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“For standing up to him. I know you’re not a brat. Just because you’re an Omega doesn’t mean you shouldn’t expect courtesy from the people in this castle. You were courteous to him, I’m sure.”
Isavelle’s lips twitch and she gazes up at me from beneath her lashes. “Well, I teased him a little, but only after I tried being friendly and he was just so rude. One of the young dragons was giving him a hard time, and I found that amusing.”
I find myself smiling. “I would have found that amusing as well.”
Suddenly my Omega has a soft, needy expression in her green eyes. “Do you really mean that? About being proud of me?”
My smile widens. I gaze down at her and feel a thud of heat. Omegas love praise from their Alphas and will do just about anything to get it, but so far, Isavelle hasn’t seemed to care about what I think about her and what I say to her. How wonderful that seems to be changing.
Suddenly I want to give her all my praise.
With my tongue.
On her sex.
Whose Alpha’s a good fucking girl.
She’s standing by a pillar, and I brace my hand against it and lean over her, purring, “My Omega is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, utterly perfect and delicious in every way. How could I not be proud of her?”
Isavelle gazes up at me and swallows hard. Her eyes are suddenly dark and very liquid, and she whispers breathily, “Oh. Um. Thank you.”
My lips ghost over her cheek and then her neck. Fuck, those Omega oils on her body are making me dizzy. “No. Thank you for running to me for comfort and praise. You can do that as much as you want,sha’len.”
Her small hands press against my stomach and then slide up to my chest, where she plays with a button on my shirt. A little of her pride comes back. “I didn’t run to you. I walked quickly.”
I grin down at her. “Of course,sha’len.”
“I feel…all funny,” she confesses in a whisper. “I’ve felt strange since being anointed with oils in the temple. Do you think maybe I am an Omega after all?”
Isavelle already knows what I think. I could kiss the Temple Crone. I could even kiss that surly bastard Stesha. He’s done his king a favor without meaning to.
I must be smirking because Isavelle suddenly says, “I know what you’re thinking. You’re congratulating yourself for being such a reasonable Alpha compared to that man.”
“Who, me?” I ask, my smile widening.
I don’t seem so overbearing and controlling now, do I, my darling Omega?
If she were Stesha’s Omega, he wouldn’t have assigned her bodyguards shit-shoveling duty for disobeying his orders. He would have sliced their heads off with his sword. Not once have I ordered Isavelle to watch how she speaks to me or called her names like brat. I am a thoroughly reasonable and loveable Alpha.
I twist my fingers through her locks and let her dark gold hair run through my hand. “When I was learning to ride Scourge, Stesha was my teacher, and I could do nothing right. I was too heavy-handed. I was too laid-back. My dragon wouldn’t respect me. I couldn’t take instructions without losing my temper. On and on it went until I wanted to toss Stesha off a cliff.”
Isavelle bursts out laughing, and a golden feeling rushes through me. I made my mate laugh. “I would have liked to see you do that.”
I remember how after a ride on Scourge that felt different, one where I’d felt the connection to my dragon that other riders talked about as feeling like one being rather than two, Stesha gazed at me thoughtfully and then said one word.
Better.
It wasn’t much, but that single word lit my whole insides up like fire in the sky, and I felt like a dragonrider at last.
“Don’t take Stesha’s nasty temper to heart. He’s like that with everyone, and the dragons as well. He has to be to keep all those monstrous creatures safe and cared for, and he’s suffered a great deal of loss unfortunately. That man will always be stingy with courtesy and patience.”
Instantly, Isavelle looks saddened. “Who did he lose?”
I sigh, thinking of all the misery that has clouded Stesha’s life. “His family when he was a boy, and then his best friend several years ago. Sorry, hundreds of years ago. Then there’s the fact that he’s always wanted an Omega but…” I make a helpless gesture and shrug. Every Alpha wants an Omega to call their own, but the fact is that there are never enough Omegas, and it seems to be completely random which Alphas are blessed with one and which are passed over. Stesha was the most powerful Alpha under the former king, the son of an Alpha and Omega pair, but he’s watched over the decades as others have found their mates and he’s remained mateless.
Most Alphas and Omegas find each other around their seventeenth summer and reach full maturity in their eighteenth or nineteenth years. Stesha is thirty years old. I’m considered unusual for finding my Omega at the late age of twenty-three, so there’s no hope for him.
Isavelle seems surprised. “He wants an Omega? It seemed to me like he hates Omegas.”
