"Tell them the truth, then," Ronson grumped, but he was sliding his arm out from under my shoulders. "Their alpha was rutting his omega like a mad beast⁠—"

"Ronson," I hissed, lifting the book I'd been reading aloud up to cover my flaming cheeks.

"—for weeks on end and had no real intention of stopping," Ronson finished, grinning at me and winking one dark eye. "At least not after some well-earned rest."

I squeaked and dragged the blanket up over me. We'd been fairly chaste—kissing and gentle touches aside—since I'd woken from the heat. I'd talked Ronson into letting me wash him, and while he didn't sport as many love bites and bruises as I did, there'd been no disguising the irritated redness of his cock. But I was curious about what it might be like once we were healed, without the urgent craze of the breeding instincts.

"Believe it or not, I did tell them that."

"Niall!" I cried, throwing the blanket off.

Ronson laughed, drawing his trousers up his hips.

"I'm just not sure they…believed me," Niall said.

I swallowed and turned my face away. Of course the island didn't believe Ronson would be enjoying his rut with me. I'm sure if Niall passed along the information I'd gone into heat, it would've been a society-wide joke to share. The awkward, scentless, improbable omega in heat? Laughably outrageous.

But it did happen, I reminded myself. Whether or not society believed it, Ronson was pleased with me.

"Give me five minutes," Ronson called to his brother.

I turned back and tried to make my face blank, but Ronson was watching me as usual, prowling back to the bed with his pants half-buttoned and his chest bare. He was too beautiful, too powerful. Dark scales gleamed under tan skin for a moment as he crossed through a stream of sunlight, and I recalled the way those scales had come forward during the rut, his cheekbones sharpening to dragon spikes, his shoulders armored between my thighs as he licked me clean.

"You can't dawdle," I said.

"I can if I want to," Ronson said, bucking up his chin. My eyebrows rose, and his gaze glittered with hidden mischief. He was still young by dragon standards, but he hid that boyish mischief well, buried under stern command. Not from me, though.

"I think you like riling Niall up. You know he wants what's best for you," I said, leaning back as Ronson crawled onto the bed. I fell back into the pillows, and Ronson braced himself above me.

My body still throbbed slightly with aches and bruises, but there was a quivering interest in this moment with him above me, the slight urge to spread myself in invitation.

"He does. More importantly, he wants what's best for the isle. I'll leave in a moment. But first…" Ronson lowered himself on top of me, and I caught my breath, eyes widening.

"First?"

"I want my omega to kiss me goodbye."

I laughed, but I lifted my chin. Ronson had been treating my lips and inner thighs with a light salve that tingled but seemed to do a world of good, and it didn't hurt at all to open my lips to him. The bedsheet covered me up to my breasts, a thin barrier as Ronson settled his weight against me, not grinding, simply pressing, and I couldn't help but squirm beneath him. His tongue traced my lips, and I parted them eagerly. We hadn't kissed like this since the heat, and I found myself suddenly starving for his taste.

He purred into my mouth, tongue delving, and I sighed, suckling and answering him with a lick of my own. Every spare second he'd bought from Niall was given to the kiss, and I wasn't nervous or shy at all. The foggy hours of the rut and heat had changed me. I knew this man, knew the hitch of his breath and the weight of his body and the taste of his hunger. I moaned as he stroked inside of my mouth, whined as his knees trapped my legs shut.

And slowly, the air between us filled with a thick, heavy sweetness. Ronson groaned as he pulled away, dropping fully onto me, burying his face in my throat.

My perfume. He'd wanted my perfume. He was dressing himself in it before leaving the nest. For his own comfort? Or for the betas?

I tucked my face into his silky hair, kissing aimlessly, and stroked the back of his neck with my hands.

"The dressmaker is coming today," Ronson rasped, not moving from on top of me.

"When did you have time to manage that?" I asked. It was difficult to catch my breath with him using me as a mattress, but I didn't mind.

"Put Beatrice onto it before you woke."

"It'll still be weeks before they have anything ready for me. And in the meantime, I have next to nothing to wear since you destroyed⁠—"

"Rightfully. I have no regrets."

"—my undergarments."

"Good riddance."

The rogue didn't deserve my laughter but I couldn't resist, and Ronson purred, nuzzling against the thrum of my pulse.

"You're running out of time," I murmured.

He grunted but peeled himself away from me, stopping to sit up at the edge of the bed, scuffing his bearded jaw with his hand. "I think I'll shave for dinner."

I tried not to pout. I liked Ronson's beard. It scraped a little, yes, but⁠—

"And for dessert," he said, eyeing my lap with dark hunger.

My breath hitched, my perfume bloomed, and Ronson left the nest grinning.

"Well, I certainly see the necessity for a change in shape," Miss Priscilla Pettyfer said as her measuring tape pinched around my waist.

I flushed but held my chin high to keep from seeing the picture of us in the mirror. Miss Pettyfer, in her perfectly pristine flocked muslin and polished leather boots, was a delicate and miniscule woman who walked and snapped her dreaded measuring tape with authority, but spoke in the gentle and demure tones of a human amongst dragonkin.

And there I was, in a shabby and well-worn chemise, my skin marked and reddened, dark circles still shadowing beneath my eyes, and my usually drearily straight hair attempting to escape out of the braid I'd hastily arranged. Something about being so close to the sea seemed to coax my hair into an unruly halo of waves. I was precisely this human's opposite, and I wobbled in place on the cushioned stool where I was perched.

"Your waist is quite small. It would be a shame to drape it under swathes of fabric," Miss Pettyfer remarked, almost to herself. It took me a moment to hear the words for what they were—a compliment.

"Small?" I echoed, glancing into the mirror and seeing the point where the strip of brown leather hatched with black lines tightened around my waist.

"An hourglass figure was all the rage only a century ago," the seamstress continued, drawing the leather strap away and then holding one end to my waist and letting the other hit the floor.

Hourglass. Not plump. Not…all the other disparaging words I'd heard murmured from my mother's lips, or from someone like Adelaide.

"It's not…not really small," I said, reaching my own hands tentatively to my stomach. The soft swell of flesh hadn't vanished in the rut.

"It draws in," Miss Pettyfer said matter-of-factly, catching my wrists and then moving my hands to either side, settling them in the crook of my waist before it spread out to generous hips. "Dresses now are cut to create long, straight figures of women, but I've always believed the best dress will admire the woman within it, not reshape her. Your waistlines need lowered, for starters. But I think we must start beneath the dress." She stepped back and eyed me head to toe twice before lifting her keen gaze to mine. "Forgive my impertinence, Omega Cadogan, but would you lift your breasts for me?"