The Alpha of Grave Hills (Dragonkin #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

brIGID

Maggie's eyes widened as the dragons' screaming flight overhead rattled the walls of my cottage.

"Don't fidget, Mags," I murmured, once again blowing an impulsively shorn lock of auburn hair out of my eye, ignoring the rallying cry of change in the sky above my thatched roof.

"You know what that means, Miss," Maggie said, fussing at a tear in the skirt of her smock.

I kept my eyes on her ankle as I massaged the salve and gently encouraged old bones and weary muscles to turn under my hands.

I did know what it meant, although I was too young to have ever heard the betas roar in unison before.

Lachlan Feargus had risen as alpha when my mother was still a girl, had nearly matched with her for his second rut—although that might've been another of Mother's tall tales—until he met his omega on a quick trip to Skybern.

And from Skybern to Grave Hills, Omega Feargus had remained at our alpha's side, and for many years after.

Lachlan had doted on his omega and seemed quite in love with her, sometimes to the exclusion of his care of the hills, or so the betas claimed.

Omega Feargus had died in the spring. Our alpha withered at the loss.

And now he had reunited with her.

My hands worked, rubbing strong circles around Maggie's ankle, turning her shin, stretching and soothing muscles that tended to want to tangle and tighten, shortening the old keep maid's stride.

I wondered what it was like to have been so cherished by the alpha, to have held a man so tightly in one's grasp, shared him with no other.

Sweat dripped between my breasts, and the salty, overripe scent of myself made me snort.

Omega Feargus had been a beautiful woman, with a black sheet of hair that draped down past her hips and warm brown skin that gleamed, always smiling up at the ruddy and redheaded bear of an alpha who beamed proudly at her side.

I was certainly no comparison for such a jewel of a woman.

Perhaps I had been once, freshly of age, cheeks still full of youth, and smiles for everyone.

But no, I had a beak for a nose—that had always been the case.

The years had hardened and chipped away at me, my cheeks sharpening and hollowing, my body losing its softness for the strength it needed to survive… on my own.

"Who do you think it'll be next?" Maggie asked, her hands twisting in her lap.

"It hardly matters," I thought aloud, and then realized the source of Maggie's worry. "I'll fix you up, Mags. You know that keep like the back of your hand. Whoever rises, he'll see that straight away," I offered.

I wasn't sure that was true. The alpha's keep was huge, and Maggie was wearing herself down, running through its halls from morning to night.

I doubted she was keeping up with the other humans she worked alongside, but it had been her home since she was a child.

At the very least, it would break Maggie's heart to be cast aside. At worst, it might leave her homeless.

"Perhaps it'll be the little lord. He couldn't covet the role as alpha while his da lived, but now…" Maggie mused.

I smirked at the thought of Torion Feargus being referred to as "little" by anyone, let alone Maggie, who barely reached my own chin.

But the alpha's son had likely been raised under Maggie's eye, and while he was a giant like his father now—and as handsome as his mother—I suppose he must've been a child once.

"Would he make a good alpha?" I asked Maggie, just to keep her talking.

"Aye, I think he might. Bit of a scamp, he is. But I think his heart still belongs to the hills, like his father's did before it caught sight of the omega."

"He'll have to take an omega himself," I pointed out. "Perhaps it will be captured then."

"Perhaps. But if she's a good girl from these parts, then…it won't be so bad."

I hummed indifferently. Some of the locals—especially the local dragonkin—had taken it personally when Lachlan had chosen an omega from outside the territory, and blamed her for our alpha's attention straying away from the care of the Hills.

Personally, I thought men had a tendency to be inconsistent.

Omega Feargus had just been lucky enough that it hadn't been her the alpha had lost interest in.

I shivered as I rose from the river, wincing as I ran over the rocky edge and twiggy slope, up to the large boulder where I'd laid out my things.

The dip had done me good, and not just because I'd started to smell.

I'd grown indulgent with myself, cooped up in my cottage too long, forgetting what the sky looked like as I busied myself turning the last of my dried stores into salves and teas and tinctures.

It would be time to start gathering new growth soon, and then I would be out of my cottage more than in, but it was past time for me to shake the winter bear off and remember how the world's embrace looked and smelled and felt.

I dried and dressed, taking my time on the rock to let its heat sink in and thaw the rousing chill of the river, lifting my face up to the sun, knowing the freckles that had faded would brighten again at the attention—freckles I'd worked so hard to hide when I was younger.

I was tying up my boots when the neigh of an indignant horse coming from beyond the brush froze me.

Someone was at the cottage. The only reason for someone to arrive this close to evening was if it was an emergency, or if they were so at their own leisure that they didn't have to prepare someone else's dinner.

And other dragonkin were rarely the folk who came to knock at my door.

A little bead of dread—the one I always carried with me—snarled and grew in size, zipping nervously from the pit of my stomach, racketing through my heart, and then lodging itself in my throat.

He would've traveled for the flight, I thought, worrying my lip between my teeth as I tried to double check every bit of me, from my soaked and tangled hair to the buttons rising up the back of my dress.

Nothing I could do between here and my cottage would change the obvious.

That my clothes were wearing thin, and there were lines creasing my forehead that never seemed to smooth away.

That I was thirty-two, not seventeen, and my age had never mattered anyway.

I'd never been beautiful enough, even at my best.

With a humph of irritation and a shake of my trembling hands, I marched toward the tangled brush of young oaks and snarling blackberries.

There was a small opening marked with two rotting posts, just barely keeping the wild growth back enough for me to pass through, and I made it to the border of my property when the horse I'd heard rounded the corner of my cottage.

"Lightning," I greeted, and the proud white gelding warned me from my approach with a haughty head toss. "It's my house you're haunting," I volleyed back, forgetting my own nerves for a moment in the face of my old adversary.

"Brigid?" a muffled voice called from inside my cottage.

I stiffened. I supposed it was too much to hope that the horse had found its way to me without its master. I took a moment to brace myself, to steady my breath and harden my heart, to buck my chin high and refuse my gaze a wince, and then strode forward.

Malcolm had to duck to appear in my cottage doorway, so my first glimpse of him in three years was the crown of his head.

There was new gray in his hair, and less hair overall.

My heart was split in two at the sight—a petty glee burning brightly at the sight of him losing just a little of his perfection that I'd coveted for over a decade, and a darker, sweeter ache, the old fondness, the dreams I'd once savored of us aging together, of my maturity catching up to his in time.

He stood straight, and that small peek at his vulnerability vanished as he blocked the narrow, slightly crooked entrance to my home. He stared at me, a subtle appraisal, and I hid my quaking hands behind my back, knowing he would find more changes in me than I saw in him.

"You look well, omega," he greeted, low voice gentled to be tempting when I knew how well it could thunder with rage. His mouth quirked, but it wasn't a smile. "Still bathing in the river like a girl of sixteen?"

"What are you doing here, Malcolm?" I asked, relieved my voice was strong and clear. I wanted to retreat to the safety of my cottage but refused to step closer to him.

"The alpha passed this morning," he said.

"I heard."

He nodded, his slow, unending study of me making the hair rise on the back of my neck. "We voted to settle the matter. Tomorrow at dawn, we battle for a new alpha."

"I wish you luck," I said.

Malcolm's humored lines deepened at the corner of his eyes, and I ignored the pang of my old bruised heart. "You think I'll compete? Did I seem so ambitious while Lachlan reigned? So discontent?"

I opened my mouth to tell Malcolm all I had seen, his deep bows and the smiles that didn't reach his eyes, the way his fists clenched behind his back when he lied to our alpha's face, the way he used me roughly at night when he'd conceded to Lachlan's decisions.

It was too much to share. It would've been like trying to tie our lives back together when I'd worked so hard to sever the false connection.

"Yes," I said instead, shrugging.

Malcolm laughed, but his eyes narrowed on me. "You always were too observant for your own good."

The words stung, just as he'd meant them to, and my eyes skidded away from him, flinching, before I could steel myself.

He was likely right. I might be happier today if I'd failed to see what was going on under my nose.

Perhaps I might still have some pride intact if I'd never discovered the other women.

But there was no mistaking Malcolm's lack of feeling for me, and I'd fooled myself for as long as possible.

A girl of sixteen was easy to charm. After ten years under the same roof, that woman of twenty-seven was a touch harder to fool.

At thirty-two, I was tired.

"I intend to fight," Malcolm said, and I nodded.

"You'll take a new omega," I said, meeting his eyes again. I didn't care now what he saw on my face—indifference or injury, it didn't matter. We would be done with another, well and truly.

His head tipped, and a cold trickling warning ran down my spine. "If I rise, yes. But Lachlan's son will be a worthy opponent, as will the others."

I froze. "I've left, Malcolm. I'm not coming back. If you want another bed warmer for the rut—"

"I can find a new omega easily enough, Brigid. But this cottage is mine by your father's agreement—"

"It wasn't his to give! Not like that. She left it to me."

"And she left you to him. And he left you to me. And with you, the cottage. You signed the contract."

A trembling hand covered my stomach. I'd signed that contract at seventeen. Signed it before the cottage meant anything to me, before it was my sanctuary, my escape.

"Malcolm—" I started, but my voice was rasping, and I wasted time trying to clear the fear away.

"You can come home to me for the rut. Or you can give up your rights as my omega and vacate my property."

"You don't want the damn cottage!" I cried out, my temper snapping free.

Malcolm's eyebrows rose, and there was laughter hidden behind feigned sympathy as he stepped forward.

My body swayed as I fought to keep still, to keep from rushing closer and drumming my fists against his chest, or running back to the river and diving deep, as if it might wash away the memory of him. It wouldn't. I feared nothing would.

"I don't, you're right. But it's a fine property and close to the alpha's keep.

I could build myself a second home here, for myself and my omega, somewhere to stay.

If I'm not the next alpha, I'll have work to put in once more.

And if it's Lachlan's son, he's young. He'll appreciate an older influence.

" Malcolm approached, and I shook with the rage that would do nothing against him.

I wasn't very tall, and while I was strong, he would always be stronger. "As you did, dear Brigid."

I'd been sweet once, a perfect daughter, an ideal omega, nearly lovely if not for a slightly ambitious nose. Malcolm had put his lips to me when I was sixteen, and he'd sucked my sweetness out as if I were a ripe orange, until I was only dry and tough and bitter.

I spat at him as he passed me, something an old washer women might do to keep a curse at bay, and he was too busy looking forward, smug humor written over his handsome face, to see the viscous glob land at his shoulder.

"You always enjoyed yourself, Brigid. There's no use claiming otherwise. And there's still a chance you might get with child. Third time's the charm—isn't that what they say?"

Malcolm was nearly to his horse, but I didn't wait for him to leave.

I ran for my cottage, too low to be embarrassed, slamming the door behind me and feeling it shake on the hinges.

I pinched my lips tight as my body started to jerk.

My eyes squeezed shut, the ache of the pressure a distracting relief.

But as the sound of horse hooves receded, I unleashed myself.

A dark sob tore free of my throat, clawing through me as it escaped.

I staggered toward the table at the center of the room but couldn't make it into the chair before my knees gave way.

My fingernails dug into the wood grain as my mouth opened on a wail, a long, mourning sound for the love I'd lost, over and over again.

The love Malcolm had fooled out of me once, twice, three times.

And the love I had cultivated in my most heartsore moments, the love that had grown in me, the love I could never bury or run from but must carry without a source, just the memory of an idea of the child I'd carried too briefly.

The child I'd sworn to bring into the world, and then failed. I wept for him and for myself, and vowed a single, certain thing.

I would not go back to Malcolm Barr.