Page 20 of The Sapphire Dragon Prince (Omega Fairy Tales #4)

I stopped myself at the last second. I couldn’t touch the glass, but I had to get through in order to save my beloved.

Azurus needed me. Without magic, he was as helpless as I was.

But Azurus wasn’t used to being helpless.

His crumpled, slow-moving form was proof of that.

I could almost hear him groaning in pain as he tried to get up but failed.

“Hold on, Azurus!” I called out, dancing one way then the other as I searched the glass wall for any sign of weakness. “Hold on! I’m coming for you!”

All I had to do was figure out a way to get through the glass and I could race to Azurus and rescue him. I had a first aid kit in my pack, and with any luck, that would contain something that could heal my beloved.

I took a few steps back and started to swing the pack off my back, but the bone-chilling voice of my father stopped me.

“You’ll never be able to save him,” Father said, a sneer in his voice. “You’re nothing. You’re a useless, stupid omega. What makes you think you are good for anything other than breeding and suckling disgusting babies?”

I swallowed hard, letting the pack drop to the ground as I turned to face my father. I’d heard every one of his insults before, more times than I could count. My father’s views on omegas were well-known.

“Go away,” I said, screwing my face up for a moment and trying to reach for whatever courage I had within me. “Go away! You’re not real!”

“Of course I’m real,” my father sneered. “I’m the most real thing in your world. I made you, and I can destroy you.”

I shook my head, raising my hands to cover my ears for a moment, even though it felt foolish.

“My father, King Freslik, is real,” I said, opening my eyes and staring at the apparition.

“He is an evil man who spreads hate wherever he goes. He has made my life and the lives of my brothers a living nightmare. He is responsible for my papa’s death.

I will always bear the scars of the vile things he did and caused to be done to me, but you are not him. ”

“That’s what you think,” the specter of my father said.

“But this is the magical world. How do you know I didn’t find another doorway into this world?

How do you know I haven’t had access to magic all along?

How else do you think I’ve become so powerful that I could imprison my own sons and no one would question me? ”

I sucked in a breath and stumbled back. He was right.

How did I know? My brothers and I had entered the magical world through a concealed doorway, so what was to say our father hadn’t done the same?

What if he’d discovered the door under Rumi’s bed?

What if he’d somehow hurt or even killed Rumi and Obi and snuck into the magical world so that he could steal all the magic here and use it to ruin everything?

“No!” I shouted, gripping the sides of my head again for a moment. “I refuse to believe that you are powerful enough to reach this world. You aren’t powerful at all, you’re just a bully who torments his own, vulnerable, omega sons because you cannot stand up against anyone else.”

“How dare you say such a thing to me?” my father demanded. “No one speaks to me like that. I will see you punished.”

He stepped toward me with one fist raised.

I cowered back, but I didn’t like the way that made me feel.

I knew this wasn’t my father any more than the initial reflection I’d seen in the mirror was really Azurus.

The Black Mirror was playing tricks on me.

Or maybe it was my own mind playing tricks on me and the mirror was reflecting them back.

Either way, I was done with it. I’d been in pain for too long and fought too hard against it. More than that, Azurus was somewhere on the other side of the glass, hurt and in need of my help. I didn’t care what happened to me as long as I could reach my alpha somehow and save him.

“I don’t believe for a second that you’re really my father,” I shouted at the specter as it came closer to me.

“I don’t know what you are or where you come from, but I want nothing to do with you.

I chose to come into this world for a reason, to get away from you and your evil.

I will not allow you to follow me here and ruin the beautiful thing I have now. ”

My father laughed and sneered. “You cannot get rid of me,” he said. “You’re too weak. I will always haunt you.”

“Maybe,” I said, standing firm and tilting my chin up. “But maybe I will have other things in my life, other joys and other love, that will make your threats into nothing but old echoes. I’m stronger than you think.”

“Pitiful omega,” my father sneered, still coming toward me. “No one could ever love you. You are utterly unworthy of love.”

My heart faltered for a moment. All my brave words hadn’t seemed to do a thing. Father was right. I was too broken for anyone to love, no matter what I did. I stumbled back, nearly tripping over my pack as I did.

The top of my pack fell open, and a few of the things that were near the top spilled out. One of those things was the small, slender dagger I’d taken from the storehouse, the one that reminded me of Papa.

Tears suddenly sprung to my eyes and my throat closed up as I bent to pick up the beautiful dagger.

It was hardly worth the title of weapon, but holding it in my hand, feeling all the love and strength my papa had bequeathed to me, whether he was there or not, made it feel like the most powerful sword that had ever been forged.

“I am not a pitiful omega,” I growled at my father. “No omegas are pitiful. We are strong. We love fiercely and we protect what we love.”

My father continued to huff and sneer as he came closer to me, but his image seemed to shift and lose focus. The same dark, yellowish gleam that came from the glass separating me and Azurus shone from him.

“I might not be perfect,” I went on, “but I am loved just as I am. I am worthy of love. I have always been loved. Papa loved me so much. You might have destroyed him, but you didn’t destroy the love he felt and gave to me and my brothers.

He’s the reason we’re all so strong. He’s the reason that you can lock us in our room and give us to horrible alphas as prizes, but he’s also the reason you’ll never defeat any of us.

We know what love is because of Papa, and because of the dragons who love us. ”

“Those dragons don’t love you,” the increasingly shimmery image of my father said, or at least tried to say. “You’re weak and broken. What sort of dragon would love a?—”

I didn’t let him finish. I charged at him, Papa’s dagger raised, and slammed the slender blade down hard where my father’s heart, if he had one, would have been.

The moment the blade made contact, not only did the image of my father shatter into a million pieces, but the impossibly large and thick wall of glass separating me and Azurus burst with a deadening roar into more shards of glass than there were stars in the skies.