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Obi finished turning a circle to look at everything, ending by staring at me. “Did you have something to do with this?” he asked, a curious look on his face.

“Me?” I huffed a laugh. “Why would you think that I would worry myself with a garden?”

Obi’s expression grew even more shrewd as he took a few steps toward me. “How long have you been in my father’s service?” he asked.

“Oh, a very long time now,” I said with a modest smile.

In fact, I’d only taken up the post of protector of the princes a few years ago, as the omegas began to reach adulthood and the plans Freslik devised for them turned sordid.

Magic was a clever thing, however. Because of it, Freslik believed I’d been one of his councilors from the time he was a young man himself.

“Did you know my papa?” Obi asked, coming closer to me still.

“Your papa was a brave and noble man,” I said, bowing my head, well aware that it wasn’t a real answer to the question. In fact, Prince Albion had died his tragic death of heartbreak before Mother had sent me to watch over the princes.

Obi seemed to know something was unusual with my answer.

“Are you the one who advised my father to have his true love killed?” he asked, his cheeks bright pink with warmth as he stepped back up onto the stone of the cloister instead of lingering on the grass of the garden.

“Are you the one who tells him how he can cheat his own people out of their lives and livelihoods?”

My omega was clever indeed. Clever enough that I wasn’t certain how to answer him at first. He was suspicious of how a wizened old man who was supposedly loyal to his father could take him to see a garden when he should have called the guards to drag him back to his room.

He was likely curious about why someone who King Freslik had put in charge of his punishment and torment would do nothing more than have him sit for hours copying stories of ancient bravery and adventure.

There was more to the questioning in my excitable mate’s eyes than that, however. He came closer still and sniffed.

I couldn’t help but grin. It was about time my omega saw through my magical disguise to the alpha I truly was.

I shrugged and answered his question. “I am and always have been a voice of reason in this castle. It is my duty to serve and to provide a fresh perspective when it is lacking.”

“For someone who claims to be as wise as you do,” Obi said, crossing his arms and scrutinizing me, “your words don’t mean very much.”

“Don’t they?” I asked. “Perhaps you have simply not heard them correctly.”

Obi huffed slightly. More than that, he squirmed a bit, as if his own skin had become uncomfortable.

I was no fool. I’d been alive for hundreds of years and known dozens of omegas intimately in that time.

I was shortsighted in approaching Obi at the dancing pavilion in my true form.

I’d hoped to give him a treat to help him through the last stretch before Lord Osric was ready to launch the battle to take the throne.

I should have known that introducing myself as I had and holding him in my arms as we danced would have sent my fated mate into heat.

“Perhaps we should return inside,” I said, practically able to see the steam rising off my omega’s heating body into the cool night air. “We have things we need to discuss.”

“My death and dismemberment for leaving my room in the middle of the night?” Obi suggested, breathing heavily.

“Not at all,” I said.

I would have continued on to coerce my mate back into the castle. I might have even opened a door into my seaside lair in the magical world. But before I could say or do anything, we were assaulted by King Freslik’s sharp shout of, “What is the meaning of this?”

Obi nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of his father’s voice. I was startled but managed not to react with any strength. I simply turned to find Freslik striding through the door we’d left open when we’d entered the garden.

“Dormas! Why do you have this disobedient whore out in a freezing garden in the middle of the night?” Freslik demanded.

The hatred in his eyes as he stared at his youngest son, the hatred that radiated from his black heart, was so strong that I moved faster than I should have in my disguise to stand between the father and son.

“I thought it might be good to teach the lad a lesson,” I said, scrambling to think of an excuse for the two of us to be somewhere the princes were forbidden in the middle of the night. “I thought a bit of cold, dark, manual labor would remind him of who rules this castle.”

Freslik glared at me, his eyes narrowed. “The princes are not to leave their bedchamber unless I and I alone give them permission,” he seethed. “This is an act of double disobedience, and it will be punished.”

Inwardly, I sighed. Freslik was difficult to steer in the best of times, but since the threat to his power in the form of Lord Osric had become very real, he’d been nearly impossible to contain.

I did my best, raising a hand slightly and using the best of my persuasive magic to bring him back from the brink of the murder he was likely about to order by saying, “I was acting on your authority and yours alone, my liege. You ordered me to surprise the prince with unexpected and unusual punishments.”

Freslik twitched and grunted, something he had begun doing of late when I tried to use my magic to steer his mind. It was a worrying new development. “This is not what I meant,” he said. “I wanted you to punish him with pain, with humiliation.”

“And I will, I will, my liege,” I said. “You interrupted us before we could get to that point.”

Obi made a sound of indignation behind me.

Strangely, his scent seemed to grow stronger and the aura of heat that had begun to surround him expanded to a point where it took a great deal of control on my part not to turn to him and ravish him.

It was a bloody good thing that alphas could not sense the heat of an omega related to them by blood or I would have been terrified for what Freslik would do to my mate.

“Perhaps this entire thing was ill-advised,” I said, trying not to sound breathless. “Perhaps we should all return to our bedchambers for a long night’s sleep.”

I raised my hand slightly again, and once again, Freslik flinched and hissed. At least he said, “You are right. I need sleep. I have been feeling unwell of late.”

“Very good, my liege,” I said with a bow. “Sleep awaits you in your chamber.”

There were a few, tense moments as Freslik continued to stare at Obi before he turned abruptly and marched away. I held a hand up to Obi to wait as we listened to the sound of his boots on the stones of the castle hallways until we could hear them no more.

“And now,” I said, gesturing for Obi to walk forward, “it is time to return you to your chamber as well.”

“What did you just do?” Obi asked in a low voice, following me as I moved faster than I should have as Dormas.

“I beg your pardon?” I asked, feigning ignorance.

“My father,” Obi said, following me back into the castle and along the hall to the stairway that led up to the princes’ tower room. “He never listens to anyone like that. What kind of power do you have over him?”

I could have laughed. Obi was closer to hitting the mark than he thought.

It was clear to me that he still had not made the connection between the handsome, overpowering mate he’d danced with at the pavilion not more than an hour ago and the withered old councilor he’d known for years who walked him back to his room.

Before we reached the hallway at the top of the stairs that led to the princes’ bedchamber, I worked a quick bit of magic to ensure that all the guards gathered by the doorway were asleep and that most of the chains were already undone.

By the time we rounded the corner at the top of the stairs, nothing appeared unusual to Obi.

“I have no power over your father,” I whispered as we approached the doors. “He does, on occasion, listen to his councilors. When it suits him.”

Obi hummed, but he was too distracted by the time we reached the door to question my statements. Whether he understood that he was going into heat or not, it was clear he was uncomfortable.

I unlocked the door and pulled it open so that he could hurry through into the relative safety of his bedchamber.

“Sleep well, Prince Obi,” I charged him, already thinking ahead to how I needed to prepare my own bedchamber for what would come next for us that night. “Do not worry about your father for now. I have the matter well in hand.”

Obi stared strangely at me for a moment, but he was restless and rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. All he did to acknowledge me was to nod before rushing into his bedchamber, as if the cure for what had begun to ail him was there.

It wasn’t there. He was rushing farther from the comfort and release he needed. But that would all change as soon as I could get back to the magical world and fetch him as my true self from the other side.