Страница 45 из 89
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, ru
"What's—Ohhhh…"
I rolled my hips forward, gri
"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, gri
"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.