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I felt utterly sick at that accusation. I hadn’t wanted to think about what the older princes had endured to satisfy their father’s ambition and his friends’ sordid lusts.

It would do no good for me to say I’d successfully convinced Freslik to stop whoring out his sons before anyone could touch Obi himself.

The damage had clearly already been done in the things my poor mate had been forced to witness.

He loved his brothers. Their pain was his pain.

“We must be given time and space to discuss all these things openly,” I said, reaching for my mate. “We must bare our souls to each other and work through the hurts we have inadvertently caused. But now is not the?—”

“Do not touch me!” Obi shouted, pushing my hands away. “I can hardly look at you right now, I’m so angry.”

I could feel that anger through our bond, and it was heartbreaking.

The only, tiny consolation I had, which wasn’t much, was that Obi must have felt my heartbreak, too. His anger ebbed by a fraction and he sagged, tears spilling from his eyes. “I barely know you,” he said, his voice small and pained. “None of this is fair!”

All I wanted to do was take my mate into my arms and make things better between the two of us. Obi was right. Fate and Magic were working against us in that instant. Being bonded without truly knowing the other person was pushing us apart more than bringing us together.

But our personal drama was only part of the storm swirling through the room.

“You are traitors all!” Freslik’s shout yanked both my and Obi’s attention to the other side of the room.

“Every last man, woman, and child found in this house when my army returns will be instantly put to death! Anyone who opposes my rule will forfeit their property, the property of everyone in their family, and their lives!”

“This is precisely the sort of tyranny I will fight against,” Osric countered him. “You will not be spared in any way when I return with my army to defeat you, Uncle. Unless you surrender now, a whirlwind will encompass you the likes of which no one has ever seen.”

“You would dare threaten me?” Freslik demanded, taking a step closer to his nephew. “You have no power here. You are trapped in this house. As soon as the full complement of my guards returns to surround this place, I will have it burned to the ground with you in it.”

“And how do you plan to leave this place yourself?” Diamant asked glowering at Freslik.

“Yes,” Prince Leo said, approaching his father with nothing but contempt in his expression. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t just kill you now and put the kingdom out of its misery.”

“You cannot,” I said, stepping forward, though it was agony to move away from my mate when he was in such a state.

The other princes turned to gape at me in outrage. My brothers knew what I meant, though.

“He’s right,” Emmerich said. “The most we’ve been given leave to do is influence him,” he said, peeking gingerly at Freslik, as if he didn’t want to give away too much.

“But he’s evil,” Leo argued, speaking on behalf of all the princes. “You have no idea what he’s done to all of us. If anyone deserves to die, it’s him.” He pointed at his father.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Freslik said in a low voice, his eyes narrowed. He wasn’t as confident as he sounded, though. I could tell from the way he darted a glance to the parlor door. He knew when he was in serious danger, and he was looking for a way out.

“Take him prisoner, then,” Rumi suggested, visibly upset by the conflict of interest before him. “If it’s wrong for any of you to just kill him, then use magic to take him prisoner and send him away for the good of the entire kingdom.”

“If I could have done that, if any of us could have done that,” I said, “we would have done it already. But there are strict rules about what those of us from the magical world can do in this world.”

“Magical world?” Freslik asked, a diabolical light in his eyes.

I wanted to groan. The last thing we needed was Freslik truly understanding the nature of his own world in relation to the magical world.

“Enough of this!” Osric shouted, at the end of his patience as well. “The magical world might not be allowed to interfere directly in this world, but it can wage a war of equal footing. A sword is as good as a spell sometimes.”

He reached for the weapon strapped to his side and drew his sword.

The effect of that blade on Freslik was immediate.

Like the coward he truly was, he screamed in fear, then turned to run.

The swiftness of his flight was helped by the lone guard who had stayed behind to protect him.

Before the rest of us could react, Freslik and his guard had fled the room and their footsteps echoed down the hallway.

“Go after them!” Leo shouted. “You cannot let that demon get away!”

“Freslik will not go far,” Emmerich said, though I could tell he was as frustrated as the rest of us with the limitations that Mother had put on us. “His day is coming and his rule will end soon.”

“It could end right now if you would just go after him and kill him,” Obi shouted, mostly at me.

“Why is it that you can help yourselves with magic, creating doorways between worlds, luring hapless omegas into your beds, and creating grand lives of luxury for yourselves, but you cannot bend the rules to end the reign of one evil man who causes misery wherever he goes?”

I huffed out a breath and rubbed a hand over my face. The trouble was that I agreed with my mate. We should have been able to take out one man to save hundreds of thousands. We should have been able to make a sacrifice for the good of many.

“We will still win this war,” Osric insisted, his fist gripped tightly around the hilt of his sword. “Victory will still be ours, just not now.”

“This is barbaric,” Obi shouted, marching away from me to where his brothers had gathered on one side of the room.

“What use are dragons if you will not use your natural powers to make the lives of those who depend on you, who need you desperately, better? What is the point of having magic at all if you cannot use it to make the world better?”

“I am using my magic to make the world better,” I insisted, following my beloved across the room. “Just because I am not doing it the way you would wish me to or in a manner that is fast enough for you does not mean I am not throwing everything I have into fighting for the world that we both want.”

I realized too late that I was still in the guise of Councilor Dormas, but as soon as I swept my magic away and appeared like my true self again, Obi’s anger and emotions of betrayal increased.

“I don’t know you!” he shouted. “You’re a stranger to me.

How am I supposed to trust the word of a stranger when I feel the pain of what that man has done to us every second of every day? ”

I took a step back, my heart breaking. I couldn’t argue with him. And for the first time since taking up the mission Mother had given me, I didn’t think I was doing enough.

“Perhaps we should return to my camp,” Osric said, moving over to where the omega brothers were gathered. “The war is coming. We need to be ready for it. I will need all of your help to win this war.”

“Our father is sending an army to burn this house down at any rate,” Prince Tovey said with a sigh.

“I intend to make certain that doesn’t happen,” Emmerich said.

“I’ll make a doorway for you,” Gildur told Osric, then did just that, opening a magical doorway that led straight into what looked like a field far, far away.

“If you’d like,” I told my miserable mate, “I can take you back to my lair so that you can birth the egg.”

“No!” Obi snapped before I had finished. “I want nothing to do with you. Stay away from me!”

He pointed an accusatory finger at me then marched away, stepping through the glittering doorway without looking back. The moment he was gone, it was as if my heart and soul shattered into a thousand pieces.