The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Fourteen

Well, that was a twist Angelika hadn’t seen coming. A mating proposal from a creature even more ancient than dragons.

“Errr…”

The thing was, aligning with a powerful man like Madrigan made sense. Especially if dragon kings were out of the question, which they were for the moment. She didn’t dare glance anywhere near Airk’s corner. Plus, there was Jedd to consider. Technically, as far as wolves went, he had first dibs.

Oh my gods. Dibs. What is wrong with me?

Still, this entire scenario brought up a sticky question. Jedd was her friend and would only ever be that to her, but if she was going to make a mating of convenience, a friend was better than a stranger. Except, given Jedd’s feelings compared to her own, doing so would be utterly unfair to him. Madrigan, meanwhile, would be under no delusion as to her reasons for the union.

But suddenly the thought of mating for convenience when Airk was who she wanted—

Angelika cut that thought off at the knees. “Certainly an option worth considering.”

The berserker smiled. One that reached his eyes. She liked that about him and smiled back.

“Please do,” he urged, then stood, nodded at Bleidd, and left the room.

The older wolf blew out a long breath. “That went better than expected.”

Angelika raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

“He’s…unpredictable.”

Unpredictable? Or unstable? “So, you’re saying don’t get my hopes up about the alliance?”

His expression turned uneasy. “The council will decide, but Madrigan can be…compelling…when he wants to. Likely they’ll go the direction he sways them.”

Terrific. Hopefully his swaying them wasn’t tied solely to that offer of mating.

“Come on,” Bleidd said, holding out a hand to her.

Airk followed silently as Bleidd led her to a room like the war rooms in every dragon mountain she’d been in—all technology, monitors, and sensors. A message was sent to Ladon via a backchannel system, setting a date and time and specific mirror for Meira to do her thing. Her method was the safest to communicate by as no one could trace or intercept the signal.

Given that it was still the middle of the night, Angelika didn’t expect to hear back until morning. Bleidd obviously didn’t, either, because next he led them through more labyrinthine medieval halls until they got to what felt like a more modern wing of the castle with higher ceilings and décor from more recent centuries.

“This is our pack’s hall,” he said, stopping in what appeared to be a cozy living space set up with couches, lamps, and a thick Persian rug. A kitchen was pointed out down one hall and living quarters down another. “Don’t venture beyond this point into the castle without one of us escorting you.”

She nodded. Airk said nothing, as usual.

Then Bleidd took them to a bedroom. He paused at the door, taking in both their faces. “I’d give you separate rooms, but—”

“I’m not leaving her,” Airk stated. Calm but unequivocal.

The sentiment wasn’t a surprise, but the fact that he’d subject himself to being alone with her again was.

Bleidd closed the door behind them after pointing out the en suite bathroom, the fact that some clothes had been put in here for them, that they could help themselves to breakfast in the kitchen in the morning, and that he’d come get them for the meeting with Angelika’s sisters.

“I’ll take the floor,” Airk said. Not looking at her again.

Angelika was too tired to argue by now. “Okay.”

She went into the bathroom, grateful to find an unused toothbrush still in the package. She brushed her teeth and washed up as best she could. When she came out, Airk slipped past her, closing the door behind him without a word.

Shaking her head, she took a second to pull the blanket from the bed and lay it out on the floor, folded like a sleeping bag, adding a pillow at one end. Then she pulled a T-shirt and shorts out of the armoire, dressed quickly, and slipped between the sheets on the bed.

Impossible to relax, though.

Even her human ears picked up the faint sounds of Airk moving around the bathroom, washing up. Then a soft click, and she held her breath, resisting looking around.

He stood there in unmoving silence for a long moment. Too long. What was he doing?

Giving up—patience never did overrule her curious side—she lifted her head to find him staring at the makeshift bed she’d made for him. “Do you not use a blanket?” she asked.

She’d thought of that but figured he could choose what to use.

His jaw worked. “I learned to sleep on a rock slab with no…”

“No pillows or blankets?”

He shook his head.

The small action sent an answering ache through her. An ache for a boy who learned to sleep without even human comforts like a pillow. Treated no better than an animal. He must have felt so…alone. “Do you use a bed now?”

Now that he was out and had a choice. Maybe he’d grown so used to the rock that he preferred the floor? They’d used a bed when they slept together after their first time, but that could have been his way of taking care of her.

His shrug could’ve meant anything.

“You won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t use those,” she said.

Another beat of silence. What would he do if she got up and wrapped her arms around him? Urged him to bed and snuggled into him? Not for sex, but for a little warmth and companionship.

Except she’d promised herself that she’d stop all that. Leave him be. For her sake as much as his now.

Angelika dropped her head to her own pillow, staring at the wall illuminated by the light from the bathroom. “Goodnight, Airk,” she said.

“Goodnight,” he said after another long pause.

She closed her eyes as the soft shuffle of a blanket reached her ears.

…

“Angel-baby!”

A man Airk recognized, stocky with ruddy skin and russet-colored hair, except for the white streak at one temple, jumped up from one of the couches in the common living area and rushed Angelika. At the same time, three other men with him perked up, grinning from ear to ear.

Airk gripped the corner of the wall where the hallway met the living area, letting the granite bricks dig into his palms. Either that or decapitate the man who dared to swoop Angelika off her feet, spinning her in circles before setting her back down. Except then the dick proceeded to lay a big, sloppy kiss right on her lips.

The growl that ripped out of him froze every creature in the room. At least twenty of them in total.

Angelika rolled her eyes without looking at him. “Ignore him, Rafe. He’s fine.”

The red-haired wolf shifter didn’t seem to agree. Very deliberately, he took his hands off her and stepped back. “I don’t think he is,” he said, not taking his gaze off Airk.

Every other eye in the room also trained on him. Terrific. Way to make friends, Airk.

Which was such an Angelika thing to think, he almost heard the words in her voice.

Gods, the way this woman was wending her way into his life—body, mind, and spirit—he should run. Last night he’d almost reversed his position—again—and accepted that damn mating proposal hanging between them. Not because the berserker had offered, which had sent Airk’s dragon into the closest thing to a panic the animal side of him got.

No. Instead, he’d lost his shit over the bed she’d made him.

He made her come. Twice. Ignored her afterward. Twice. But despite all that, there she went, making him a soft place to sleep. Fuck.

“I am fine,” he said. Although his voice was still dragon. He swallowed, forcing himself to find that place of numbness. “I am fine,” he repeated, sounding more normal.

The wolves in the room visibly relaxed and turned back to Angelika. The other three men who’d appeared the most delighted got to their feet to hug her, though each cast him a wary glance as they did.

“We knew you’d come to your senses.” A man with black hair, blacker eyes, and deeply sable skin gave her a half-cocked grin. “After all, who could deny our awesomeness.”

Angelika laughed. “Not me, Hunter. I wouldn’t dare. The awesomeness is too great.”

“Are you staying?” the youngest of the group—blond hair, pale gray eyes, and paler skin—asked, an eager light in his eyes. Not juvenile. Also not bothering to hide his mooning expression.

“I wish I could, Rigel.” Angelika reached over to give his arm a squeeze, and the adoration only increased.

“It’s not fair to ask her that,” the other man snapped. Sandy brown hair, lightly tanned, and a pretty face marred only by a previously broken nose, he cast a glare in Airk’s direction, as though he were directly responsible for Angelika’s not being able to stay with them. Or was that a general hatred for dragons putting that hard light in the man’s eyes?

“Cairn,” Angelika said his name in a soft voice, more pleading than warning.

Cairn pulled his gaze back to her.

The Rafe fellow grinned suddenly, though he didn’t try to hug her again. “Damn it’s good to see you again.”

She chuckled. “It hasn’t been that long.”

“When one of our pack isn’t here, we all feel it,” Rigel insisted.

The pack? They’d accepted her into their ranks officially?

A similarly youthful woman crossed the room and hugged Angelika before curling into Rigel’s side, a tad possessive, though Airk knew she had no reason to be jealous. Anyone could see with Rigel it was more a case of heroine worship than puppy love. “We missed you, is what they’re saying.”

“I missed you, too,” Angelika said, no longer teasing.

A pulse of something reached for him, as though her emotions were tangible. Sadness. A deep sadness he was more than familiar with. She truly missed these people.

As Airk watched, the rest of the wolves in the room moved into a circle around her, almost the same way they would if attacked by other predators, when they would put a child or cub at the center of a grouping for protection. The act was so obviously one of welcoming one of their own back that even his dragon didn’t protest this time. If anything, both Airk’s human and animal halves watched from the outside with the strangest urge to be…included. Angelika seemed to inspire this kind of personal connection and loyalty wherever she went.

The circle broke up, and everyone returned to seats throughout the room, and he found himself able to breathe again. Angelika cast him a querying glance. Airk crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. He wasn’t moving. A signal she clearly understood, because she shook her head and sat down. Facing him, at least, so he could read her expressive face.

“Tell me everything I’ve missed,” she urged.

Which got the discussion rolling. As though they’d been waiting for the chance to share with her, mostly about the wolves and what they’d been doing since they’d parted from her. Airk had to admit, the way Angelika listened and the questions she asked, she was frankly interested. Interested and invested in each as a person and a friend. No wonder people fell in love with her.

The soft tread of footfall behind him had Airk sniffing the air, then relaxing. Not Jedd or Madrigan.

“Ready?” Bleidd asked, prowling into the room.

Angelika stopped mid-chuckle to look at the alpha wolf, sighed, then got to her feet. “We’ll catch up more later,” she promised.

Airk came off his wall, and together they followed Bleidd from the room. It didn’t escape Airk’s attention that Jedd never made an appearance. No doubt Angelika noticed as well, though she kept her thoughts on the matter to herself.

Airk had seen the way the wolf shifter looked at her, watched her, when they’d been in Ben Nevis together, and that had been before she’d told him that the wolf wanted to mate her.

Eventually they stepped into a room that had clearly once been the music room of the castle. Given the way all the instruments—a piano, a harp, and something else piano-like but smaller—were covered in white sheets, he guessed wolf shifters had no interest in the space. Surprising that vampires had, though. Or maybe this castle had originally been human? Still, the ornately carved wood paneling depicting cherubs frolicking through nature gave the room an oddly dark and light feel all at the same time.

In the center of the room, someone had set up a mirror.

Bronze with similar spring images—leaves and flowers and whatnot—carved and molded into the metal with a chubby-cheeked cupid right at the top aiming his arrow down on those looking into the glass. Airk narrowed his eyes at the thing. Was that a play on the Narcissus and Echo mythology, making the looker in the glass fall in love with their own reflection?

“Princess.” Madrigan strolled into the room as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

Except the casual attitude belied leashed power. One whiff of the berserker, and Airk’s dragon turned instantly alert, ready to challenge the man, growling low in Airk’s head, the sound reverberating as though his skull were a belfry.

The berserker went straight for Angelika, which didn’t help Airk any, bowing over her hand the way he had the night before when taking his leave.

He straightened with a smile. “Did you think about my offer?”

“I did,” she said with an answering one, white-blue eyes glinting with an amusement Airk didn’t understand.

What could possibly be amusing about an offer of mating?

Airk curled his hands into fists until his nails, though cut short, dug into his palms, drawing blood.

Madrigan searched her eyes for a moment before sighing. “Still considering, I see. That’s acceptable. After this long, I’ve learned to be a patient man.”

The berserker turned, and Airk didn’t miss the significant glance at his own hands, which were still fisted. The bastard smelled the blood and wanted him to know it.

But Airk had learned patience, too. He didn’t move, didn’t uncurl his fists, and didn’t look away.

“Is there something we should be concerned about?” a female voice interrupted.

Meira stood in the reflection of the gilded mirror, amusement visible in curiously raised eyebrows and a small smirk. Beside her, Samael’s dark eyes twinkled with a similar humor but edged with a cunning assessment.

Behind her, Skylar rolled her eyes. “Alphas.”

Which made Ladon growl, only to get an elbow to the ribs for it.

Kasia, however, didn’t smile, frowning instead as she glanced between Madrigan, Airk, and Angelika. Brand must’ve picked up on her reaction, because he smoothed a hand down her back in a suspiciously soothing action.

Angelika ignored her sisters and took over as though none of that had happened, performing a quick round of introductions.

“Madrigan is the leader of the Federation,” she ended. “And a berserker.”

“The fuck you say,” Ladon snapped, not in irritation but instead pure distrust.

Brand said nothing, but he did the stony, pissed thing with his face that meant he wasn’t happy. About the same response that Airk had the day before.

Samael, meanwhile, crossed his arms, gaze narrowing but speculative. “We should listen to him.”

“Why, exactly?” Brand snarled.

“Because the wolves wouldn’t have let us see him and know what he was unless they were showing us a sign of trust.”

Madrigan stepped closer to the mirror, ignoring the kings as his gaze moved searchingly from sister to sister. Then he dropped his head forward, as though the weight of whatever he was thinking had become too much for him.

“When you’ve lived as long as I have, you begin to think you’ve seen it all. That nothing could surprise you ever again.” He murmured the words, more to himself than to the people listening and watching with a variation of confusion or suspicion.

Then he lifted his head, and in the same motion he dropped to one knee. “I pledge my loyalty to the phoenixes of the house of Amon.”

Beside him, Angelika squeaked a gasp.

In the mirror, every person in the room stilled, then each couple glanced at each other, no doubt communicating between themselves using the special connection mates had.

“Why would you do that now?” Angelika asked. “We haven’t discussed anything yet.”

Madrigan’s smile was this side of self-deprecating, and he rose to his feet, addressing her directly. “I may not have known your parents, but I knew your grandmother and her mate. And the phoenix before that. And the one before that.”

Holy hells.

The berserker glanced at each of the sisters, lingering longest on Skylar with her deeply black hair…the same coloring as their grandmother. Almost an exact image of her, actually. Because Airk had known that phoenix, too.

Hells, her final prediction both saved his life…and ruined it.

“There is no denying, looking at you, what blood runs through your veins,” Madrigan said. “I’ve already discussed with Bleidd how he came to harbor one of you and what he witnessed while under the dragon kings’ protection.” He nodded at the men in the mirror. “I had to see with my own eyes.”

“I wasn’t proof enough?” Angelika drew her shoulders back stiffly, an emotion flashing in her eyes that Airk could only guess at. But the way his chest tightened, he had a feeling he knew. That lesser-than belief, as though she was somehow unworthy, the one she tried to hide from everyone, had struck again, he would hazard.

Madrigan didn’t seem to take in the hurt she was hiding behind a thin veneer of curiosity. “I apologize. I needed to see you all together to be certain. After all, Pytheios claims to have a phoenix as well.”

Given several blinks from the others, they caught the “claims” in that sentence the same as he did. Did the berserker know something they didn’t?

Angelika let out a long breath. “Well…that was easier than I anticipated.”

Madrigan chuckled. No one else did.

Glancing in Airk’s direction, Angelika raised her eyebrows in question, as though to say, “What now?”

He shrugged. This was her plan. He was along as a witness and dubious bodyguard.

“We should go to the white dragons now,” she decided.

“No.”

The snarled word had everyone turning to find Jedd standing in the back corner, just inside the door, his gaze trained on Angelika, whose expression spasmed with something close to pain.

After a second, she cleared her throat. “Please discuss next steps with everyone while Jedd and I talk.”

Airk remained stock-still. As still as Everest on a clear, cold night between storms, and trying to root his feet into the plush carpet. Either that or roar his rejection of that idea.

Madrigan clearly didn’t like it any better than Airk, expression turning edgy, lips curled in a sneer. “Of…course.” His words belied the displeasure in his eyes.

“Thank you.” Casting a furtive little glance in Airk’s direction, she moved across the room, following the wolf shifter into the hallway without a word.

“How serious is it?” Madrigan demanded of Bleidd, whose head was turned, staring at the closed door they’d left through.

“He asked to mate her.”

“What?” This from Skylar, Kasia’s own exclamation blending with her sister’s. Only Meira appeared unsurprised.

“She said no?” Madrigan asked slowly, tone musing.

“She wanted someone else.” Bleidd turned back to the room, looking directly at Airk.

Fuck.

Fuck on so many levels. But mostly because his dragon wanted him to beat both the wolf and the berserker back from the prize he had set his heart on. Claimed. Despite Airk’s human half rejecting the idea.

Either man would be better for her than he ever would. Solidifying an alliance with the wolves and dragons, providing her protection. Even turning her. Unlike dragon shifters, with wolves all it took was a bite. No sign the human could handle the fire, no fated mates. Just choice. At least then she wouldn’t be so frailly human, her life span so…curtailed.

Which meant that, either man she chose, Angelika would be better off.

I should walk away now.Take himself off the board of players.