AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Isavelle plays with my shirt for a moment. “Do you remember when I was Isavelle the village girl and you were Commander Zabriel, a soldier who rides a dragon?”
I gently take her hand and stroke my thumb over her palm, murmuring, “Do you wish I was just Commander Zabriel, without the crown, without our heats and ruts, and you were Isavelle the village girl?”
Isavelle looks up at me with her lips parted, studying me closely. “I was remembering that from the moment I saw you, I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”
I twine my fingers through hers, rest my cheek against the top of her head, and speak softly. “I know I’m asking a lot of a woman to be my queen and rule by my side, but I’m still just Zabriel, a soldier who rides a dragon. That’s who I’ve been since I was fourteen years old, and it’s all I’ll ever be, crown and golden armor or not.”
I feel Isavelle relax a little at my words and her fingers curl around mine. “You always know how to make me feel better, Zabriel.”
“I’ve wished for you every day of my life since I suspected my own designation. I wished more fervently for you even than I wished for my own dragon.”
She looks up at me in surprise. “You did? When did your designation emerge?”
“When I was seventeen. I had my first rut and got my knot. You know, the swelling—”
“I remember,” she says, blushing red to the roots of her hair.
“Alphas who’ve had their knot for a year or so but haven’t found their Omega usually give up on ever finding one. But I didn’t give up. I didn’t know she wouldn’t be born for another five hundred years, or that my world would have to end for me to meet her.”
“Did your designation emerging feel strange and uncomfortable for you?”
I nod, remembering the months when I walked around with blistering rage simmering just beneath the surface. Scourge picked fights with every Alpha in the flare, and I sparred with the other dragonriders or lost my temper over real and perceived slights and fought other Alphas hand to hand. I won just about all the fights, but I could never beat Stesha. The white-haired Alpha always had me eating dust and walking away without a fold of his pristine dragonriding clothes out of place. Stesha was always the most powerful Alpha, though in the last two years of Old Maledin, I settled down and we didn’t test each other.
It’s tempting to challenge him again now that I’m bigger and stronger and a better fighter, just to prove once and for all that I can beat him, but that would be churlish and immature. We’re both strong for the sake of Maledin and we each have our roles.
Yet the Alpha in me still wants to prove to Stesha, once and for all, that I’m at the top. Not him.
“I didn’t have my Omega to help me through my first rut, but I would like to help you through your first true heat if you want me to. It’s supposed to be very sweet and loving when designations emerge at the same time, but it can still be beautiful when they’re out of sync.”
Isavelle hesitates, but she’s overcome by curiosity. “What do other Alpha and Omega pairs do for each other?”
“Oh, this…” I murmur, running the backs of my fingers across her cheeks and down her throat. “This,” I say, gathering her closer with both arms and kissing her temple.
She smiles and twines her fingers through my hair. “Is that all?”
I swallow. Hard. It’s definitely not all. “Sex is the quickest way to soothe a heat. But that’s not the only way,” I say quickly. “You can ask theHratha’lenabout it if you wish, and they might have some advice for you. Just don’t ask another Alpha,” I add with a growl.
“Why not?”
I hold Isavelle possessively to my body. “Because if my Omega says the wordssexandheatandsoothe meto another Alpha, I’ll have to pummel him into the dust.”
“The only other Alpha I know is Stesha, and I’m not going to ask him anything.”
I growl hearing her say his name in connection to her heats. “Don’t even go near him when you’re burning up with your false heats. Not him, and not any other Alpha. I don’t want them breathing your scent.”
She opens her eyes wide in surprise. “Are you jealous?”
“Only to the point of insanity.” Isavelle’s neck is exposed, and I open my jaw and touch my teeth to her skin. Not a bite. A hold.
Isavelle gasps softly. “What are you doing?”
I lick her throat and then hold her again with my teeth. “Driving myself insane. My teeth ache for you,sha’len.”
Isavelle half turns in my lap and touches my cheek, gazing up at me with concern. “Your teeth are hurting you? I’m so sorry.”
Her touch is so sweet that I close my eyes for a moment to enjoy it. “Don’t be sorry. The ache means that I have you, so I love the ache.”
“All these lines you feed me are so smooth. How many women have they worked on?”
