Page 3 of The Dragon's Omega
“Most supes are alphas or omegas,” Thad added for context, both still behind me, unable to see the way my face flamed—not only because of that scent, but because that was the same tone you used when a toddler asked why the sun disappeared in the evening and returned at dawn. Like I was stupid. “Not a lot of betas in that mix.”
“Oh.”
About ten feet from the gaping mouth drenched in a warm yellow glow, Dewey rounded on me so suddenly that I stumbled to a halt, wobbling in these five-inch stilettos. He towered over me, handsome face cast in shadows, his eyes intense as he growled, “There’s no going back after this, Lianna. This is Synn legacy.”
At the sound of a thinly veiled threat, my body eked out the teeniest spritz of omega perfume. Dewey’s nostrils flared. His pupils widened. The edges of his mouth kicked into something sinister.
I hadn’t taken these morons seriously as alphas until right now. While there was zero attraction here, either on an emotional or biological level, I accepted their courtship for the greater good of those I actually loved. They had always seemed harmless. Dumb workout influencers who skated by on their good looks and the hard work of Synn alphas who came before them.
But here, now, I felt the literal pressure of Dewey’s presence, real as if he were touching me. The influence of an alpha asserting his dominance hit like a stack of bricks falling all at once, a weight on my shoulders, on my chest, behind my knees, threatening to take me down with them. He might have been seven years younger than me, but as I peered up at him, fisting my dress so none of them could see my hands tremble, I was acutely aware that he—they—could make me do anything down here with a well-timed alpha bark.
And it triggered my omega instincts to fawn the threat until it went away. I wasn’t a fawn. I had never been a fawn, but my body, sensing the risk, decided that this was the exact tactic needed to survive.
“D’you understand, Lianna?”
Thad and Chad rumbled gruffly behind me, their voices an octave deeper, and I forced a placating smile as I nodded. “Y-yes. Of course.”
Dewey’s white brows shot up, and he softened just enough for the alarm bells to stop shrieking inside my skull. Running a big hand over his lapels, he ducked down and wrinkled his nose like I was the most adorable little fawn in all the land.
“Good girl.”
Ugh. Gone was the fawn, replaced by the tired, grown-ass omega who had no time or patience for alpha bullshit—and a twist in my stomach so brutal bile rocketed up my throat. I swallowed with a grimace.
He had no right to say that to me. It was too intimate, too manipulative. Omegas intrinsically thrived on alpha praise. Our stupid biology craved it—that sense of belonging, protection, and love from someone so big and burly, someone who could defend our nests when we were vulnerable and lift us up, literally and figuratively, when life knocked us down.
A true partner. Omegas melted for alphas, packs and lone wolf types alike. Alphas who complemented us, who fit just right like the last puzzle piece in the box.
Dewey wasn’t my puzzle piece, and I’d just realized that praise, intimacy, from the wrong alpha felt like heartburn on steroids. Awesome.
He seemed not to notice, thankfully. If anyone knew how to put on a convincing brave face, it was an omega with a history of heartbreak. After another deep, grumbly inhale, like whatever sour crumbs of my perfume lingering between us pleased him, Dewey set off down the corridor, and, after a brief hesitation, I followed on shaky legs.
Thad and Chad were right on my heels, their presence palpable, the warmth of their alpha frames annoyingly constant. They fell away, however, as soon as I joined Dewey at the mouth of a cave—and uttered a gasp that came straight from my soul.
Given the light and the smell, I had expected a chamber, but this was like a small moon cut into the earth. It was round and vast, with a domed ceiling and gravel that sloped down to the bottom, starting a few feet out from where we stood now. Soft light spilled from the ceiling, like sunshine breaching an oppressive overcast, like moonlight slanting through a thick canopy?—
Like two dozen spotlights on a sleeping dragon.
He was pure gold, a jewel in a dingy gray sea. Gold all over, tip to spiked tail, which wrapped around him as he dozed, curled in a tight ball like a cat snoozing in a sunbeam. Enormous. Dragons were just so… big.
Two folded wings, with thinner membranes like bats, the scaleless skin there a lighter, sunnier gold than the sharp talons capping each tip. Four claws at the end of thick, strong legs. A long, girthy neck. Golden scales big as my head at least. Spikes up his tail and along his spine, around his face and head like a crown.
The invisible hands at my throat suddenly delved lower, a lover caressing my breasts and pressing possessively over the trembling valley of my belly. I exhaled shakily, shocked, hot, at a loss for words. My heart hammered like a drumline, and I wilted when I perfumed again—a lot this time.
Omegas emitted a concentrated blast of our natural scent—aka our perfume, so delicate compared to alpha musk—to express interest, excitement, desire, or fear.
Currently, I was a mess of all four, and I had no idea why.
“Do you want to get closer?” Dewey murmured, his breath an unwelcome intrusion at my ear. “He’s asleep.”
My legs answered for me, lurching forward, heels instantly getting stuck in the gravel. Dewey grabbed my wrist, steadying me, then inched us down the slope at such a glacial pace that I almost growled.
“Our guys bring him a dead cow once a week,” Chad announced, he and Thad stomping down after us. “Could probably eat a whole herd, though.”
“I always forget how big the fucker is,” Thad chimed in.
Amber and cypress looped around my legs with the dragon’s next powerful exhale. His scent came with an afterburn of allspice and power, and my gut gave a short, pleasant, squirmy clench, then cramped.
Viciously. Like preheat cramps at the end of a long week, the brutal ones right before the big bang. I gritted my teeth and bit back a whine. No. No, no, no, no.