Adelaide swallowed but forced a smile to her lips, her narrowed stare on my omega. "Shouldn't it be your turn by now?"

Mairwen murmured an assent, her cheeks flushing, and she made to rise from the chair.

Across the room, Gamesby let out a bark of laughter. "Does the Mouse play music?" He was deep in his cups, too free with his tongue, and even Palmer shot him a quelling glance from the card table. "I've never heard such a thing."

"Nor have I, truth be told," Adelaide said, smirking slightly.

It was some kind of trap, an obvious attempt to belittle Mairwen. And come to think of it, I had also never heard Mairwen play, so perhaps she didn't, or maybe she was terrible, neither of which I cared the slightest about.

"No," I said, too sharply.

Mairwen was on her feet and she flinched, her eyes wide and the lovely blush over her cheeks turning spotty and red. Beatrice glared at me from her seat, and Niall refused to lift his eyes from the cards, but I knew straight away the error I'd made, all but confirming Adelaide and Gamesby's lack of faith.

"Unless…you want to, of course," I stumbled out, catching Mairwen's hand with mine. "I know you are…tired from our travels."

Mairwen's stare searched me, and I wanted to drag her into my arms, kiss away the worry on her brow, apologize for being an idiot, and tell her I'd be more than happy to listen to her sing bar songs and sea shanties and nursery rhymes if it suited her. It wouldn't matter if she were awful. I might not even be able to tell, too thoroughly besotted.

"I enjoy playing," she said softly, squeezing my fingers.

Oh. Well. If she enjoyed it, then I was incapable of arguing.

I took the seat she vacated, and Adelaide remained smug, flouncing her way back to Gamesby's side. If they laughed, if they so much as blinked in mockery during her performance, I would eat them alive. Niall would forgive me. Eventually.

Except as Mairwen sat calmly down on the velvet bench, the spotlight glow of the oil lamp enveloped her, casting her in gold, and my attention was hers entirely. She closed the sheet music Adelaide had been using and set it aside, not pulling anything out for herself. Her hands rested on the keys, and I was jealous of every place where her fingertips touched ivory instead of me.

It was obvious by the first bar of music that Adelaide and Gamesby really never had heard Mairwen play, or they wouldn't have dared issue the challenge. The melody was simple, but the music was liquid, notes not plucked and tapped but blending into one another. My lips curved, an unguarded smile taking over my face. It was obvious Mairwen did enjoy playing. She was calm and proud, back straight and eyes drifting, not needing to stare down at her hands.

But when she sang…

When she sang, I stopped breathing.

The card game came to a halt, and I only noticed because it meant there was no other sound in the room, no other voice but hers. Mairwen's voice was heavy and open, hollow and echoing, swinging low and floating high, and it carved through my chest like dragon talons. The words were there, a pretty and tragic story about betrayed love, words I wanted to steal from her lips because Mairwen should never even have to think about such a thing.

Why did it sound as though she knew heartbreak? Why did her voice cry with tears? Had she loved someone? Someone who'd left her behind?

I would tear them limb from limb, then thank them for leaving the road open for me to claim my omega.

Her breath shuddered on a sigh, and the room breathed with her before going still as her voice rose sweetly, a perfect contrast to the desolate woe of the heroine.

Mairwen was casting a spell, or perhaps she was pulling aside the enchantment, the one that had fooled this island into seeing a mouse, so easily overlooked. And what was behind the curtain was terrifying and divine, a woman capable of offering salvation or devastation to your heart. I wanted to slide off the chair and down to the floor, to crawl across the room and offer myself prostrate to Mairwen's whims, but I was frozen in place.

Her voice sank, down into the dark fathoms of water where the heroine was left to perish, and my heart in my chest cracked open to let the sea in to drown me too.

Mine. Mine, mine, mine, the dragon in me crowed in victorious chorus.

For a moment, as the last chord of the music hung in the air, we all remained trapped. Don't leave us here, I thought irrationally, as if Mairwen might suddenly vanish before us, the magic of her now at an end. But then her hands fell to her lap and her face turned toward us, toward me, eyes open and a little nervous.

And still I couldn't move.

Thank the ancestors for Niall and Beatrice, who started the applause, a jarring cacophony after Mairwen's offering of pure music, but it did the trick of rousing us from her spell.

Buchanan's chair squawked as he rose from his seat, clapping quite roughly, and Palmer joined in, although his eyes were wide on Mairwen, seeing her for the first time.

I didn't want him to see her. I didn't want any of them looking at her.

Mine, my dragon growled.

And so she was.

I rose from my chair, noting them all—even Gamesby and Adelaide were offering compliments, although in a daze, as if they'd forgotten why they coaxed her into playing—but not bothering to look anywhere but at Mairwen. Just as she never tore her gaze from mine, licking at her bottom lip and then tucking it between her teeth. I prowled to her, blocking her from their view. My omega. My… There wasn't a word for what Mairwen really was to me. I needed one. I needed her. Immediately.

"That's enough for the evening," I said, my voice rough, and Mairwen blushed and looked down into her lap.

No. Look at me. See me as I see you, I wanted to shout.

There was a brief bout of laughter, but cards were abandoned on the table, and soon footsteps were retreating.

"I'll see them out in the morning," Niall said, the last to leave.

I nodded without turning. "Good. Thank you."

"Ronson—" Mairwen started.

The door clicked shut, and I dropped to my knees before her, sighing in relief as I found her eyes again and watched them widen in surprise.

"You were never a mouse," I growled out, and Mairwen's lips parted. I grasped her hips in mine, trying not to let my talons prick the fabric. The dress was a rich shade of copper, earthy but regal. I hadn't noticed before, too fixated on the way it touched her. "A mouse could not have worked the magic you just did."

"Magic?" Mairwen echoed, reaching for me, fingers brushing against my jaw.

I leaned into her touch and tried not to let the desperate urge to consume her take me too soon. "You held the heart of every dragon in the room in your grip, Mairwen. You lured them into the water, deep into the ocean's belly, and then left them there to freeze. You are a siren, omega."

Mairwen's breath hitched and her eyes watered, but she blinked the sheen away. "What…what about your heart?"

I gaped up at her, marveling at the words, the tremor in her voice, the uncertain shyness of her eyes. I caught Mairwen's hand in mine as she started to pull away, dragging it back, flattening it over my heart.

"Mairwen. Is this not your fist in my chest? You clasped it around my heart, and you now demand every beat it issues." Her eyes were huge, liquidy, and luminous, and I saw the question on her lips, couldn't bear her doubt. "Mairwen," I pleaded, releasing her hand on my chest in order to grasp her face, to rise up and meet her and seal my mouth over hers, tongue stroking in to steal the wonder. Was there a way to kiss my omega so that she would know, know for certain, what I saw when I looked at her? I tried to find it, tried to pour in my gratitude and amazement, my hunger and affection.