“I don’t know. I haven’t met her yet.” He shoots me an apprehensive look. “You weren’t, ah, hoping I’d say you, were you?”
I burst out laughing.
Zabriel scowls. “All right. I’m not that hideous, am I? Even if I am, I’m the crown prince, and I ride the flare’s Alpha. Surely I have some appeal as a mate.”
I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye, still grinning. “You do, of course you do. You’re lovely, Zabriel. I just think it wouldbe funny, the two of us. We’d have figured out by now if we had feelings for each other.”
He grins. “Yes, you’re right. I’ll know my mate as soon as I see her.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because it’s obvious when you meet your Omega. The stories say it’s like being hit by a lightning bolt. Onderz and Mirelle have known each other since they were children, but he said she’s always been his first thought in the morning and the last at night. The moment she started giving off her Omega scent, he knew she was his. I know in my heart that I’m fated to an Omega, and I would guess that seeing as Stesha is unmated, he probably feels the same way.”
The smile fades from my lips. The beautiful future I was building for myself and Stesha comes tumbling down, brick by brick. “Stesha is what?”
“Waiting for his Omega. Well, I haven’t talked about it with the dragonmaster because I think he would knock me into next week if I pried into his private hopes and dreams, but being unmated and not taking any lovers ever is a sign that an Alpha believes he’s fated to an Omega.”
Fated.
To an Omega.
It can’t be. My mind searches for any scrap of hope. “Maybe I’m an Omega.”
“You’re a bit old, aren’t you?” Zabriel asks. I must look devastated, because he hastily adds, “I mean, Omegas usually start presenting when they’re fourteen or fifteen, don’t they? I don’t know, though. I don’t really know anything. You should speak to Mirelle. I have to go.” He backs away from me, just like Stesha did, and flees the Great Hall.
Mirelle. There’s an idea. I go off in search of her because she actually has a mate, and she can tell me how this certainty that someone is yours is supposed to feel.
I find Mirelle along a covered walkway near one of the biggest gardens. She’s doing her best to cram herself beneath a stone bench, but her long, trailing lilac dress gives her away.
I hurry forward and kneel down beside her. “Mirelle, have you lost something?”
“Oh, Zenevieve,” she sobs, and grips my hand. “I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. This is only the third time.”
Mirelle doesn’t seem to want to let go of my hand or crawl out from beneath the bench either. “Only the third time for what?”
“My false heat. Everything’s too bright. Too noisy. I need to hide.”
Mirelle is younger than me, and she’s been giving off her incredibly sweet and pervasive Omega scent for years. I’ve never experienced anything like this, so that must mean Zabriel is right. I can’t be an Omega.
“I need to get inside,” Mirelle whimpers. When I encourage her to get out from beneath the bench, she cries, “No, please, I can’t.”
I look at her helplessly. If she needs to be inside but won’t move, how am I supposed to help her?
“Oh, the light.” Mirelle covers her eyes with her hand and winces.
I draw one of the many layers of her dress up so she can use it to shield herself. “Mirelle, please tell me how I can help you.”
“Find Onderz, please. I need Onderz.”
Of course, if she’s in this much distress, she’ll need her mate. Onderz’s scent and his arms around her are probably the only things that will make her feel safe. “I’ll go find him. I’ll be as fast as I can.”
I run and search the dragongrounds and the sparring grounds. I check the Flame Temple. I seek out his house, but I can’t find Onderz anywhere, and no one has seen him.
When I return to Mirelle, I hear her before I see her. She’s shrieking in panic, and when I round a corner, I see her struggling as she’s carried on someone’s shoulder. A tall someone. Emmeric, her brother.
I run up to him and block his way. “What are you doing with Princess Mirelle?”
His arm tightens around her. Her legs are kicking over his shoulder. “I’m helping her.” Emmeric’s eyes are hard and glittering without an ounce of sympathy for his sister, but it’s not his eyes that are scaring me the most. It’s the fact that there’s a bulge in the front of his breeches. His knot is swollen.
