Текст книги "The Alpha of Bleake Isle"

Автор книги: Kathryn Moon

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Chapter TwentyRONSON

Ilicked my lips and found my omega's nectar there. A growl scratched up my throat and I rooted forward, searching for more, snarling when her flavor was replaced with a cool, clean gulp of water. I jerked away, but a smooth hand caught my jaw, stilling me in place.

"Drink, Ronson."

I gaped at the vision before me. Perfect creamy skin, now marked with pink and purple, bruises from my kisses and bites, a map of touch that made my mouth water and long to repeat the claimings. Dark circles drooped under amber eyes, and my omega's lips were so red and swollen, they looked as though they might be just one more nibble away from breaking.

"Drink, alpha," she coaxed, a soft croak in her voice.

Oh, Mairwen, I thought, my chest aching, but I tipped my head back and accepted the draught of water she offered. The more I drank, the greedier I became, but also restless. I was erasing the taste of her. Unacceptable. My hands gathered silken bare flesh in their grip, and Mairwen's breath hitched.

"Claws, alpha."

I froze, jolting as I realized Mairwen's breathlessness was pain, not pleasure, and then spread my palms flat. I tried to clear my throat, but all that came out was a snarl. "I need⁠—"

"You need to drink and eat first," Mairwen said, and her own fingers slid into my beard.

"How long?" I asked, blinking and trying to bring the nest into focus, but the only part that really mattered was the woman in front of me.

Her laugh was rough, and her touch moved into my hair, combing through tangles. "I lost track. Days, less than a week. Something like that."

Not even halfway through the rut. My head had probably only cleared because Mairwen was right and I needed the water and food.

"Will you hold the cup instead of me?" Mairwen asked, those ripe fruit lips curving up.

"No," I rasped, my hands clenching briefly until I could rein my dragon once more.

She sighed and lifted the cup to my lips, waiting for me to drink it dry before twisting away to reach for a plate, the gentle flex of her body making my own tense with want. Scales glimmered over my arms, no longer hiding beneath my soft skin, and I glanced down to see them on my thighs too. Mairwen's body was stretched over mine, and it took me a moment to tear my stare from her glossy, reddened sex and to notice the chafed pink insides of her thighs.

"Are you in pain?" I asked, reaching between us to graze the scale-smooth backs of my fingers over the abraded skin.

"No, alpha," Mairwen said, catching my chin under her fingers and lifting it up, popping a cube of cured meat between my lips before I could press her for the truth. She sucked a berry between her lips, distracting me from my concern, and spoke around it. "You've been very attentive to my…comfort." She chose the last word with a blush on her cheeks, and I purred, leaning forward to nuzzle into her shoulder.

"You have to tell me the truth, omega," I said, letting a little alpha growl lace the words so she would listen. "What's tender?"

Mairwen squirmed against me slightly, and I shuddered as her slick sex stroked against my aching cock. "My breasts," she whispered, and then snorted. "Not that I'm surprised you've been focused there."

A bark of laughter escaped me, and Mairwen took the opportunity to feed me another bite of meat. It was salty and savory, but it was not what my mouth watered for most in this moment. I lifted Mairwen in my arms, ignoring her squawk of protest, savoring the feel of her body wrapped around mine, her plush weight cradled against my chest.

"Ronson—"

I lay her back in the sheets."I need your taste on my tongue, omega. I'll be gentle."

"Ronson, you need⁠—"

"After," I growled, drawing Mairwen's legs up over my shoulders. She opened her mouth to object, and I ducked down, running my tongue over the irritated marks on her inner thighs. Her words of protest died with a moan.

"What's—Ohhhh…"

I rolled my hips forward, grinning into the terrible nest of Mairwen's tangled hair, and hissed as she fluttered and clutched against my cock and knot. I hummed in her ear, my hands sliding up and down her waist, one traveling slowly up to clutch her breast, massaging and waiting for her to whimper. She sighed and sagged against me. Good. She was healing quickly.

"What's that smell?"

I paused in my caresses and blinked into the dark shadows. It was night. Our candle lanterns had burned away the day before, and it made it easier to track the progress of the rut. Mairwen was smaller in my arms. No, I was larger now, my body more easily able to curl around her. I leaned up to stare down at her, and my jaw ached at the sight of her shoulder and the slope of her neck. I shut my eyes and held my breath, waiting for the strange urges to pass before clearing my throat.

"Smell?"

"It's…sweet. Like…like something melting?" she murmured.

My vision had sharpened as my dragon flexed and grew during the rut, and I studied the motion of her lashes with a kind of dumbstruck reverence as she blinked, a dark kiss of feathery softness against the tired circles growing deeper under her eyes. I couldn't clearly recall much of my previous ruts, but I was sure I'd never been so insatiable. I'd fucked to relieve the pulse and pain and demand of the rut, but it hadn't been so…celebratory and imperative.

"Omega…that's you—your perfume."

Mairwen's brow furrowed, and she turned her shoulders to glance at me, stare skidding quickly away. "I don't have a perfume."

"Ohhh, but you do," I purred, leaning down, swallowing the saliva that gathered as I pressed my lips across her bare shoulder. "A perfect, rich, drugging perfume. One I want to drown in, that makes me mad to touch you." I flexed my hips, and Mairwen gasped, a new flood of perfume bursting in the air and against my grazing mouth.

"But I-I never⁠—"

"I'm learning all the ways to draw it out, omega," I rumbled in her ear, grinning at her answering shiver. "I covet every note of your scent. I want it coating me, and I want to keep it a secret, never let any beta or another alpha get a whiff."

"Ronson," she breathed, eyes falling shut and body rocking back against me, slick core sucking at my knot and stiffening my cock.

"On your knees, Mairwen," I rasped, but I didn't give her a chance to obey, already gripping her hips, rolling her onto her belly and pulling her up. My wings brushed against the walls of the nest, not as wide as my dragon's but twice as broad as usual. Mairwen was fastened firmly to me, my knot lodged deep, and she cried out into the pillows as I thrust forward, digging and rubbing my knot inside of her.

"You smell sweetest as you come for your alpha, omega," I snarled, the haze rising again, the rut claiming my voice and mind. "I want my prize. I want to slake myself on your scent."

Mairwen's perfume bloomed, brighter and thicker than ever, her legs and hands sliding in the sheets of the nest, her voice high and pleading. Pleading for relief, release. For me. Her alpha.

"What day is it?"

"It's been… No, I lost track ages ago."

"I need⁠—"

"Yes. Yes, yes, yes."

"Closer, more."

"Alpha!"

I shuddered, my teeth clamped around my omega's shoulder, something like venom burning on my tongue.

Bite. Claim. Mine.

Mairwen whimpered, thrashing slightly in my grip.

"Hurts," she whispered.

Unclenching my jaw stung, as if my teeth had been bound closed with barbed wire I had to tear through in order to release the skin I'd tried to make a meal of.

Fang's fire, what is wrong with me?

I blinked, horrified and hungry in equal measure, staring at the imprint of my bite in Mairwen's smooth shoulder. I hadn't broken the skin, but it was a near thing, and already dark blue and purple blood vessels were bursting under her flesh.

A lie of a mark.

I shook myself and tried to pull away, realizing too late I was knotted in Mairwen. Her head tossed back and she shouted, and now her frantic movements were made of need, not nerves.

"So…so hot." Her hands slid over my chest, pushing me down into the mattress, and she rode me with that sweetly unpracticed urgency that made me buck in answer.

I reached for her cheek, drawing her gaze to mine and finding her stare glassy and absent. Her skin was burning under my touch, feverish, and I tried to sit up but was shoved firmly back in place. Her mouth hung open, breaths panting and whining.

"I need—I need⁠—"

The truth reached me slowly, my head foggy from lack of sleep and food and anything but Mairwen's touch.

I'd put my omega in heat.

Pride pushed aside any lingering guilt at her bruised skin and anxious movements. I growled and rocked up, and Mairwen trembled above me as pleasure seized her. A heat.

An alpha's rut came every decade, an echo of the first mating urge we'd feel not long after taking our place as lead dragon, but omega heats were rare blessings, an equally matched biological demand for breeding. My father had called in quack doctors and supposed wise men, searching for some kind of recipe, a set of instructions, to put his omegas into heat. The truth was, no one knew what it took other than an alpha's pheromones, and most of the time even that didn't work.

"You need my knot," I said to Mairwen, licking my lips and ignoring another insane urge to bite her as her breasts bounced with her movements.

"Yes!"

"My cock."

"More, I need—Oh, alpha!"

I gripped her hips, rolling her into the bed and bracing myself above her, giving into the ruthless thrusts I'd been craving. Mairwen's eyes widened, her hands and feet scrambling in the sheets as she arched to meet my body.

"Yes, yes, yes! More!"

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.

I dove down, suckling on her breasts, and her hands dove into my hair, clinging to hold me closer.

"More, alpha," she whined, locking her legs around my hips. "I need more."

I woke to the sound of knocking and snarled at the interruption, drawing Mairwen's body tight to my chest.

"Ronson, are you alive?" Niall's voice called through the wood.

"Leave," I called back, my voice rough and crackling.

His voice muttered something inaudible, but his steps retreated with a final parting shot of, "It's been three weeks."

I ought to have been startled by the news. Even my first rut hadn't lasted a full two weeks. But I was too tired to be anything at all. Anything but…

I skimmed my hand over Mairwen's side, sighing as I found her skin warm but not scorching. Her heat had broken. My rut had settled. We were free from the breeding urges at last.

After three weeks.

My lips curved, and the tired skin burned as they stretched. Mairwen wasn't the only one sporting the wear and tear of the rut now. Her heat had drained me of my last reserves. I'd fucked her until my cock refused to last, suckled at her clit until my jaw locked up, and then given her my fingers until my body could rouse once more.

Insatiable omega.

Mairwen was entirely limp in my hold, not stirring at Niall's call or my touch, and it took me a few minutes of her stillness for panic to creep into my head.

It wasn't unheard of for a delicate omega to not survive an alpha's appetites in a rut, but⁠—

I groaned as I sat up, every inch of my body protesting, and my breath froze in my chest at the picture of the woman on the bed. The wreckage of a woman. Mairwen was covered in love bites, some much closer to a bite than a kiss. I scowled at the marks, baffled and shamed at the recollection of how badly I'd wanted to really mark her, tear through her flesh. Her hair was a terrible mess, a little greasy but mostly snarled into impossible tangles. I picked up one slightly matted lock, ignoring the tired burn of my eyes, and set to work on repairing the mess I'd made of my omega.

If only I could quit smiling and feeling so damned pleased with myself at the same time.

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Chapter Twenty-OneMAIRWEN

Iscreeched, jerking awake in a sudden shock of frigid water, splashing and flailing.

"Steady, steady. There you are."

My body shuddered and sagged reflexively at the purred words, settling back against a warm chest, thick arms banded around my waist, holding me upright in the churning sea.

"I was getting worried," Ronson said, leaning down and nuzzling against my cheek.

I twisted in his arms and gasped, the gently abrasive friction of touch shocking tired nerves over every inch of my body. I wet my lips and found them sore and swollen. Ronson's hold loosened, but he buoyed me in the cold water, and the icy lick over my breasts was a startling relief, even as I shivered.

"The rut?" It was as much of a question as I could get out through slightly chattering teeth.

"Try and relax," Ronson said, smiling. "You'll adjust quickly, I promise. The rut passed. And your heat broke yesterday, early morning. Or maybe before, but that's when I woke. You've slept since."

"M-my heat?" I murmured, but my hand tightened over Ronson's shoulder as I recalled the hazy, panicked, boiling heat within the nest.

"I'm so hot. I'm—Alpha, please, I need… Cock. Knot."

I blushed and slid down into the sea—Ronson was right, I was adjusting to the cold—ducking my head as if I could keep my memories from Ronson's view. As if he hadn't been there himself.

"Lean back."

A warm hand clasped the back of my neck, and I obeyed without thinking, my eyes sliding shut on a sigh as Ronson helped me dunk my head in the cold water. A small moan escaped my lips, and the hand on my hips tightened. An ache in my scalp I hadn't even realized was there melted away.

A tight fist gathering up my hair as I whined, scratching at the sheets, strong hips plowing against my ass, a soft, snarling purr sounding behind me.

My eyes opened, and I found Ronson's gaze taking an unhurried path over my chest, down to where my legs were wrapped around his hips. He looked hungry, although not in the same blazing, devouring way he had in the nest, abyss eyes roving over every inch of me. They were lighter now, in the morning, almost the color of dark chocolate, and he smiled gently as I caught him staring.

The sea swirled around our waists, and I studied the scene, looking up at the high cliffs and the spires of the castle. Black rocks dressed in seaweed and barnacles rose up around us, where Ronson had settled on a smooth landing.

"I perfumed."

He drew me up, and water sluiced down my back, heavy, long strands of my hair slapping against my bare skin. I shivered, and Ronson gathered me up to snuggle against his warm chest. If I didn't think precisely about the events of the rut, if I managed not to examine them too closely, there was still a kind of ease between us now. The hair of his chest was familiar against my body, the huge frame of him a memorized shape between my thighs.

"You did. Exceptionally," Ronson purred in my ear. He lifted my wet hair from the sides of my neck with gentle claws, grazing over sensitive skin, and then pressed his face to my throat, breathing there for a moment. "It wasn't the first time, Mairwen. You've been perfuming for me since the start."

I stiffened, and his hand on my hip slid to my ass, squeezing. "I have?"

Ronson nodded, stroking his beard over my shoulder. "Only barely at first. More and more every day since. I won't take the nest down now."

"But the rut is⁠—"

"Over. And I'll wash the sheets myself. We'll use the velvet curtains for our blankets. But that nest is ours now, Mairwen."

It was too easy to fall into this alpha's dark stare, into his low rumbling words and the steady drone of his purring. Had he stopped purring yet since I woke? I didn't think so. He wants me in the nest? Ours?

"You're going to wash the sheets yourself?" I asked instead.

"I threw open the windows before I flew you down. It needs to air out," he said, flashing a grin. "But I don't want any other scents inside that room…for now. I'll wash the sheets after I've bathed you and fed you. You can rest more."

My eyes widened. "Ronson, you don't have to⁠—"

He growled, cutting my objection off, and I caught my breath as his head ducked down, but his mouth landed so lightly over mine, just enough to steal the words from my tongue, to soothe my bruised lips and tease them with a feathering touch.

"Indulge your alpha, Mairwen," Ronson purred, his voice vibrating against my tender skin. "You have no idea… You were a miracle during the rut."

His words and the low rattle of his voice brought a dozen moments of the past weeks to mind, a shivering heat racing through my skin, almost tempting me to beg for more. His mouth on my breasts? No, they still felt bruised and aching. His fingers on my sex? No, I still throbbed numbly. A kiss? I licked my lips and ruled that out too—they were too raw and chapped. What I wanted would have to wait. My body needed more rest.

"A bath does sound nice," I said, circling my arms closer around Ronson's shoulders.

He rewarded me with a nuzzle against my temple, and his wings lifted from the sea, shaking water droplets off. I laughed as I was sprayed, and he nipped at my jaw. Even that spot was sensitive too! I wanted a look in the mirror.

Ronson's arms squeezed me against his chest, and I withheld my whimper as his body pressed to tired bruises. The water seemed to pull in refusal as his wings beat, dragging against my hips, my legs, my toes, but we broke free with a splash, and I held my breath as Ronson raced up the cliffside and to the tower, trying not to think about the fact that we were both bare and flying up past the windows of the castle. We would only have been a flash of skin. No one was likely to be looking, surely.

My face was hot as we landed on the windowsill, but any embarrassment quickly evaporated under the sudden shock of stepping inside the room. Ronson had thrown the windows open, allowing a delicate breeze to circle the space, but it only seemed to carry the scent with it.

And the scent.

I gaped for a moment, dizzy in the churning air, the rich sweetness and subtle smoke, like the incense inside one of the old temples for the great dragons. Ronson's purr thickened, and his hands on my hips began to stroke.

"Good, isn't it?" he rumbled.

It was…intoxicating.

My eyes watered and I tried to cling to Ronson's shoulder as he peeled me away. The enormous tub was filled with fresh, steaming water, waiting for me. Ronson's head ducked, and his brow furrowed as he found a tear sliding down my cheek.

"I did this?" I asked, breathing in.

His expression softened and he tugged me closer. I nuzzled my face into his chest and recalled burrowing there during the rut, catching my breath and kissing the skin. I pressed my lips tentatively over his heart, and the gesture was easy and comforting.

"You did, omega," Ronson said, bending slightly to press his lips to the crown of my head.

I sighed and let him direct me into the tub, down into the water. The alpha's omega was meant to serve him, not the other way around. But I didn't protest as Ronson ran a sponge carefully over my skin, kissing the red marks and purple bruises he'd made during the rut. I closed my eyes and let the sudsy water wash from my hair, his fingers traveling gently through the strands. I parted my lips for the bites of food he fed me as the water eased my tired muscles.

And when he led me back to the nest, only gauzy cotton curtains still standing, bed dressed in fresh sheets but no less potently coated in our scents, I slid into the pillows and blankets and accepted his kiss on my brow before falling back to sleep.

After two days of quiet rest, recovering from the exhausting weeks of the rut and my heat, Niall put his foot down.

"The betas have started to ask questions." Niall's voice echoed from a distance. Ronson hadn't let him—or anyone else—approach the door. He'd been making any trips for food and water himself.

"Tell them the truth, then," Ronson grumped, but he was sliding his arm out from under my shoulders. "Their alpha was rutting his omega like a mad beast⁠—"

"Ronson," I hissed, lifting the book I'd been reading aloud up to cover my flaming cheeks.

"—for weeks on end and had no real intention of stopping," Ronson finished, grinning at me and winking one dark eye. "At least not after some well-earned rest."

I squeaked and dragged the blanket up over me. We'd been fairly chaste—kissing and gentle touches aside—since I'd woken from the heat. I'd talked Ronson into letting me wash him, and while he didn't sport as many love bites and bruises as I did, there'd been no disguising the irritated redness of his cock. But I was curious about what it might be like once we were healed, without the urgent craze of the breeding instincts.

"Believe it or not, I did tell them that."

"Niall!" I cried, throwing the blanket off.

Ronson laughed, drawing his trousers up his hips.

"I'm just not sure they…believed me," Niall said.

I swallowed and turned my face away. Of course the island didn't believe Ronson would be enjoying his rut with me. I'm sure if Niall passed along the information I'd gone into heat, it would've been a society-wide joke to share. The awkward, scentless, improbable omega in heat? Laughably outrageous.

But it did happen, I reminded myself. Whether or not society believed it, Ronson was pleased with me.

"Give me five minutes," Ronson called to his brother.

I turned back and tried to make my face blank, but Ronson was watching me as usual, prowling back to the bed with his pants half-buttoned and his chest bare. He was too beautiful, too powerful. Dark scales gleamed under tan skin for a moment as he crossed through a stream of sunlight, and I recalled the way those scales had come forward during the rut, his cheekbones sharpening to dragon spikes, his shoulders armored between my thighs as he licked me clean.

"You can't dawdle," I said.

"I can if I want to," Ronson said, bucking up his chin. My eyebrows rose, and his gaze glittered with hidden mischief. He was still young by dragon standards, but he hid that boyish mischief well, buried under stern command. Not from me, though.

"I think you like riling Niall up. You know he wants what's best for you," I said, leaning back as Ronson crawled onto the bed. I fell back into the pillows, and Ronson braced himself above me.

My body still throbbed slightly with aches and bruises, but there was a quivering interest in this moment with him above me, the slight urge to spread myself in invitation.

"He does. More importantly, he wants what's best for the isle. I'll leave in a moment. But first…" Ronson lowered himself on top of me, and I caught my breath, eyes widening.

"First?"

"I want my omega to kiss me goodbye."

I laughed, but I lifted my chin. Ronson had been treating my lips and inner thighs with a light salve that tingled but seemed to do a world of good, and it didn't hurt at all to open my lips to him. The bedsheet covered me up to my breasts, a thin barrier as Ronson settled his weight against me, not grinding, simply pressing, and I couldn't help but squirm beneath him. His tongue traced my lips, and I parted them eagerly. We hadn't kissed like this since the heat, and I found myself suddenly starving for his taste.

He purred into my mouth, tongue delving, and I sighed, suckling and answering him with a lick of my own. Every spare second he'd bought from Niall was given to the kiss, and I wasn't nervous or shy at all. The foggy hours of the rut and heat had changed me. I knew this man, knew the hitch of his breath and the weight of his body and the taste of his hunger. I moaned as he stroked inside of my mouth, whined as his knees trapped my legs shut.

And slowly, the air between us filled with a thick, heavy sweetness. Ronson groaned as he pulled away, dropping fully onto me, burying his face in my throat.

My perfume. He'd wanted my perfume. He was dressing himself in it before leaving the nest. For his own comfort? Or for the betas?

I tucked my face into his silky hair, kissing aimlessly, and stroked the back of his neck with my hands.

"The dressmaker is coming today," Ronson rasped, not moving from on top of me.

"When did you have time to manage that?" I asked. It was difficult to catch my breath with him using me as a mattress, but I didn't mind.

"Put Beatrice onto it before you woke."

"It'll still be weeks before they have anything ready for me. And in the meantime, I have next to nothing to wear since you destroyed⁠—"

"Rightfully. I have no regrets."

"—my undergarments."

"Good riddance."

The rogue didn't deserve my laughter but I couldn't resist, and Ronson purred, nuzzling against the thrum of my pulse.

"You're running out of time," I murmured.

He grunted but peeled himself away from me, stopping to sit up at the edge of the bed, scuffing his bearded jaw with his hand. "I think I'll shave for dinner."

I tried not to pout. I liked Ronson's beard. It scraped a little, yes, but⁠—

"And for dessert," he said, eyeing my lap with dark hunger.

My breath hitched, my perfume bloomed, and Ronson left the nest grinning.

"Well, I certainly see the necessity for a change in shape," Miss Priscilla Pettyfer said as her measuring tape pinched around my waist.

I flushed but held my chin high to keep from seeing the picture of us in the mirror. Miss Pettyfer, in her perfectly pristine flocked muslin and polished leather boots, was a delicate and miniscule woman who walked and snapped her dreaded measuring tape with authority, but spoke in the gentle and demure tones of a human amongst dragonkin.

And there I was, in a shabby and well-worn chemise, my skin marked and reddened, dark circles still shadowing beneath my eyes, and my usually drearily straight hair attempting to escape out of the braid I'd hastily arranged. Something about being so close to the sea seemed to coax my hair into an unruly halo of waves. I was precisely this human's opposite, and I wobbled in place on the cushioned stool where I was perched.

"Your waist is quite small. It would be a shame to drape it under swathes of fabric," Miss Pettyfer remarked, almost to herself. It took me a moment to hear the words for what they were—a compliment.

"Small?" I echoed, glancing into the mirror and seeing the point where the strip of brown leather hatched with black lines tightened around my waist.

"An hourglass figure was all the rage only a century ago," the seamstress continued, drawing the leather strap away and then holding one end to my waist and letting the other hit the floor.

Hourglass. Not plump. Not…all the other disparaging words I'd heard murmured from my mother's lips, or from someone like Adelaide.

"It's not…not really small," I said, reaching my own hands tentatively to my stomach. The soft swell of flesh hadn't vanished in the rut.

"It draws in," Miss Pettyfer said matter-of-factly, catching my wrists and then moving my hands to either side, settling them in the crook of my waist before it spread out to generous hips. "Dresses now are cut to create long, straight figures of women, but I've always believed the best dress will admire the woman within it, not reshape her. Your waistlines need lowered, for starters. But I think we must start beneath the dress." She stepped back and eyed me head to toe twice before lifting her keen gaze to mine. "Forgive my impertinence, Omega Cadogan, but would you lift your breasts for me?"

I ignored my blush and raised my hands to my chest, lifting the heft of my breasts and trying not to imagine what Ronson would say about this situation.

"Yes. I see. We need support, not constraint." Miss Pettyfer flicked her measuring tape and squared her shoulders. "Hold that position, please. We have a few more measurements to take."

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