Taming the Alpha

by Mandy M. Roth

  His reply was swift. “Deal. I don’t go anywhere. Now, show me your breasts.”

  Madja put her hands on her hips. “You didn’t answer my question. Every day, around noon, you disappear. I want to know where you’re going.”

  “I told you, I don’t go anywhere. I merely bend the light.”

  “You bend the light?” she repeated, still not understanding.

  Sevrrn sighed—by far, the most human gesture he had yet displayed.

  “Observe.”

  It was all he said before he vanished. Madja stared at the spot where he had just stood, her body rigid. Somehow, seeing him disappear into thin air was even more unnerving than seeing him shift into his dragon form.

  Her tone uncertain, she asked, “Are you…invisible?”

  “I am not invisible.”

  Madja nearly jumped out of her skin as his silken voice manifested itself right next to her ear. He was so close that she could feel the heat from his breath as he spoke, but she saw nothing.

  “You look pretty invisible to me,” she said, reaching out for him. Her hand connected with a hard barrier. She pressed against it, and upon a tactile exploration, determined that it was his chest.

  All at once, he reappeared, standing next to her in all his golden glory. He no longer looked annoyed, and in fact, he seemed quite smug as he explained.

  “To be truly invisible, one must be able to cloak themselves beyond all visual perception. There are none I know of that are capable of such a thing, but tricking human sight is something that even a half-breed could do. Your human eyes are limited in their perception of light. It is easy for me to bend the light around myself, thus rendering you unable to perceive me.”

  Madja was almost impressed, until she realized the implications. “Wait, how often do you do this? I mean, when you leave me alone, are you…watching me?”

  He shrugged. “Of course.”

  Madja felt violated.

  And curious.

  “Why do you watch me?”

  Sevrrn’s patience wore thin. “Are you going to renege on our deal?”

  Madja had forgotten all about the stupid deal. She was in no mood to make things easy for him.

  “Why shouldn’t I? It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked plenty of times now.”

  “That is irrelevant.”

  Just as Sevrrn was coming to understand sarcasm, Madja was also learning that it was impossible to win any argument with Sevrrn. When arguing with a man who considered himself infallible, the best one could do was hold out long enough to annoy him out of spite.

  “Fine, whatever.”

  Rather than simply pulling her neckline down, Madja exposed herself in the most roundabout way possible. She tugged at the strings in the front of her bodice, loosening them one by one. Without the tight bodice to support them, her breasts dipped slightly. Sevrrn’s eyes followed the movement.

  She suddenly felt self-conscious. While it wasn’t the first time she’d been naked in front of him, there was something different in his eyes this time. His usual detached interest was gone, replaced with deliberate scrutiny.

  She shrugged off one shoulder of her gown, and then the other. The muscle in her throat bobbed as she finally reached up and gave her neckline a gentle tug, causing her breasts to spill out from her bodice.

  Madja hadn’t realized she was blushing until she looked down at her chest. Color spread from her neck and down over the tops of her breasts. Sevrrn reached out to touch her.

  His long fingers were tipped with sharp, pointed nails. He used the claw on his index finger to trace the boundaries of her blush.

  “Rose gold,” he said quietly.

  “What?”

  He continued to trace without response.

  Madja knew that she should push him away. Touching hadn’t been part of their deal. But for some reason, she was as transfixed on what was happening as he was. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing more than objective curiosity in his gaze, but his garnet eyes held an intensity that she couldn’t ignore. She couldn’t tell if he liked what he saw or not, but one thing was for certain—he was interested.

  His eyes shifted down to settle on her nipple. “Sapphire.”

  She cocked her head. “Sapphire?”

  “Pink sapphires,” he clarified.

  He murmured something about showing one to her later, but the words hardly registered in her mind as he drew his clawed finger down to encircle her areola. His touch was feather-light, but she sensed that if he were to press any harder, the pointed tip would break her fragile skin.

  A shiver ran down her spine.

  His gaze flickered up to meet hers. “My nail is not cold.”

  Madja averted her eyes. “It wasn’t the cold. It…” she hesitated, “…it felt good.”

  He said nothing, but resumed his exploration. After circling her areola again, his claw gently grazed her nipple. Madja sucked in a breath as the soft bud began to stiffen. The places he’d touched began to tingle, a feeling that spread outward and throughout her body. Warmth pooled in the pit of her stomach and she found herself leaning into him, ever so slightly.

  Sevrrn maintained his silence as his hand cupped her breast. It was the first time she had felt his skin and it was hot to the touch. He lifted her breast and squeezed, as if taking the weight of it. Despite the heat coming from his body and the heat now coiling within her, Madja’s body began to quiver.

  “You should stop,” she whispered.

  She expected him to deliver some sort of arrogant remark about how he does not take orders from humans, but instead, his grip tightened on her breast and he growled.

  It was a low, menacing sound. Despite how comfortable she had become with Sevrrn, age-old instincts caused fear to spike her veins. Wincing, she looked down at his hand, which was clutching her soft mound in a vice grip. Pinpricks of blood appeared where his nails bit her flesh.

  Madja took a deep breath before looking up at his face. He looked furious and she couldn’t understand why. She had said any number of rude things to him in the past few days, most of which he had brushed off with cool indifference.

  When she was certain that she could keep her voice steady, she said, “Sevrrn. You’re hurting me.”

  To her relief, the words had an immediate effect. Sevrrn released her breast at once, drawing back swiftly as though he had been burned. His anger gave way to bemusement as he stared at the damage he’d done to her breast.

  Madja wasn’t sure why she felt the need to placate him, but she couldn’t help herself. “It’s not as bad as it looks, I’ll be…”

  Madja trailed off as she noticed something completely inexplicable. Cheeks aflame, she took a step back and turned away from him, shaky fingers working to readjust her bodice. When she was bold enough to turn back around, Sevrrn was gone.

  She tried to tell herself that she had seen wrong. Perhaps it had been a trick of the light. There was certainly no way that Sevrrn, the ancient and powerful dragon god, had an erection.

  Chapter Six

  Madja was hardly finished appraising the Dvorian votive statue when Sevrrn kicked a scabbard towards her. It skidded to a halt at her feet.

  “And this?”

  Sevrrn had not been the same since their interlude the day before. As usual, he sat on his throne, elbow on the armrest and chin on his wrist in a languid pose, but everything else about him was different.

  As she appraised his artifacts, he would generally ask her questions, sometimes even engage her in conversation. Today, they had been at it for hours and he’d hardly commented. When he did, it was only to offer a terse, punctuated, “hm.”

  Over the course of the day, Madja had been forced to contend with something far more disturbing than Sevrrn’s bleak mood. It was the realization that without Sevrrn being at least moderately companionable, appraising treasure was, well, boring.

  Madja picked the scabbard up and then set it aside. Her brows drew together. “Are you all right?”<
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  His gaze, which had been distant, moved to settle on her. In a tone that was only a notch above apathy, he said, “Get back to work. I expect everything to be appraised by the end of the season.”

  “How am I ever going to finish when you keep adding things to the pile?”

  “I am not referring to the pile, I am referring to my entire hoard.”

  She couldn’t hold back her snort of laughter. “Autumn will be over in two months. I get that time is probably not something you pay much mind to, but trust me, a quality appraisal on everything here will take me decades, maybe even a century. I’ll probably die of old age before we even begin to tackle the stuff at the bottom of the lake.”

  “You will not die.”

  Madja flinched at his sharp tone. She quickly recovered.

  “The oldest human I know is eighty-seven and I’m already a quarter of the way there.”

  He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “We will find a way to keep you alive. I am sure there is some sort of artifact or potion that grants immortality. We will acquire it.”

  Her eyes widened with excitement. “You mean like a quest?”

  “We will make someone bring it to us.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “I see. So that’s how it’ll be? You and I, spending eternity in your lair?”

  “Why would we leave?”

  “I don’t know. To go on adventures? See the world?”

  His gaze became distant again. “I can fly around the world in a day. It is much smaller than you think.”

  “My father spent a year travelling down the Vrynesh coal road on the back of an ox. He said he saw something new every day.”

  Sevrrn’s brow arched, and the familiar gesture made Madja smile.

  He asked, “Is there a point you are trying to make?”

  “I guess that the world is a lot bigger than what you can see with your eyes.”

  Madja turned to the small pile of objects that she had already appraised. Plucking out her favorite, she stood and approached Sevrrn’s throne to crouch beside him.

  “A week ago, all you knew was that this crown was simply a combination of gold and pearls. It was just another trinket in your hoard. Now you know that it’s the earliest relic of one of the greatest nations in the world. You know that it was made for Empress Arda, the legendary slave who overthrew the most oppressive empire to ever exist. You know that the word carved on the inside comes from her famous saying, ‘A hundred masters have seen my back bend, but they have never seen it break.’

  “Nothing about this crown has changed, but now you know its history, its significance beyond the materials it’s comprised of.”

  Madja waited for him to say something, but Sevrrn only stared at her, his expression inscrutable. Feeling a little silly about her zealous tangent, she decided to change the subject.

  “So, what’s going to happen once I appraise everything? Will you set me free?”

  The dragon scoffed. “Of course not. We will appraise new things.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. “Wait, so you want to make me immortal just so that you can own me forever?”

  “You belong to me. Your mortality has no bearing on that fact.”

  After rolling her eyes, Madja leaned back against his throne. The side of her head brushed against his leg, and when he didn’t seem discomfited by it, she allowed her head to lean against him. Just a little.

  “I don’t think I want to be immortal,” she said.

  “All humans desire immortality.”

  She yawned.

  “Maybe, but I don’t even want to spend a human lifetime in here, let alone eternity.”

  He sounded almost affronted. “What is wrong with my lair?”

  “Nothing, it’s just sort of boring. Don’t you ever get bored?”

  “You are a strange human. One moment you wax poetic about an old headpiece and now the vast contents of my hoard cannot hold your interest?”

  She smiled. “You’re right. I guess what I mean is that it gets a bit lonely here. Sometimes I miss going to festivals, or even just walking around the marketplace.”

  Sevrrn was quiet and Madja relaxed fully against him. The scales of his robe were warm and almost felt alive against her cheek. After a few moments, she felt something touch her head and soon realized that Sevrrn was doing something with her hair.

  Examining it?

  Playing with it?

  Madja wanted to ask him, but her need to be touched exceeded her curiosity. Afraid that he would stop, she said nothing and closed her eyes.

  “Do not go to sleep.” A quiet command.

  She opened one eye and peeked up at him. “Why not?”

  His lips flattened, before he said, “You cry in your sleep. It is annoying.”

  Madja blushed. “Sorry. Sometimes I have nightmares.”

  “About what?”

  So many things.

  “Mostly, being alone.”

  “Hm.”

  Madja pulled away as Sevrrn stood. She prodded at some coins on the floor while listening to the sounds of his footsteps as he walked away.

  Her mind drifted back to a week ago, when she had seriously considered spending her life in Sevrrn’s lair, all by herself. How naïve that had been. Even with the dragon god to keep her company, she somehow felt lonelier than ever.

  Standing up, she brushed her dress off and then made her way over to her pallet. Night had already fallen, but she was becoming adept at finding her way by the light of the moon.

  Lying down, Madja was preparing to toss and turn for a while when she heard a nearby rustling of coins. She propped herself up on her elbows to see the golden dragon looming over her. She watched as he laid down beside her pallet, the displaced air causing stray silks to fly into her face. She pulled them off in time to see his tail coil around her pallet, forming an oval-shaped barrier.

  Madja crawled over to the edge of the pallet and laid her head down on his tail. The scales were hard, but what he lacked in comfort, he made up for in warmth. Within moments, she had fallen asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  The next morning, Madja woke to find herself alone, with only a charred chicken left in Sevrrn’s place. After eating, she went down to the lake for a dip.

  Ever since she’d found out about Sevrrn’s light bending, Madja had made it a point to bathe in a cotton shift. That was why she was not alarmed when she came up from washing her hair to find Sevrrn watching her.

  She was, however, alarmed to find that he was completely naked.

  Madja stole one greedy glimpse at his resplendent body before jerking her head away and feigning indignation.

  “What are you doing? Where are your scales?”

  “I removed them so that your view of my human form would be unobstructed.”

  She climbed out of the water and grabbed a linen cloth to dry off with. “How magnanimous of you.”

  “Today, you will appraise this body.”

  Madja laughed. “Tell me you’re referring to a corpse you brought back and not yourself.”

  She thought she heard him snort. “Are you refusing my request?”

  “What if I am?”

  He was silent for a while, and finally, Madja worked up the nerve to turn. She kept her eyes focus squarely on his head, though they desperately wanted to travel lower.

  Sevrrn scratched his head in a very human gesture of uncertainty. It was the first time she’d ever seen him do that, and Madja wondered if he’d learned it from her.

  “I am not sure,” he finally said. “I generally kill humans who do not obey me.”

  For some reason, the admission didn’t frighten her. In fact, morbid though it was, Madja was amused by his predicament.

  “I see. Well, then I suppose this is goodbye.”

  His gaze darkened. “Do not be ridiculous. You are not just any human. You are mine.”

  He said it casually, as though he was stating a universal fact—’the sky is blue, the stars are far,
and you are mine’—and perhaps it was because of how easily he said it that warmth blossomed in Madja’s chest. Even as Sevrrn began to pace and mutter to himself, she was still playing the phrase on repeat in her mind.

  Not, ‘you belong to me,’ but, ‘you are mine.’ Why was it so different?

  She knew that she was blowing it way out of proportion, but she just couldn’t help it.

  Sevrrn stopped pacing. “What if I said that I would stop feeding you?”

  Suddenly, Madja found him considerably less charming.

  “If you stop feeding me, I’ll die,” she pointed out.

  He nodded and resumed pacing. Apparently, it hadn’t occurred to him that she’d do just about anything if he stopped feeding her for even a day. She wasn’t about to inform him of that.

  He stopped again, but Madja held up a hand and spoke first.

  “Look, I know there are probably a bunch of weird ideas in your head right now, but I assure you, there’s a very easy solution to your problem.”

  He tilted his head.

  “You could say, ‘please.’”

  “Deal. Please.”

  That was easy. “Please, what?”

  “Please, what?” he repeated.

  “Usually, when you ask please, it’s followed by a request. For example—”

  He flicked his wrist. “That was not part of our deal. Now, commence with your appraisal.”

  Madja wondered what Sevrrn would do if she smacked him.

  She pressed a finger to her temple. “Fine, but I don’t know what you’re expecting. I can’t exactly appraise the value of a person.”

  “You are not appraising my value as a person, you are appraising my physical body.”

  He took a step forward, so that there was only a small space between them. Madja could smell him, and for all her knowledge of art and history, words always seemed to elude her when it came to his unique, masculine scent. All she knew was that it made her knees weak.

  “Your body isn’t an object.”

  “But it is,” he insisted. “I spent centuries crafting my human form. I took inspiration from the things that please me.”