The Warrior King (Inferno Rising) by Owen, Abigail (online e book reading txt) 📗

She jerked her hand back, stuffing both behind her back like a child caught doing something she shouldn’t. This man was her only hope to find her mate and fix this. What was wrong with her?

“Where are we?” Samael asked, his voice dropping to a low rumble that skated over her skin like a caress.

Meira licked suddenly dry lips, trying her best to contain everything inside her. “Somewhere safe.”

Chapter Four

“Where?” Samael snapped.

At the same time, he resisted the urge to rub at where her touch had landed, the imprint of her fingers still warm from her fire, soft against his skin, like he’d imagined they’d be since the moment he’d seen her in the mirrors at the Gold Clan’s mountain in Norway.

“I…can’t tell you where,” she said. “I made a promise.”

He breathed through his mouth, reaching for control like he’d never had to before, trying not to take in her scent as his dragon urged him to claim. One more distraction he didn’t need. What he needed was to make sure they were secure.

Gods above, seeing her in that room with Gorgon—or some impostor—turned to ash, his first instinct hadn’t been to go to his king, but to take her away from the danger. She’d stared at him with wide, trusting eyes, watching him like he could fix this.

But he couldn’t. This was too big, even for him.

Now she’d dragged him somewhere, and that protective instinct that kicked in around her was screaming at him to secure the area. Only he couldn’t do that if he didn’t know what he was securing.

“Can’t tell me?” He glowered at her upturned face.

Clear eyes gazed back. When this woman made a promise to someone else, she stuck to it, even to her detriment. He knew that much about her. Didn’t she know he was here to protect her? How was he supposed to do that if he didn’t know where they were?

“The hell with that.” Samael stalked to the wide, open window set into one wall. A window with no glass, letting in the biting chill, winter still grasping onto life here despite being early spring, assuming they were still in the Northern Hemisphere. With a quick scan, he took in the scenery.

Seven hells weren’t enough.

His first impression of the room wasn’t wrong—they were in a castle. Except not one like he’d ever seen. Ancient, obviously, based on the architecture and the wear on the stones. One surrounded by jagged peaks still covered in snow. The structure itself blended into the topography, almost like camouflage, but, looking in either direction, as far as he could tell it made up practically an entire side of the mountain.

The design to the structure was an unusual blend of several cultures—English castles, but with Russian styling in the spires, bulwarks that could give the Great Wall of China a lesson or two in Chinese architecture, other more impenetrable parts, which reminded him of Spanish and African fortresses, flying buttresses of the French Gothic style. A marvel. Truly.

Where on the earth were they?

What mountains could hide such a place? Meira wouldn’t have dared take them to the Himalayas—too close to Pytheios. The peaks in view weren’t steep enough or high enough for the Alps. So where?

The room Meira had brought them to apparently stood high in a turret with a sheer drop not only down the side of the edifice but continuing over a cliff to a deep ravine below.

Samael gauged the distance. If he had to jump, he might have time to shift before he hit bottom.

A change in the air around him told Samael Meira had come closer. Turning slightly, he found her behind him, gazing out the window with an expression of wary concern. Why? She’d said they were safe here.

“It’s almost night,” Meira said.

He followed her gaze to a sky full of purples slowly fading to dark blues then to black as darkness made her slow, conquering slide across the heavens.

“It won’t be long now,” she murmured more to herself. “He’ll have already sensed us.”

Tension took hold of Samael, tightening his muscles in preparation and centuries of training honed to a finely tuned weapon. “He who?”

What next? Was he going to have to slay a monster? Take on a ghost?

Suddenly an odd sort of clacking sounded from outside. Like something was tapping on the rock face of the castle.

Samael put an arm out, scooting Meira back, away from the opening.

Meira tried to speak. “It’s—”

“Quiet,” he warned. Whatever was scaling those rocks was coming right at her window.

“But—”

He shot her a sharp look that silenced her before jerking his head back around, ready to defend her from what came through it.

A tiny bleat sounded a heartbeat before a goat leaped in through the open window.

“Vincent!” Meira cried and rushed around Samael, who stood there gaping as she wrapped her arms around a shaggy white goat with a beard.

“What is that?” Samael demanded.

He didn’t miss the amused smile she hid or how she lowered her lashes over laughing eyes. “This is Vincent Van Goat,” she said without even a snigger. “He’s mine.”

He had no fucking clue what to say to that.

“I found him as a baby. Wolves had killed his mother, and I had to bottle raise him. He couldn’t come with me because this is his home.” She paused. “Though maybe now—”

“I don’t care about the damn goat.”

Vincent, as though determined to change Samael’s opinion, pranced over to him and butted his hand for a pat, his deep-brown eyes soft as though pleading to be loved just a little bit.

Samael clenched his jaw, but almost against his will, he found his hand uncurling to pet the darn thing. “You’re a snack to my kind,” he warned.

“You wouldn’t,” Meira gasped.

His gaze flashed to her. “Of course I wouldn’t—”

At her soft chuckle, he cut off. She was teasing. Meira opened her mouth to say something else but froze as a shadow passed across the window, and then she winced. Samael stiffened,