The Alpha of Bleake Isle (Dragonkin, #1)

by Kathryn Moon

I'd taken their name for me to heart, finding small corners to hide and read in. Letting these tedious afternoons pass in my own silence was easier than trying to dig my way into conversations where I wasn't wanted, where Mother's friends could pick at my appearance or the beta gentlemen went out of their way to avoid engaging me in conversation or dance.

Better stories in books than in life, I reminded myself. Happier endings too.

"Show her the library," I said to Bea, finally unwrapping my arm from Mairwen's shoulders. Her breath hitched, and her scent wisped into the air again, gnawing down into my stomach and lower. Books were part of the equation then. Noted.

Niall stared at me for a moment, blinking, and his lips parted. "Ronson. You like her." I huffed. "I know that." "Oh. I didn't."

This is what comes of letting a curious, fearless virgin have free rein to explore, I thought,

"Come explore my mouth for a moment," I continued. I want to kiss you. She smiled, and I bit off a moan as her hand made an absent path up my thigh, over my hip and chest, skirting my needy length as she stretched out at my side. It was meant to be her night, but I was impatient, and I grabbed for her, dragging her to lie on top of me, claiming the back of her neck in one hand to draw her mouth down to mine. I told myself to be gentle, tentative, but Mairwen sighed and her breath was sweet and her perfume was stronger up close like this, and I'd lost the grasp on my control a quarter of an hour ago when she'd nuzzled her soft cheek against the back of my thigh. I groaned and licked into her open mouth, devouring her whimper with a swirl of my tongue, searching her mouth for her flavor and then mourning the loss as I stole it away.

"Please, Mairwen. Please don't stop." She blinked, her shoulders dropping, and her eyes found mine. "Fang's fire, omega, don't stop touching me. I'll… Mairwen, please."

It does something to me when the MMC begs 🫠

Mairwen waved her hands in the air and strode away. "Yes, yes. Aha! Stays. Come lace me up, and if you get handsy, I will tell Niall to come in." "I'll break his fingers if he sees so much as an inch of you," I said, stomping after her, cursing her perfect, delectable, clever mind.

A triumphant laugh broke through my snarl. If only the island could see us now, beastly needs and bruised, weak bodies, still striving for more. Mairwen was a perfect omega, lusty and lush and so, so sweet, and they'd all failed to see.

She twisted, glancing over her shoulder at me, eyes bright and welcoming, and my entire body lurched in her direction at the rough tug from within my chest. She is mine.

since the rut had passed and Ronson and I had become… Still hungry for one another, sometimes shockingly so. But more than that too. We'd become friends. And I'd never had a friend who laughed when I was dry and sarcastic, who read books with me, who offered compliments and praise.

"Mairwen. Is this not your fist in my chest? You clasped it around my heart, and you now demand every beat it issues."

"Do you believe me?" I asked, lifting us from the bench, wrapping an arm under Mairwen's ass to hold her wrapped around me. She was still for a moment before nodding against my shoulder. That wouldn't do. "Look at me, Mairwen. You have to say it. Do you believe me? Believe that I want you more than anything else in this world? More than an heir, or to be alpha. More than this castle or this isle. Fang's fire, omega, the number of times I've thought about carting you off to find somewhere just for the two of us to live in peace…" Mairwen laughed at that and finally lifted her head. She was perfuming so strongly I could've drowned in it, but for once I could focus through the haze of hunger. Her eyes were damp but bright, her smile wide, her cheeks pink and full. "Yes, Ronson, I believe you," she murmured, quietly and sweetly, but without hesitating or glancing away. "Good," I said, which was an inadequate word for the enormous second sun that was growing in my chest, lighting me from the inside out.

"My omega," he rasped, turning his face back into my belly, nuzzling there, hunching lower. I gasped as his mouth opened, teeth biting dully against me. "My mate. Ohhh, yes. That word tastes almost as good as you do, Mairwen."

She loved my possession as much as she bloomed for gentle brushes and kisses.

I sighed and started to settle back against my mate—she'd been stroking her hands through my hair like she might to a house cat, and I was not ashamed to admit I loved every second—when

"Keep it a secret, mate?" I growled. Mairwen's lips pressed together as she realized what she'd said. "Keep you a secret? Not tell the island, the entire world how proud I am to be yours? To have you at my side for my life? To have my mark on you so they all know what you are to me, what you mean to me? Not likely, Mairwen."

I was in a rare hot temper. Which Ronson had promptly fucked out of me in our nest before dinner.

I resisted the restless stir in my chest that wanted to tell these women that they were all speaking to one another and playing these games by the rules of horrible men who discarded and wasted their lives so carelessly.

I had their attention now, and for once, it didn't make me feel small and foolish and embarrassed. Ronson wasn't here to purr and compliment me. This strength was, at last, my own.

"You're right. I don't mind being a scandal with you."

"Or if some alphas mated for the sake of an alliance rather than by instinct," Ronson murmured, nodding against the top of my head. "That would make sense. And you were certainly chosen. Chosen, claimed, always meant to be mine."

It was nice to be considered ferocious instead of forgettable.

"I wish not that I had been enough for you both, because I was always enough. I wish that when all others had found fault in me, you had loved me as your daughter, exactly as I was, so that I might've loved myself too."