Her breath hitched and her lips parted, and while I told myself I was only taking a chaste kiss for the benefit of our audience, I found myself hunting for more of that rare flavor. Mairwen was softening in my arms, her own hands sliding up to clutch the collar of my coat. She didn't know how to respond as I stroked my tongue against hers, but she shivered and her sweet breath huffed, laced with what I was sure was her perfume.

I pulled away slowly, nipping her top and bottom lip, and Mairwen's eyes fluttered open, a darker shade of honey.

Again, a gritty voice in my head urged.

I ignored it, adjusting Mairwen in my hold, lifting her off her feet and wrapping my other arm beneath her wonderfully soft ass.

"Arms around my shoulders," I said, my wings spreading wide.

Legs around my waist, the dragon in me growled, her plush body as pleasing to hold as I remembered.

Mairwen's arms were loose, her face still slack in wonder from the kiss, but her grip tightened with the first beat of my wings. She bit back a yelp of surprise as I leapt up, and we took to the air with two more rough sweeps of my wings.

"You can hide your face if you're⁠—"

Mairwen was craning in my arms as we tipped and flew, twisting to look down at the ground. I held her tighter so she could look her fill.

"They're all getting so small," Mairwen laughed.

The isle shrank, and I gave into a rare impulse to see how high I could fly us, forgetting until Mairwen was shivering that she wasn't dressed for real flight. She laughed and gasped as I dipped down, allowing the wind to coast us along toward the castle. Mairwen had hooked her ankle around my leg, and I glanced down at her as her eyes fell shut, a blissful ease taking over her features. The wind was ruining the pinched arrangement of her hair, loosening strands from pins, and her cheeks were pink with cold and delight.

The castle staff would be waiting for us at the front entrance, but I wanted to see Mairwen's face as I showed her the view of the sea and the cliffs from this height.

"I'm too heavy for you to carry like this," Mairwen said, but she was still turned toward the view and missed my sneer.

"Don't be absurd," I said, our voices raised to carry over the rush of the wind. "We could fly like this for hours."

A wistful smile spread over her lips at that, and then she clutched my shoulders as I rotated us to the side, flying left of the castle.

"We could travel between islands, if you were dressed properly and I was in my dragon form," I added.

She bit her lip. "I've never been off the island."

"You will. Likely not long after the rut," I said. Once my frenzy had settled, there would be allies to introduce Mairwen to and we would take up our roles on the island, overseeing the relationship between dragonkin and humans, ensuring that the farms were rich and trade ran smoothly.

"Now, look down," I said as we neared the edge of the island.

I helped her turn in my hold, my arm wrapped around the firm structure of her corset. How much trouble would it be to convince her to stop wearing one? The style had been around for decades now—we were overdue for a change, and my mother had been a great influencer of fashion while she'd been alive.

But my mother had been respected.

"Oh!" Mairwen's gasp drew me back, her mouth open as we soared over the edge of the cliff.

The sea was a living creature from this height, its motion like breathing, like it was embracing the cliffs. A bit like sex too. The thrust and retreat. The wet smack against the cliffs; the familiar, reliable crash and sweeping motion. The view, and the soft form pressed chest to chest and hip to hip against me, gathered an easy heat of arousal in my groin. I imagined Mairwen's secretive perfume on the air too.

I flew in a circle for Mairwen until she was shivering from the sharp air, the pink of her cheeks turning red from the abrasion of the wind, and then pointed us toward the castle. Two familiar figures stood on the main balcony overlooking the sea, and I was tempted to carry us up to the high tower where Mairwen would build me a nest. But Niall and Beatrice were waiting, and while Niall might take the hint, Beatrice would hunt us down. She'd been waiting most of her life for me to take an omega, someone to share the burden of running the castle with.

Mairwen tensed in my arms as we started a slow, spiraling fall toward the balcony, her eyes already fixed to the contrasting pair. No one knew quite what to make of Niall. He had the wings of a dragon and the lifespan of one, but none of the scent marking of a beta, and no authority but what I granted him as my second. Beatrice, my half-sister, was one of the rare omegas who'd survived her beta husband. She had no heir and had returned to the castle before the age of forty, practically raising me while my mother and father oversaw the island until their deaths. Beatrice was stooped with age now, but her omega perfume still carried through the air as we neared—soothing lavender and stringent rosemary.

They were the only two people on the island whose opinion mattered to me.

Niall's face was frozen, blank, as I touched down on the balcony, his eyes bouncing between Mairwen and myself. "You made your choice," he said in lieu of a greeting.

I dipped my head. "I did."

Beatrice was already studying Mairwen with her hawkish gaze, no doubt seeing more of the woman than Niall and I had combined, but I was watching my half-brother. I'd told him of Gamesby's plot, but not about Mairwen being there with me. He had noticed her first, and I would've hated for him to point out he'd been right after all. He'd have plenty of time to do so now.

Niall stepped forward as I lowered Mairwen to her own feet, aware of the wobble of her as she caught her breath. My arm was around her shoulders, holding her to my side. The judgment of my siblings meant everything to me, and yet I almost wished I could've spared her from it. Or perhaps I was hoping to spare myself in case they thought I'd made a mistake.

"Omega Cadogan," Niall greeted, bowing to Mairwen.

Her breath caught at the title. It was what the dragonkin on the field should've greeted her with, not "Mouse." She started to curtsy, and I held her tight. Mairwen was my omega now. She curtsied to no one on this island but me.

"Mairwen, this is my brother, Niall, and my sister, Beatrice. Beatrice will help you learn the castle, the staff, everything you'll need after…" After the rut. Until that was over, she would be better occupied. I hoped.

Beatrice didn't bother lowering her gaze, and she bowed rather than trusting her old knees to a curtsy.

"It's lovely to meet you," Mairwen said to them both. Her voice was nice, low and soft when she grew shy like this, almost disappearing under the sound of the sea behind us.

"Niall is of no help to anyone. You needn't bother with him," I said, flashing a grin at my brother, who was still studying the woman pressed to my side.

Mairwen didn't laugh and Niall didn't grin, and the joke was sour on my tongue for a moment, until Niall finally looked back at me, a crooked smile on his lips, his eyes narrowed.

"Says the man who appears to have taken my wisdom to heart," Niall said.

She's the most interesting one here.

I swallowed, my jaw clenching, and at my side, Mairwen stiffened. But it was her perfume that caught me off guard. Whatever she understood of the words exchanged between my brother and I, it had elicited a soft burst of her scent. I turned my head to bow to hers, inhaling roughly, too greedy to let Niall or Beatrice have the whiff of her, fascinated by the strange phenomenon of its rare appearance. What was the key to unlocking her perfume? I wanted it in my possession. The very hint of it seemed to call the rut closer.