For a moment, I held that stare. It was strange enough to be seen, to be noticed, by anyone these days. I'd taken their name for me to heart, finding small corners to hide and read in. Letting these tedious afternoons pass in my own silence was easier than trying to dig my way into conversations where I wasn't wanted, where Mother's friends could pick at my appearance or the beta gentlemen went out of their way to avoid engaging me in conversation or dance. But what did he see, now that he was looking? Was I the mouse at first glance to the alpha too?

"Lord Cadogan, you've quite smashed our merriment in all your terrible glory."

The dark stare left me abruptly, and I realized all at once that my face was warm and my fingers were clenching the arm of the chair. I shook myself and shrank back into the cushions, into my hiding, as the alpha's attention drifted. Only Adelaide Brys could say such an atrocious thing to the man who commanded all of us, everyone on this entire island, and receive the slight hint of a smirk. It was suddenly clear to me, and perhaps even I had realized the obvious a little late, that a month from now, the alpha would choose Adelaide at the selection ceremony.

Adelaide's flirting roused Lady Gertrude back to her generally remarkable hostessing abilities, and the plumply attractive older woman hurried across the room to greet the alpha and do her duty of introductions. Dragon wings rustled in agitation, the beta gentlemen ill at ease with their superior at hand.

He's gotten sick of waiting, I realized, watching the exchange, the way the alpha's gaze picked out each young omega in the room.

"How shocking for him to just appear like this!"

I looked up to find Sophia, another omega up for the selection, paused in front of me, eyes rapt on the alpha.

"Is it?" I asked. "Surely he was invited."

Sophia blinked and glanced at me, and I realized she'd been speaking absently, hadn't realized I was even here to answer.

"Well, he's never accepted before now," she said, as if we were all meant to go on doing exactly what we'd always done, our alpha included.

I hummed, and Sophia floated away, a pretty moth to the flame of the most powerful dragon in the room. It was said that after claiming the role, an alpha exuded the power of the ancient dragons we all descended from. I'd thought it a myth, until finding myself in a small parlor with the alpha himself. He was too potent for the delicate space, it was as if strength rolled off him in waves, buffeting against the lesser betas, catching nearby omegas like fish on hooks.

It had been half a century since Lord Cadogan had risen as alpha, and for five decades he'd neglected to select an omega to breed and bear his heir. The rumor I'd heard whispered plenty was that our alpha would not choose an omega with another dragon's scent on her. In this—as in many things, according to my father—Lord Cadogan was unlike his father before him. Our previous alpha had gleefully chosen an eligible omega girl of the gentry at nearly every selection. Lord Cadogan's own mother had only put a stop to the practice by very stubbornly refusing to die in childbirth, delivering her alpha a son at last.

The many beta gentlemen who'd all been offering beautiful Adelaide a captive audience hurried now to claim seats by their chosen young ladies, and I smirked at the sudden flurry. Only Hugh Gamesby, a hearty beta of only forty and who looked another twenty years younger still—a perfect match to Adelaide's youth and beauty—remained at the pianoforte, although his dark wings rustled and his feet stomped slightly whenever the alpha moved an inch closer to Hugh's intended.

Formerly intended.

I'd considered Hugh Gamesby quite a strong beta, experienced a faint sense of magnetism the few moments I was near him in the past. He'd seemed the sort of beta who might one day rise to alpha. Not now. Now he was a whisper, a withering note of strength that shrank against the stronger presence in the room. The one who prowled ever closer to Hugh's paramour.

Adelaide was exquisite. She was and had always been the personification of perfection. It was as if she'd been cut and stitched to be exactly to fashion. Her silky strawberry blonde hair was artfully twisted, coy curls falling to brush her collar. In her cherubic face, wide blue eyes glanced with deft and flirtatious precision. She was petite and only so gently curved as to be definitely feminine, bosom blushing prettily above her collar with the use of a good set of stays. I fidgeted in my own painfully tightened stays and tried to watch the trio slyly over the edge of my book, not that anyone would take note of my stare.

Adelaide was talented and sweet—impertinent too, but only to charm—and she had a natural omega perfume that even I found distracting. She was made for an alpha, would've been wasted on a beta like Hugh, and now it was inevitable.

Lord Cadogan would not wait for the selection ceremony, when all the young omegas had already been surreptitiously claimed by betas, marked with their scents to put him off. He would have Adelaide. I wondered if the ceremony would even take place, or if he would cart her off to his castle tonight.

It's so predictable, I thought, wishing I could rise up from my chair, turn the alpha in any other direction. Adelaide was the perfect omega, he was the precise definition of an alpha, and it was boring. Boring and…disappointing?

I shifted in my seat, trying to twist away from the scene, refocus on my book. I couldn't be jealous. I was lucky to even have a dragon suitor. Mr. Gryffyd Evans was over a century old, showing more than half his years, and not one of the omegas he'd chosen for a rut had survived childbirth—although several of the children had, all girls, long since grown. I'd been born in an unfortunate year, just a few months shy of having qualified for the last selection, and now by far the eldest omega available for the upcoming one. According to absolutely everyone, and most especially my parents, I ought to be delighted to be all but claimed by Mr. Evans.

I glanced in the beta's direction and found a hollow chill trickling down my spine at the sight of the old dragon, lips twisted in a sneer, proud jaw raised obstinately high.

I was lucky to have Mr. Evans's offer, and he appeared to know it. All the other omegas were now warily guarded by betas who could do no more than hover, not if our alpha really wanted to engage an omega. He would always take precedence. Only his curious distaste had prevented him from taking a rut partner in so many decades. And now he'd sorted that out for himself. But no, Mr. Gryffyd Evans was unfazed. Actually, he was frowning at me—probably not pleased with my potential—but he didn't look the least bit worried and made no move to guard my virtue or attention from Lord Cadogan.

And he needn't have been. Lady Gertrude made good work of introducing the alpha to everyone who mattered in the room. They didn't come within feet of me. No, our alpha stopped the niceties as soon as he'd reached the pianoforte, where Adelaide was playing and blushing, and ah, yes, now she was singing for him.

Good for her, I thought, not quite sure I meant it. Adelaide had given me the nickname of 'Mouse,' although she'd only been six at the time, when she found me hiding under a porch at another garden party, reading. It wasn't her fault it'd been so cheerfully adopted. And it wasn't her fault I'd let it be proven right, keeping to my corners, avoiding the stings of being corrected, rejected, dismissed by staying out of the way.

For a moment, I imagined rising from my seat, swanning across the room, accidentally brushing against the alpha to catch his attention…

And then what, you goose? And then my courage might fail, or I might say something rude but not coyly like Adelaide, or since a body like mine did not swan or brush, I might just end up squashing myself to the alpha and humiliating my family.