The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Twenty

The second Pytheios’s voice had sounded in Kasia’s mind and she’d realized Brand was hearing it, too, she’d known what would happen next. Her mate took every threat personally and seemed to only calm when he’d sunk himself inside her and they both visited the heavens together.

Not that Brand ever missed an opportunity to claim her body—her, either, for that matter—but after an incident like that, their lovemaking tended to turn more…intense. Almost as though he needed to prove to himself that the Rotting King hadn’t snatched yet another loved one from his arms.

Her big, scary dragon-shifter mate didn’t disappoint, either. Buried inside her, eyes aflame with golden light, hands wrapped possessively in her long hair, and a harshly beautiful sort of demand tightening his features. His earthy, wood and smoke scent surrounded her, which only turned her on more.

“Kasia.” Command laced the single word.

Ecstasy exploded inside her, and all around her their bed went up in flames, coming from them both. As she pulsed, Brand’s cock grew thick inside her, and he threw his head back, shouting as her pleasure tipped him over into the abyss of his own.

In the midst of the pleasure, he put his mouth to hers. “I’m yours,” he groaned against her lips. “Always.”

The words swept her along, tumbling her over into a second orgasm simply on the strength of her love for this man, entirely caught up in the magic of what they had together.

As happened sometimes since the night they mated, her ability to have visions intertwined with her release. With each crest of the most incredible pleasure unexpectedly came a different flash—pristinely clear, with audible sounds and vivid colors. Vision after vision. She didn’t try to watch them or keep them in her mind, instead focusing on Brand’s face and the sensations flowing through her body. The beautiful completion in his eyes as they shared the intense climax. Riding it to its end, until they’d wrung every nuance they could from the joining.

Brand collapsed over her, chest heaving, and she relished the weight of his body on hers, his still semi-hard length inside her. Closing her eyes, she gave herself permission to just be with him. She could review those visions after they’d had this first. This moment where their souls settled together, entwined and replete.

The only time she ever saw her mate truly content.

As their breathing slowed, Brand kissed the side of her neck, then her cheek, and lifted his head to pin her with eyes still molten gold but no longer flaming.

“What did you see?” he demanded.

Kasia’s lips twitched, and she turned in his arms, feathering her fingers through his shorter hair. When they’d met, he’d worn the dirty blond locks on the long side to cover the mark on his neck, but since becoming king, he’d decided to display that family symbol with pride.

“I should’ve known you’d notice,” she murmured.

“Nothing about you escapes me, princess.” He wrapped a lock of hair around his finger and tugged her closer to lay a sweet, swift kiss on her lips. “So…the vision?”

“I don’t know, lizard boy. I was a little distracted with an orgasm or two, so I didn’t pay much attention.”

The smug satisfaction that curled his lips was probably worth bonking him on the head for his arrogance, but she was too sated and happy to bother. Instead, she closed her eyes and let go, her fire coming up and over them both.

“Can you see?” she asked.

Only recently had Brand started being able to watch the visions with her if she included him in her fire. Best guess was he used the link all mates shared once they were bonded, though the ways in which mates used that link differed by couple.

“Yes.” His voice reached her as though far away, down a tunnel.

Several scenes came on all at once, and deliberately she slowed them down, taking the time to inspect each one.

A vision of Meira in labor, strawberry blond curls plastered to her head as she breathed through her labor pains. Samael at her side, holding her hand, looking overwhelmed. “Almost there,” someone was saying. “One last push.”

Before Kasia could assure herself everything would be fine, the image changed. To one she’d seen before. A man inside a cell high in the mountains. So high the sky was more black than blue. He sat on a long stone bench and stared out at the stars. Airk. She knew that now. Sitting with his elbows on his knees, hands in his hair. Shorter hair, though, not long like when he was actually held.

Gods. Was she seeing the past or the future? If Pytheios captured him and put him back in that cage, Kasia wasn’t sure Airk would survive that. His mind or his dragon might break.

The next vision came, a flash of Airk and Angelika, fingers of one hand laced together, staring at each other in a kind of wonder. “My mate,” Airk whispered. “It worked.”

What worked? Angelika was dormant. What did that mean?

Then, finally, an image that sent the fear of all seven hells through her like the hammering cut of a broadsword. A swarm of dragons—red and green—descending over a mountain. But the image disappeared before she could see more than the tips of rocks, not enough to identify the location. Then Pytheios—so much younger-looking than she’d ever seen, harshly handsome with it—walking through a room with no identifiable details. A massive room inside the mountain, maybe, but again it could be any dragon-shifter lair. Then the vision shifted, showing him approaching what appeared to be a handful of white dragons. All she could see were their feet lined up in a row as though guarding an entrance.

“Bow to me now or die,” Pytheios ordered.

With a gasp, Kasia’s eyes flew open, the flames turning to smoke as they died, only to encounter Brand’s grim expression. He’d seen it all, too.

“He’s going to take the White Clan’s mountain,” he said.

Fear for her sister curled Kasia’s hands around his biceps. “We have to warn Angelika.”

…

“My lady?”

The lights turned on, and Angelika blinked out of what hadn’t been a great sleep anyway. She sighed. “Jordy. I’ve asked you repeatedly to call me Angelika.”

“Yes, milady.”

She shook her head. But mid-shake he was already across the room, handing her an armful of clothing. “You need to get dressed.”

The urgency in his voice finally penetrated her sleep-fogged brain. Without hesitating, she was up and moving into the bathroom to change.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Jordy through the cracked door. She stripped off the men’s T-shirt Jordy had scrounged her up to sleep in and started to dress in black slacks and a white silk blouse with a collar the 1980s would be proud of.

“I wasn’t told,” he called over the screen at her. “Only that you had an urgent communication.”

Communication?

Angelika’s fingers paused on the last button of the blouse, mind spinning over who might be trying. Only a handful knew she was here. Not even that. Her sisters and their mates, and the wolves plus the dozen or so white dragons she’d met with yesterday, except they wouldn’t be calling her for a “communication,” which left her sisters or maybe the wolves.

That was it.

Any of them contacting her off schedule here was very bad.

“Has Airk been notified?”

“Yes, milady. He will meet you there.”

Angelika had to ignore the spiked pit in her stomach that he wasn’t here right now. She’d gotten accustomed to having him around, at her side, in such a short time.

So get unaccustomed quick.

Finished dressing, she twisted her hair into a topknot. The best she could do with such short notice. Then she motioned Jordy to lead the way, pausing only in the foyer as something struck her as odd. “Why is there a sheet over the mirror?”

“Orders from young Airk.”

She winced, calling herself all sorts of fool. No wonder Meira hadn’t tried to reach her that way. The same reason Airk wanted it covered. Pytheios’s earlier trick with the mirrors. Airk was still protecting her. Hells, even his rejection was a form of protection.

She knew that. Loved him a little bit for it, even. At least she would if it wasn’t getting in the way of them being together.

With a nod, they hurried on through the labyrinthine halls, back to the room next door to the one Airk had smashed through the windows with Brock. A smaller conference room.

As soon as she walked in, she found Airk, Belyy, Tovar, and Mös waiting. Mös hit a switch on the wall, and the glass turned opaque. At his nod, Tovar tapped a few keys on a keyboard, and the single, small TV screen was suddenly filled with all three of her sisters and their mates.

No relief in their faces, though, as they saw she was all right and safely with white dragons. She hadn’t even had a chance to inform them of the success allying with their father’s clan yet, given that the specific date and time they’d arranged was later today. But their expressions told her that this call wasn’t about that.

“I’ve had a vision.” Kasia didn’t even bother with a hello. “Pytheios is coming for the White Clan.”

“Fuck,” one of the men in the room muttered. Not Airk. He stayed silent.

“Do you think he already knows about Brock Hagan’s death?” That was Tovar asking Mös.

All three of Angelika’s brothers-by-blood snapped to attention. But Brand was the one who prowled forward, tucking Kasia behind him so he could shove his face in the camera. “Hagan is dead?” he demanded.

Angelika nodded. “He came for the throne. He was here when we arrived—”

Airk cut her off. “I killed him.”

“Remind me to shake your hand next time we meet in person,” Brand said. Though the snarl in his voice made him sound angry, the light in his eyes was clearly relief and ultimate satisfaction.

Airk nodded.

“How do you know they’re coming?” Mös asked.

“Who the hell are you?” Ladon snapped back.

“Our ally. He was Volos’s Beta.” Angelika stopped them all from posturing with a firm insertion, then turned to her sister. “What did you see, Kas?”

Kasia gently moved the bulk of Brand’s body behind her so that she was once again visible on the screen. “A swarm of red and green dragons over a mountain. Then Pytheios landing and confronting a line of white dragons, telling them to swear allegiance or die.”

“Which mountain?” Mös leaned forward, flaming gaze sending eerie white shadows dancing over his face.

Kasia grimaced. “I couldn’t see enough details. I’m sorry I can’t give you more to go on.”

“How long?” Airk demanded.

“I don’t know.” Kasia shook her head. “Hours, days, months. There was nothing to indicate time.”

“Forewarned is forearmed,” Angelika said, repeating words their mother had said so often it had become a family joke until the day the red king showed up and killed her.

Angelika swung around to face her new allies. “We need to move up our timeline.”

They’d planned to introduce her and Airk to the clan in groups, starting with the leadership. They couldn’t wait to stretch that out in the gradual approach now.

Mös gave a jerking nod. “I’ll announce a mountain-wide meeting. Best be for…” He checked his phone for the time. “For later this evening to give us time to get the word to everyone. In the meantime, I’ll heighten security and start procedures to lock down all White Clan mountains.”

With a nod, she spun back to the display. “Thank you for the warning—”

“Don’t hang up.” Kasia rushed to cut her off. “There’s something I need to tell you and Airk together. Alone.”

“If you think I’m leaving—”

Mös cut off his words at a growl from Airk, but Angelika put a hand on his arm. “You can stay,” she said. “We need you.”

He stared at her long and hard. After all, he was following her more out of hatred for Pytheios than any loyalty to her. But finally he nodded. Jordy, Belyy, and Tovar left the room. Out of some kind of respect, she suspected, Mös moved to the back of the room. A silent observer.

Angelika faced the screen. “What else?”

She braced herself for all manner of bad news.

Kasia took a deep breath. “You two were mated in one of my flashes. I think.”

…

Airk had to shake his head to clear it of the triumphant roar of his dragon. “What?”

“I believe she just said we mated,” Angelika offered. Instead of smug, though, she sounded as befuddled as he felt. Nor was she looking at him, keeping her focus on her sisters.

His dragon wanted to pick their little phoenix up and go make that a fact instead of a vision right this instant. Airk fisted his hands, holding the mental walls around his creature half, needing to be sure…

“What do you mean, you think?” he asked.

Kasia hummed in her throat, her icy eyes, so like Angelika’s, going unfocused. He’d seen her access her visions enough to know that’s what she was doing.

Kasia detailed what she’d seen, then blinked as though coming back into herself. “Do you know what that might mean?” she asked. “What worked? Have your powers manifested?” The last she asked of Angelika.

But the woman beside him seemed thunderstruck, eyes wide and unseeing, mouth opening and closing.

“Angelika?” Meira prompted.

“Fuck me,” Angelika muttered, the swear word on her lips jarring.

She dropped her gaze, staring at the ground, still unseeing, as though working through that. Then she sort of tipped her head sideways, as though assessing his own reaction while not looking at him.

“I’ve shown dragon sign,” she told her siblings. Then raised her gaze to look at her sisters. “That has to be it.”

Airk breathed out through his nose, slow and controlled as Kasia’s words repeated through his mind.

It worked. It worked. It worked.

That’s what Kasia said. Could he mate Angelika successfully, without his dragon killing her? Not for him—for her. Then the White Clan would be even more likely to accept her as their queen. But more than that, she’d be less vulnerable. No longer human and frail with it. She’d be able to hold her own.

And she’d be mine.

His dragon rumbled a low, satisfied growl of possession and agreement all mixed together.

“You’re sure?” Skylar demanded.

Angelika seemed to come out of her stupor. “I’m sure. I went up in flames that didn’t burn me. But no phoenix lines. No hint of anything except dragon sign.”

I can turn her safely, without my dragon killing her.

Finally, the realization sank in fully. He’d seen enough of Kasia’s visions come true in the short time he’d been around the sisters to not question it. Sometimes the interpretation was wrong, but the visions always came to be.

Gods, please let her be right about this one.

Because for once in his life, he wasn’t going to question this gift. This blessing.

“I am afraid you must excuse us,” he said to all of them and no one in particular.

Every man on the screen grinned, or some variation of it, and all of her sisters frowned. He didn’t bother to turn off the call as he grabbed her by the hand and tugged her out the door, ignoring the man still in the corner of the room.

Two steps down the hall, Angelika dug her heels in, jerking them to a halt. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Airk leveled a hard, semi-confused stare on her. It seemed obvious to him. “What do you think?”

Only instead of any positive emotion she might have given him, particularly given the way she’d been pushing for this, she scowled, blue gaze flashing. “Excuse me? Now that you know for sure it’s going to work, you’re ready to fuck me and put your fire in me?”

Of course she’d see it that way, stubborn woman. Airk stepped into her, hands slipping into her hair, dislodging whatever she’d used to pin it up, the white tresses falling about her shoulders as he shoved his face right in hers. “No. Now that I know I will not kill you, I cannot…not do this.”

Some of the anger leached out of her, her shoulders easing, but she was still scowling. “You didn’t trust in us, but one word from my sister’s vision, and it’s all okay?”

“I did not trust me.” How could she not see this? “Do you not understand? Killing you would be the same as killing a butterfly or a unicorn—something so pure and precious, it would have destroyed what I have left of my soul.”

Angelika settled at that, searching his gaze. “You were afraid?”

She asked the question as though she’d thought him incapable of the emotion. “I was terrified. But knowing it can work safely…”

The tip of her pink tongue flashed out, wetting her lips. “Why?”

Oddly, now that he had his hands on her and wasn’t fighting his dragon anymore, the creature was…calm…inside him. “Why what?” he asked, searching her gaze.

“Is this only to turn me?”

“Yes…” She tried to tug out of his grip, and he stepped closer. “And no.”

She gave her head a tiny shake, the silk of her hair tangling more in his fingers with the gesture.

“I want you to be safe and able to take your rightful place among your father’s people. Our people,” he said. “So yes, for those reasons.”

Her eyebrows twitched down, clearly not loving that.

“For you,” he said. “Not for them. Because this is what you want.”

The eyebrows eased, only slightly. “Mating is for hundreds of years. You’re willing to tie yourself to me for centuries, for a lifetime, just to give me what I want?”

Airk released a slow breath and lowered his head until his lips hovered over hers. “Be mine,” he whispered, holding her gaze. “That is what I want.”

The hitch in her breathing was his only hint that she liked what she heard. “You want me?” she asked, also whispering. Airk’s lips tilted. A full smile that still felt rusty after centuries without a reason to use it. “Did you not hear a word I said during that first disastrous mating attempt?”

A laugh punched from her. “Nothing is obvious with you, Airk Azdajah.” The smile tipping her lips was tremulous.

She was right. He hadn’t been fair to her, even as that was what he’d been trying to be. He searched her eyes. Had all that back-and-forth ruined the relationship for her? “Will you mate me, Angelika Amon?” He grimaced. “It will not be easy for you. I do not like to talk. I do not know how to be around people. Touch can be difficult for me. My dragon even more so. I may be more liability than boon, but I will protect you with every—”

Angelika placed one finger over his lips, stopping him. “Yes.”

Airk and his dragon both stilled. “Yes?”

Her slow smile was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “Yes,” she said again, then grinned, eyes dancing. “But please hurry before you change your mind again.”

Happiness had been a part of his life once. He remembered laughing and playing as a boy, the sound of his parents tucking him in at night, the murmur of content in his home. But the emotion almost sideswiped him now. Forget walking at a human pace. He swept her up into his arms and sprinted through the mountain to his family’s rooms. The place he’d grown up. Claiming his mate here seemed…right. As though they were reawakening these rooms together with hope and a new, fresh start.

He didn’t take her to his childhood room, though. Instead he took her to the larger suite that would have been his when he’d reached maturity. Only, the second he stepped into the room, he found it not covered in sheets and unused, but pristinely and newly cleaned with fresh sheets on the bed. As though it had been ready and waiting for them. It even had a vase of roses, pink, and smelled of the flowers, though Angelika’s sun-warmed scent filled him full.

Slowly, gently, he lowered her feet to the ground, staring into her upturned face, so trusting. “We need to take this…slowly.”

Just because the vision said they’d be successful one day didn’t mean today was that day. The last time they tried this, his dragon tried to get involved.

“I can do that,” she whispered. Angelika traced her fingers over his face—his jaw, his lips, his neck.

A new burning in his chest told him he might not be able to. But her safety came first, so he forced himself to calm as much as he was able, though his cock was as hard as a steel mace and throbbing already.

“Is this okay?” she whispered. In her eyes he could see a tumble of fascination that reflected his own. They’d done this before, but that reaction only seemed to grow with each new contact. But also in those ice-blue eyes lay a sort of quiet fear. Regret squeezed his heart. He had put that in her.

“If I died in your arms,” he said, “it would be a good death.”

She shook her head, though she was smiling. “No talk of death. This is a first step to a new life. Yes?”

He hoped so, but he wouldn’t make that promise, either.

Instead, he brushed a finger lightly across her delicate collarbone, then traced the V neckline of her blouse down to the first button, undoing it slowly, then the next, until he bared the upper swell of her breasts encased in lace, which he stopped to trace as well. Her breathing increased, and gods’ teeth he liked that. Liked affecting her that way.

Hooking a finger in the material of her bra, he dragged it down until one rosy-tipped breast spilled into his hand. Her nipple was already swollen, pressing into his palm. Out of curiosity, just to see if she liked it, he squeezed at the tip, and her gasp shot straight to his already straining cock.

She liked it. So did he.

Fascination overtook him, focusing him on that one reaction and dragging it from her again. He rolled the nub between his fingers, and she moaned. A shudder charged through him at the sound. The angels and cherubim had nothing on pleasure from Angelika’s lips.

“Hold me,” she whispered.

On a groan, he hooked one arm around her waist and dragged her against him, burying his face in her neck, inhaling the floral scent of her. He rubbed his cheek against hers, the sound of his stubble against her soft skin somehow perfect. Everything about her a flawless foil to him.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered in her ear.

“I think we’ve been here before, sir,” she sighed back.

Then she stepped away. He let her go, arms dropping to his sides, and hungrily watched as she unbuttoned the rest of her blouse, promises he desperately wanted to reach for there in her eyes as she slowly, unselfconsciously undressed before him. Not looking away from each precious inch of skin she revealed, Airk stripped as well. Maybe a little faster, though. He was naked long before the last item of her clothing hit the floor.

He took her in, standing before him in a way that no other man would ever see. Not if they valued their life. He’d heard tales of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, of the beauty of Helen of Troy, of the Amazons, and of Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, and he didn’t imagine a single one could hold a candle to the ethereal siren standing before him. His dragon pressed against the walls containing him, but Airk wouldn’t release the creature from his mental bonds until he needed their fire.

“Gods, Angelika. How am I supposed to stay in control when you look at me that way?”

His siren smiled, frosty eyes heated, needy. “What way?”

“Like you want me to—”

“I do.” Her smile turned even more fiery. “I want your hands on me, Airk. Your mouth. I want you inside me, possessing me. And I want to do the same to you.”

She moved toward him, every step a sinuous, delicate glide that left his mouth dry. “I want us to reach that paradise together. Often.”

So did he, gods save him. But first they had to make it over this huge hurdle.

“What do you want?” she whispered.

“To see my family’s mark on you.” The words were out before he even thought the thought, and he jolted with the realization that the need had been there all along. He’d just never let himself reach for it.

Angelika tipped her head, tenderness shining at him. “Let’s make that happen.”

Holding out a hand, she beckoned him to follow as she backed up to the bed. When her calves hit it, she climbed up, still facing him, sliding back, her smile encouraging. Then she splayed her legs open, showing him paradise.

On a groan, Airk crawled across the bed to cover her body with his weight and claim her lips in long, deep, drugging kisses, losing himself in the taste of her, the feel of her silky, petite body against his. Airk touched her everywhere, his hands gliding and dipping and pausing to tease—her legs, her belly, her breasts, before losing himself in the triangle of curls at the juncture of her thighs.

She was slick and hot, ready for him.

He wanted to linger and explore every part of her, but the way his dragon was seeking release, seeking their mate, waiting might make his control slip.

“I’m going to join us now,” he murmured against her lips.

“Hells yes,” she moaned back, and he couldn’t stop the chuckle that echoed in his chest. Didn’t want to stop it, because that happiness was inside him again. Just a spark, but the warmth was all he needed.