The Alpha of Bleake Isle (Dragonkin, #1)

by Kathryn Moon

I liked Lady Nightingale, who never once called me by anything but my name and would lend me scandalous books from her personal library.

He ducked down, and my breath caught in my chest, lips parting and preparing for a kiss, but his lips moved to my ear, almost grazing. "I want you back at the castle. To build the nest. For tonight," he rumbled. I skittered toward the door, ignoring the dark chuckle at my back.

"Palmer took the Dunne twins to Gamesby's estate, of course," Niall announced as I touched down on the balcony. "Bexam went home to deliver a speech against women to his sympathetic mother." "And Millward?" I asked, pacing back and forth in front of my brother. "He went to see Lionel Buchanan," Niall said, something hidden in his voice. "Buchanan? What would they have to do with one another?" I asked. Niall wet his lips and raised his eyebrows. "Rather a lot, by the look of it. I think they'll…see each other through the rut." Oh.

It was a commonplace secret that betas might seek each other's company for physical relief when an omega wasn't at hand. It had been outlawed long ago, one of the absurd laws I'd been looking forward to undoing when the opportunity presented itself.

I paused and stared at Niall, who studied me with his usual calm. "You're the only one who hasn't asked why I did it." "I know why you did it," Niall said, lips curving higher at the corners. I grimaced and rolled my eyes, turning away. He would make me ask, force me to admit that even I didn't know. Having a brother who knew me so well was irksome. My wings stroked through the air, and Niall laughed. "You did it because she would've been miserable. And you're not your father," Niall called to me as I flew.

Mairwen was asleep. She'd pushed the curtained walls of the nest she'd built aside and propped them open by pinning them under large books. She lay splayed across the sheets, still dressed, surrounded by open tomes, lips slightly parted as her chest rose and fell with slow breaths. The ache in my back faded as my shoulders settled, hands unclenching from the waistband of my trousers, the corners of my mouth quirking at the sight of my exhausted omega. She'd made me a nest of books.

Her cheek was resting on a page, littered with the most miniscule script, and a few sketched illustrations of… I stopped, casting a shadow over Mairwen and the sheets and her collection of books on architecture. I glanced at one, open and slightly crushed under her knee, a familiar text I'd been force-fed as a young man: A History of Dragonkin. I stepped closer, bumping my toes into more pages, and leaned down, lifting up another text regarding the nesting habits of omegas that had slipped from the bed.

I smoothed my fingers over the slightly creased pages and then silently shut the book, resting it on a stack Mairwen had built on the floor, more titles to prove the sweet and strangely vulnerable fact that this young woman had spent the evening researching how to be…mine. I swallowed hard and, one by one, lifted and closed and stacked the books Mairwen had left abandoned on the bed after falling to sleep, until the last of them was the one she remained resting on.

Mairwen stirred as I pulled the book out from under her cheek, and my gaze fixed to her face as she blinked and startled, stiffening as she found me towering over her. "You're back," she said, voice thick and cracking with sleep. "I am. Stand for a moment. Don't sl...

She ought to have a maid to do this job for her, but I liked to be alone with this woman. And I didn't really want anyone else undressing her, no matter how absurd that was.

"I'm glad you were there today to convince that young woman to speak the truth for herself," I said. Mairwen gasped as I bent and hauled her up into my arms, climbing onto the mattress with her cradled against my chest.

I choked around the groan that wanted to rise in my throat when Mairwen's perfume bloomed. We fell clumsily into the mattress, and I wasted no time burying my face into her throat, soaking up that scent after too many hours of withdrawal.

I don't mind. I like him, actually. The words had caused a sensation in my chest that reminded me of flying, and behind the safety of the door, I'd used my wings to hide the warmth that flooded my cheeks.

"You wouldn't take the first boat off the island if you could?" I asked, unable to keep from pressing the point, aware I might regret discovering Mairwen's limit to welcoming me. Mairwen was quiet for a long time until I could resist the urge no longer and turned back onto my side, laying my wings out behind me, to watch her face shift. "It's not very noble of me, I suppose, but Ronson, I think I prefer adventure in stories," Mairwen said, wearing a sheepish smile. "I did like flying, though! But sometimes I get queasy with a long carriage ride, and everything I've read in books says boats are much worse." I laughed and Mairwen joined me,

"I meant what I said. I like the isle. I only want…" She trailed off, eyes shying and shuttering. "Tell me." Tell me, so I can grant it. "I want… Well, never mind. I'm working on it myself," she murmured, frowning up at the ceiling of the nest.

"I forgot. Tonight." She was tense and her perfume had faded. I stroked my hands over her sides, wrapped my arms around her back, and tucked her head under my chin. I'd left my drawers on, and she was still in her chemise. She'd looked a little tired today at the Huberts', and she'd fallen asleep while researching architecture, of all things. "What do you say to…tomorrow morning?" I asked, rubbing my hand over her spine, smiling to myself as she softened against me. "In the morning? I…I am tired." "I am too," I said, shifting my hips away just enough for her to not be prodded with the physical interest that argued otherwise.

I didn't want Mairwen simply comfortable with me. I wanted her begging for me. But the former probably needed to come before the latter, in that case, and a good night's sleep together would be safer than helping myself to her body after a day of her worrying. Mairwen's nose burrowed into my throat, and I held my breath as she brushed a shy kiss over my pulse. Patience. It would be my mantra for as long as I could hold the rut at bay.

I ran my tongue over my teeth, flexing my jaw to ease the tense clench. It was only being stolen from bed before the sun was up, stolen from Mairwen's soft curves and the promise we'd whispered the night before, that was putting me in a rotten mood. But Torion had been my friend for decades, and I'd seen my own determined rise to alpha in his struggles against his father. I was glad for his sake. Even if I might've—absolutely—preferred to be in bed with my omega.

and the memory of Mairwen's giving frame was far too easy to conjure and almost impossible to banish. I restrained my own groan.

Seamus's own crew of piratical-looking not-quite-gentlemen was drifting through the gathering, meeting women from Grave Hills, likely looking for bedpartners for the night. Not many omegas chose to take to the sea, and as far as I or my spies knew, DeRoche hadn't a single woman on his own boat. I wonder if I ought to point Seamus in Francesca's direction, I thought, smirking. It would serve him right to deal with the contrary girl.

Seamus DeRoche held a unique position amongst dragonkin. While every alpha here maintained their own territory of land, Seamus's rule surrounded us all. He was the Alpha of the Craven Sea, a position claimed by a rogue dragon hundreds of years ago and regularly snatched up and stolen away. Not all betas were satisfied with their lot under the thumb of an alpha, and the Alpha of the Craven Sea was an opportunity for freedom, if you could defeat the man who'd come before you. My father had said it was a crown for the weak, for those who couldn't take the local title of alpha for themselves, but Seamus DeRoche had taken the mantle when my father was a young man and had held it ever since. His grip seemed unshakeable.

Seamus may not have had fields and farms and neighborhoods to command, but not one of us could set sail without his permission, and he held our trade routes in his fist. I respected the dragon, even if I found his cheerful humor tiresome. It was a mask that covered the steely beast beneath, I suspected.

I'd always thought the transformation was somehow both an unbearable pain, like an explosion of my form, and also a release of tension, as if I'd been too tightly bound in my man's shape.

My eyes kept drifting to the horizon, the setting sun, aware that I was in for a long flight home and another day was passing without me having my way with Mairwen. Would she be wondering where I was? Was she impatient? Or was she enjoying her freedom in the castle without me? Perhaps when I returned, she'd have an entire house up around the bed, bricked together with her collection of books. The thought made me smile.

“Mairwen!" The sound of my name, tearing and clawing into my dreams, startled me upright, and I slipped from the edge of the couch I'd been curled up on and down to the hard floor with an oof! of breath. For a moment I remained frozen, groggy and lost, squinting up at the vast shelves of books and the enormous fireplace I could've stepped right inside, and the huge, luxurious furniture that could've served as a bed, forgetting where I was and how I'd gotten here. "Mairwen?!" Ronson's voice, booming and echoing, shredded with a growl. "Here!" I squeaked out, shaking my head and grimacing at the crick of discomfort in my neck.

"Mairwen!" My name gusted out with a great heave of breath as the doors to the library banged open and the alpha froze in their broad frame. He was shockingly beautiful, hair rumpled from a flight, but he looked haggard and wild as he stood there staring at me, his skin pale. His eyes shut and his throat bobbed, and he scuffed a shaking hand over his face. "Library. I should've known," he muttered. "Where were you—Oh!" I'd barely gotten my question started before Ronson was storming closer, the doors slamming and shuddering shut behind him.

I reared back, gaping up at the rushing dragon as he approached, the brief slack openness of his expression tightened now to a familiar predatory intent. And then he was lunging down, arms snapping around my waist as he threw himself to the floor. His hand caught the back of my head before it could hit carpet and stone, and his chest pressed roughly to mine, his face burrowing into my throat. "Ronson?" He laughed, a dark and slightly ragged sound. "The damned library," he said. "I thought… Mairwen," he breathed, body sinking into mine, pinning me beneath him.

Ronson groaned and rocked on top of me, and my breath caught in my chest, my hands hovering in the air near his wings. "You-you were gone," I sputtered awkwardly. I waited for you. And in a tiny private place in myself I admitted, I missed you. A dangerous confession. I couldn't afford to miss a man who would want to replace me in a decade. "A new alpha ascended to Grave Hills," Ronson said, his lips nuzzling over my pulse, tongue flicking out. "Niall made me go." I laughed at that, and Ronson lifted himself from on top of me, his own grin gleaming in the firelight. "I didn't want to wake you," Ronson murmured, his hands sliding down my back to my hips, inching my dress up a little bit at a time.

"I…I couldn't have come?" I asked, wincing at my own question. "Mmm, next time. The rut is too close, and I would've spent the day snarling at every alpha that looked at you," Ronson said easily, as if it were perfectly reasonable that other alphas would bother looking at me. He kissed across my collar, tongue teasing and lips suckling at my skin. "Mairwen, why are you in a damned corset again?" "My dresses don't fit without them." "Then we need to get you new dresses," Ronson said calmly, lifting my ass and rucking my skirt up. I flushed, squeezing my thighs together, pinching my chemise in place before he could expose me.

"I can't—I can't just go around the island without a corset." "You won't go around the island at all," Ronson growled. I stiffened, and he cleared his throat, lifting his face from my collar with what I thought might be a blush staining his cheeks. "For a little while, I mean. I'm sorry, I-I couldn't find you when I returned, and I'm going a bit…" He grimaced, and I couldn't help but settle my hands against his cheeks, smoothing my fingers o...

But imagining was easy and careless in comparison to surrendering to reality.

Ronson was vast and handsome and terrifying and so, so tempting. His stare made me squirm with nerves, and his touch left me boneless and weak.

"I know it's late," he continued, dropping a wet kiss to the rise of my breast against the collar of my dress. "I know I've left you here at odd ends for days." Another kiss, a lick of his tongue into the tight crush of my cleavage. "Believe me, it's not what I'd hoped for. I planned to spend the days leading up to the rut…well, however you wished. But as much of them in bed with you as you'd grant me." My eyes squeezed shut, a strange dip and soar rattling inside me at his words, like we were in flight. His hands were ...