Chapter 4
Stesha
Ihave to delay flying lessons and all my other duties as my rut overtakes me, suddenly and powerfully, and I retreat to my apartment in the castle. My dragines ache so fiercely that I have to bite down on leather, and my knot aches no matter how many times I relieve myself and spill my seed.
A rut spent alone is a miserable thing. I have only ever spent my ruts alone.
If I ever find my mate, I’m certain that taking her into my bed will be the sweetest experience I’ve ever known.
Her taking me into her nest, because my mate is an Omega.
A soft, dark nest, filled with her scent.
So much of her scent that I grow drunk on it.
Her thighs are coated with her slick, and then it’s all over me, and I’m deep inside her with my knot gripped tightly in her clenching sex.
I drive myself crazy every rut imagining this unknown, unmet woman.
I’m nearly twenty-five. I should have met her by now.
The gods have ways of driving a fated pair together while they’re still youths. So either she’s very far away, or…
She’s dead.
I grip my head in my hands as waves of despair wash over me.
Every sensation is heightened during a rut, and that includes my emotions.
My fears. If my Omega is dead, then the gods continue to torment me.
I don’t know how I offended them to make them hate me so.
Or perhaps the gods have no hand in this at all, and life is just unfair.
Four days later, delirious with exhaustion and thirst, I stumble out onto my balcony, bare-chested and clutching a pitcher of water. I drink clumsily straight from the pitcher, water spilling down my chest. I lower it with a gasp and take a look at the dragongrounds.
All seems to be in order. Pollex is slumbering peacefully at the center of the flare. Nilak is industriously grooming a Beta dragon who recently bonded with a rider. Yersia, whose eggs recently hatched, is emerging from the nesting caves, no doubt in search of sustenance.
I’m tired, but I can sleep later. Now I’m back in my right mind, I can focus on my dragons. I bathe and dress in fresh clothes that aren’t soiled with sweat and seed, though the sadness of a lonely rut is still clinging to me.
As soon as I emerge into the corridor, a guard informs me I was summoned by Queen Magritte on the first day of my rut. She’s been waiting for me for days. At least it’s the queen I’ve kept waiting and not the bad-tempered king, and I make my way to her sitting room.
It’s a bright, beautiful day, but all the tapestries are drawn over the windows in the queen’s room, and the candles are not lit.
Queen Magritte sits in darkness, her small, pretty figure surrounded by plush cushions.
Perhaps she’s going into heat and can’t bear the light, though she’s not perfuming.
I bow my head respectfully. “Greetings, my queen. I apologize for making you wait. I was in my rut.”
“Dragonmaster, I should have sent word that you needn’t come after all.” Queen Magritte keeps her face turned away from me and speaks to the wall. Her one blue-gray eye that I can see is filled with pain.
Suspicion prickles the nape of my neck. “My queen? Are you well?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Please look at me.”
Slowly, she turns to face me.
Fury races through my body. I have to grit my teeth to prevent myself from lunging for the door with a growl and charging through the castle to find the bastard who did this.
The left side of Queen Magritte’s face is discolored with a purple and red bruise, and her left eye is blackened and swollen shut.
“Was it him?” I ask tightly. I will not give that man the honor of calling him king when he behaves like a brute.
Queen Magritte doesn’t say anything. Of course it was King Aylard who hit her. My stomach twists in revulsion and anger. To have been granted a gentle and beautiful mate, an Omega, and then treat her as the king treats the queen is abominable.
The queen continues in a soft voice, “My sons have not seen me like this, and I don’t want them to. I will remain in this room until I have recovered, but since you are here now, I wish to speak with you about Mirelle.”
I have been feeling sorry for myself for four straight days, but the queen’s suffering has been far worse. Gods know what the king does to her during her heats and his ruts. He can’t be gentle, or kind, or think of her needs in any way.
“Dragonmaster, I have noticed something in Mirelle’s scent this past month, and it’s growing stronger. I think perhaps she might be emerging as an Omega, but I wanted a second opinion from an Alpha.”
A shadow of apprehension passes over me. There are many others of whom she could ask an opinion. Her husband and her sons, for instance, or the Hratha’len women at the Flame Temple who counsel people about their designations. So why is she asking me?
I choose my words carefully. “My queen, the only Omegas that I have opinions about have scales and breathe fire. Have you consulted with the Temple Crone?”
“I’m asking if you have noticed anything special about her scent.”
I can guess what she’s hoping for, but I’m going to have to disappoint the queen, something I loathe to do when she’s suffering so much already. “I have not.”
“You may take a few days and consider the matter, dragonmaster,” she tells me.
“You can imagine that as her mother, when she’s of age, I want Mirelle to mate a man who will protect her and cherish her.
A good Alpha. I have known you since before you were Mirelle’s age, and sometimes I have felt that you are the fourth child I never had.
Did you…” She hesitates, and then says in a choked voice, “Did you know that before I had Zabriel, I lost a son?”
I shake my head.
“You would have been a baby yourself at the time. The child was stillborn. I have always loved him. As I watched you grow by Destrin’s side, I have often wished that you were that son.”
My throat aches hearing her words. There were many times when I was a boy that I longed to throw my arms around Queen Magritte and bury my face in her skirts, as I saw Zabriel do many times.
I was envious of the crown prince for all the love that was heaped upon his head.
The queen is a sweet-natured and kind woman.
There have been dragons in my life and in my heart since I was a youth, but I have missed my mother.
In a voice roughened with emotion, I say, “Your words honor me more than I can say.”
But perhaps it’s for the best that I am nobody, for if I were her eldest son, the crown prince, and the future King of Maledin, I would have murdered King Aylard by now and plunged the country into civil war.
“You honor yourself, Stesha,” says Queen Magritte. “I could not name a better, stronger, or more trustworthy man in all Maledin. You should be mated, and what a lucky woman she will be. So I must ask you again about Mirelle.”
The queen hopes that her daughter might be my elusive Omega.
I have spent time with the princess, and what I have noticed is Onderz’s inability to focus on anyone and anything but her, and how protective he is whenever she’s threatened or upset.
The budding young Alpha already seems to have lost his heart to the princess, and if Mirelle is emerging as an Omega, then it’s possible they’re fated and are already bonding.
“On the matter of the princess’s mate, you may wish to speak with Onderz.”
Queen Magritte’s face falls. “I suppose Onderz is a fine young man, but I’m disappointed.
For her sake, and for yours. What are the gods playing at, denying a good man like you happiness, when there are Alphas in this world who are—” She breaks off as her voice cracks, and she covers her mouth with a shaking hand.
I dearly want to go to Queen Magritte and pull her into my arms, but she’s not mine to comfort.
I make myself stand as still as stone, fighting down all the treasonous deeds I wish to commit against the king.
A dead King Aylard serves no one. The crown prince is still young and foolish, and if King Aylard were to die now, there’s no guarantee that Maledin would fall into better hands.
Every time I speak with him, the only impression Zabriel leaves on me is that he’s an idiot.
“You’re right, dragonmaster,” she says, as if I have given her any kind of answer. “I must accept the will of the gods. We all must.”
I am learning to loathe the will of the gods.
The queen brushes tears from her cheeks. “Tell me about Alin of Vierforn’s daughter. I believe she arrived recently in the city?”
Zenevieve’s face fills my mind.
“Oh, she’s lovely,” I say at once.
The queen’s brows rise in interest at my abrupt answer. “Lovely? I’ve never heard you call anyone lovely.”
I clear my throat. “The princes are both vying for Zenevieve’s attention.
She’s competent on a dragon. More than that, I cannot say.
” I’m sure Zabriel will make a fool of himself over her, but it’s not only the princes who have taken an interest in Zenevieve.
I’ve noticed several of the young, unmated dragonriders observing my lessons with the youths, and it’s not because they’re curious about the royal children or Onderz.
The queen smiles. “I hope to meet the lovely girl soon.”
She dismisses me, and I’m sunk in dark thoughts with anger tightening my muscles as I walk down the corridor past the royal apartments. If it wasn’t for the dragons, I think I’d leave the capital. Royal life is exhausting.
I’m startled out of my reverie by a sudden shout.
“Father, no!”
There’s an almighty crash from inside the room I’m passing, followed by the sound of glass breaking and heavy things falling to the floor.