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Chapter ThirteenRONSON
“DeRoche is walking over," Niall muttered in my ear.
I grunted and stiffened, the indigo shadows of Alpha Seamus DeRoche's great wings blocking out the glare of sunlight from the corner of my eye and the lush, rolling green landscape of Grave Hills. He paused for a moment as if posing, and a damp breeze greeted him, blowing his long, dark hair in an irritatingly heroic ma
"Cadogan! I wondered if we'd see you today," the roguish dragon called, reaching me and clapping his hand heartily against my shoulder. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you weren't happy with the outcome for Torion."
"Not at all." 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.
"It's your rut," Seamus DeRoche said with a nod. "Don't suppose you've finally taken your island in hand and stolen an omega out from under those betas ru
Another year, and I would've made a weak excuse to leave Seamus's irritating company. Today, I found myself smiling grimly.
He laughed, a boisterous sound, as if the man was in constant competition with the sound of thunder and waves. "About damn time. I'm surprised you bothered attending, in that case."
I shot Niall a glare from the side, and he rolled his eyes.
"I seriously considered abstaining," I admitted, and the memory of Mairwen's giving frame was far too easy to conjure and almost impossible to banish. I restrained my own groan.
"I look forward to meeting the chit," Seamus said. I snarled before I could contain the reaction, but thankfully, the man was determinedly amused and his laugh covered the inappropriate reaction.
"Are you waiting to get a word in with Torion?" I asked, turning back to the small milling crowd of dragons. I'd brought Niall with me, but the few other alphas of our region had brought entire parties of betas with them. 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 shrugged. "I only need to speak to him briefly, just to secure the usual trade agreements. But I like Torion. I want to congratulate him properly."
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.
"You're being patient for an alpha with an omega waiting on him," Seamus noted. "You're waiting for the others to leave?"
This was why he'd held his position for so long. He was more observant than his careless persona led some to believe. I respected Seamus DeRoche. Did I trust him?
"As you said, the betas of my isle are becoming…ambitious," I said, deciding that having him as an ally was worth the risk of hinting at what he likely already knew.
"It's about time you noticed, Cadogan," he murmured. "You'd better wait till Worthington leaves."
My eyebrows rose and I searched the crowd for Damian Worthington. He stood close to Torion, a pointed mark of support, but when I watched long enough I noticed an exchange between him and Francis Keane, a staunch beta supporter of the former Alpha of Grave Hills.
"I flew with Damian to face his father," I hissed.
Seamus shrugged. "You served your purpose. Bleake Isle doesn't offer anything to Skybern, and now Worthington must make nice with the old guard. He's a snake. Tries to cheat my fleet."
I glanced at Niall, who was making a thorough study of the crowd, his head buzzing, pla
"Do you see his shadow?" Seamus asked me.
It took me a moment to sift through my own thoughts and the faces around us before I realized who Seamus meant. Damian resembled his father, classically handsome, not very large for a line of alphas, more a long-honed blade. And behind Damian was an echo of that resemblance—a taller, broader man, but one with the same fine features and dark hair. Unlike Damian, this man did not smile, did not charm those around him, did not wheedle alliances and agreements. If Damian was a snake, this man was solely fangs.
"Be
If Damian was cheating Seamus, the alpha had a perfectly good motive to steer my own alliances away from Worthington and to the bastard brother. After all, that was why we alphas came together. Torion's place in Grave Hills was recently secured, but certainly a man like Keane was already considering whether or not he might find a better ally. Torion was replacing a man like my father, and Grave Hills had an especially bad record of treatment to its omegas, so much so that the ratio of betas to omegas was ten to one. Some betas hoped Torion would improve the conditions, and thus the ratio; others preferred the cutthroat competition for women. If Keane was looking to replace Torion, then the new Alpha of Grave Hills and I were in a similar situation.
I wasn't sure if that made him the most powerful ally I could find—he might end up busy with his own problems before long—but unlike Damian Worthington, apparently, I pla
"Come, it's time for the flight," Seamus said.
I nodded, following Seamus to where the other alphas were gathering around Torion, the betas in the crowd backing respectfully away until they were well clear of us. Torion's hands were clenched at his side, the only hint of tension he revealed. His brown chest was entirely bared today, forgoing the green woven sash he usually wore as a sign of his father's line. He was darker than the other men of Grave Hills. His mother had come from somewhere in the sunbelt region of the sea and caught his father's eye before the local selection. Lachlan was the first of the Feargus line to claim the alpha throne in Grave Hills, and without a serious family reputation and no inclination to follow in his father’s footsteps in terms of how he ruled, Torion's reign was going to be a difficult one.
His chin was held high, but I thought I caught an easing around his eyes as he found me in the stretched ring of alphas who surrounded him. I offered him a nod of acknowledgement, then remained still.
"I am Torion Feargus," the newly risen alpha shouted, turning in a slow circle, his dark green wings stretching and flexing.
"Aye!" we answered back in unison, our wings beating once at our backs.
"I have defeated Lachlan Feargus!"
"Aye!" Air churned around us.
"I am the alpha!" Torion's feet planted in the ground, his scales shimmering back and forth across his bared, light brown chest.
"Aye!"
"I rule these hills!" Torion bellowed.
We roared back together, and our roars grew louder as wind swirled and magic changed our shapes. 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.
The threat of other alpha dragons around me left me restless and temperamental, and I stomped taloned feet against the ground, wings thumping and nearly striking against Seamus's. He leapt, catching air, and I followed, Torion's own horned nose and gleaming fangs pointed high to his destination, as if he might take his first flight as alpha all the way to the sun.
"Today made me question whether claiming my place was worth the trouble," Torion said, grimacing and then taking a long gulp from his glass. "Fang's fire, Roach, this is good."
DeRoche was on better terms with Torion than I'd realized before, and it was the four us, Niall included, left lingering in Torion's tent. 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.
"It's time we put this poor bastard out of his misery and let him get back to his omega," Seamus said, slapping my shoulder hard.
Torion's eyebrows rose. "Omega? You claimed one?"
I dipped my head. "I did."
"What on earth are you doing here, then?" Torion laughed.
"Proving my respect for you," I grumbled.
Torion's head fell back, inky black curls rioting around his head with his roar of laughter. Wings the color of a forest in deep winter shook, his bared chest and shoulders revealing his scales with a shimmer of bronze. Whatever the local betas wanted to think, Torion had his father Lachlan's huge build and thick curls, even with all of his mother's warmer coloring.
"You're honest to a fault, Cadogan," Torion said, and Seamus snorted. "I never doubted your support. Go home. You smell like a rut, and now that I've ascended to alpha, my own won't be far off. Don't need you rushing me."
Niall and I glanced at one another, and my brother's eyebrows bounced. Seamus smirked at me.
Torion wasn't blind. "Oh, I see. Not just your gesture of respect."
I sighed, sinking deeper into the seat I'd been offered as I took another sip of Seamus's admittedly extremely fine liquor.
"I uncovered a plot for my assassination," I said.
"Damn," Seamus hissed, leaning forward. "I thought you were just hearing their snark behind your back at last."