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

down this rebellion. When she does, I shall give my mate the offspring he deserves.”

In the corner of the room where she’d slowly moved, Rhiamon’s shoulders twitched. He’d have to talk to Tisiphone about calling her “his witch.” They needed Rhiamon to play nice for now.

Volos dropped his gaze. “That’s…a generous offer.” He was quiet a long beat, then pulled back his shoulders. “I should have trusted that you had a master plan, my king.”

Yes. But that wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

He bowed his head in acceptance of the apology, the movement slow mostly because of the effort to lift it again.

“I wish you had come to me sooner,” Volos said next. Pandering evident in the sort of flailing urgency in his voice. “I would have offered my niece to you without hesitation.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Volos approached Pytheios and bowed. “I will return to my mountain and take this secret to my grave. I shall be proud to know my kin is part of your plan.”

“I don’t think so.”

Volos paused midbow and lifted his gaze. “Pardon?”

Pytheios shifted his gaze to Rhiamon, who had already been chanting quietly in her corner. Even reborn, she knew his wishes without a word. Now she lifted her gaze—silver irises floating eerily in a sea of black death.

Satisfaction tore through his veins.

Before her demise, it took almost an hour for her to work up to the moment she could pull a soul from a body, and another hour of concentrated, exhaustive effort to place that soul into Pytheios. That effort had been why they’d needed their special, private room for the act. That and the screaming.

But she was already there, ready to pull a soul from a body. Within minutes. It appeared death had only made her stronger.

As soon as she fixed her gaze on Volos, the white king froze as still as the dead in their tombs. Men he would soon join. The only movement in his body came from the pupils of his eyes, which dilated, consuming the white irises. Slowly, Rhiamon crossed the room, lips moving as soundless words tumbled out, her gaze focused entirely on her prey. When she reached his side, she laid a hand on his shoulder. With tiny jerks, like watching a stop-motion film, Volos straightened from his bow and faced her.

Rhiamon put her lips to his, and the white king’s mouth opened wide in a silent scream. A shadow of his face appeared to lift away from his body, a spectral form drawing into her mouth, as she pulled his ghost, his soul, from his corporeal form into her own. The process took less than a minute. Then Volos’s eyes clouded over, his skin turning a deathly gray, before he collapsed to the floor without so much as a twitch of life left within him.

Rhiamon turned to Pytheios, then paused, glancing over his shoulder at Tisiphone, her eyes narrowing.

“Rhiamon,” Pytheios rumbled, wanting her focus on him.

She continued to home in on the false phoenix with venom in her gaze.

“My king,” Tisiphone whimpered behind him. He ignored her.

“Rhiamon,” Pytheios growled now, letting cold demand freeze the word.

He needed this, needed the power, the added time. A soul as old as Volos’s wouldn’t help for long, but a dragon shifter, no matter the age, especially one as powerful as a king, would tide him over. Hopefully long enough.

Rhiamon’s gaze snapped to him, and Pytheios had to contend with the sudden, unusual sensation of fear clutching at his heart, its fingers icy and grasping. He wasn’t sure of her intent until she leaned over him in his chair, placing her weight on her hands on the arms, then paused. “For you…my love.”

She placed her lips to his, then released the essence she held inside her, filling him with it.

Chapter Six

Meira lay on her side, knees pulled up close, tucked awkwardly so that she could study her tablet. She’d set up a program that was scanning and analyzing a host of ancient texts she’d downloaded while at Ben Nevis, searching for answers to so many questions. Just one way she was trying to help. If she could find proof of who she and her sisters were, or more information about her kind, proof that there could be more than one, or even proof of the legends surrounding mating them, maybe it would convince more dragons to follow them.

She’d been going over the results any time she could get away from the ceremony plans and her sisters. With no electricity here, she’d have to ration her time until she could get somewhere to charge the device, so she couldn’t read long.

A shiver chased itself up the curve of her spine and spiraled out from there. Thanks to the location and the open window—and despite the fireplace and her own inner heat—she was rarely warm in this place—her only complaint when it came to living with gargoyles. Actually, that wasn’t true. She’d desperately missed her sisters.

Samael, meanwhile, stood at the window, broad back facing her. A watchful sentinel in the black of the moonless night. Her protector.

Not because he wants to be, she reminded herself. Because the only emotion filtering through to her from the man was that of reluctance.

“You should sleep,” Meira said quietly, the words floating in the air between them.

Other than turning his head slightly in her direction, he gave no other indication that he heard.

Typical macho shifter. “This is the best shot you’re going to have at getting decent rest,” she pointed out. “Carrick and all the others are out there. Nothing is getting in this place tonight.”

Samael did turn to face her at that, only to lean his hips back against the windowsill, arms crossed, stretching Ladon’s T-shirt and distracting her. A solid wall of man doubt. If anything, that holding back in his emotions strengthened as he gazed at her.

Irritation itched at her like chigger bites. After avoiding him all this time because of those emotions that he held in check, she