Better a coward than a fool.
"Goodnight, Torion," I said, rushing into the keep.
Chapter Eight
TORION
For three days, I caught flashes of Brigid around the keep, always darting around the corner of a hall. I'd tried calling out to her twice but received no response, and the pointedly averted gazes of our servants was too galling to continue the process. Had she changed her mind about our bargain? She only needed to say so.
Lie.
I blinked, staring down at my muddied fingers, my arms and shoulders and back aching from hauling stone. I'd been standing out in this field, burning under the sun and mulling over my wayward omega too long.
Was she skittish? Shy? Reluctant?
Whatever the answer, if shedidask me to be released from our arrangement, I wasn't sure how readily I might agree. Not that I would force her to remain my omega. But I might try topersuadeher to stay.
If I could get my hands on her.
My hands on her waist and soft hips, fingers digging into thick auburn locks, teeth nibbling at a long pale throat.
Grasses rustled behind me as someone approached, and I cleared my throat, putting another rock on the wall I was rebuilding.
"This is fine work for our new alpha," a rattling old voice greeted me.
I grinned and brushed grit from my hands before turning to face old Ned MacIntyre, my father's former advisor for many years and as close to a grandfather as I'd ever known.
"Don't tell the betas vying for my wings, but it's the kind of work I prefer, truth be told."
Ned huffed and held out a waterskin in one hand and an open flask in the other. "Expected as much, since you're out here yourself rather than sending folk as you ought to do. Not that you ought?—"
I stopped him, taking a quick draught of water and a grateful sip of whisky. "I'm doing just as I ought, and what my father should've taken care of years ago."
Ned only grunted at that. My father had told me stories of his youth, following Ned MacIntyre about, constantly underfoot, and when my father had risen as alpha, he'd credited Ned's support and guidance to his success. Ned had served as my father's most trusted advisor for decades, even when they were at odds. But when my mother'd grown ill and my father's already tenuous attention to the territory had turned exclusively to his omega, Ned had finally delivered the harsh dressing down my father refused to heed, and they'd parted ways. Ever since I'd reached my majority, I'd found myself wanting to push my father in new directions as alpha, then wanting to claim the position for myself, but I'd never been so disappointed in his leadership as when he'd abandoned his oldest, closest friend.
"My herd isn't so large as to matter," Ned reasoned, helping himself to a seat on a partially finished wall. His yellow sage wings hung a little loose and low these days, and I expectedthey wore on him because he stood stooped now. They certainly wouldn't support flight, even for his bony old frame. "You'd be better served to seeing to the Roberts blocked well."
"I sent folk to him this morning," I said, grinning as Ned chuckled. I joined him on the wall, passing the flask back, staring out at the rising green and gray landscape in front of us, speckled with the warm rust of Ned's herd of cattle. "I like your lands. You have the best views."
There was a long sloping falls running down the rocky hill that bordered his estate, and it turned into a stream that cut through his property, where I'd spent hours catching newts and toads as a boy. I'd wash there later, before flying back to the keep to try and fail to catch another glimpse of Brigid. Maybe I could even be lordly and demand she join me at dinner. It'd be worth it to see her annoyed at least, that snarl that caught her upper lip that she always tried to hide away.
"I'm too old to be serving you up advice like I did your father?—"
"I didn't ask for any," I said, laughing, knowing there was more coming, and it would certainly be advice.
"—but I can't say as I would've advised you to claim another dragon's woman. Even if he was doing a piss poor job of keeping her."
I grimaced and drank more water to avoid the conversation. "I'll admit it wasn't my most well thought out decision."
"She's a fine looking creature. I don't fault you that," Ned said with a shrug.
And Brigid was, indeed, fine looking. She was soft one moment and dagger sharp the next, which I found appealing, like I was preparing for potential battle just to kiss her but might instead find unexpected treasure in her sweetness.
"It wasn't about that. She came to me for help in avoiding him," I said.
Ned sighed. "Ah, was afraid that might be it. You'd be better off not to take after your father in that way."
"My father?"
