurus took a long time to answer. “Perhaps I do,” he said, stepping away from the circle of stones and going to fetch his pack. “It’s been a long time since I lit any sort of fire. I hope I remember how it’s done.”
I could tell from the sudden tension in Azurus’s back and the way his reassuring smile dropped as soon as he turned away from me that there was something he wasn’t telling me. That was just one more thing to make me anxious and fill me with doubts about what we were doing.
I wasn’t going to let it bring me down, though. For Azurus’s sake, I needed to at least pretend to be brave, even if I didn’t feel like I was at all.
“I don’t think I’ll be much help,” I said lightly as Azurus returned to the firepit with a tinderbox, “but I have at least made a fire before. Or rather, assisted Rumi when he made a fire. We used to make small fires in Papa’s garden so we could roast things and have impromptu picnics in the summer sometimes, like Papa used to do with us when we were children. ”
“That sounds lovely,” Azurus said, his smile returning in a more genuine way as we crouched beside the pit and went to work on the fire.
“It was,” I said, letting myself fall into the memories of those days for a moment. “Life with my brothers hasn’t been all bad, you know. The six of us are very close. I love them all dearly. I’m so happy that Tovey, Selle, and Leo have found their fated mates and started families.”
“They’ve made my brothers very happy,” Azurus said, striking the tinderbox several times, falling into a frown as he did, before the kindling under the logs finally caught and started to burn. “I’m sure your two remaining brothers will make Emmerich and Argus very happy as well.”
“I’m worried about Rumi and Obi,” I said, helping to fan the flaming kindling so that the bigger logs would catch. “I cannot imagine how the two of them are getting on in our father’s castle all by themselves. Father must be livid that the rest of us are gone.”
“They are not entirely alone,” Azurus said, leaning back to stare at the fire once it started to burn.
“Argus is there in the castle looking out for Obi, and Emmerich spends as much time shadowing Rumi to make certain he’s safe as he does performing his governing duties in the castle in this realm. ”
I sat back to watch the fire as well, scratching the back of my neck for a moment as a wealth of thoughts zipped through my mind.
“How exactly do fated mates work?” I asked.
“I know that the six of us were fated for the six of you, but it all seems so mysterious and strange. Did any of us really have a choice about who we fall in love with or was it written in the stars from the dawn of time?”
Azurus huffed a laugh. “I don’t really know,” he said.
“I can’t say whether there is some magic at work that makes six alpha brothers the perfect mates for six omega brothers or whether, as family, we each have enough similarities to create perfect partnerships with each other.
For all I know, Mother might have a hand in it. ”
“I knew from the moment I saw you that you were my mate,” I said, lowering my voice and my face a little.
I felt sheepish, mostly because I wasn’t certain those feelings were polite to talk about.
Then again, Azurus was my mate, even if we hadn’t bonded yet.
“You made me feel safe from the moment you smiled at me. You made me feel even safer when you first touched me. Usually, when an alpha touches me, it terrifies me.”
A quick, dark cloud passed over Azurus’s expression at my mention of other alphas touching me.
Even that warmed my heart. I liked his possessiveness.
I wanted it and needed it. Everything that pulsed behind that instinct to possess and protect me was exactly what gave me the confidence that Azurus would never let any harm come to me.
“I was drawn to you straight away as well,” Azurus said, inching closer and sliding his arm around my back. “I took one look at you and saw such glorious sweetness that I knew you’d been made for me.”
I blushed, feeling warm from more than just the fire.
“I’m not certain I deserve you,” I said, lowering my eyes to watch Azurus’s free hand as he took my own and threaded our fingers together.
“Shush,” Azurus said, his voice growing deeper and more amorous. “I don’t want to hear you speaking of yourself that way. You’re my mate, the mate of a dragon. You are special in so many ways.”
I glanced up at him, my heart beating hard and fast. I’d longed to hear someone, a good, strong alpha, say those words to me for so long. I still didn’t really think someone as broken as me deserved someone as magnificent as Azurus, but I blossomed with love all the same.
Azurus must have felt something of what I was feeling. He studied my face for a moment, his gaze landing on my lips. I parted them as I breathed out, willing him to kiss me.