I swooped over their home, over their woods, nearly to Gamesby's house before realizing I was actively avoiding the job at hand.

I tucked my wings slightly, and flipped my body down like an arrow to land. Gamesby might try and shoot me if he saw me, pretend he thought I was wild game, but I knew how to slip through the trees and keep my steps quiet. I would use the time walking through the woods to organize my thoughts again.

Adelaide is an ideal omega, I reminded myself for the hundredth time, catching a wing talon on a tree branch and then climbing my way down slowly. Her family has a good track record of births on both sides. An heir will settle some of the beta jostling happening behind closed doors.

My boots touched the ground, and I gentled my steps. The only way they could take my place was by killing me, something I wasn't inclined to allow. I needed an omega, Adelaide, or at least the heir she would offer. I marched in silence toward my destination.

The thoughts were like commands in my own mind, settling a sensation that was less than nerves but more than disinterest. So strong was my determination to follow those commands that I almost missed the presence of voices. Familiar ones.

"Hugh, I'm nervous."

"Addie, pet, you've nothing to be nervous about. The plan hasn't changed in weeks. Your part will be nearly done tomorrow."

"No, it won't!"

I'd already halted my steps, taken shelter behind a vast tree, but the rough hiss of Adelaide Brys's voice left me intrigued and surprised, the sound so harsh and unlike anything I'd heard from her before.

"It all begins tomorrow, Hugh. If this works, if he chooses me⁠—"

"He'd be mad not to, Addie," Hugh said, his tone so dulcet in comparison to the omega's.

"Then I have to serve him for a brutish rut. For days! Doesn't the thought of an alpha rutting on top of me for hours and hours bother you?"

"It makes me furious," Hugh said, not sounding especially convincing to my mind.

There were gentle murmurs ahead, Hugh reassuring the omega of his worry and affection, but a crunch from behind sent me whirling around, surprise striking me roughly at what I found.

The strange omega woman, the one Niall and I had seen hiding from Gamesby's party, was wandering blindly through the trees, barely feet away. They called her Mouse, as I'd learned from a chuckling pack of beta dragons over whiskey after a dinner. She had her nose in another book, not even noticing a briar catching on her skirts, and definitely unaware that she was about to walk straight into an argument I was dying to hear the culmination of. If she looked up, saw me, made any noise at all, she might alert them to my presence.

I lurched forward as quietly as I could and grabbed her, clapping my hand over her lips, a suitably mouse-ish but small squeak released against my palm. With another quick, careful motion, I hauled her up off her clumsy feet and into my hiding spot with a tight grip around her arms and waist.

"Silence," I spoke roughly into her ear.

She tensed in my arms, and I noted with surprise that her stodgy-looking frame was, in fact, a very unfortunate disguise. She felt quite promising, now that I had my arms around her. Her stomach was soft, and her ass was incredibly full and plush against my hips. Interesting. Distracting, even.

"You'll enjoy the rut. You can't help it," Hugh said, gentleness disguising the lack of feeling in the words. Adelaide squawked in outrage, another new sound from her, and Hugh continued, "All you have to do is put up with him for a few days, a week or so, and then open a door when I send word."

The little mouse in my arms—Lord Posy's daughter, very unfortunately arranged for Old Gryffyd, from what I'd heard—seemed as keenly aware of the intrigue of the conversation as I was, and she stopped struggling almost as soon as the pair's voices raised. I could've let her go, told her to stay quiet, but it would've been a wasted chance to hold such a comfortably formed body. She did have a scent after all, a tiny one, but it reminded me of a perfume I'd smelled on a human woman once, designed to entice a dragon—amber and gold, warm and syrupy. It was fainter on the Posy girl, but less artificial too.

"I have half a mind to leave the door locked. If I'm so suited to a rut, I'm sure I'm suited to be an alpha's omega too," Adelaide said, sounding more herself, coy and teasing. I bit off my snarl at their casual use of me in the conversation, as if I might be the pawn in their game.

"You'll be his broodmare. Don't mistake his reluctance to choose thus far as him being anything less than his father's son. If you survive birth, he'll find a way to kill you off."

The woman in my arms stiffened, and I resisted the impulse to reassure her. It might've been true of my father, although I hoped not. It wouldn't be of me.

"First I'll be fine, then I'll be killed off⁠—"

"Not in a handful of days, you won't. Don't be difficult, Addie. Worst case, you're burdened with an alpha's son, who will most likely grow up to be alpha. And if not that, then I'll be alpha next, and you'll bear me all the sons and daughters we could wish for."

A hand was clutching my arm, the omega I held shocked by the words I heard. I was a little shocked too. Not by Gamesby's ambition, but that it hadn't occurred to me they might use an omega as a trap. It was clever, and as I'd been telling myself for weeks, Adelaide was perfect. For my use and theirs.

"Admit it. You're just all in a fluff because it's been ages since we've⁠—"

"Oh, Hugh. Why couldn't you have gotten rid of him before this? I don't want in his bed. He terrifies me."

"I know, pet, I know. And how I wish I could soothe your poor little heart with a kiss."

"More than a kiss," Adelaide urged.

The conversation took a turn, one that made the woman in my arms gasp, a surprisingly innocent sound for an omega who was almost over the edge of a desirable age.

For both our sakes, I lifted her off her toes, hiking her up at my side. Her arms wrapped easily around my shoulders, and I turned and walked us carefully away from the lovers' explicit speech.

The omega—Mairwen! I recalled at last—remained docile, pressed to my chest, her hands tight and almost possessive on my shoulders as I carried her. I headed roughly toward the village. The Posy estate sat on the other side of the town, in view of my castle.

"They're planning on killing you," Mairwen whispered, apparently satisfied with the distance we'd traveled.

"I gathered," I answered, lips twitching.

She huffed and started to squirm. I understood now why her clothes looked frumpy on her. The silhouettes of current fashion were too slim and straight to suit a form so inclined to volume and shape. She would look better out of her clothes than in, and I glanced down at her unjustly disguised breasts. What fool had thought to flatten them in a trap and then cover her up to her chin in fabric?

"What are you going to do?" she urged.

"Not allow them to succeed," I said easily, setting her down on her feet and offering her a rare smile.

She frowned back at me, lips twisting and pursing. She had a wide mouth, lips ample for kissing. She was still…not pretty, precisely, but I was realizing there was something there that deserved attention.

"I'm sure you can talk Adelaide out of it," she said, tone a little dubious.

She was right, of course. I absolutely could. I could order Adelaide to behave, even—demand pleasure from her too.

"It doesn't solve the issue of her having been talked into it in the first place," I said, checking over my shoulder that we were still alone.