Page 13

Chapter

Seven

Obi

T he moment I stepped through the magical doorway into Cousin Osric’s faraway camp, anguish like nothing I’d ever known washed through me. It had me groaning and shutting my eyes in an attempt to block it out, but still the sorrow and sadness hit me.

And then I felt something even worse. I felt all of the angst and anger, the longing and frustration, suddenly disappear entirely.

It was shocking enough that I gasped and opened my eyes, searching frantically for Argus, or at least for the source of the horrible things I felt and didn’t feel.

In an instant, I knew what had happened. I turned back to the doorway, but it was gone. Rumi was moving forward as if he’d crossed through the barrier, but the shimmering light that should have been behind him was gone.

My mate was gone. He was suddenly miles and miles away. He could be even farther than that if he chose to return to the magical world.

Argus might return to the magical world without me.

He might have just decided that I wasn’t worth it, that I was too young, too brash and angry.

What would I do if my mate rejected me? I had his egg inside me.

How was I supposed to birth it if I didn’t have my dragon with me?

How was I supposed to continue on and be a warrior fighting for the welfare of my father’s people if I didn’t have my mate with me?

I groaned again and sank to my knees, clutching my pregnant belly.

“Obi?” Rumi rushed forward, sinking to throw an arm around my shoulder. “What’s wrong? What can I do?”

“Blast,” Selle cursed, rushing to crouch by my other side. “What were we thinking? It was a terrible idea to take Obi so far away from his mate after they’d just bonded.”

“He’ll be feeling it because of the egg, too,” Tovey said, helping the others to lift me to my feet again. “I definitely remember how that felt.”

I dragged my eyes up to meet Tovey’s as I, too, remembered everything my brother had been through when he’d attempted to run from his mate right after getting with egg.

“Am I going to die?” I asked in a tremulous voice. If I did, it would serve me right. Running from Argus had been the wrong thing to do.

But dammit, I was so furious with him! All this time, he’d been right there, so close to me. He could have fixed everything with one wave of his hand. He could have done away with my father and spared me and my brothers from years of misery. Why had he done nothing for so long?

“Come on,” Rumi said, taking charge and leading me on toward the center of the camp, where Osric was headed with his advisors. “We can’t fix this until we fix everything. Fortunately, I think Osric is ready to act at last and challenge Father.”

“It’s about time,” Leo said as he followed behind with Misha.

Through the oppressive feeling of loss and wrongness that pressed down on me, I was able to look around at Cousin Osric’s camp and assess the situation.

Cousin Osric’s army had grown since the last time we’d all been with him months ago.

There were more tents, more campfires, and hundreds more armed men than when he’d made the attack on the work camp. It was a positive sign.

I even saw a few familiar faces, men and women we’d met at the work camp and a few prominent citizens from not only the city around my father’s castle, but from a few of the other large towns in my father’s realm.

It seemed as though everyone was motivated to finally take things into their own hands to make a change.

“Gather the heads of the divisions at my tent,” Osric called out as he marched toward the center of his camp. “The situation has taken a turn and we need to act sooner rather than later.”

“Yes, my lord,” several of the soldiers he gave the order to said before turning and running off to spread the word.

It was exciting. The camp took on a feeling of expectation.

The air around us practically buzzed, but as my brothers took me to the large clearing outside the largest tent in the camp and helped me to sit on an old, fallen tree that must have been there before the camp was made, I felt nothing but gloom and a sick feeling in my stomach.

“I wanted to be a part of this,” I sighed, hunching in on myself and wrapping my arms around my belly as I did. “I wanted to be a warrior and fight for the freedom of our people.”

“Who says you can’t do that now?” Rumi asked, sitting beside me like a mother hen whose duty it was to watch over me.

I sent him a doleful look. “I’m carrying an egg and I feel sick and disjointed,” I told him flatly. “I’m not in any shape to don armor, pick up a sword, and charge into battle.”

“Maybe now,” Tovey said, sitting on my other side, “but trust me, once you birth that egg and give it temporarily to a trusted nurse to watch over and once you return to your alpha’s side, not only will you feel better, you’ll feel strong enough to fight Father singlehandedly.”

I sent Tovey the same sort of irritated, doubtful look I’d given Rumi. “And what if I don’t want to be anywhere near Argus ever again?” I asked. “What if he’s the reason I feel so awful because he betrayed me, betrayed us all.”

“He didn’t betray us,” Rumi said with a frown.

“He did!” I insisted, knowing that frown was for my unreasonable mood. “He was in the castle this entire time. At any point, he could have ended Father’s tyranny and saved us all. He could have claimed me as his mate and taken me into the magical world sooner.”

“There’s a reason why he didn’t, though,” Selle said as the rest of my brothers gathered around me. “You heard what Emmerich said about the rules Queen Gaia set for her sons about what they can and can’t do to change things in this world.”

“What good is following rules when it means that innocent people are hurt?” Leo demanded, crossing his arms and scowling. I was grateful that at least someone was on my side.

“We don’t know the whole story,” Rumi said, trying to be the voice of reason as usual.

“There are always more things going on than any one person, or even six people, know about. None of us has had enough time to sit down and talk to our alphas about the big picture or what they’ve all been doing in the background this entire time. ”

“Things could have turned out much worse than they did,” Selle argued.

“Things have been terrible for all of us, and the dragons could have helped sooner and in bigger ways,” I insisted.

“They gave us a means of escape,” Rumi said, sounding like he was losing his patience. “Emmerich gave us the doorway into the magical world. We could have gone through that first night and never gone back to our father’s world. That was the choice Misha eventually made. We all made our choices.”

“I didn’t choose to bond and mate with an alpha that I barely know!

” I said loudly enough to draw the attention of Cousin Osric and his advisors as they stood with their heads together not that far from us.

I immediately felt sheepish and hunched in on myself.

“I didn’t have any choice to be born as Father’s son either. ”

“If we’re going to sit here debating free will versus predestination, we’re only going to drive ourselves mad,” Leo said with a huff.

“Is that what bothers you the most?” Misha asked quietly, taking a seat on the tree on Rumi’s other side. “That you bonded with an alpha you don’t know very well?”

I felt silly as Misha asked the question. The same had happened to him, and to the rest of my brothers. None of us had been given much time to know our alphas before Nature swooped in and smashed us together.

“I just…I just wanted it all to feel different,” I said, sagging even more and staring at the grass around my feet.

“I wanted to fall in love, not just suddenly be in love. Why did none of us get those moments of liking the look of an alpha and figuring out ways to get his attention? Why aren’t we entitled to flirting and wondering if they like us back, meeting up at dances and chatting about inconsequential things, and the delight of discovering that they liked us after all? ”

“That sounds like hell to me,” Leo said wryly. “I was far happier just meeting Diamant and knowing and getting on with things.”

“You struggled as much as the rest of us,” Tovey told him with a smirk.

“Yes, well, we don’t all get off on the fantasy of being caught and bred by a big, bad alpha,” Leo teased him right back.

Tovey blushed deeply. “It was invigorating,” he said in a low voice.

Selle laughed loudly at the interaction.

I both loved the banter between my brothers and felt horrible because of it.

It was almost like the way things had been between us before the dragons had come into our lives, like we had the power of being together again.

The six of us had once been so close. Despite how horrible our father was, the six of us had loved each other and been there for each other through everything. In a way, we’d been happy.

Now everything had changed. We were no longer the most important people in each other’s lives.

We all had mates, even Rumi, though he and Emmerich hadn’t bonded yet, which was still a mystery to me, and most of us had eggs.

It was supposed to be something wonderful, so why did I feel like I’d lost more than I’d gained?

I had no answer to that question. I wasn’t even certain it was a fair question to begin with. I didn’t have a chance to come up with an answer either.

“I know the timing is unexpected,” Cousin Osric said in a booming voice that carried over the dozen or so men and women who had come to the clearing in front of his tent, “but our war against King Freslik for the heart and soul of this kingdom has begun.”

A murmur of concern, and a good deal of excitement, spread through the leaders who had gathered, and beyond them to the ordinary soldiers who had come near enough to hear what was being said. I glanced around at them, trying to find enthusiasm myself but mostly just feeling hollow and sick.