The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Fifteen

Angelika didn’t say anything to Jedd. Not until he’d led them far away from the room housing the dragon shifter she wanted, her sisters, their kings, the closest thing to a father figure she’d had in her life, and the berserker who’d made an offer to mate her. Having all of them listening in was awkward at best—and a guaranteed blowup from someone at worst—so she was glad that he took them somewhere private.

Back to Jedd’s room, apparently, in a different corridor off the pack’s common area.

He closed the door behind her as she took in the space. Not unlike the one she and Airk had shared last night. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face him.

Putting aside the tension, she searched the lines and crags of his face, more haggard than she remembered. “You look—”

“Don’t.”

She buttoned her lips closed and waited.

“I thought…” He stopped and blew out a long breath through his nose, hazel eyes intent on hers, though he didn’t come near her.

“I’d hoped that after a little time apart, you’d realize…” He stopped again and ran his hand over the buzz cut of his hair, the sound rasping in the silence.

“I wish I had.”

He flinched at that. “I know. I could see it yesterday. I could see it in all your texts.”

He hadn’t answered any of those. Had she just made it worse for him? “I didn’t want to—”

“You didn’t. I needed the space.”

“You’re one of the best men I’ve ever known.”

His lips crooked slightly. “That doesn’t make me feel any better. When is the mating, anyway?”

She would never lie to Jedd. He’d been a true friend to her since the moment she’d arrived. “He said no.”

A couple times, but the last one was…painful.

Airk meant it. He might want her body, but he would never let himself want more than that. Hells, he resented the shit out of wanting that much. She could see it.

Pleading wasn’t in her nature. Pushing where she wasn’t wanted wasn’t, either. Stating what she wanted for herself, yes. Begging, hard no. Him wanting only her body wasn’t good enough for her. So Airk was off the table, but at the same time, she didn’t love Jedd enough to mate. She knew that much, too.

Jedd frowned. “Why the fuck would he say no?”

Angelika huffed a laugh at the question, loving her friend all the more for being baffled that Airk could turn her down. “He thinks he’s too dangerous to be around me.”

Jedd straightened, suddenly very much the warrior he was. “He’s right.”

Angelika shrugged, not wanting to argue about it.

He stared at her a long, quiet moment, and she waited. Waited for whatever he was working out in his mind.

“I’ve missed you, Angie.”

She bit her lip against a sudden, unexpected sting of tears. “Me, too.”

They’d spent almost every day for the last few years attached at the hip. At first with him as a bodyguard, assigned by Bleidd. Other than her sisters, and now maybe Airk—despite his not wanting to—no one knew her better.

Jedd’s lips twisted. “I’ll always love you,” he said, almost like a warning.

She waited.

“But if the only way to have you in my life is as my friend…I’ll take it.”

Her stomach knotted and gnarled around itself, because the last thing she wanted was to put him in a position where he ended up hurt. But at the same time, she’d hoped…in the most selfish of ways… “Are you sure?”

He gave a curt nod and opened his arms.

Letting out a pent-up breath of her own, Angelika walked right into him and absorbed the hug he gave her with closed eyes. “Are you really, really sure?” she mumbled into his chest. Asking again because she needed to. Because she knew this was his decision, but maybe accepting wasn’t being fair to him, either. “I wouldn’t hurt you for the world—”

“I’m sure.”

She’d give him the respect to make that choice without questioning him further.

Jedd took her by the hand and led her to the small settee in the corner, a delicate-looking one that creaked under his size. “Fill me in. Because you need a plan if you don’t want to end up dead.”

Angelika tried to be quick. By the time they made it back to the room, Madrigan seemed to be finishing up with her sisters and the kings. He turned with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “All settled?” he asked.

She let Jedd nod.

Airk, meanwhile, stared straight through her.

Angelika’s ever-optimistic heart shriveled a little bit more.

He should be with her to talk to the white dragons at their headquarters, because of his story and who he was. They needed to see him and understand what happened. But after that, regardless of the outcome and no matter what was going on with the war, she’d let him go. To be an assassin, to go rogue, whatever he decided.

Decision made, she tipped up her chin and walked straight to Madrigan.

A move Jedd, at least, was braced for because they’d already discussed it. She would consider the berserker’s offer more seriously. If she couldn’t have Airk, mating elsewhere for the political alliance was still worth considering. Jedd’s heart was too involved. Madrigan’s wasn’t, which would put the mating on equal footing.

“I must go,” she said.

Madrigan tipped his head, searching her eyes. “I know. Your sisters explained.”

She hesitated. How the heck was she supposed to lead into something like this? Especially with the particular audience she was dealing with.

“Maybe after your trip, we could get to know each other a little better?” he suggested.

Angelika wasn’t sure if she was breathing a sigh of relief that he’d handled that for her or sucking in the bravery needed to go through with it. “I would like that.”

Abruptly, Airk stepped closer, though nowhere near touching. “Are you ready?”

Madrigan’s smile turned…mischievous was the only word that came close. Then suddenly he leaned down and placed a chaste kiss at the corner of her mouth, but to Airk it would look like a lingering caress.

“Seems you have some decisions to make, Angelika Amon.”

Angelika huffed a surprised laugh. Whatever this man was, he had sworn loyalty to her sisters, pledged the Federation of Packs as an ally to dragons, and offered her a place of safety and leadership at his side. Not to mention harboring what she suspected might be a wicked sense of humor. Maybe he was more worth considering than she’d convinced herself of already.

“Some lucky girl should snap you up,” she whispered back.

And earned a laconic shrug. “That girl could be you,” he pointed out in a wry voice.

Time would tell. Following her heart, granted with a good dash of revenge and logic, had gotten her only so far.

Rather than give an answer, she kissed his cheek. Then turned to Airk, who might as well have been one of Meira’s gargoyle friends, carved from stone. Together they stepped through the mirror to where her sisters and mates waited in Ben Nevis.

Thanks to time zones making it almost bedtime there by now, she and Airk both took time to eat, shower, and change—this time into something appropriate for a princess and a man with royal blood in his veins.

A feminine power suit in navy with a pencil skirt. The jacket showed off some cleavage, was belted, and ended in a ruffle, no blouse underneath. And her shoes were pure boss bitch, shiny and cream-colored with peep toes three-inch heels. Not really her style, but she’d live with it for what they needed to get done.

Airk, meanwhile, had refused to wear a full suit. Instead, he’d gone with the suit pants, an ultrafine button-down shirt, and a vest that only highlighted the power of his shoulders and back. Her lady parts pulsed several beats at the sight, and damned if he didn’t still, then lift his head slightly as though scenting her reaction.

Which he probably could. Damn it.

Well after dark in Scotland, after another round of hugs and quietly spoken words, Meira once again lit her fire and opened a portal to a reflection halfway around the world.

“The others who’ve pledged their loyalty are already there,” her sister said.

“Let’s hope they’ve laid the groundwork well,” Angelika said. They could be walking into a fight, and she needed to be mentally ready for that.

“Let us hope they do not decapitate us the second we show our faces,” Airk muttered, apparently thinking the same.

On that pleasant thought, she nodded at Meira. In seconds, the portal was opened, and they looked through the reflection at the headquarters of the White Clan.

The mountain that would have been her childhood home, had both her parents lived and ruled as they should have.

The room Meira had selected to send them to was basic. An empty conference room with a glass wall, one that was supposed to be near the room used by the current temporary ruler and Volos’s Curia Regis for their daily meetings. Not only that, but inside information provided by the men already marked with her family crest told them that the king and his council met every morning right at this hour.

Perfect timing.

Before Angelika could step through, a spark suddenly jumped out of the mirror. Glowing red-gold, it hopped across the stone floor of Meira’s room, like embers coming off a forger’s hammer.

Frowning, she glanced at Meira. “Was that you?”

Her sister’s identical frown turning more and more confused told her enough. “I don’t think so.”

The answer came not a second later, as a line of sparks and embers appeared in the upper right corner. Then the line of fire crawled down the glass, almost as though eating away the mirror before them. The further down the reflection it moved, the more another reflection was revealed. Like peeling away a sticker or label to show something else underneath.

Impossible to determine what, until a viciously handsome, vomit-inducing visage appeared in the space cleared. Red-brown eyes alight with fire, high cheekbones, warm golden skin perfect and glowing with health, and hair as black as onyx.

Pytheios.

No longer rotting. Entirely whole. And smug as a son of a bitch.

“I see the gang’s all here,” he murmured in a voice slick as snail snot and coated in ash. No matter the improvement in his outward appearance, his voice remained the same.

The line of embers crept lower and farther out, revealing his witch, Rhiamon, behind him, white curls floating up around her face and eyes inky pools as she worked her magic, making this happen.

“Now where could you be going?” Pytheios mused.

In a move that she didn’t see coming, Airk grabbed Angelika’s hand, yanked her through the portion of the reflection still showing the White Clan’s conference room, then turned and smashed the wall of glass. All the reflections disappeared in a resounding, shattering crash.

…

Fuck.

Airk was starting to understand why that was Brand Astarot’s favorite word. All the kings’, come to think on it. But that one word encompassed a plethora of situations.

“I guess we just announced our presence with authority,” Angelika muttered at his side.

“He came for you,” he said and winced. Leashing the growl coming from his dragon took more effort than it should have. The thing was rioting inside him.

“I know.” No reaction from her.

“He can take over Meira’s reflections.”

She cringed at that. “Yeah. That’s a problem.”

“We have no idea if he saw where she sent us.”

“Then we’d better work fast.”

Before he could stop her, she stepped through the gap left by the wall he’d smashed, her shoes crunching on the shattered glass, and out into a corridor beyond. The space looked like a human business more than anything, with several rows of cubes backing up to a wall of glass-sided conference rooms of varying sizes, though no one occupied the area. Angelika rushed a few doors down toward the room where the Curia Regis was supposed to be meeting, only to pull up short as men and women spilled out into the same hallway, no doubt on alert after the violence of their arrival.

“What the seven hells?” A man old enough that his face sagged around the jowls, skin spotted by age, snarled.

Airk sprinted for Angelika.

But Angelika addressed that man directly, not so much as hesitating as she kept moving straight for him. “Mös?” she queried. “My name is Angelika Amon. I am the daughter of Zilant Amon and Serefina Hanyu, sister to the phoenixes, sister-by-blood to the kings of the Blue, Black, and Gold Clans.”

“I know who you are,” the older man who had been King Volos’s Beta snapped.

Airk stopped her with a hand on her arm before she could chest bump the dragon shifter, but she refused to let him put himself bodily between them. She bent a look so full of hatred on the white dragon shifter, Airk jerked in shock to see such an emotion on her delicate, usually kind and smiling features.

“Then you know I have come to take my family’s throne back,” she stated in a hard, cold voice so unlike Angelika, another jolt shook him.

This was not the plan. She was supposed to be negotiating.

Her chin went up, every inch of her imperial, ice-chip eyes trained on the leader’s face. “Step down now and help me, and maybe I will spare your life.”

Fuck.

Except the Beta, rather than killing her then and there, considered her in silence. “Loyalty to the Amon family is no longer mine to give you.”

Not boasting, more like…tired.

Angelika wasn’t expecting that, either. She frowned. “What?”

The smile that ghosted across Mös’s features only made him appear older. “Your new followers are loyal, my dear. And convincing.”

If anything, Angelika appeared shaken. “I don’t understand.”

Mös sucked at his teeth. “I’m saying you’re too late.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Airk demanded.

A flickered glance in his direction wavered, then held. “Gods above. You are the exact balance of your parents, boy.”

A moment of recognition. A moment of acknowledgment, then the Beta was back to Angelika.

“Someone else got here before you.” Bitterness coated the words in filth.

“How…adorable.” The low rumble came from the dark behind the gathered council members. “Thinking you had any right to the throne.” The body of cowards parted like the biblical Red Sea to reveal a man Airk had met before.

In his dungeon.

Brock Hagan.

Airk knew all about this man. The son of Uther Hagan, the dragon Pytheios had put on the Gold Clan’s throne after Brand’s own family were all murdered. Uther had stood there and watched with glee as Pytheios had killed Airk’s parents. Helped, even. Of all the kings, the one most culpable for following that rotting-souled red prick. His son Brock now claimed Brand was the usurper and the gold throne was his by right. More than that, though. Pytheios had declared this man to be his own legal son and heir.

Brock, like Brand, was massive, a wall of muscle. His dark bronze eyes, which could almost pass for a black dragon’s, were trained on Angelika, glinting with savage satisfaction.

“After I claim this remaining phoenix,” Brock said, “I shall rule over two clans—both Gold and White—bowing only to the High King himself.”

Pure instinct crashed through Airk in a conflagration of flame and fury.

With a roar that came from some unholy place within him, he rushed the man. Plowing his shoulder into Brock’s gut, Airk drove his legs. Astonishment at the violence and speed of his action, perhaps, stayed the gold dragon’s reaction, allowing Airk to propel them both through the council’s larger conference room, chairs flying in their wake, and straight through the window that looked out into the mountain-high atrium.

With a splintering of glass, they burst through, and then gravity yanked them both down.

Except Brock could shift and fly.

Airk couldn’t.