The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Nineteen

The knock at the door was tentative, and the tension riding Angelika’s shoulders turned to a dip of disappointment, because Airk wouldn’t knock like that. The way he’d flown away from her, she wasn’t even sure if he ever would come back. He might be out there, fighting his own dragon right now.

Everything in her wanted to follow. To help him. But she couldn’t.

There’s nothing you can do, so focus on what you can.

Which was discussing with Mös and the rest of Curia Regis—as well as the men sworn to her who had been released from the dungeons, where they’d been put on Brock’s orders—what their next steps needed to be.

“Jordy?” Mös asked, looking over her shoulder at whoever had entered through the door behind her. The Beta’s brows lowered in what appeared to be confusion as he addressed the newcomer.

“Did you know the truth?” A gravelly voice had her turning in her seat. “Did Volos?”

Angelika startled at the sight of not one unknown man but an unknown man…and Airk.

Relief punched out of her in a sharp breath. He’d gained control, and he’d come back. Thank the gods.

Irritation kicked in hard on the heels of stark relief.

Airk may have returned, but he wasn’t looking at her, his gaze on Mös. She scowled at the man, willing him to feel the lash of her ire, which was heating up by the second. He was supposed to have been brought directly to her. She’d been worried, damn him. As in “couldn’t concentrate because her mind was on him” worried. And here he was…human, healthy apparently, and accompanied by a strange man she didn’t know, demanding answers to vague questions.

“What truth?” Mös asked. “There are many truths and many lies out there.” But the tenor of his voice wasn’t confidence. It belied trepidation.

Angelika slowly turned to face him as well.

“You were not surprised to see me when Angelika and I arrived,” Airk said.

The Beta tapped a gnarled finger on the metal tabletop. “Of course not. My people had already informed me of your existence.”

Herpeople, he meant.

“So you did not know that I was alive until they told you?” Airk pushed.

Mös’s eyes narrowed. The man was clearly not used to being questioned. “I did not. Like everyone else, I was told you were killed in the tragedy that took so many lives. I had no cause to believe otherwise.”

Angelika sat forward, studying the man closely, trying to discern what it was about that speech that bothered her. It would be really nice right now to have Meira’s empathic abilities. Not that her sister could see lies or truths, but she could read emotions. “Were you ever told that Pytheios was the one who killed them?” she asked.

Mös cut his glacial gaze to her, jaw going tight. “No.”

“Or that Airk was still alive?” she pressed.

His gaze slid to the man standing behind her, but this time his complexion paled ever so slightly. “No.”

“And to your knowledge, Volos was also similarly misled?” the older man called Jordy pushed.

“The king always acted as though he believed the story Pytheios gave everyone.” Mös glanced away. “He never gave me any indication that anything different had happened.”

Angelika turned to see Airk’s reaction. Did he believe the Beta?

His lips pulled back, baring his teeth. “If I find out you have fed me lies—”

A low growl ripped from Mös’s throat, and he surged to his feet, leaning fisted hands on the table. “You’ll what?” he spat. “Turn your feral dragon loose on me? By rights I should have you put down and put out of your misery.”

The tension in the room ratcheted up a hundredfold, blanketing Angelika as every other dragon shifter in the room growled as well, flames lighting up eyes to dance and sparkle against the walls. She couldn’t tell who was on whose side, though.

“Touch him, and any deal with me is done,” she said quietly.

The room seemed to lurch to a halt, so still she almost wondered if hearts were still beating.

Airk, meanwhile, didn’t get angry or acknowledge what she said. He went bone-chillingly cold. Not a flame in sight. He remained focused on Mös, and Mös alone. “My dragon, that you disparage so easily, is what he is because your High King, the man who fed you lies—lies you believed because you wanted power—locked me in a cage for five hundred fucking long years.”

The flickering of firelight died down as dragon’s eyes banked, shoulders and fists eased, and guilt or horror or both oozed through them. But Airk wasn’t done.

“Perhaps I should ask Angelika to do the same to you.” He cut his gaze to each man in turn. “All of you. Lock you up for centuries in a cage where your creature cannot ever be released. We will see how you come out the other side.”

Dragons weren’t naturally accepting of challenges like that, and Angelika held her breath, waiting for someone to make a move.

A relieved sort of surprise skimmed through her as each and every man and woman in the room eventually lowered his or her gaze, some even ducking their heads in shame.

“When we take this to the clan, we show them me,” Airk said in a voice that brooked no refusal. “I will tell them my story. Not only am I living proof, I am a living witness of what happened the day we lost two kings, the phoenix, her mother, and my parents.”

Silence.

Airk drew himself up to his full, imposing height. “And I dare you to kill me. Pytheios himself did not try because the phoenix’s mother, with her last dying breath, predicted that the man who killed me, or ordered me killed, would be a pile of ash shortly after.”

Astonishment slammed through her on razor-sharp breaths. Her grandmother had said that about him? But that had been after she’d passed her powers to Angelika’s mother. She shouldn’t have been able to predict anything. But apparently Pytheios had believed her. That was why Airk had been imprisoned instead of killed? Gods. She hadn’t known.

She wanted to cross the room to his side, sneak her hand in his, and simply be with him. He was always so alone. Even now. He was strong enough to weather that isolation, but he didn’t have to be.

Angelika dropped her gaze to her folded hands. “I think you’d better tell them what did happen that day,” she said quietly. “Everything.”

An hour later, several faces in the room had turned green. Two of the council members had had to leave, probably to throw up. The rest were grim, resigned, or a combination of the two.

“We didn’t know.” Mös wasn’t posturing anymore, the anger torn from him by the truth of Airk’s ruthless words. “I swear we didn’t know.”

“You did not once question Pytheios? About that or any of his decisions down the line?” Airk demanded.

Mös took a deep breath. “Volos was more than happy to be placed on the throne, and Pytheios is the one who put him there.”

“What happened to Volos?” Airk asked.

The Beta actually flinched. “He went to Everest on business. We were told old age claimed his life there.”

“Did they return his ashes?”

“No.”

She glanced at Airk and knew without having to voice it aloud that he was thinking the same thing she was. They should ask Ladon if his spy within Everest knew what had happened to the previous King of the White Clan.

Mös’s fingers curled into a fist on the table. “But we had our answer from Pytheios about our new king.”

Angelika raised her eyebrows and waited.

“That’s why Brock was here. Not for you. Yesterday, Brock arrived to inform us that Pytheios had decided to place him on the throne.”

Holy hells. She’d guessed right about that? Pytheios had seriously thought he could put a gold dragon on the white throne and they’d go along with it? She’d only been posturing when she’d threatened Mös with that earlier. Had Pytheios turned so arrogant, so narcissistic, that he couldn’t see the error of that decision?

She closed her eyes. Of course he had. Because dragon shifters had gone along with everything else, so why should he suspect they’d balk at this? But this new revelation also meant these men’s decision to follow her had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the lesser of two evils. The false High King had crossed the line one too many times, it seemed.

The question was, could she trust these people to remain loyal? She’d have to for now. She couldn’t track down Delilah and ask her to perform the same oath of loyalty for an entire clan. At some point, trust needed to happen.

“Do we know when Brock was supposed to report in to Pytheios next?” Airk asked.

No one did.

Okay. They needed to act fast, then, before the red king learned what had happened here. “What is the best way to introduce Airk and me to the rest of the clan?” Angelika asked.

Discussing that took another few hours, by the end of which Angelika was starting to hit a wall, exhaustion scraping at her. And Airk still wasn’t looking at her.

“I think we have a plan,” she said, pushing to her feet and barely avoiding yawning and stretching. Food had been brought in while they talked. What she needed now was a bed.

“One last item…” Mös said.

She held in a sigh. Because sitting here trying to be both polite and political was hard enough. But sitting here being ignored by the man who had almost tried to turn her and then effectively ignored her…her slow-burn temper was at a boil by now. Combine that with tired and heartsore after listening to Airk’s story, and she needed alone time.

“Yes?” she asked when Mös hesitated.

“What do we call you?”

Angelika blinked. “Call me?”

“Yes? Are you our king and queen, now that you’re mated?” He glanced between her and Airk. “Is that your intention?”

Oh gods. Of course they thought that when Airk flew off with her something monumental had happened. Yes, she’d come back alone, but smelling of sex that their heightened senses no doubt caught.

“We aren’t mated,” she said, not looking at him.

The exchange of looks in the room was a mix of reactions. Mostly disbelief.

“But—”

Even Mös didn’t seem to know what to ask next.

Angelika was so far from wanting to address this right now. “I showed dragon sign, and I will mate. I’ll figure out the who…soon. I’ve had an offer from the leader of the wolf shifters as well.”

The murmur of angry voices, fully a protest, rose up like a swarm of wasps knocked from their nests.

“As allies, they might be worth considering,” she said firmly. “But my place is with dragons.”

The swarm settled.

“Until we take Pytheios down, let’s not worry about queens and kings. We do this together.” She paused, waiting for any arguments. They hadn’t been shy about speaking up so far, but none came. “Lovely. Can someone take me to a bedroom, please?”

“Jordy.” Mös addressed the older man Airk had arrived with. “Take them to the Azdajahs’ previous quarters.”

“I’ll find my own way,” Airk said. “In a moment.”

Sending her off alone with Jordy, apparently. Good. She’d have a chance to calm down and decide what was best for her moving forward.

Jordy had a kind smile and was sweetly quiet as he escorted her to elevators that dropped them a few levels down. The rooms where he led her had clearly not been used in years, though she couldn’t tell if the suite had been stripped down to bare essentials or pilfered or both. No decorations remained anywhere, but furniture was covered in sheets as though awaiting the owner’s return.

Only they never did. “Oh, Airk,” she whispered.

“Take any room you want,” Jordy said. “While the furniture is old, it works. And the rooms have at least been updated with plumbing and bathrooms and such.”

She nodded.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“A mirror. A large one.”

Without hesitating, Jordy left her where she stood to move down a hallway within the suite, disappearing into the room at the far end, then returning a few seconds later. “The one originally found in here is gone. An overly fancy thing someone no doubt had their greedy eyes on.” He wrinkled his nose in derisive judgment. “Not your style, anyway, I would dare to bet.”

“I should hope not,” she agreed with a small smile.

He chuckled. “I’ll make sure you have one by tonight.”

“Thank you.”

Jordy turned to leave but paused at the door, gaze skating over her face. “The little boy I knew is still inside him.”

She had no idea what to say to that, so she waited.

The older man took a deep breath. “He waited five hundred years to get out. Maybe all he needs…all he needs…is someone willing to wait as long for him.”

Her heart squeezed hard, as though put in screws that twisted and twisted. They’d been so close before the shift had started to overtake him.

“I know,” she said softly. And gods knew she wanted to wait. “But I don’t know how long I have.”

Phoenixes were similar to dragons in that they aged at a similar rate to humans through infancy and adolescence, slowing more and more as they hit their late teens and twenties. She and her sisters were five hundred years old but appeared no more than twenty-five or twenty-six.

But unlike dragons, their seeming immortality was tied to their mother’s powers and magic in some mysterious way. Now that her mother had died, handing her power over to her daughters—all except for her—Angelika had no idea what to expect. Best guess was that she was human now, and would age like a human, until she was turned into a dragon shifter.

Ifthat happened…

“I don’t even know if I have a hundred years, let alone five hundred in me.”

Jordy opened his mouth to respond, then seemed to think better of it. With an understanding nod, he closed the door behind him.

Angelika stared at the thick, old-fashioned wooden thing, then closed her eyes and blew out a breath, long and even, letting go of the tension still riding her.

Or trying to.

“Are you unwell?”

She snapped her eyes open to find Airk standing in front of the door. Damn silent dragon shifters. Mental note to make all the hinges in her home squeak if she mated one.

“You tell me.”

Any concern in his eyes cooled. “I came to tell you that we can’t mate.”

What would he do if she threw something at his head? But she was too…tired. Even for that. Exhaustion, the kind that was of the heart and soul more than the body, dragged at her. The memory of all those words he’d spoken while he drove their pleasure higher, words that had filled her so full of happiness she could have flown, now added to the weight. “If I didn’t already understand that from you flying off, you not looking at me that entire meeting clued me in.”

Airk took a step forward, as though to argue, but suddenly a terrible sound—like the screaming of a thwarted siren—slammed through Angelika’s mind. Inside her head, and yet she still slapped her hands over her ears in a useless attempt to shut it out.

“What’s happening?” she tried to yell over the noise, but Airk’s eyes were closed, his face a study of concentration as white scales rippled over and over and over across his skin and his face only to switch back to human just as fast. The noise was driving his dragon forward, and the man was holding it back through sheer, teeth-gritted will.

She didn’t dare try to touch him or call to him again.

As fast as the noise started, though, it stopped. Not to return to normal. More like her ears were plugged, plunging her into her own silent bubble.

“My people,” a familiar, smoke-laden voice clanged in her head. “This is your High King speaking.”

…

Pytheios stared into his witch’s cold face as he spoke to dragon shifters everywhere. He knew her magic was working to transmit his message because the few gathered in the room had cried out when she started her spell, then relaxed when Rhiamon had nodded at him to begin speaking. His was the only dragon shifter mind on the entire planet that she wasn’t touching, somehow tapping into their telepathic communication.

He didn’t question his witch’s growing powers. Or fear them. She’d need to be disposed of quickly once his throne was assured, but he was certain she remained under his control for now.

Although, she might cause her own demise at the rate she was going, which would work out just as well for him.

Ever since he’d killed Merikh—sacrificed their weakling of a son to bring Rhiamon back from the dead—her powers had visibly been taking a toll on her. She was even paler now than she had been a week ago, skin almost translucent, showing the blood pumping through her veins in time to her heart. Her white curls hung in greasy clumps around her face as though she hadn’t showered in weeks. And her eyes…

Before her death and resurrection, when she used her magic and only then, her jewel-green eyes would turn solid black with silver pupils and the black would appear to leach into the skin surrounding. Now her eyes were never their previous color, and the shadows leaching into her skin had spread, almost a mask across her face and temples, draining down into her cheeks. Perhaps death had filled her with such power, she could no longer disguise it behind human eyes.

She was deteriorating with it. However, he needed her too much to dispose of her yet, so he’d handle with care.

Especially when she was touching him, as she was now, her hands clasping his like manacles, nails digging into the undersides of his fingers. He ignored the small discomfort. Even if she were to draw blood, his newly mated and restored body would heal.

“As my power grows,” he continued speaking to his people, “I am able to reach you all. Yet another proof that I am who I was always meant to be. Your High King. Now blessed by my phoenix mate.”

Heat shot through his hands, coming from Rhiamon, and he almost jerked away, but he wasn’t done with his message.

He’d explained to her the plan with Tisiphone and how he didn’t love the girl. She was merely a means to an end. He’d thought Rhiamon had accepted the necessary steps he’d taken. Perhaps not.

“There are still dragon shifters who resist the truth that is staring them in their treacherous faces. I have shown you my newly healed body. I have introduced you to the true phoenix and successfully mated her. Yet still you fight me.”

He paused, letting those words sink in.

“Now I am pleased to announce that our lovely phoenix savior is with child. With my child.”

On cue, as they’d discussed previously, he released one of Rhiamon’s hands to hold his out to Tisiphone, who stood nearby. Visibly wary of the witch, his new mate neared his side and took his outstretched hand. Their people wouldn’t see her, but they would be able to hear her.

“Tell them, my heart,” he murmured in the most loving voice he could muster, hiding a wince at another flare of heat from Rhiamon.

After a glance at the woman making this happen, Tisiphone’s chin came up, a self-satisfied smile gracing her lovely lips. “My people, I am thrilled and blessed to announce to you that the next generation of phoenixes will be born six months from now. A girl, perfect and healthy, to carry on the legacy reinstated after five centuries of drought. May the beauty and luck of my phoenix ancestry remain with dragon shifters always.”

With a nod of satisfaction, he released her hand, turning back to Rhiamon to finish his own message. “To those of you still resisting, I say walk away from your false alliances and declare your loyalty to me if no other rightful king steps forward in your clan. At the end of the era, you don’t want to find you’ve chosen the wrong side.”

Again he paused, letting that thought linger. Then his lip curled as he was unable to quite contain the soul-deep rage that any single dragon, let alone clans, had moved against him. “And make no mistake: to stand against the High King and his phoenix is to stand on the side of death. Stand with me now or know that I’m coming for you. No mercy will be given to any dragon who doesn’t bear the right mark on their hand.”

On that declaration, Rhiamon released his hands, cutting off the magic without even a blink of struggle. He studied her impassive face closely. Difficult to ascertain her emotions with those eyes. The power she wielded… Yes, he would do well to eliminate her soon.

All he needed was to take down the traitor kings, the phoenixes dragons had never needed in the first place, and their pathetically blind followers.

…

The bubble that kept Pytheios’s voice in Airk’s head shared space only with the raging of Airk’s dragon, who was battering at the mental walls that he’d built around him after that misstep with Angelika. The creature hadn’t broken through yet, but the false High King’s voice sent him into fits so violent, Airk’s entire body shook with the agony of it, shards of pain splintering through his mind, his bones, his blood, his gut.

Then, as suddenly as it started, the bubble popped and normal sound resumed, Pytheios no longer in his head.

But Airk remained still and silent, eyes closed, wishing for the first time since his release that he was back in his dragonsteel cage. His dragon had only tested those bars once, and they had sliced them both so badly it had taken Airk a full month to heal from the damage. After that, the threat of killing them both had helped to keep the beast inside him leashed.

Now that they were free, the two halves of his soul were pitted in a never-ending battle.

“Airk.” Angelika was at least smart enough to stay on the other side of the room.

He didn’t open his eyes. “I cannot,” he said in a voice that was all smoke and lingering rage. “We will kill you, and I could not live with that.”

So saying, he turned and, using every sense except sight, left the room. Only to almost walk over Jordy, who was hauling a massive wood-trimmed mirror down the human-sized hallway to Airk’s family’s old rooms.

“What are you doing?” Airk demanded, his dragon still very much in his voice.

Jordy flinched but only a little. “The phoenix asked for a mirror.”

Damn it, Angelika.

He spun on his foot, stomping right back to her door, and let himself in. Again. Because she still hadn’t locked the damn door behind him. The woman needed to learn to be more careful.

The room was empty. However, the sound of her voice led him into the bedroom that had been his as a child. He paused at the door to find her with her back to him, angrily yanking sheets off the furniture and muttering into a large phone-like device he hadn’t seen.

“Dragon shifters. My sisters can have them. I give up, Jedd.”

Jedd? The first thing she’d done was call the wolf shifter who wanted her?

Jealousy clawed its way up Airk’s back, tightening each muscle along the way. Not just jealousy—possessiveness and a tidal wave of an urge to be the one she went to with her problems. Not Jedd. Except Airk was the problem she was discussing.

Angelika snorted a laugh at something Jedd said. “Give me a nice fuzzy bunny shifter with a gut and a sweet attitude any damn day.”

Angelika was swearing, which told him even more than the frustrated words that she was at the end of a tether.

“A pain in my ass. Since the day he showed up in Ben Nevis.” She paused, listening to whatever that damn wolf had to say.

“I don’t think so.”

Another pause.

“You think I took one look at him and that was it?”

Everything inside Airk stilled at those words, his heart taking a nosedive for the soles of his feet.

She shook her head adamantly, listened a little longer, then sighed. “I’m too tired to think about this right now.” Another pause. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow with more.”

With that, she hung up and tossed the phone onto a chair, going back to making the bed.

One corner of the sheet got hung up on the leg of the chair she was uncovering, and she gave the most adorable little growl. “I’m way too old to believe in…” She grabbed the sheet with both hands and gave a harder yank with each word. “Love. At. First. Sight.”

Love.Gods above. Didn’t she know he was the last person she should give her love to?

The sheet didn’t give, but apparently she’d had enough. She stopped yanking, plunked her hands on her hips, and tipped her head back, appearing to glare at the ceiling, or perhaps talking to it.

“I was supposed to be pretending to be a wolf, but did I leave him alone? Nope. Then I sort of propose, and he says no. Should have left it at that. But did I?” She shook her head and went back to her tugging. “Nope. I kept hoping, like an idiot. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome? I should have known better.”

Her voice cracked on that last word, and Airk fisted his hands to keep himself from going to her. There was no way he could fix this, and he should just stay away, but gods, she suddenly appeared so…small.

“I always was the reckless one. People think it’s Skylar, but it’s me.” Angelika finally yanked the sheet off what had been a big velvet-covered rocking chair his mother used to read books to him in. He’d forgotten about that chair and had to close his eyes against the sudden swelling of memories that hit with the force of a dragon’s mace-like tail to the head.

A soft sound had him opening his eyes again, though, to see Angelika had flopped into it, leg hooked over the low arm of the chair. She dropped her head against the softly cushioned back and took a deep breath. “All right, Angelika Amon. Put on your big-girl panties and admit you were wrong. Time to let him go.”

No.

The knee-jerk reaction was his dragon…but him, too.

She wasn’t done, though, her tone now like she was giving herself a mental kick in the ass and bolstering pep talk all at the same time. “Pick a different dragon. Anyone will do. You’re a phoenix, so the fire won’t kill you. Hopefully. But being a dragon is better than being human—”

“No!” The word was out of him before he even thought it. Spewing out on a wave of possessiveness, but also heartbreak and the need to keep her safe. He’d made her get to this point. His brokenness was breaking her, too.

Angelika was on her feet in an instant, shock turning to a brave glare, her chin tipping up, anger in every line of her body. Except her eyes, which were begging him not to put her through any more.

He’d tried. Gods knew he’d tried. “Do not dare to give yourself to just anyone,” he ordered. “I will not let you.”

She crossed her arms, wariness changing to fury in her narrowed eyes. “You forfeited your right to have any say in this.”

“You cannot—”

“I’ll do what I have to in order to survive and to take out my family’s killer. Unlike you, I don’t run from my problems, Airk. I face them.”

“You think I run away?” He threw the words at her, his own anger and frustration rising to meet hers. “I am trying to protect you.”

She picked up a small pillow from the chair and hurled it at his head. “I didn’t ask you to.”

Airk ducked, which only seemed to make her angrier, and she searched the room for more ammunition, but it was all still covered up. So she took off her shoe.

“Gods above, Angelika, what do you want me to do?”

Angelika stopped, hand raised to fling the shoe at his head, and stared at him a long beat before slowly lowering it. “I don’t know.” She dropped her gaze to the shoe in her hand and shook her head, more at herself, it seemed. “Not this, though.”

Damn. There was no answer here. He wouldn’t risk hurting her, let alone her life.

Angelika sighed. “It’s time to let you go.”

The pain that shot through him at her soft, determined words came close to what had gone through him the day he’d lost his parents and been locked up in his cage. His dragon railed and clawed and roared, and…gods, he had to get out of here. Now.

“Promise me you will not mate rashly,” he threw at her.

Then he walked from the room. Hells, he practically bolted. He pulled up at the sight of Jordy in the foyer still messing around with the mirror and paused only long enough to address his old friend. “I need you to stay with her. I will stay at your place.”

Jordy didn’t so much as blink. “I’ll keep her safe, my lord.”

Airk trusted that he would. “And cover that fucking mirror.”

Then he stalked from the suite for the second time before he did something rash himself. Like go back and push his fire into her.