The Alpha of Bleake Isle

Chapter TwoRONSON

“What do you think of her?" I asked my half-brother, Niall, not bothering to lower my voice as we paced the edge of Hugh Gamesby's broad and meticulously manicured gardens. No one would mistake to whom I referred, and I didn't care. The rumors would've started the moment I walked into the room two weeks ago, and the rumors were right.

Niall frowned, eyes searching the party at the heart of the maze. Bringing Niall, my father's bastard, had stirred up talk, and our walk out of earshot would give the crowd time to release their flurry of shock. It wasn't as though any of the betas and omegas in attendance were unaware of Niall's existence. Perhaps some of the well-sheltered young women. No, Niall was a subject much discussed on Bleake Isle, most especially our friendship. He was half-human, his mother a maid my father had availed himself of so frequently, he'd managed to get the woman with child, when only an omega ought to have served for that particular purpose for an alpha. Niall was an aberration, and also the only man on the island I trusted completely.

"She's a little small." Niall squinted at Adelaide Brys's bright hair shimmering over the tops of the shrubs. "And I'm not sure riling Hugh Gamesby is your smartest move. But otherwise, she's perfect," he said, very blandly.

I grunted in agreement. "My mother was small. And I've hardly ridden her skirts. Hugh hasn't marked her yet."

Niall's frown only deepened. "Then he's up to something."

"Maybe he's more interested in plotting against me than he is in securing her. Maybe he already has someone else picked out," I said, but I agreed with Niall's suspicion.

"Do you like her?" Niall asked.

"She's…perfect." I repeated his own summation with a shrug. "To say she's the best of the lot would be doing her a disservice."

Adelaide was beautiful, charming, intelligent, and talented, and her mother had taken great care at our recent di

Adelaide was the obvious choice. The best choice. A choice that would suit me perfectly.

And if Hugh Gamesby did manage to talk the girl into a quick fuck—he would have prettier words for it, I was sure—to secure his claim, I wouldn't feel a real loss. I frowned and turned my stare forward as the knowledge resurfaced again, in spite of my best efforts at stamping it down.

I'd been careful in my pursuit of pleasure thus far, hiring willing humans for company, rarely and carefully. I didn't repeat my father's rare siring of a halfling like Niall, much as I was glad to have him in my life. It was hard enough for omegas to birth dragons; humans were even more ill-suited to the task.

I wanted to leave this year's selection with an omega. I was determined to. And for all Adelaide's extreme charms, I couldn't shake the understanding that if she weren't so obviously perfect for an alpha, I would easily choose someone else. She would be wasted on a beta, but I wouldn't miss her.

"I'm not eager to put a woman to death in childbirth," I said suddenly.

Niall's pale eyebrows rose. He had my father's coloring, shimmering copper through wheat gold, pale skin freckled from the sun. His wings were strong enough for flight, but he had no true dragon's form. Still, he looked more like the heir than I did. I had my mother's dark hair and easily sunta

"I know," Niall said. "You're worried she's too small?"

No. I worried the opposite. I worried she'd survive for many decades to come, which was every bit the cruel and brutish thought most of the isle gentry expected from me, modeled by my father. But I worried that Adelaide, for all she was the obvious right choice, might actually be the wrong choice and I would end up stuck with her.

"Who is that?" Niall asked.

Even when he nodded in the direction of his query, it took me a moment to spot the woman under the trees, well out of the shelter of Hugh's garden and tucked in the wilds of his estate proper. I frowned, staring at her, her head bent down toward a book, body stuffed in a dress just too small for her sturdy frame and one shoe kicked off, stockinged foot wiggling against the grass.

It occurred to me after a long study that I'd seen her before.

"No idea. One of the omegas' maids, perhaps," I said.

She looked up as we neared her, gaze distant and lost for a moment, as if she hadn't resurfaced from the pages she'd been studying, before latching onto us, eyes widening first in terror and then a flat kind of shock, like she was surprised to see us anywhere near her.

"Catch your eye?" I teased Niall in a hiss.

He didn't flinch or scoff. He wouldn't, because only an ass would've found me fu

The woman seemed to have realized we were passing her, not approaching, and was now only giving us the occasional furtive glance, attention returning eagerly to her book.

"I think she's an omega," Niall said.

Was he attracted to the woman? Niall wasn't a prolific seducer, but I'd seen him interested in women, and they hadn't been awkward, studious, plain girls with limp brown hair.

"Why?" I asked, taking a surreptitious taste of the air. There might've been a fragrance, but it could just as easily have been the gardens.

"She arrived with the Posys; they're dragonkin. And she's not dressed like a maid."

"I defer to your knowledge of women's dress," I said, lips twitching, wanting to laugh but not quite meeting the urge.

Niall didn't rise to the bait. He never did, insufferably cool as he was. And strangely, I wanted to know what made her interesting to him but refused to ask. He would turn my teasing back on me quick as a whip. Better to be left out of the joke than let Niall make one at my expense.

We turned eventually, back into the twist of the maze. Hugh Gamesby's gardens were predictably ordered and obnoxiously forced, only one path laid out, unless we wanted to turn back and disappear into the woods like the strange young woman. Which was probably a better idea.

Adelaide beamed at me as I arrived back within the fold of the party, but there was a strain in those brilliant blue eyes, Hugh Gamesby remaining steadfastly at her side. She was a bone for the pair of us to fight over, no doubt exhausting for any young woman. But what could she or Hugh do? The moment I was within reach, her body bowed naturally in my direction. For that matter, so did the charmingly plump little brunette sitting on a blanket near my legs. My effect on omegas was biological, flattering, and somewhat irksome—part of the reason I'd avoided any courting in the past. The rut selection was in place for the alpha to choose the omega who suited him best, without the time-consuming effort of di

Just ignore the scent marks, Niall had suggested. The beta scents will fade by the time the rut is over. It had never stopped my father. Nothing had ever stopped my father, and I took pride in our differences.

"You solved the maze!" Adelaide greeted.

I nodded, offered an automatic half-smile out of respect for her cheer, and glanced over her shoulder at Gamesby. "In truth, it posed very little challenge."

The omegas, even their mothers, tittered with humor. Niall twisted away from the crowd, hiding his rolling eyes.

These parties were tedious. These people weren't much better. But I was determined this year. Adelaide was perfect, my best choice in all my years of the selection, and still unmarked. Perhaps I would even conquer my aversion and take her with one, if Gamesby managed to seduce her. It would be worth it to foil him, if nothing else.

Almost two weeks later, the day before the selection ceremony, my decision was fixed.

I would bring Adelaide back to the castle at the edge of the cliffs, give her a courteous day to collect herself and build the nest, and then I would bed her. If I was left in a lackluster pairing for the rest of my life, it would be worth it for the heir she would offer. I would do everything in my power to keep her alive, which was more than she could hope for with most betas, or with an alpha like my father. Dragon births were difficult, and many betas didn't care about the loss of an omega in the process. The child's survival was always first priority. And perhaps some dragons were a little too eager to move on to a fresh choice of omega.

"You're still here."

I'd been musing, staring out the window at the sea, when Niall caught me in my office.

"Still? Did you expect me to drop dead?" I asked.

"I expected you to go claim the omega," Niall answered, helping himself to the seat across from mine at my desk.

"That's tomorrow."

"Are you hoping Gamesby will have her first? If you really want an omega this time, why not do what they do and place your mark the night before?"

"I'll take her with or without one," I said.

Niall tipped his head. "Will you?"

"She'll just have to bathe when she gets here," I muttered. In truth, the scent marks had never bothered me as much as the betas liked to think. I just hadn't wanted any of the omegas. But too much time had passed and I could no longer afford to be picky. To wait for claiming to be an intense urge, rather than a political necessity.

It would be disappointing if Adelaide did succumb to Gamesby the night before the selection. Perhaps he'd been waiting intentionally, wanting the mark fresh to better put me off. But it wouldn't stop me from flying her back here.

"I can't say I know how it feels, but you could wait another decade," Niall suggested. Niall's human genes didn't offer him much of a rut. Certainly not the agony of an alpha's.

"That's just another decade for them to stir up the idea of killing me," I said. "Achieve an heir, and I'm on safer ground." A dragon with young was considered stronger, especially an alpha. I wasn't sure if it was old folklore or a real part of our power as dragonkin, but at the very least it would make the other betas pause before pursuing my defeat.

"Letting Gamesby mark your intended the night before the selection makes you look like a fool. Taking her after the mark makes you look desperate too, now that they know how much you hate it. Go to her, Ronson. Stake your claim. If you really hate the idea, I don't know why you'd bother with her."

Which was right, of course, and Niall lounged in that chair with the superior calm of one who always managed to know better.

"You just want me out so you're king of the castle," I said, offering Niall a half-smile he mirrored. "Fine. I'll play the eager suitor."