I ignored my blush and raised my hands to my chest, lifting the heft of my breasts and trying not to imagine what Ronson would say about this situation.

"Yes. I see. We need support, not constraint." Miss Pettyfer flicked her measuring tape and squared her shoulders. "Hold that position, please. We have a few more measurements to take."

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Chapter Twenty-TwoRONSON

“There are barely enough viable omegas to go around as it is⁠—"

"If a man might provide for more⁠—"

"There'd be more if the alpha wasn't letting them dash off the island to ancients know where."

"—and you want to claim new ones and keep the old too?"

"Discarding a woman who served me well with a son just because she is no longer likely to provide a second is hardly the gallant gesture, now, is it? And my estate⁠—"

"I think we've had enough," Niall whispered to me under his breath.

I stirred in my seat, glaring at the gentlemen gathered around Lord Cambeth's table, and caught the tail end of the ridiculous conversation I'd been doing my best to ignore. Which had been surprisingly easy, considering the much more pleasant recollections readily available in my head.

"Cambeth, sit," I snapped, with the full weight of my alpha strength.

The conversation died abruptly, a screech of wooden legs on stone tearing against my ears as Lord Cambeth obeyed, against his will or otherwise.

"My lord," he tried.

"Lady Cambeth granted you a son, as you said. A nice, healthy heir, if he is the one I saw racing past the window on your excellent horseflesh earlier."

Lord Cambeth's chest puffed. "He's a fearsome rider. Very strong lad."

"And you have a daughter too, I believe," I said.

Lord Cambeth nodded, smirking slightly. "A great beauty."

Lord Cambeth had partnered an omega once before that I could recall, but there'd been no heir or issue, and she'd taken ill one winter a couple decades ago and passed away. The circumstances were only the slightest bit mysterious, and the investigator I'd put to the case had come away with nothing to incriminate the lord.

"You've been blessed," I continued, nodding to the man, feeding his pride. "You're correct that it would be quite ungentlemanly of you to cast your omega aside just because she is now past the age of fruitfulness."

Lord Cambeth's eyes gleamed with victory. The fool thought his absurd argument had won.

"Just as outrageous as it would be displace her in the home she has built you, in the bed she has made for you; to hand the keys over to a new woman, while she remains trapped to watch her position usurped," I continued, clasping my hands together on the surface of the table. "You ask too much, your boon is refused. You have the riches of your family. Be grateful for what your omega has granted you."

Silence rang around the room, and I knew from Niall's raised eyebrows and downturned glance that I had perhaps spoken too harshly against the older beta. But his request was absurd. To claim a second omega and hold two in his home together? A new one to bed and breed, while the elder, the mother of his dragonkin children, was set aside?

"Then I request⁠—"

"Do not request to me you be granted the right to break contract with Lady Cambeth," I snapped, rising from my seat. "You have your heir. Your estate is secure. Be grateful," I snarled softly.

Too harsh, Niall's voice cautioned in my head. But it was too late. And I wondered if maybe it wasn't time for me to start showing my teeth to these betas. Had I been too timid with them, trying to prove I was not my father, approaching their queries with reason and bargaining? I was the alpha. I didn't need to cajole these men, not when I could command them.

I narrowed my gaze and looked around the room. "The selection ceremony has confused you gentlemen. You think your omegas are a right. They are our privilege."

Betas shifted irritably around the table, some slack-jawed with shock, others eyeing one another as if to say See, he's against us. In truth, I was against those men. I'd been treading gently, trying to grease palms and make friends out of enemies. It meant I'd had to compromise where compromises were not deserving.

"They are your right, alpha, are they not?" Gideon Millward called out from the far end of the table.

Damn. I wet my lips and avoided Niall's eye, meeting only Gideon's gaze. "By the law of the selection, yes, an omega is my right. But as you gentlemen may remember, it was a right I refrained from for a great many years." Half-hearted chuckles answered my raised eyebrows. "Until Omega Cadogan."

And I dare one of you to tell me you really wanted her, I snarled in my thoughts, answering myself with, Mairwen would be wasted on them.

I leaned back in my chair, shoulders rolling and wings flexing restlessly. Thinking of Mairwen only reminded me how badly I wanted to be back in our nest. Preferably with her pinned beneath me, begging and gasping.

"My lord, be reasonable. You have denied us at every turn today," Redmond Palmer said, forcing a tense attempt at a jovial grin on his face. "You are our alpha. You are meant to serve the interests of the island. The interests we present⁠—"

I raised my hand, and the man's words died on his tongue, the corners of his eyes flinching at my interruption. "The interest of the island. Which are not solely the interests of the beta gentlemen who seek to make a profit or claim young women to their bedchambers."

"Lord Cadogan!"

"Mr. Buchanan, your mine has thrice now claimed lives. It has been sucked clean of profit, sir. I would be a fool to grant you the loan to reopen, to send more human workers⁠—"

"They desire work!"

"—to their graves in the hopes of another thin vein of tin," I said. "I agree that men out of work is not what we wish for the island, but families without fathers will serve no better. We must divert the efforts elsewhere. Alpha DeRoche has opened his seas another fifty miles to us."

"You want me to become a fishmonger," Mr. Buchanan spat. Lionel Buchanan was young and the only son of a once-prosperous mining empire, the only inheritance left to him and one that had been drained of its fortune long before his birth. He was very handsome but at the brink of being entirely penniless, and had persuaded no omega to his side yet.

I gathered in a deep breath, fire swirling in my lungs, my claws digging into the arms of the chair, and Buchanan paled slightly.

"Should you change your mind, a suitable account will be arranged for you to start a small fleet of fishing boats."

"And the new mine?" Redmond Palmer asked, eyes gleaming brightly, almost as if he were eager for my refusal.

"There is no evidence to suggest it would be successful and certainly not safe. You need certifiable studies, Palmer. It will serve none of us if the isle crumbles into water pits you all insisted upon digging."

Palmer's lips pursed, but he sat back.

"There's no cause to evict paying tenants from their homes," I continued, waving to another beta who'd wanted to unhouse a number of human farmers to add hunting land to his estate. "And as you already have an omega, Lord Cambeth, no, you may not take another. If you gentlemen wish to gain my permission, I suggest you bring me better causes."