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

“Thank the gods,” she burst out the second she saw Meira. “What the fuck has been going on?”

Before Meira could answer, Skylar jumped to her feet. “First, all these women show up in my bedroom.” She leveled a glare at her side of the mirror. “While we were fucking, I might add. It’s a good thing you sent the tiny dragon boy through last, or he would’ve got an eyeful.”

Meira grimaced. Beside her, Samael choked. For his part, Ladon raised his gaze to the ceiling as though he might find peace up there.

“Sorry,” Meira said. “They’re—”

“They explained,” Skylar cut her off. “It would’ve been nice to hear it from you, but you disappeared. I thought you were—” Skylar flung out an arm.

“I’m sorry,” Meira said.

Skylar paused in her ranting and pacing to stand before them. “I’ve been worried for hours. With the other news we got, your timing was damn ugly.”

“News?” Meira prompted. More had happened beyond the people she’d sent for protection.

Skylar hesitated—never a good sign with her outspoken sister—and glanced at Ladon, who’d gone scarily serious, his mouth a flat slash.

“Gorgon is dead.”

Chapter Fourteen

Those three words flayed Samael from the inside. His dragon loosed a terrible roar in his head, and he flinched.

His king was dead.

The man who’d given him a chance no other royal would have, let alone a king. In a time when Gorgon precariously held his clan together already, he had given a poor, lowborn, orphaned nobody a place of honor.

He can’t be dead…

Samael tipped his hand. The brand, the mark of his clan, had disappeared as quietly as his king apparently had. Without his knowledge. That or he’d missed the loss in the rush of everything else going on. From all accounts, losing a brand was supposed to be painful, a burn. But what if his loyalty to his king had been tried and found wanting? Why hadn’t the mark been replaced with the new king’s mark? His mark, in theory. By technical right. Shouldn’t that have happened immediately, or was he rogue now?

Meira squeezed his hand, and he realized he’d been squeezing hers hard with his other one. Damn. He loosened up.

“How do you know? What happened?” He didn’t mean to sound accusing, but he didn’t take it back, either.

Ladon crossed his arms. “A man named Amun has been in touch and told us the king’s mark had disappeared. You know him?”

“My second in command, and the Viceroy of Defense. He’s been running Ararat with Gorgon’s beta while we’ve been in Ben Nevis these last months—”

“Gorgon’s beta, who is also dead,” Ladon pointed out.

“I know.” Fuck. If anyone knew what came next, it was him. Because there was one easy solution standing right beside him. But his king—his friend—had just died. What kind of man did that make him that he was already thinking of filling his shoes? In every sense?

“Without Gorgon, your clan is falling apart, Samael. I’m getting reports of black dragons flying east and north to the Red, Green, and White Clans.”

“By the gods,” Samael snarled.

“I’m pretty sure the gods abandoned us eons ago,” Ladon replied drily.

“We have to get me there,” Meira said. “Let me try to unite—”

“No,” Samael snapped, turning a glare on her, and her cringe ricocheted up his arm. But he wasn’t going to soften that any. “Not you.”

“But I’m the queen Gorgon chose for the clan.”

“You go there now, and they tear you apart. You’re just some woman who can hop through mirrors who they think killed their king. Even your role as a phoenix is disputable.”

Something in Meira’s expression changed. He couldn’t say what, exactly, but suddenly an entire ocean separated them. A distance no dragon could cross. She turned away, facing her sister. “I know what to do, but first I have to rest. I won’t make a move until I’ve talked to you first. Be in your chamber at two in the morning in two days.”

Skylar tried to answer, but the sound of her voice cut off as Meira jerked her hand out of Samael’s grasp and shut down her power, the mirror returning to normal.

As though nothing had happened, she moved to the bed and lay down facing the fire with her back to him.

“You are not going to Ararat,” he snarled. “I forbid it.”

“You can’t stop me.” The determination in her eyes was lined with a sadness that told him she was going to make this move with or without him.

Cold surety settled into him as he walled off everything else. “You may be the queen, but I am the new king.” Though his clan was as likely to rip into him as into her at this point. Meira’s entire body went rigid, but she didn’t turn his way. She wasn’t getting this, dammit. “If I have to tie you down, I will. Don’t test me.”

“I’ll burn the ropes,” she said as quietly as before. He had a decent guess an eye roll went along with the words, though he couldn’t see her face.

Frustration erupted from a place where his worst fear was realized and she ended up dead. Samael dropped to his knees on the edge of the mattress and, with a hand on her shoulder, forced her to roll over to face him. “Without Gorgon at your side, you’re dead.”

She didn’t even blink at the word. “I understand perfectly. I still have to try.”

“Dammit, Meira. They won’t listen to you or me—”

“But if you mate me, maybe they’ll listen to us.”

Shock held Samael as still as a pond on a windless day. Gods save him from this woman. He thought he had a protective side, but she had a heart that overruled even her sense of self-preservation.

“That’s not fair,” he said, struggling around a voice that wanted to choke him. “You know what I believe. What I want.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“Are you fucking kidding me with this? I just found out Gorgon is dead.”

Meira’s eyes darkened with what he instinctively knew