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

taken. But also the frustration with her determination to look at the world—at him—through that innocent prism. Her trust might just get them both killed.

Speaking of which, how Meira had talked him into this latest plan, he wasn’t entirely sure. She’d spent the entire morning on that tablet of hers, pulling up schematics and possible places the real Gorgon might have been taken, he discovered, using coded analytics to determine the most likely places and the highest probability of success to get him out of each.

Then she’d walked him through all of it systematically. The woman truly was an enigma, all logical calculations with her computers, a side of her he was only just now getting to see, but then she led with her heart in every other way. And he’d agreed to her suggested plan. As though he, like the rest of the world, just couldn’t say no to her, and she happily wandered through life with that power in her pocket.

She met his gaze, and something flickered in those ever-changing eyes that he didn’t catch. “With only one exception, no one has ever seen me in the mirrors when I didn’t want them to.”

He knew exactly the exception she was talking about. Him.

I’m the only one to have seen her?

Fuck. One more nail in his coffin, because the longer he spent with this woman, the more a certain knowledge settled deep within his core, bone-deep, soul true. Inside him, his dragon slashed his tail back and forth, impatient for Samael to act on what he knew.

But now was not the time. There might never be a time.

“That wasn’t a slip on your part?” he asked, desperate for any alternate explanation.

“I don’t think so.”

“And you’re sure about this?” he asked again, waving a hand at the mirror.

“I can’t make any guarantees,” she said slowly.

They had already spent a decent portion of the morning debating what their next steps should be. This was the best they could come up with.

They needed help.

“Right. Let’s get it over with.” Just in case, he dropped into a defensive stance, ready to unleash hell if needed. “Go ahead.”

Meira dropped her gaze to Vincent, who was standing between them. “Go find Carrick,” she told the goat.

Samael snorted. “Like he’d understand—”

Vincent trotted out the door.

Meira shot the black dragon shifter a shrug, then focused on what they were about to do. In an instant her fire flared over her body, the residual heat radiating out to him. The image staring back at them changed instantly to that of a different room. An empty room. In rapid succession moving quickly from space to space, Meira searched for her sisters throughout Ben Nevis. It didn’t take long until she found Skylar, but that particular sister was surrounded. She stood in the main training area located in the hangar of the mountain with all her and Ladon’s warriors, running through a series of physical exercises. Maul, lying in the back corner of the room, popped his head up.

“That’s a good sign,” Meira mumbled, more to herself than to him.

Yes, it was. “Skylar hasn’t been ostracized by the Blue Clan yet.”

Even through the wash of flame over her face, he still caught Meira’s sideways glance in the mirror, though she didn’t comment. They couldn’t talk to Skylar with a crowd of witnesses, so Meira continued to change the locations she searched.

“Kasia is not here,” Meira finally acknowledged, disappointment weighing the words. “She must’ve gone back to Store Skagastølstind with Brand. I’m searching for Angelika now.”

Again, the picture changed. Flashing, flashing, flashing. Like strobes. “There. Got her.”

Samael wasn’t sure what Meira had seen in the reflection at that speed. Perhaps she could sense her sister’s presence, because it took another few flashes before the image settled. It showed a smaller bedroom suite, the kind he recognized because he had grown up in a similar setup. Cramped, with fewer amenities and furnishings, meant for the common folk. He and his family had been happy in a suite like that. Right up to the end.

Only this place appeared as though bats have been living in it for decades—dirty and decrepit. He was fairly certain smells didn’t come through the mirrors, but Samael swore the musty scent of bat guano permeated regardless.

An unremembered, unused section of the mountain, perhaps? This was where they had put the wolves? How were those shifters, with their overdeveloped sense of smell, standing to stay there?

“Where’s your sister?”

Before she could answer, Maul suddenly appeared in the bedroom on the other side of the mirror. Samael was well aware of how the hellhound teleported. If he could see it, or knew what was on the other side, he could get there in short hops.

“Wait.” Samael frowned. “He was just in the training room.”

Maul’s head whipped in the direction of the mirror Meira was using. With happy dog sound, he disappeared only to appear just as suddenly in the room with them.

“Oh my gods, Maul,” Meira exclaimed, losing her hold on the mirror to whirl around and face the hellhound. “You can’t be here.”

The massive black dog that reeked of smoke and decay ignored her, instead bounding over, practically knocking Samael out of the way in his eagerness to get to Meira. With a chuckle, she wrapped her arms around the big dog.

“I thought this place was warded?” Samael asked.

Glowing red eyes turned his way, but he couldn’t tell if Maul was glaring at him or just looking in the direction of his voice.

“I guess not from hellhounds.” Her voice sounded from Maul’s opposite side.

Meira peeped at him from under the hound’s neck—the thing was as big as a Clydesdale. Bigger, probably. “Just for a moment,” she seemed to be pleading with him. “He worries about us.”

A hellhound protector. Gargoyles. Wolf shifters. Even rogue dragons. Serefina Amon, the girls’ mother, must have been something.

“Carrick is going to lose his shit,” Samael reminded her. He didn’t also point out that they didn’t have time for another of her strays.

“Right. Okay.” Meira’s hands