“So no, I don’t have a lavish,” Stesha says. “No Alpha should everhavea lavish, but there is nothing wrong with visiting a lavish.” He sits back down at the table and fills his cup from the jug of ale. “Can we change the subject now? I’d rather not discuss these matters with my ward.”
If I were braver, I’d say,I’m not your ward, I’m the grown woman living in your house. I’ve held no man in my heart but you ever since I saw you that day at the dragongrounds when I returned to Lenhale.
I rest my chin on my hand and smile at him. “You not seeing a lavish is probably for the best. If you did, she couldn’t help but fall for you.”
“You have a provoking mouth tonight,” he mutters.
I mean it sincerely, but Stesha seems to think I’m teasing him. Some women like serious and grumpy men. When they’re tender, when they smile, it’s lovelier than the sun coming out after a dark and stormy night. A smile from Stesha always feelsspecial. “I’m serious. And I think you’re very honorable for not wanting to cause a Beta that kind of pain.”
“It’s not honor. It’s basic Alpha decency.”
I sigh. Stesha refuses to be anything but argumentative with me, but perhaps the subject of lavishes has gotten on his nerves. If Cariss understands what’s going to happen to her, then she just doesn’t care because being with Dandro during his ruts and feeling his teeth in her neck is worth the pain that will come later. I glance at Stesha surreptitiously. I’d risk coughing up some blood for the chance to be held and kissed by Stesha. And, oh gods, to spend his rut with him and be the sole focus of his insatiable attention? I’d die from bliss.
But I don’t have to be his lavish to experience that. I could be his mate.
Flicking my gaze at him, I say, “I suppose if you found the right Beta, you would just make her your mate.”
Stesha is drinking from an earthenware cup, and suddenly he slams it down on the table, gets to his feet, and strides out of the room.
11
Stesha
Just a few weeks after Zenevieve’s first mission, the unimaginable happens.
Earsplitting, heart-wrenching screams rend the peaceful afternoon air, ones that send an Alpha’s heart racing. Screams that mean someone is in terrible danger or suffering mortal pain.
I’m between the Flame Temple and the dragongrounds, and the screams are emanating from above me. I turn and race upstairs to the battlements, where I’m confronted by a terrible sight.
Zabriel and Onderz have their hands outstretched, pleading with someone to get down from the battlements. It’s Princess Mirelle, her torn nightgown fluttering in the wind. The right side of her face is bruised and swollen, and blood drips down her face from her nose and a cut on her eyebrow. There are savage bitemarks on her neck and shoulders.
It takes me a moment to realize that the blood isn’t only on her face. It’s running down the insides of her legs as well.
“Onderz, no. Zabriel, get away from me.” The princess’s hysterical screams pierce the air, and her heels teeter dangerously on the edge of the battlements.
“Just come here to me, Mirelle. Come here to me, and I’ll make everything all right,” Onderz calls desperately. He wants to lunge forward and grab her, but he’s afraid she’ll flinch back and fall.
I seize Zabriel by the arm, and say in a low voice, “Go and get your dragon. Catch the princess if she falls.”
Understanding crosses Zabriel’s face, and he nods sharply and runs to do as he’s instructed.
“It will be all right,” Onderz says, but his voice breaks on a sob.
“We can never be all right. The things he did to me. My own brother.” She seizes her hair in her fists and wails.
The scent of an Omega’s distress is thick in the air, and overlaying it is an Alpha’s rut. Emmeric’s scent. Emmeric did this? My stomach twists in disgust. We will hunt him down and bring him to justice, but first we have to make sure that Mirelle doesn’t do something she won’t be able to take back. I reach Onderz’s side and put a supporting hand on his shoulder.
He turns to me desperately. “Dragonmaster, make her come down from there. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m ruined. Don’t look at me,” the princess sobs.
“Mirelle, please. Mirelle,don’t.”
I squeeze his shoulder. “Tell her to get down from the battlements. Use your roar.”
Every Alpha is able to speak in a tone that’s as commanding as a dragon’s roar. It’s used sparingly when a Beta or Omega needs to quickly be told what to do for their own safety. That’show it’s supposed to be used, in any case. I know some Alphas are tempted to abuse the ability.
Onderz tries, but he’s too frantic to put any conviction into his words and he merely shouts rather than roars, “Mirelle, please get down.”
