“Please,” she groaned. “Please fuck me, Kavin.” She worked her way down so that the head of my erection pressed hard against her. The tip was inside her now, and I strained to hold her up, to keep her from impaling herself on me. The other three Alphas had moved toward us, their expressions ranging from concerned to homicidal. If I had been close enough for Thorn to touch me, I would have been dead from some esoteric poison already.
Steeling myself, I lifted her off the end of my aching flesh, and moved her to one hip. “You’re not ready.” I exhaled, fighting my nature that told me to tend to my Omega’s needs. I knew she would never forgive me if I took her like this, roughly, standing in the ocean.
Neither would Thorn.
Her primary consort was too injured to take care of her, and he was watching from the sand, judging me. Was I the sort of Alpha who surrendered to my lust, who couldn’t take the steps to make it right for my Omega? Hells, no. I would not lose his regard, and I would never hurt Roya.
Her response was a strangled moan. “Who the fuck are you to tell me that? I want to fuck you, Kavin. I’m not into games, whatever this is you’ve been doing.”
“I don’t want you for an afternoon, Roya,” I ground out. “I want you for the rest of our lives. And that means I must do this right. I swear, I’m not playing a game.”
She took a breath, probably to curse me, when Altair muttered from the sand, barely loud enough to hear, “Sure you are, Kavin. It’s called Just the Tip, and you’re about to win.”
Muffled laughs emerged from Thorn’s hut, and Roya stiffened. Uh-oh.
“Fuckers, all of you.” She growled, twisted faster than I could anticipate, and landed in the inches-deep water on her hands and knees. She hissed when I held a hand out to help her up. “If I had my knife on me, I’d play just the tip with all you assholes,” she shouted.
She wrung the water out of her hair and stalked to the clothing Altair was sprawled out on. “If you please.” She extended a hand, a naked queen demanding her robes. Altair kneeled and gave them to her. She dressed quickly, cursing us the whole time, and then went to her hut, the smaller of the two, returning with her knives.
“I’ll be back later. I’m going to go kill something.” When all four of us stepped forward as if to follow her, she whirled, her damp hair flying in golden ropes around her scowling face. “And if I so much as smell an Alpha, we’ll be having sausage for dinner,” she threatened, staring at my quickly softening dick.
I covered myself with my hands, and Icarus whistled sharply. Roya vanished behind a grouping of palms, Torio and Whistler skulking along after her.
“I suppose they’re safe, being Betas,” I muttered, and went to collect my trousers.
Altair followed me up to the hut, where Thorn and Icarus had water waiting. Besides Icarus, none of us needed more sun today, not when our skin was still healing from the sunburn we’d taken during our escape from Havira. Earlier, Thorn had sent the sailors after some aloe plants. We gathered around a makeshift driftwood table, sitting on a floor made of woven palm fronds, and rubbed the sticky sap from the aloe leaves on our fading burns. The aloe was a good idea; it almost covered up the scent of Roya’s slick that at least three of us wore on our hands and—lucky bastard, that Altair—faces.
“For all the teasing, Kavin,” Thorn said out of the blue, “I was once again impressed at your discretion.”
Icarus muttered, “I was impressed at his sex talk. I never had that sort of verbal skill when I was his age.”
I coughed into a hand. “I, um, read a lot.” I didn’t need to tell them how often I’d rehearsed those dirty lines in my imagination since meeting Roya.
“Discretion?” Altair’s regal dark eyebrows rose. “He wasn’t very discreet—he touched her in front of all of us.”
Thorn’s gaze on Altair was as sharp as any blade. “She begged him for more.” Those eyes cut into me now, searching for something. “Why did you deny her?”
I set down the crushed aloe stem and took a slow drink of water. I didn’t want to say this the wrong way, and offend anyone in the room. “Thorn, we are all strong Alphas who have been drawn to Roya. I think, though I haven’t known Icarus for as long”—he nodded to me, as if to say he understood my hesitation—“we are all in contention to be her chosen mates. But I am young, just twenty.”
“Very young.” Icarus rubbed his head sheepishly with one hand. “Now I’m even more impressed at your reserve. Well done, lad.”
Lad?I shook off the condescending word. “Altair is the eldest, thirty-two years?” He nodded.
Thorn chimed in, “I’m thirty-one.”
“And Icarus—”
“Fifty-seven,” he broke in smoothly, his expression daring us to comment. I felt my jaw drop; Icarus looked younger than Thorn.
Thorn’s eyes gleamed. “One of the long-lived species?”
Icarus nodded, and I fought to control my excitement. I knew Icarus was some sort of dragonkin, but I wasn’t certain if any of his line’s blood had retained the longevity and strength of dragons. He might be young for his kind; dragonkin lifespans could be hundreds of years. There was so much I wanted to ask him now. Historical events that he might have a better understanding of, if his parents or grandparents had been alive at the time.
But Thorn caught my glance again, prodding me to continue. “Ah, yes. Well, if the Goddess is good, more than one of us will be fortunate enough to be her consort.”
“It’s husband, not consort, in Wyngel,” Icarus said smoothly. “Or, for my wyvern, sky bond. Bond, singular. We don’t mate in groups, or whatever you’re suggesting. We marry and stay faithful to one mate alone.”
“Let the boy speak, oh, Elder Wyvern,” Thorn instructed.Boy?I glared at him, and he snorted. “Don’t be offended; I think all of us are a bit jealous of your youth and energy.”
