4. Lianna

A naked man.

A naked alpha man.

A naked alpha man built like a fucking mountain.

Heart lodged in my throat, I wasn't sure which was more intimidating: the dragon or the man. Pushing at least seven feet, Vidar lay half in, half out of the water. The gentle tide lapped at his legs, his thick thighs. Succulent alpha pheromones wafted my way, carried on the breeze, and, dumbstruck, I followed their trail like a moth to a flame.

Crawling along the shoreline, my greedy gaze devoured every inch of him. A warm ivory complexion. Big. Broad. He had the kind of muscularity to his shoulders that I loved, the definition that rippled when men moved or flexed a certain way. Fuck, I had always been a shoulder girl, but his strong arms were equally delicious.

Tattoos covered those arms, that broad chest. They trailed from his shoulders to his fingertips, from the noticeable bulge in his throat down his sides. I licked my lips as I followed the lines from start to murky end; most looked like Celtic knots, intricate and beautiful. Faded, splotchy ink dotted his fingers. I noted the edges of splayed wings curling around his shoulders. Maybe there was a raven or eagle on his back?

Hot.

Fucking hot.

Mouth watering, slick pooling, I knelt near his head and resisted the urge to trace all the curious designs painstakingly inked into his skin. A quick glance south revealed a cut abdomen, muscle shredded down to his thighs.

A thick dick. Fire sparked in my cheeks. A grower and a shower, maybe, that thing was already half erect and seemed like it had inches upon inches to go.

Great. Now it was a tight race between dragon, man, and cock for most intimidating.

Splayed on his back, arms limp at his sides, Vidar breathed slow and steady with his eyes closed. His scent swirled around me, his alpha presence potent, heavy but not smothering, and I leaned into its gravitational pull. The inferno in my core tempered, the monster pleased with this offering of breathtaking alpha, and softened to a pleasant warmth that hummed in my clit. Every omega instinct begged me to touch him—to straddle his hips and slip that cock inside.

Ease the ache once and for all.

I brushed the hair from his forehead instead with shaky fingers. Dark caramel brown fell well past his shoulders, the waves bushy, wild, and in need of a good brushing. He had an equally unkempt full beard, though, thankfully, it wasn't long and scraggly. No, it was rounded and just past his chin, tinged with wispy grays and a touch of copper.

An oval face. A straight nose with a slightly pointed tip. Gaunt cheeks. A ragged, faded scar that slashed from his left temple down and back, its end hidden under his beard.

Having spent the last few years paying my rent with book cover art, I was primed to the small details, especially around the face. I slaved over my work, hell-bent on giving my authors, my clients, my friends, a near perfect match to the character they saw in their head. Same as his dragon side, I wanted to paint him. Discover every nuance. Explore every line, every glorious peak and valley.

With my tongue.

I flinched at his soft groan, his face screwed in pain. Had I… said that out loud? I bit down on the tongue that craved a slow, sensual exploration of his body, then stole another look at his chest.

Oh.

How the hell had I missed that?

There, nestled in amongst his chest art, was a bruise the size of a fucking football. It roughly matched where I had pulled the arrow out on his dragon body, a garish bullseye in the middle of his chest, and sported a furious mess of black, purple, and blue. To its credit, it blended well with the maze of tattoos there, but now that I saw it, I could never unsee it.

Another rumble had me glancing back to his face, and there my widening gaze stayed when I caught him studying me beneath dark, heavy eyelids.

"Vidar?" His eyes opened a little more, and my heart skipped a beat at the way his lips kicked up. With a soft breath, I shuffled closer, pebbles and sand gritting into my knees. "Hi."

"I-I…" His voice was pure rasp, gruff but undeniably lovely. "I heard you." The alpha swallowed hard and winced. "In the dark." After a hard blink, he opened his eyes wider and took what struck me as a painful breath. "Thank you…"

He trailed off, mouth opening and closing, dark gaze searching my face like it was one he had seen long, long ago but he couldn't place its name.

"Lianna," I whispered, and my blush went nuclear at his almost boyish grin. It was the kind of smile that promised I'd thank this alpha after he snapped me like a twig. Dangerous—intoxicating.

"Lianna," he rumbled, slow and thoughtful. His lashes twitched as his gaze roved my face again. "The omega who smells like…"

I waited on bated breath, the omega in my soul desperate to hear what came next. Vidar blinked hurriedly, his attention landing hard on my throat. Whatever I smelled like to him, he kept to himself. Before I could sulk, however, he raised one big hand to my face and brushed the backs of his knuckles over my cheek. His touch was electric, hot, the hiss of a freshly struck match—but gentle. So achingly gentle I was seconds away from my first ever swoon.

"Thank you, Lianna."

The tightness in my core was all pleasure this time. It still smarted a bit, but it was miles better than a cramp. Maybe the heat was passing?

Or, given the sheer audacity of omega biology, this was the eye of the storm.

I managed a shy nod under the intensity of his gaze, then leaned into his hovering hand. It slowly turned, knuckles swapped for a fiery palm. Vidar cupped my face, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth, then my lower lip. The first sweep was gentle, his eyes glinting with affection, but then came the pluck and the gathering storm clouds. Another delicious clench rocked my core, twisting lower this time.

His eyes were green. Open fully now, locked on mine—they were hunter green.

My favorite. My nest at home was full of hunter green: pillows, blankets, all four walls and the ceiling.

He drew in a sharp breath, lips parted like he was about to say something, but then he winced and coughed. His hand fell to his bruised chest, and, grimacing, the alpha pushed onto his elbow with a low, frustrated growl.

"You're still hurt." I scooted over for a better look at the discoloration between the gaps of his fingers. "I thought maybe… Can you, uh, heal yourself?"

Ugh, cringe. I was speaking English, but referencing the supernatural, the fact that he was a fucking dragon, felt like stuttering through a foreign language of which I only had a few phrases down—barely. After all, my paranormal knowledge came exclusively from TV, movies, and a vast collection of smutty books. Still, in those, shapeshifters always had powerful healing abilities, and if they were real, the lore had to come from somewhere.

"I am sorry you have to see me like this," Vidar muttered, blowing by my comment to glare down at himself. I sank back on my heels, shifting side to side to make my crunchy knees happier, and cleared my throat. Did he mean… see him naked?

Because. Yeah, nothing to apologize for there. He had to be, like, the prototypical alpha the rest were modeled after, and they were just pale imitations of the original.

"What d'you mean?"

"Weak." He tipped his head side to side, leaning, stretching hard until he got a crack left and right. "I… I need…" Eyes closed, Vidar took another deep breath. "I need my heart."

I blinked at his face, then his chest, as amber settled like a weighted blanket on my shoulders. Cypress coiled around me, his scent, his presence, the influence he made on this world by simply being, a tonic to the next cramp. Gone was the pleasure, replaced with a familiar ache that had me gritting my teeth and chasing distractions.

"Do you…" Picking the threads of that apart would do nicely. "Uh, do you n-not have your… heart?"

His brow crinkled as he studied me, gaze roving. He seemed to clock the new beads of sweat at my hairline, the flutter of my chest as I tried to breathe through the pain. When that beautiful hunter green plunged to my core, I crossed my arms over it—like that would actually do something, hide the way his presence played my body like a fucking fiddle.

"Dragons contain immense power, ancient magic," he admitted softly. "I more than most." Vidar sank onto both elbows with a grimace this time, then scanned the dark water lapping at the shore. "To fly under the radar, as it were, w-we store most of our power in a secret, treasured object. It keeps others from sensing who we are—what we are."

In that moment, I felt for him. A bit of species-centric worldbuilding and he looked wiped, like a century-long nap wouldn't ease his exhaustion.

"When w-we need more, in times of strife, after an injury, rare as they are"—we both glanced at his chest—"then we draw from our heart. Otherwise, we become targets."

"For hunters?"

His eye twitched. "Of magic and mundane origins, yes."

"So…" I motioned toward his chest with my chin. "There's still a heart in there?"

His chuckle was bright and warm despite the ache in his eyes. "Yes. A deathless heart." Vidar's fingers nudged my knee. "Free of that wretched bolt, thanks to you."

Another shy blush warmed my cheeks. He spoke with a light accent, but it was muddied, watered down by other influences. Still, there was a lilting buoyancy to it, a melody I could listen to forever.

Yearning slashed my belly. Instinct screamed to touch him, to feel his beating heart, to tap into that melody and weave it into my soul.

Dramatic stuff, omega instincts.

"Okay, where's your other heart then?"

"In the bowels of this isle." Vidar grunted, awkwardly shifting from balancing on his elbows to his hands. Muscles trembled in his bicep. A shiver cut down his torso. He sounded gruffer, more distant with every word. "It's why I brought us here."

Us. It sounded so right, me and him, but all these thoughts and feelings were verging on delulu if he wasn't my scent match, my other half, my fated mate. If I were just reacting to the sheer intensity of my first supernatural alpha, then the flash heat, the distracted thoughts, the focus on his body and voice and scent and ugh.

Embarrassing. So fucking embarrassing if he wasn't mine.

"I think—" Vidar knuckled under my chin, jolting me out of a potential spiral. "I am not the only one… in pain."

"No, no, I'm f-fine." His eyebrow arched at my stammers, the ghost of stern, no-nonsense skepticism settling across his face. I forced a smile and a shrug, sounding shrill even to my own ears as I added, "It's nothing. Really."

Just my first ever flash heat that was barely held at bay by sheer force of will and a lifelong refusal to become a pathetic, mewling, slick-soaked omega in front of any alpha, let alone a walking, talking god.

Yeah, totally chill. Nothing to worry about. Easy-fucking-breezy.

Vidar pinned me with a knowing look, his pupils large and his nostrils flared. "Lianna, I can smell your?—"

"You said your heart is here," I blurted as I launched to my feet. Then, on shaky legs, weak and determined to buckle—drop me right in his goddamn lap, more like—I offered him my hand. "Let's go find it. Get you feeling better already."

Another incredulous look stared up at me, one that said he knew exactly what I was doing.

"Seriously," I pressed, wiggling my fingers in his face like a worm wriggling on the end of a hook—for a shark. "I hate leaving a job half done."

No amount of cypress, amber, or bonfire smoke would sway me. I gave him a few beats of exerting his alpha influence, the invisible force closing in around me like a hug, but it left him sweaty and shaky with dark patches under his eyes.

"You're hurting. You're tired," I whispered, hand waiting to be claimed. "I-I'm a little tired too. Come on."

His clenched jaw jutted to the side, and I bit back a giddy, girlish squeeeeeee when his big, strong hand finally closed around mine.