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Chapter Thirty-FourRONSON
Mate, I marveled, laying Mairwen back inside of our nest, crawling in over her.
Mate, my dragon thundered in approval. Mine.
It had been a fact I hadn't known the word for, and now that I did, the truth rested perfectly in place, a brilliant jewel in a precise setting. Mairwen was my mate. My clever, beautiful, desperately sweet mate.
And she loves me. My breath caught in my chest, and I gazed down at Mairwen, at the soft glitter in her honey eyes as she stared back, the way she eyes traced over my features in equal wonder. Her fingers smoothed around my jaw, and then brushed the backs of her knuckles against my cheek. I turned my head and kissed there, nipping at her knuckles and earning a soft giggle.
My hand on her waist slid to the tie of her robe, but for once, I wasn't impatient. I wanted to unwrap my mate slowly, savor every bit of her. Mairwen wiggled beneath me and the robe parted, sliding over her smooth skin and off her shoulders, revealing more of the bruises on her left side that I'd been both proud and ashamed of. Now that I knew why they were there, why I'd been so obsessed with marking her, biting her, I admired the restraint of not actually breaking her skin.
Yet.
I leaned down, smiling as Mairwen released a soft, eager sound and arched in offering, lifting her bruised skin to my lips. I kissed softly over the patterns I'd made, faded watercolor circles of pink and purple and yellow.
"Do you want my mark, Mairwen?" I murmured, unable to resist the urge to suck softly over my most recent work. Mairwen gasped, hands tearing at the snaps of my shoulders, wrestling away my own clothing to rub her silk-clad skin to mine.
"Yes, alpha."
"It's permanent," I reminded her, settling myself on top of her, knowing well enough by now that she liked my weight. And sure enough, Mairwen moaned and sighed, sagging into the soft bedding of our nest. She blinked drowsily up at me as I shifted. "You thought that might be a concern for me. And so it might be for you," I said, catching her hair behind her neck, freeing it gently and draping it back over a pillow so it wouldn't tangle beneath us.
"I want to be yours. Your mate," she said, blushing but not looking away from me.
I purred, my eyes falling shut, enjoying the moment of Mairwen's lush form beneath mine, her full thighs cradling my hips, her hands ghosting over my back, her perfume full and rich, layers of the satisfaction I'd given her coating our nest. I'd never imagined such a sense of rightness with any omega I might choose, not this completion and ease, this imperative understanding that I could love Mairwen and no other.
"How long have you known about the bite?" I asked.
"Since the day before we left for the Flight of Alphas," she said.
I nodded. There hadn't been time before now to tell me, and there hadn't been much chance of me going so far as to bite her while we were traveling. She'd thought to warn me last night.
"I'd found mentions of mates, but nothing that co
I gri
She nodded. "But then Beatrice and I found old portraits—Oh, I meant to show you!"
"Later, Mairwen," I rasped, too eager now that her warm skin was wrapping around me.
She laughed and lifted her hips, her chest, arms sliding back to allow me to strip her bare beneath me. I swallowed hard, forever dazzled by the vision of Mairwen beneath me, so much exquisiteness on offer.
"I thought at first that maybe this was just an urge between any alpha and omega," she said softly.
I shook my head, frowning. "Not possible. No man could resist wanting a woman as much as I want you," I said.
Mairwen gasped, and her eyes glittered with tears. "Ronson, you are so—"
"Devastatingly in love with you," I finished for her, ducking down to kiss the swell of one breast, then the other. "Yes, I know."
My father was certainly not a man of restraint. If he'd wanted to bite an omega, he would've. And this craving hadn't been there from the start with Mairwen, although I thought perhaps the start might've been sooner than the rut. The night I'd found her in the nest, surrounded by books, shockingly sweet and lovely.
"Wonderful," Mairwen sighed out as I trailed a damp line of licks and kisses down between her breasts to her belly. "Ronson, I need you."
As much as it thrilled the dragon in me to hear her call me alpha, it made me ache in an altogether more tender way when she used my name. We were alpha and omega, and the bite was an instinct I'd barely managed to resist up till now, but this was more than a base urge, more than my dragon's desire. I loved this woman, her appetite for knowledge and for story, the core of her that had persevered with humor and curiosity, in spite of being so constantly discouraged by those around her. I'd spent my many decades as alpha attempting to be fair, catering to men I didn't respect. But if I was going to be worthy of Mairwen, I need to be as good as her, as strong for all of the island as she seemed to think me capable.
I rose up only long enough to work my way out of the loose trousers I'd do
"Bite," she pleaded, arching her throat until the muscles were taut, offering me that divine stretch of skin I'd claimed.
No, I'd claimed all of her. I'd claimed her on the stage, in full view of dragonkin and the human locals. I'd claimed her on the floor of the library with my lips and hands, in our nest during my rut, in front of the other alphas at the Flight. Even in front of her parents.
The bite was not my claim. It was my means of survival. Because if I lost Mairwen, in childbirth or simply in her too-short lifespan, I was sure my dragon would wither and so would I.
I wrapped Mairwen's legs around me, stilled her eager wiggles and squirms by finding my way to her opening, just barely poised to enter, and then took her face in my hand.
"I love you, Mairwen," I said again, because the words were a relief and a joy.
She softened, sparkled up at me like the treasure she was. "I love you, Ronson."
I swallowed hard and then flexed my hips forward, watching her pupils grow, her lips part on a pant. "I love you, mate," I corrected, gri
Mairwen's voice cracked sweetly, a pleading note, and her hips tilted into mine, pink tongue flicking out to wet her bottom lip. "Mate," she rasped, begging.
I groaned, and my eyes fell shut, thoughts sinking helplessly into Mairwen's heat and warmth and wonderfully soaked core, narrowing down to the simple and primitive ache and complete solace of being inside the only woman I'd ever really wanted.
Mairwen met me stroke for stroke, her hunger a match for an alpha's, a match for mine. I licked the skin of her throat, syrupy perfume filling my lungs, coating my tongue. My hands were full, one massaging her breast, the other cupping her ass to hold her close. I wanted to lick her arousal from the source, wanted to put her on her hands and knees and grip the back of her neck, and pound into her to make her scream, wanted to be everywhere on Mairwen all at once.
But I opened my eyes and found her face, her beautiful stare and lips begging to be kissed, and wanted nothing more than this—our chests pressed, arms wrapped tight, to be as near to her as I could until our heartbeats hammered together and our rocking thrusts dawdled, savoring every slide of slick flesh.
I smiled as Mairwen's gaze went unfocused, her eyelashes fluttering and a slow, deep moan rising from her lips. Oh, yes, she liked this. My lovely, greedy omega liked when I was patient and thorough, when I filled her as completely as I could, rubbing my knot against her clit. Her hands squeezed low on my back, a high sigh released as her eyes squeezed shut when I pushed inside of her, a tremulous whimper as I pulled nearly out.
"Ronson, yes, please," she breathed, turning and arching for a kiss.
I licked into her mouth, gave her my groan as her wet sex squeezed my length, pressed a little harder against her, debated knotting her, biting her, making her mine forever right at that second. But she made such magnificent, tormented, pleading sounds as I eased back, and I could be patient, could make her unravel for me and then take her there again faster with my knot, drive us both to the brink of oblivion. And this time, I would let it take me.
I rolled Mairwen's nipple between my fingers, bit gently at her bottom lip as she cried out, hiked one leg up higher to her side. Not long now. I knew her so well, knew what pleased her, what drove her past reason. I knew she grew shy when I kissed her belly but also so wonderfully wet. Knew she shuddered and fluttered around my cock when I gripped her tightly, almost to bruising. She loved my possession as much as she bloomed for gentle brushes and kisses.
If I rose up on my knees, I could find the angle that would make her shout and twist and tremble on the bed, losing control completely, but it would leave her limp and embarrassed after, so I stayed close, grinding myself against her until she lost the ability to speak, to breathe, her nails digging into my ass. I released her breast and caught her chin.
"Look at me, my lovely siren," I hissed. "I want to watch you as you come for me."
Her eyes fell shut, but she opened them once more for me, and now I knew that the sounds she made as she fell apart, as she clutched and soaked my cock with a body that fit me perfectly, were a good match for the hauntingly beautiful way she sang.
I couldn't help myself. I gave her my knot without waiting, watched her eyes widen in shock and fresh ecstasy as it drove her back up to the height of her release before she'd finished falling. I allowed myself one long study of her as she whimpered and sighed and clamped down on my knot, her cheeks and throat and chest flushed, her hair tangling behind her head, her lips bitten rosy, and then I surrendered.
My mate. My omega. My love. Mairwen.
I groaned and bucked, drawing out the flutters and quakes of her tight core on my knot, the pulsing squeeze slowly shredding the thin thread of control I'd gripped so tightly. My wings beat at my back in a chorused agreement of movement and urgency. Mairwen chanted praise, my name woven with the words love and mate and yes.
My mouth watered and my teeth ached, and her pulse throbbed on my tongue, calling to me in steady waves of perfume—a plea or an invitation or both, I didn't know. I didn't care.