I smile, picturing my grandfather’s tender smile as he gazed at his dragons. “Grandfather lived in peaceful times. I doubt he would have any more insight on the matter than you. But I think Destrin would be proud of you, and so am I.”
We stand together for a long time, watching the flare adjust to the scarlet Ragdyn in their midst. Omaira is restless, moving around the other dragons, but often glancing back to check that the Alpha is following her.
“Shall we name this little one?” Stesha murmurs, looking at the Omega sleeping against his chest.
I think for a moment. “Anuk. It has both her parents’ names. May she have her father’s strength and her mother’s fierceness.”
“Anuk. I like it.”
The little Omega dragon opens a pretty golden eye for a moment, as if she knows that’s her name, and then settles back to sleep.
As the sun begins to set, heavy orange light gleams on all the dragons, outlining them in gold. Necks are stretched, and wings are unfurled to catch the last of the evening’s warmth.
Stesha’s arms are around me, and he presses a kiss to the top of my head. I smile to myself and lean into his warmth and scent. We have each other. We have Lenhale and the flare. I take a deep breath, appreciating the sight of the sun lowering in the sky.
There is nothing more beautiful than dragons at dusk.
EPILOGUE
Stesha
Arich, sweet scent pervades the air as soon as Zenevieve pushes the door to our rooms open. She stands on the threshold and looks around, her cheeks feverish and flushed pink. Her dilated eyes latch on to me.
A tickle that’s been in the back of my mind all day, telling me that I’ll go in a rut in the next four or five days, suddenly bursts forth with urgency. Not four or five days.
Now. Right fucking now.
Zenevieve runs toward me with a cry and jumps into my arms. My lips find hers, and I crush them with a kiss that leaves us both gasping. Gods, her scent. Herscent.
Zenevieve drops to the ground, hugging my leg with her whole body and seizing my hand. “I’ve missed you, Alpha.”
She peppers my hand with kisses and then sucks my middle finger into her mouth. I groan as I watch her lips move around me and feel her tongue against me. She glances at the bulge ofmy swollen knot and pulls my finger from her mouth with a wet pop.
“I love making you hard,” she says in a sultry whisper. “Do I please you, Alpha?”
The look that she’s giving me is enough provocation for me to carry her to our bed and fling her on it, but today, despite my rut that’s come upon me with the force of a roaring dragon, I want to draw this out. If she’s so eager to please me, then I’m waiting.
I raise my eyebrow. “I don’t know. Do you?”
Zenevieve smiles and goes back to sucking my finger, all the while stroking my cock through my pants. Her deft hands undo the lacings, and she draws my erection out. Her mouth leaves my finger.
I curl my fingers in her hair while groaning a curse. As Zenevieve sucks me, she whimpers and wriggles against my legs. Her scent grows stronger the more turned on she gets, and I can feel her rubbing her sex against the toe of my boot, trying desperately to sate herself.
It’s the fantasy I’ve had about my Omega for such a long time. Exactly the fantasy that’s enraptured me for almost every rut that I endured alone, only my Omega was faceless. I see her now, and she’s so utterly perfect.
Zenevieve licks along my shaft and caresses my knot with her tongue. “Will you fuck me, Alpha? Please fuck me.”
Slowly, I gather Zenevieve’s hair into my fist, lovingly capturing every strand until I can squeeze it tight. “Suck me.”
She whimpers with need and goes back to working me with her mouth and moving against my boot. The friction arouses her, and she cries out in the back of her throat.
I’ve never gotten further in this fantasy because when I’ve been frustrated and alone, I’ve always climaxed imagining her with a mouth full of my cock. But there’s more than this we can have. Much more. When she’s so turned on she’s whimpering,I reach down and pull a gasping Zenevieve into my arms. She’s a bundle of warm flesh, flouncy cotton, and wet slick. I could fucking eat her. I bite down on her shoulder to relieve the ache in my teeth.
Loosening my grip, I murmur, “Hold on to me. Wrap your arms around my neck.” With my free hand, I push her dress up as I back her against a wall. “Have you been to the temple forHratha’lenoils?” I ask her, wondering if this is why her scent is so much stronger than it has been in her false heats.
She shakes her head. “I was in the Great Hall when I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to run back here to you and my nest.”
I pause. She’s been fussing over the canopied bed in her old bedroom for the past week, and in the last two days, her activities have intensified. I’ve lost half my wardrobe to her nest, and I’ve been having trouble keeping the blankets on our bed. Her nest is now so stuffed full of blankets and cushions that she has trouble squeezing in there. The other day, I teased her that there was no room for me.
