I froze, blinking back at Niall. "Is she?"

Niall stopped too, reading me too easily. His voice lowered, and he leaned in, glaring. "Ronson…what about the Flight of Alphas were you hoping to discuss with her?"

I sighed, stretching my wings back to touch their spines to the cool stone wall. "I am wondering if it wouldn't be better if Mairwen remained here instead of joining me."

Niall's expression flattened, and he drew himself up. I sometimes forgot that my brother was nearly my own height. "Do you? Ronson, I…" He shook his head, rolling his eyes skyward. "Do you realize what a monumental mistake that would be? I know your motivations. I know what you feel for that young woman⁠—"

"You were there last night," I hissed. "You saw what the Posys put her through."

Niall stepped forward, and I was too baffled by his raised fist to do anything but watch as it approached my face. If he'd been inclined, he could've landed quite the punch in that moment. Instead, he thumped firmly against my forehead, as if knocking on a locked door.

"You're an idiot," he said simply. "I saw Mairwen's parents express every possible doubt as to her competency as your omega."

"Fuck." The word grunted out of me as Niall's words sunk into my thick skull.

"And, yes, I saw how it belittled her confidence until she bore next to no resemblance to the woman I'd grown acquainted with here in the castle," Niall continued, leaving the obvious unspoken.

If I suggested to Mairwen that she might not be ready to join me at the Flight of Alphas, I would be confirming those doubts the Posys had tossed about last night. Which was unacceptable.

"I'll admit that I can't guess what the others will think of Mairwen, but I will give even the worst of the lot the credit that they probably won't offer her insults to her face. Not like the ones she suffered last night," Niall muttered with a shake of his head, matching my pose against the wall opposite me. "If you show half the restraint you did with the Posys, we won't have a diplomatic issue on our hands either."

I laughed and let my head thunk against the stone behind me. "You would've made a good alpha," I said.

Niall was quiet, and I lifted my head to find him staring back at me, startled. "Thank you. But believe it or not, I do prefer my current position," he said.

"You deserve more respect."

Niall huffed and waved his hand, turning back to the end of the hall. "Much easier to get my work done when people only pay attention to me for the wrong reasons."

I followed, catching my brother by the shoulder, turning him to face me. "I mean it, Niall. Thank you."

He flushed, and his eyes darted every direction but mine for a moment, but he let out a breath and settled, nodding. "You would've been intolerably distracted if you'd hurt her feelings. I can barely keep you focused as it is. But come, no doubt by now Mairwen will be ready to teach you a thing or two about the history of dragonkin politics."

I clapped Niall's back and hauled him alongside me to my omega.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Twenty-SevenMAIRWEN

‘Our Alpha Falk, a goode reign of one hundred years or more, following the death of her mate⁠—'

I blinked at the page, my finger beneath the word mate, my other hand lifting a cup of tea to my lips. Slowly, I lowered the tea and set it aside, safely away from the ancient text.

'Following the death of her mate…'

Alpha Falk was a woman?

I'd found the word mate a number of times in regards to these historic alphas, and as near as I could tell, it referred to the omega an alpha had chosen to remain by his side for a lifetime. They usually produced male heirs at an irregular rate—more frequently than the ten-year cycle of a rut, to be sure—and were included in histories of flights, battles, and politics. But never had I heard of an omega mate rising to the rule of alpha. Had it been an honorary title offered during a time of peace?

No, I remembered this area in the records of battles, and there'd been at least three in the century she would've ruled. I'd only assumed that she was the same Alpha Falk as her alp—mate.

I marked the page with a ribbon and then pushed back from my seat. Niall and Ronson were at the ports today, meeting with local merchants, which left me and Beatrice with the run of the castle. Her office was only two corridors away, and I hurried there, my hands fiddling in the deep pockets of one of my new dresses.

I'd told Ronson I would be researching the family lines of significant dragonkin today, and in a way, I was, but I'd long since worked through any information that might be relevant for the upcoming flight. No, for the past two days, I'd been searching for more mentions of mates. It seemed as though the further back I searched, the more I found, and I knew there must be some piece still missing, something that explained what made an omega mate different than an omega rut partner. It was possible that the word had simply fallen out of fashion, but every time I tried to push my curiosity aside, it continued to itch in my thoughts.

There had to be more.

I burst into Beatrice's study, and received her usual arched eyebrows in reply. But she smiled slightly too and set down her pen.

"What seems to be the matter, Mairwen?"

"Where…where do we keep the portraits of old alphas? The ones we no longer display?" I asked.

Beatrice hummed for a moment, head tilting. "There are a few attics that might serve as storage for that sort of thing," she said, rising and drawing a heavy ring of keys from her desk drawer, older and simpler-looking than the ones she carried at her hip day-to-day. "Some underground storerooms too, though I can't say what state anything would be in, if that were the case."

"I don't mind searching on my own, if you'd rather not," I said, almost wishing Beatrice might hand me the ring and leave me to it.

Not that I didn't like the older woman—she was wonderful and we'd grown to be friends. And I suspected if anyone else in the castle would be thrilled to learn of a woman alpha in our history, it would be Beatrice. But it was my mystery for the moment.

Beatrice pursed her lips, and I sighed, relenting. "But I think…if I find what I'm looking for, you'd like to see it too," I admitted.

"Lead the way, Omega Cadogan," she said with a smile.

I blinked, turning toward the door, then paused and winced. "Well…actually, I don't know the way."

Beatrice laughed, and we set off together.

Two attics, one lower keep, and a very large closet later, I was giving up hope.

"Perhaps they didn't keep them after all," I murmured.

"Unlikely," Beatrice said, huffing and throwing a large sheet back over a collection of boxes that housed old dinnerware. "Dragons hoard, not discard."

I chewed on the inside of my lip briefly. "There is much of our history that it seems was…nearly erased."

"Nearly, yes," Beatrice said, leading us back out of the closet. "But you found it in the library, didn't you? Because whatever our alpha predecessors did not want the public to know, they couldn't bring themselves to destroy outright. If it exists, Mairwen, it will be here. Somewhere. Come, there's a long flight directly up to the attic just this way."