The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Eighteen

Gods, how could I be so stupid?

He’d been able to wrestle the shift back from his dragon, taking control, and the thing had been good with Angelika. Gentle for what he was. And the fact that she’d lit on fire, and he believed—gods, he’d believed with everything in his soul that it was because of him. All those reasons made him think he could do this.

Could make her his. Claim her. Mate her.

Airk could still smell Angelika all over him as he forced his dragon to fly away from her. Unfortunately, so could the beast half of him, and it was sending him over the edge. Frantic to get back to her.

Inside his own mind, his own body, the two parts of his soul battled each other. The violent clash raging internally meant he was jerking around in the sky as control over their flight juddered back and forth between human and dragon.

But at the end of claiming her, the animal part of him had wanted to be the one to fill their mate with fire, to turn her. He’d started to shift while Airk’s cock had been buried, hilt deep, inside Angelika. The damn monster could have rent her in half if he’d succeeded before Airk had been able to tear them away.

He’d tried to run, but the shift had come on too fast.

You could have killed her!he shouted at his creature half as he mentally and physically dragged them farther and farther away from where he’d left Angelika.

But the dragon was too far gone to listen, roaring and thrashing and fighting to get back and finish what they started. What he’d promised them both.

If that split in his gut hadn’t opened up with all the other things, it very well might now. Or that’s how it felt—as though he was being torn and slashed open from the insides.

Airk did the only thing he could. He tried to force the shift midair. Back to human.

Nothing happened.

Which left him with one option. The thing he hated most about what Pytheios had forced him to become. A mental exercise Nathair had taught him to do as a boy. Pytheios’s witch had spelled the dungeons to turn off any visitor’s powers, but his dragon wasn’t a power. He was the dragon, and the dragon was him. So Nathair had taught him how the magic of his creature came from his mind.

As fast as he could, Airk mentally bricked a wall in his mind. He reinforced it with dragonsteel. Blocking his dragon off, like he’d been forced to do in that fucking cell for centuries, he held him there and again willed himself to change. The shimmering lines before his eyes told him when he got it.

Then he was falling.

Behind those bricked-in, shored-up, steel-enforced mental walls, his dragon roared with the thunder of a wild creature, hatred for everything Airk was spewing from inside him. But Airk didn’t let up.

At the last second, mountainside rushing up at him, his dragon made one last wild grab, wings manifesting and beating down hard enough that they didn’t pound into the ground, killing them both. Instead, they struck and rolled a few feet, coming to rest in a small clearing on a bed of pine needles, laying with his pants still down around his ankles, the way they had been when he shifted and flown away.

Sun shone down on them, warming his skin, and somewhere nearby a bird tweeted, as though the world was oblivious to the struggle happening within him. Airk placed the last brick in his mind, shutting off his dragon, and the wings disappeared. So did the roar. Chest heaving, he dropped his head back against the ground, eyes clenched closed. He hated himself for what he’d just done. His dragon half hadn’t known better.

This, none of it, had ever been his fault.

But thanks to Airk—thanks to reaching for Angelika like he had, believing even for a second that she was fated to be his, letting his dragon think that, too, even believe maybe they could exist together, then having to take both her and freedom away from his dragon again—he’d driven his creature the rest of the way to uncontrollable.

Too far gone to save. All rage, and gods speed to anyone who might encounter him.

Airk could never let him loose again.

And Angelika clearly was a trigger.

He brought his hands up over his face. “Fuck.”

Airk didn’t get up right away, needing to spend more time shoring up the walls inside his mind. Plus, his body, with his dragon so shut down, apparently healed more slowly, and the gash across his belly was still pink and slightly raw. The fact that he hadn’t busted open earlier was a blasted miracle.

What the hells was I thinking?

The answer was, he wasn’t. Instinct and need and a woman destined to drive him to distraction had led to a moment of pure selfish action.

Now he laid here like the useless lump he was and gathered his control more and more around him like the tattered rags of the poor woman who’d been his longest cellmate in Everest. A witch who’d spoken out against Rhiamon, Pytheios’s favorite pet.

Speaking of which…

Airk grinned suddenly, though his heart wasn’t fully into it.

His dragon had been good for something. They’d taken out that golden fucker that the High King had officially decreed as his heir. Pytheios wasn’t going to be happy about that at all. Tempting to bring him the news personally, along with Brock’s ashes.

A death sentence if he did it, but maybe he was always meant to die at the king’s hands. That prophecy would be some comfort if that happened.

He winced. After all, he had a decent idea of what he was going to return to when he went back to the mountain.

What do you expect? You left Angelika unmated and alone on the side of the mountain.

Airk jerked to sitting as that realization penetrated his own self-imposed exile. He’d left her alone and exposed, and the only way back was to climb a mountain in a skirt and heels.

Gods be damned.

In an instant, he was on his feet, shucking up his pants and sprinting half naked over the mountainside to where he’d left her. Only he skidded to a halt in the spot. He knew he was in the right place because the combined scents of their skin and sex lingered in the air. Plus…she’d folded his fucking shirt and left it there neatly on a rock for him.

Which was exactly something Angelika would do.

Guilt plunged a dagger through his own personal regrets. He was a bloody menace and the worst thing possible for her, and here she was, folding his clothes as if she was trying to take care of him.

Pulling his shirt on, though the thing was in tatters, he followed the sunshine scent of her until it stopped suddenly. Someone had come to get her, it seemed. A new dagger—this one of worry—plunged through his chest, and he sprinted back to the entrance into the mountain.

Only to climb over the lip of rock to encounter a wall of white dragons.

They got one whiff of him and bared their teeth. “Hold.”

He wasn’t sure which of the sentries spoke. Didn’t care. “Is the phoenix inside?” he demanded.

“Name?”

In other words, this one had no idea who he was and had been given orders not to let anyone in. The mountain had to be on lockdown.

“Airk Azdajah. I arrived with Angelika Amon. Is she safe?”

Silence greeted his announcement, but he didn’t mistake it for ignoring him or not hearing him. No doubt the five dragons were checking among themselves and probably with their own leaders. These were military-trained men. No doubt they’d reported to someone who needed to be consulted as well.

Airk crossed his arms and stared them down, waiting in silence.

Finally, one lifted a wing, giving him a human-sized space to pass between them. “The phoenix is inside. She left word to bring you to her if you returned.”

Airk refused to show any reaction, especially to that “if.”

A man who was vaguely familiar stood at the backside of the sentries, Airk assumed to take him to Angelika. Older, the man’s long hair, rather than white, was starkly black but thinning, exposing the oddly freckled skin of his skull. A clean-shaven face was creased with lines of age across lightly bronzed skin, and his hands, when he beckoned Airk closer, were gnarled and equally spotted as his scalp.

But instead of turning to lead Airk through the mountain, the man stood still, cloudy gaze sweeping Airk’s form.

“My god. It is you.”

While the rest of him had aged at a hideously faster rate than should be possible, his voice hadn’t changed at all, sparking recognition that sent disbelief crawling down Airk’s neck.

Not actual blood kin, this man had been the son of one of Airk’s family’s attendants. Workers paid handsomely for taking care of them and their property and their children. But Jordy had become one of his father’s best friends and most trusted confidants. One of Zilant Amon’s, too. The fuzzy memories of boyhood reminded him of thousands of small moments with this man and his own family that he’d forgotten. Could this be him, though?

“Do you remember me?” Jordy asked slowly.

“Uncle Jordy?”

The smile that was his answer looked…weary. “No one’s called me uncle in ages.”

No doubt. “Probably because I was the only one who dared.” Jordy had been a remarkable and feared debater who could back up his words with fighting skills.

“You always were fearless.”

Airk’s huff lacked any true amusement. “Everest beat that out of me over time.”

The older man closed his eyes on a spasm of emotion, then hooked a hand around the back of Airk’s neck and tugged him into a tight embrace. Airk remained stiff against him, unable to let himself accept any kind of pity. Still resentful that no one had come for him.

No one.

“Gods above, boy, I thought you were dead all this time.” Airk jerked in his embrace, but Jordy didn’t let go of him. “If I’d known, I would have burned down that entire godsforsaken mountain to get to you.”

Airk swallowed, breathing through the tangle of emotions rising inside him like a mass of striking cobras. “Why did everyone think I was dead?”

Jordy sighed and pulled back. “Come with me. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Angelika—”

“Gathered with the Curia Regis. I asked to be informed when you returned.” His lips took on a bitter twist. “I still have some friends in this mountain. I’ll take you to her after we talk.”

What did he mean by “some friends?” The Jordy he knew might not be of a royal, or even upper-class, bloodline like Airk was, but he was well-respected and well-liked by everyone who knew him. Given his position in the Azdajah household, that would have been a good majority of the dragons in this mountain.

Airk hesitated, thinking through not only that but the fact that making Angelika wait longer wasn’t going to win him any forgiveness. Except forgiveness might only muddy the waters. Distance was better.

“Fine.”

In a gesture so Jordy that Airk’s memory almost took him to his knees, the other man bowed his head. The move was partly a mimic of other attendants who could lean toward obsequiousness, but with his own slightly sarcastic twist. He used to make Airk laugh as a boy when he’d do it to dragons who were full of their own importance, or to Airk’s own father when he got snarly. The only man Jordy never dared use that gesture on was Angelika’s father, King Zilant.

If Airk had had no fear, he’d learned it partly from this man.

In silence, they walked through the training area and to a human-sized door off to one side that led into a smaller corridor. Not far down, they made it to a bank of elevators.

“When did they put these in?” Airk wondered.

“About fifty years ago. A…gift…from Pytheios. For our loyalty.”

Of course. Because the White and Green Clans had been the Rotting King’s most loyal supporters. The Blue Clans, on the other hand, didn’t have anything nearly so helpful or modern in their mountains. Instead, their wealth had been slowly stripped. The Gold, too, though in different ways. Harder ways for the people to see. The Black Clan hadn’t given Pytheios the excuse to do the same.

“I don’t want to know for what,” Airk said.

“No,” Jordy muttered. “You don’t.”

They said nothing else until Jordy let him into a small, one-room efficiency apartment. One located on such a low floor, it didn’t even have a perch or a window. “Tea?” Jordy asked, moving to a wall that apparently was a small kitchen with a single counter, a sink, a microwave, and a hot plate. The refrigerator wouldn’t hold more than a day or two worth of food. The rest of the room was similarly basic.

Airk frowned, looking around. “Why are you living here?”

Jordy paused in the process of filling a kettle with water from a tap connected to a series of exposed pipes. “It’s only me these days.”

Another frown. “Your family?”

That brought bushy white brows up. “I was an only child, and my parents died when you still knew me, boy.”

Airk shook his head. “I didn’t remember.”

“Your father’s family kept me around out of kindness and gratefulness for my parents, who’d served the Azdajah happily and well for centuries.”

It’s only me.The words pinged around inside Airk’s head. “You never mated?”

“No.” Jordy didn’t still this time, and he didn’t turn from the hot plate where he’d set the kettle to boil, either.

That explained the aging. He must’ve hit that point in life that not having a mate meant his aging process started to speed up.

More silence as Jordy made them tea, then sat them down at a small kitchen table with two mismatched chairs, as there was no other seating in the room besides the single twin-sized mattress on the floor.

But the teacup was thin porcelain with pink flowers and old enough that, at a guess, this was one of the few personal things Jordy had kept of his life before. The delicate thing felt as though it might disintegrate in Airk’s grip, so he handled it carefully, sipping at watery tea.

Over the lip of his cup, Jordy studied Airk’s face. “You are a blend of your parents. No doubt about that.”

“Pytheios enjoyed pointing that out as well, whenever he happened to be in the dungeons where I was kept.”

Jordy put his teacup down with a clatter. “So it is true. You were his prisoner.”

Bitterness seeped into Airk’s blood, turning him rancid. He also put his cup down. “After he murdered King Zilant and my parents, plus the High King Hanyu and his phoenix before my eyes. Yes. He held me.”

Jordy glanced away from the accusation no doubt shining in Airk’s eyes. “I always wondered.”

“And yet you did nothing.”

“Not much I could do. Your household was disbanded, all who served the Azdajahs scattered to other households, or other mountains, if they could find work at all.”

Airk frowned. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“Thanks to the story Pytheios convinced all of our kind was the truth.”

Airk had learned bits and pieces through the years. More since he gained his freedom, but mostly about the Amons and Hanyus. Nothing about his own family. “What story was that?”

“According to him, on that day, Serefina and Zilant tried to mate, but she’d chosen the wrong man, and her fire consumed the white king.”

“I’d heard that much.” All lies.

Jordy nodded slowly. “What you might not be aware of is this. Pytheios told only the White Clan’s Curia Regis that your father, in his rage at his friend and king’s death, went ballistic, slaughtering Serefina and her parents—the High King and the mother phoenix—as well as a few others, before Pytheios was able to stop him by killing him. Your mother died with her mate.”

Airk sat back with a thump that the rickety chair protested with a creak of plastic and some kind of cheap metal. He stared into nothing. “And me?”

He didn’t have to look up to see Jordy swallow…he heard it. “He said you tried to stop your father, and in his blind rage, he killed you, too.”

Airk closed his eyes on a wave of grief so hollow and broken, he had to lean forward, elbows on his knees, to breathe through it. Even caged in the mental walls he’d built around his dragon, that soul-deep part of him cried out and the sound, the devastation, rattled his bones.

That lying bastard of a red king tried to destroy their rulers—and worse, the phoenixes, the line of inheritance for High King—and his family, all for what? Power? To keep the seat of High King with the Red Clan? To prevent Zilant’s more progressive ideas from being tried out?

“That’s not quite how it happened,” he muttered at the plastic-looking tabletop.

“You’re proof enough of that, boy.”

Airk huffed a bitter laugh, then frowned and raised his gaze. “You are right. I am proof.” More so than the existence of Angelika and her sisters, possibly. Because while their parentage was still questioned by many dragons, he’d grown up in this mountain. His family had been a staple here for millennia. And to his clan, his face was indisputable.

Was that why Mös had looked at him that way when he and Angelika had arrived? Not because of Angelika, but because of Airk? Hadn’t the Beta known the truth all along? Or had he also been misled?

Taking a deep breath, Airk laid out the truth of what had happened that terrible night—what happened to him for ages following, which mostly consisted of his sitting in that fucking cell alone, his escape with Skylar, and his time with the Blue and Black Clans since then.

Jordy listened, his expression growing steadily angrier. “Gods above, boy,” he said when Airk finished his tale. “If people knew—”

His old friend was right. His people needed to know. “I’m going to tell them. Show them.”

First, though, he needed to learn what Mös’s part in any of this was. If he had been deceived, like most everyone else, they needed him. And if that was true, the Beta likely already understood the need to show his people Airk as proof, but Angelika needed to know, too. She’d probably already guessed—or at least her instincts had been accurate. After all, offering to mate him was an extreme measure and one that made more sense now that he could see the impact his existence made on just one man who’d known him and his family. Jordy looked ready to cut the false High King’s throat himself.

Airk surged to his feet, determination sending his muscles rigid. “Take me to Angelika and Mös.”