"I flew with Damian to face his father," I hissed.

Seamus shrugged. "You served your purpose. Bleake Isle doesn't offer anything to Skybern, and now Worthington must make nice with the old guard. He's a snake. Tries to cheat my fleet."

I glanced at Niall, who was making a thorough study of the crowd, his head buzzing, planning, untangling this new information for us both.

"Do you see his shadow?" Seamus asked me.

It took me a moment to sift through my own thoughts and the faces around us before I realized who Seamus meant. Damian resembled his father, classically handsome, not very large for a line of alphas, more a long-honed blade. And behind Damian was an echo of that resemblance—a taller, broader man, but one with the same fine features and dark hair. Unlike Damian, this man did not smile, did not charm those around him, did not wheedle alliances and agreements. If Damian was a snake, this man was solely fangs.

"Bennet Reeves, although they say he is Campbell Worthington's bastard," Seamus said. "I can't make out if Damian doesn't realize what a threat he has at his back, or if he thinks he's smarter than that man. Personally, I'd have him killed."

If Damian was cheating Seamus, the alpha had a perfectly good motive to steer my own alliances away from Worthington and to the bastard brother. After all, that was why we alphas came together. Torion's place in Grave Hills was recently secured, but certainly a man like Keane was already considering whether or not he might find a better ally. Torion was replacing a man like my father, and Grave Hills had an especially bad record of treatment to its omegas, so much so that the ratio of betas to omegas was ten to one. Some betas hoped Torion would improve the conditions, and thus the ratio; others preferred the cutthroat competition for women. If Keane was looking to replace Torion, then the new Alpha of Grave Hills and I were in a similar situation.

I wasn't sure if that made him the most powerful ally I could find—he might end up busy with his own problems before long—but unlike Damian Worthington, apparently, I planned to keep my word to another alpha.

"Come, it's time for the flight," Seamus said.

I nodded, following Seamus to where the other alphas were gathering around Torion, the betas in the crowd backing respectfully away until they were well clear of us. Torion's hands were clenched at his side, the only hint of tension he revealed. His brown chest was entirely bared today, forgoing the green woven sash he usually wore as a sign of his father's line. He was darker than the other men of Grave Hills. His mother had come from somewhere in the sunbelt region of the sea and caught his father's eye before the local selection. Lachlan was the first of the Feargus line to claim the alpha throne in Grave Hills, and without a serious family reputation and no inclination to follow in his father’s footsteps in terms of how he ruled, Torion's reign was going to be a difficult one.

His chin was held high, but I thought I caught an easing around his eyes as he found me in the stretched ring of alphas who surrounded him. I offered him a nod of acknowledgement, then remained still.

"I am Torion Feargus," the newly risen alpha shouted, turning in a slow circle, his dark green wings stretching and flexing.

"Aye!" we answered back in unison, our wings beating once at our backs.

"I have defeated Lachlan Feargus!"

"Aye!" Air churned around us.

"I am the alpha!" Torion's feet planted in the ground, his scales shimmering back and forth across his bared, light brown chest.

"Aye!"

"I rule these hills!" Torion bellowed.

We roared back together, and our roars grew louder as wind swirled and magic changed our shapes. I'd always thought the transformation was somehow both an unbearable pain, like an explosion of my form, and also a release of tension, as if I'd been too tightly bound in my man's shape.

The threat of other alpha dragons around me left me restless and temperamental, and I stomped taloned feet against the ground, wings thumping and nearly striking against Seamus's. He leapt, catching air, and I followed, Torion's own horned nose and gleaming fangs pointed high to his destination, as if he might take his first flight as alpha all the way to the sun.

"Today made me question whether claiming my place was worth the trouble," Torion said, grimacing and then taking a long gulp from his glass. "Fang's fire, Roach, this is good."

DeRoche was on better terms with Torion than I'd realized before, and it was the four us, Niall included, left lingering in Torion's tent. My eyes kept drifting to the horizon, the setting sun, aware that I was in for a long flight home and another day was passing without me having my way with Mairwen. Would she be wondering where I was? Was she impatient? Or was she enjoying her freedom in the castle without me? Perhaps when I returned, she'd have an entire house up around the bed, bricked together with her collection of books.

The thought made me smile.

"It's time we put this poor bastard out of his misery and let him get back to his omega," Seamus said, slapping my shoulder hard.

Torion's eyebrows rose. "Omega? You claimed one?"

I dipped my head. "I did."

"What on earth are you doing here, then?" Torion laughed.

"Proving my respect for you," I grumbled.

Torion's head fell back, inky black curls rioting around his head with his roar of laughter. Wings the color of a forest in deep winter shook, his bared chest and shoulders revealing his scales with a shimmer of bronze. Whatever the local betas wanted to think, Torion had his father Lachlan's huge build and thick curls, even with all of his mother's warmer coloring.

"You're honest to a fault, Cadogan," Torion said, and Seamus snorted. "I never doubted your support. Go home. You smell like a rut, and now that I've ascended to alpha, my own won't be far off. Don't need you rushing me."

Niall and I glanced at one another, and my brother's eyebrows bounced. Seamus smirked at me.

Torion wasn't blind. "Oh, I see. Not just your gesture of respect."

I sighed, sinking deeper into the seat I'd been offered as I took another sip of Seamus's admittedly extremely fine liquor.

"I uncovered a plot for my assassination," I said.

"Damn," Seamus hissed, leaning forward. "I thought you were just hearing their snark behind your back at last."

I shook my head. "They planned to use the selection to plant an omega in my bed who would give them access to attack me after the rut."

"No wonder you're here⁠—"

"No, no. I found out before the ceremony. I surprised them all by picking another." An infinitely better choice it was too, I mused. "But it won't be long before they have a new plan."

"If you're going into rut, it might not be long until you have an heir," Seamus said, shrugging and frowning. "You know what everyone says about the strength of two dragons. Even if it's a load of nonsense, superstitions make people nervous."

But Mairwen would be the new target. My family line on the alpha seat was so long, Gamesby and any other beta who wanted me dead would never see my son as anything but a threat to their own rule.

"Do you trust your new omega?" Torion asked.

"I do," I said immediately.

Seamus looked to Niall. "Well? You're the real brains of Cadogan's rule."

I huffed a laugh, and Niall smiled smoothly. "Mairwen's an unconventional omega, but yes, she's trustworthy. Ronson made the right choice…in the end."