Page 3

Chapter

Two

Argus

“ O bi, wait! Come back so we can discuss this.”

My headstrong omega did not come back. He didn’t even turn around. I was surprised he didn’t raise a hand to me in a rude gesture as he walked away.

I blew out a breath and let my shoulders drop before rubbing a hand across my face.

I hadn’t handled that well. It was pure, dragon arrogance that had made me believe I could solve the restlessness I knew my mate felt simply by showing up without disguise and impressing him with my splendor.

It didn’t matter how old I was, dragons never seemed to learn when it came to overestimating our powers to dazzle our mates.

“I can go after him and talk some sense into him,” Prince Rumi said coming up behind me.

I turned to my mate’s brother. Of all the omega princes, Rumi probably knew the most about us dragons, despite Emmerich’s ridiculous delay in claiming the bright young man as his own. Prince Rumi knew more than most of his brothers realized.

“No,” I said all the same. “I created this problem, I can fix it.”

Prince Rumi’s mouth quirked in amusement.

“If you say so,” he said, his tone indicating he didn’t think I could.

Emmerich would have his hands full when he finally claimed his mate.

Rumi was as bold and arrogant at times as Em was.

“I’m ready to go home now at any rate,” he said.

“I just need to say goodbye to a few people.”

I nodded in parting, then started after Obi.

I could just see him reaching the far side of the lake.

He was heading toward the spot where the doorway Emmerich had made possible for the omega princes was located.

I didn’t want my mate to merely go sulking off to his room, however.

He wouldn’t be happy there, no matter what he currently thought of me.

I needed a chance to make things right before the relationship we did not exactly have yet was damaged.

Before Obi reached the edge of the forest, I raised my hand and sent a wave of magic into the trees in front of him.

When I was satisfied that he had found the golden staircase and door that I created in place of his usual means of returning to the cruel world, I made a second door right where I was and stepped through it into King Freslik’s castle.

Mother would probably shake her head at all the doors between worlds that had been created of late, but she knew the importance of what we were doing.

The door I made took me straight into my rooms in Freslik’s castle’s dungeon.

I’d chosen those rooms myself, much to Freslik’s surprise, when he’d offered “Councilor Dormas” lodging.

I’d made up some excuse about not liking the sunlight first thing in the morning when I’d claimed the chamber, but really, I wanted rooms that were as far out of the way as possible for everything I knew I would need to do as the secret guardian of the omega princes.

As soon as I closed my impromptu door behind me, I used my magic to transform from the attractive and distinguished gentleman who had asked Obi to dance into old, withered Councilor Dormas.

Assuming that form always made me chuckle, because I knew what I looked like to the world, particularly to my fated mate, and I knew I was irresistible anyhow.

Once transformed, I grabbed a lantern and stepped out into the hall just in time to hear the clunk and clatter of Obi appearing in the broom closet across from my chamber.

That particular door was not new, I had merely connected the portal I created to it.

That door had been made a year ago by Rufus in his pursuit of Prince Tovey and then forgotten about.

Rufus and everyone else would be shocked at the adventures some of the castle’s servants had had in the last year because of that door.

I had an adventure of a different kind to set out on. I schooled my fond grin into a look of confusion as I opened the closet door and held up my lantern.

“Prince Obi?” I asked, my voice sounding much older and feebler, but still embodying the same character as it did when I was in my usual form. “Whatever are you doing in a broom closet in the middle of the night?”

Obi jumped at the sight of me, then sagged and sighed, squeezing his eyes closed, like being discovered in a broom closet by the same old fool who had been forcing him to write all day was the very last thing he needed in that moment.

“Councilor Dormas,” he said, catching his breath both from his flight through the forest to get away from me and the shock of being discovered again…by me. If only he knew.

“Should I ask what devilry is involved in you stealing away from your bedchamber at this late hour?” I asked, trying to sound both baffled by his apparent wiliness and unbothered that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

He cringed a bit and slowly opened his eyes. “Er, no,” he said. “I’m not certain I could explain if I tried.”

I hummed and stroked my beard the way an old man would. “Are you that eager to continue copying out the legend of the dragon, Argus?”

“Definitely not!” Obi said far too loudly, then repeated in a whisper, “Definitely not.”

He poked his head out of the closet and looked up and down the dark corridor.

I wanted to laugh. It was clear that my mate didn’t see me as a threat at all.

In fact, the way he searched boldly up and down the hall for real trouble, even though he’d been caught out somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be at an ungodly hour, was proof that he saw Councilor Dormas as completely harmless, despite being one of King Freslik’s chief courtiers.

“I could call the guards, if that’s what you’re expecting,” I said with a slight smirk.

“No! Don’t do that,” Obi hissed. “The guards are the last thing I need right now.”

“And what is the first thing?” I asked, arching one eyebrow.

Obi looked at me as though realizing for the first time I might be a problem.

His face flushed slightly, and if I wasn’t mistaken, his delicious, summer apple scent grew stronger.

It was enough to make me wonder if perhaps, for the first time, he was seeing past my magical disguise to recognize me as his fated mate.

A moment later, he shook his head and took a deep, clearing breath. “I need to return to my room, I suppose,” he said.

“You suppose?” I took a step back so he could come all the way out of the closet.

“I cannot be caught out in the castle in the middle of the night,” he said, looking around as if trying to get his bearings.

I gestured for him to proceed down the hall toward the stairs that would take him up to the main hallway and beyond that to his bedchamber. When he started to walk at a fast pace, I followed at a more sedate one. Obi slowed his steps to walk beside me, even though he didn’t have to.

“What brings you out of your bedchamber to begin with?” I asked, wondering how much of the truth he would tell.

Obi flushed even darker. “I…er…it’s been so long since I’ve seen Papa’s garden that I just had to go take a look,” he lied, rather convincingly, which I was impressed with.

“I see,” I said with a sage nod. “Your papa’s garden is very important to you all. I regret that it has been forbidden of late.”

Obi sighed. “I don’t know if it made it through the winter alright. I haven’t seen it in a season or two.”

“Would you like to see it now?” I asked.

Obi slowed his steps, thinking. He turned to me with a look of both suspicion and hope.

“You would let me see my papa’s garden?” he asked, sounding younger than his years.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have let my mate’s tender years stir me the way they did, but Obi was entirely too sweet to resist. “You’ve broken one rule tonight,” I said with a shrug of my old, gnarled shoulders. “You might as well break them all.”

For another few seconds, Obi stood there, eyes narrowed slightly, trying to make out whether I was a friend or attempting to trick him.

“I just want to look at it,” he said, then marched on.

By that point, he’d already figured out where we were in the castle and he knew his way to the cloistered garden that had belonged to his omega papa. I followed as he strode eagerly ahead, my heart filled with regret that I hadn’t been able to do more for him or for his brothers.

Protecting the omega princes from their father’s wickedness had taken far more time and effort than anyone knew.

King Freslik was truly evil-minded. The things he would have done to his sons had I not stepped in with subtle, and not so subtle, intervention turned my stomach and would have terrified most decent folk.

So it was a small thing to take the risk of allowing Obi to see his papa’s garden.

It also allowed me a few minutes to figure out how I would get him back into his bedchamber without any of the numerous guards stationed outside the room seeing us or taking word back to Freslik that one of the omega princes had escaped.

When we reached the doorway to the garden, Obi threw it open eagerly. Perhaps a little too eagerly. I had to release a quick dampening charm to stop the creak and thump of the door as they banged open from echoing through the silent walls of the castle.

Obi let out a sigh as soon as he saw that his papa’s garden was neat and tidy, or at least as neat and tidy as a garden could be in the early spring.

“Someone has been tending it,” he said, walking out far enough to look up at the starry night sky. “I was afraid it would fall to seed.”

“Hmm.”

That hum was the only sound I made aloud.

In fact, the garden would have gone to seed, or perhaps Freslik would have had it razed and sown with salt so nothing could ever grow there again, had I not intervened.

It was an easy thing to keep a garden looking presentable with magic.

Magic and Nature were themselves fated mates.