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Speechless with lust? I blinked myself out of the overwhelming desire that had hit me at the sight of the man.

It wasn’t right. Yes, I fell in love with every handsome alpha I met, but I didn’t usually feel the need to rip off my clothing and drop into the omega mating position whenever I saw one.

The urge to do just that was incredibly disconcerting.

“Good evening,” the alpha greeted us all in a sonorous bass that vibrated through me, causing slick to pool and leak from me.

“Good evening to you, sir,” Rumi said with a wide smile of delight. He sat up straighter, and for a moment I thought he was interested in the alpha, but then he grinned at me.

I knew what was going on. I wasn’t so young and na?ve that I didn’t recognize when my fated mate walked right up to me. That was the only thing this gorgeous alpha could be, if my instinctual reaction to him was anything to go by.

“I was hoping to find a partner for the next dance,” my undeniable mate said, smiling directly at me. He extended a hand to me. “Would you care to?”

My jaw dropped, but no answer came out. I wanted to say yes. I also wanted to jump to my feet and rage at the man, demanding to know where he’d been all this time and why he hadn’t swooped in to save me sooner.

All I was capable of doing was closing my mouth, swallowing, and taking his hand so I could use the leverage to stand.

Belatedly, I managed to say, “Alright.”

My fated mate chuckled as he pulled me closer.

The sound made my insides feel like an inferno.

It also made me want to grit my teeth and punch him.

I was so tired of people laughing at me for being young.

I wasn’t na?ve. Really, I wasn’t. But as the tall, broad-shouldered alpha took my arm and led me out to the dance floor, I felt helpless to do anything but follow him.

“I’ve never taken you as an omega of few words,” he said as he pulled me close for the dance, half wrapping his arms around me.

My heart fluttered, as did my hole, and if I had been anything other than enraged by his flippancy, I would have been worried that a wet patch was growing on the seat of my trousers.

“I’ve never taken you for anything,” I snapped in reply. “I don’t know who you are.”

“Ah, my darling omega, but I know who you are,” he said, whisking me around the dance floor in three-quarter time, a delighted, slightly predatory smile on his face. “I’ve known you for quite some time now, and I’ve enjoyed watching you.”

His voice was familiar somehow. His scent tickled something in the back of my brain. It was salty, like the ocean, but also rich with spices. I tried to remember if I’d scented it anywhere, but my mind drew a blank.

My mind drew a blank for other reasons as well. Indignation being the big one.

“Where have you been all this time?” I demanded. “You cannot just waltz into a ball without any warning, when I’ve been suffering so much at my father’s hands, when all of his people are suffering, ask me to dance, and expect me to fall all over you.”

My alpha’s smile faded. “I am not asking you to fall all over me,” he said. “I was merely visiting with my brothers just now, heard you were here at the pavilion, and wished to dance with you.”

“Now?” I gaped at him. “You just decided that you wished to introduce yourself to me after so long and dance with me now ?”

My alpha looked confused. “I thought you would be pleased.”

“Pleased to have you suddenly appear more than eight months after my brothers and I discovered this place?” I knew I should probably have kept my temper in check, but they had been long and weary months, seeing my brothers find happiness and worrying that maybe I didn’t have an alpha dragon fated mate myself after all.

“Pleased that it’s finally my turn for an alpha that I’ve never met before but who claims to know me to pluck me out of the crowd and decide I’m the one?

Pleased to have you finally come out of the shadows you’ve been hiding in all this time so that you can laugh at me? ”

“I’m not laughing at you,” my alpha said, his brow knitting into a frown…that also felt familiar somehow. “I find you charming, yes, but I’ve never laughed at you.”

“Stop speaking about me as if you’ve been a part of my life for ages,” I said, pulling out of his arms and taking a large step away from him once we reached the edge of the dance floor.

“I don’t know you. We might be fated, but I have no idea who you are.

We just met ten minutes ago. I know fated mates are supposed to feel like they’ve known and loved each other for centuries from the moment they meet—” and I sort of did, at least my body did, “—but I don’t know you at all. ”

“Obi,” he said with perhaps a hint of apology in his voice.

“No,” I said, stepping farther away. “You could have rescued me that first night, when the doorway into this world first appeared. You could have spared me all the misery I’ve endured since then.

Apparently, you’ve been in disguise somewhere in my father’s castle, supposedly looking out for me, but these last few years have been the worst of my life.

You knew who and where I was, and you haven’t done anything to help me at all. ”

“That’s not exactly true,” my mate said.

“No,” I repeated, holding up a hand. I didn’t want to hear it. My life was miserable, and this alpha stranger who looked at me like he’d known me his whole life could have made things better, but he hadn’t.

I turned and walked away from him, heading for the lake that surrounded the pavilion.

“Obi, wait!” my alpha called out to me. “Come back so we can discuss this.”

I didn’t answer him. I was too angry.

A grassy bridge appeared over the lake, allowing me to escape to the bejeweled forest on the other side.

I picked up my pace, eager to find the doorway that led back to my and Rumi’s bedchamber in our father’s castle.

I huffed an ironic laugh at the fact that I just wanted to get back to the castle when usually all I wanted was to get away from the castle and into the magical world.

The whole universe seemed to have been turned on its head by my fated mate finally making himself known to me.

I found the golden staircase that led to the doorway back into our room and hurried up to push it open.

I was done with magical beings and alphas who should have been protecting me.

I needed to find a way to make my own moves and to get away from my father’s castle and out to the western frontier to join Cousin Osric.

I pushed through the doorway, expecting to have it open up into my bedchamber, but when I stumbled through, I found myself somewhere else entirely.

I was surrounded by darkness, and I could tell I was in a small, enclosed space.

When I reached out my arms, I bumped against what felt like shelves.

Something clattered and fell. The scent of pine and lemon filled the air.

I turned to go back through the doorway into the magical world.

In my haste to get away from my fated mate, I’d obviously taken the wrong door back into my own world.

The door was completely gone when I turned, though.

All I could see were the faint outlines of brooms and mops leaning up against more shelves.

“A broom closet?” I murmured, practically shaking with frustration and indignation.

A second after that, the closet door opened behind me, flooding the tight space with the flickering light of a single lantern. When I saw who held that lantern as they held it up to get a better look inside the closet, I groaned.

I’d been found out by Councilor Dormas.