The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Twenty-Three

A blur moving faster than Angelika’s vision could track bolted from the back of the tea shop straight for her.

Before she could so much as open her mouth to shout, Airk was between them, one hand wrapped around the attacker’s throat, lifting him off his feet. The man swung like a pendulum for a moment, thanks to his own momentum, then came to a dangle. Feet thrashed, and his face turned purple as he garbled and glared.

A growl ripped from Airk’s throat so fearsome that every single dragon in the room flinched. So did Angelika. The man, smarter than first impressions might indicate, went utterly still, eyes bugging out as he stared at a newly mated dragon in full protection mode. One who could easily go wild. Airk had not held that part of his history back when he’d been introduced. This guy was lucky he hadn’t already been gutted. Or worse.

What would I feel if that had happened?

Nothing. This man made his choice. But did feeling nothing make her a horrible person? Or maybe more dragon than she realized?

“Who sent you?” Airk demanded in a voice so unlike his own, she knew the beast was speaking more than the man.

Her assailant moved his mouth, but only a mangled noise came out.

Gently, Angelika laid a hand on Airk’s arm, and his muscles jumped and twitched under her touch.

“Airk,” she said softly.

Slowly, after a long hesitation, he turned his head, his eyes fully dragon, flames of white sparking at her, lighting up the sharp angles of his face in a harsh glow.

But no ire for her. If anything, his features softened slightly.

“Don’t kill him,” she said. Not yet, at least.

In the same instant, two men burst into the room, clearly guards alerted to the danger. They pulled up sharply at the little scene, looking between Airk and the man and her, then exchanged a glance.

Which almost made her laugh, because they were clearly floundering. Bet they didn’t train for this in dragon school. Now was not the time for humor, though.

Hoping her mate was more in control than he looked, she cleared her throat and addressed the guards in a firm voice. “Take this man away to be interrogated. Do not harm him, though.”

They glanced at her, then warily at Airk, obviously not thrilled with the idea of taking a kill away from a pissed-off alpha. How the shifter he held hadn’t passed out from lack of air at this point, she had no idea.

“Airk?” she asked. “Please.”

Only because she was touching him did she feel the shudder that ran through his body. Then he blinked, and suddenly his eyes were human again. His hand opened, almost as though some invisible force cranked the fingers out of their clench, and the man dropped to the floor in a heap, still breathing, though rasping. Warily, trying to stay as far from Airk as they could, the two guards took an arm each and dragged her attacker away.

Airk’s chest heaved—up, down, up, down—as he stared into space. She didn’t move. Watching and waiting. Then he angled his head, addressing her without looking. “That could have gone so much worse.”

“I’m safe. So are you. And we can get answers we need,” she said, keeping her voice slow and steady.

His muscles were still tight beneath her hand. He was hating this, and she hated putting him through it. “I can’t let this stop me. This is important,” she whispered.

And he closed his eyes, fighting more than just his instinct as a mate. Then, finally he straightened and gave a small nod.

Slipping her hand in his, because deep down she was more shaken than she was letting on, Angelika turned back to the room. “I apologize for that,” she said. “Was anything broken? Everyone unharmed?”

Which got her open-mouthed stares of shock.

Dragons really were more fragile than what the creatures shifted into would lead one to believe. Once they’d made sure everything was set to rights, they’d sampled some of the goods, then continued on. After the tea shop was a seamstress, then a grocer, several clothing stores, a leather-goods shop, and along the way they were stopped several times by random groups wanting to meet the phoenix.

No more attacks.

No one even dared look at Airk, let alone approach him, whether because of who he was or because of what he’d done in the tea shop, she wasn’t sure. She gritted her teeth over it every single time all the same. Acceptance would be a slow process. After seeing his treatment in the other clans, she’d known that already. All the same, maybe she’d hoped that his own clan would be more welcoming.

And…unfortunately, they didn’t have that kind of time.

Airk didn’t loosen up until they made it back to their suite hours later. He walked in behind her, bolted the door, then stalked past her to the kitchen, where he opened a bottle of vodka and took a long swig.

Eyebrows lifting, Angelika moved into the room as well, giving him time to decide what his reaction was going to be. After hearing about her sisters’ mates and their possessiveness and protective instincts, she expected another marathon round of orgasms. Looked forward to it, even. They just had to get past the Tarzan-and-Jane instinct first.

Pretending she wasn’t hyperaware of his every move, she instead focused on the baskets and bundles that had magically appeared all over the suite. Gift baskets, it appeared. Food, clothing, books, bath oils. Some necessities, some just for fun. One of which was where he’d got the vodka.

See?she wanted to say, not everyone is angry. Some clearly were ready to believe.

Idly, she picked up a small box wrapped more simply than all the others, in brown paper tied with twine. She unwrapped it and lifted the lid, expecting some small bauble—homemade, perhaps, given the wrapping.

With a scream, she dropped the box, her hand going to her mouth.

Airk was across the room in an instant, box off the floor and in his hand. If she could have saved him from seeing what was inside, she would.

A doll, crudely made and without a face, but with long white-blond hair and orange-and-red wings of fire. Her, clearly. But this doll had been gutted, with real entrails—of a rat or some other small rodent, probably—hanging out of her.

Unfortunately, despite wanting to minimize the impact on Airk, the reaction set in. Everything from today—those bloodthirsty faces in the crowd, the attack in the tea shop, and now this—hit her hard.

“Airk,” she whispered.

Her mate’s expression was pure rage as he lifted his head, but the second he got a good look at her, the rage fell away, replaced by a combination of panic and tenderness. Emotions he would never have shown her, or maybe never allowed himself, even a week ago.

He dropped the box and had her in his arms in an instant. Sweeping her feet off the ground, he carried her to their bedroom, where he sat on the side of the bed, her across his lap. She curled into him and breathed him in, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

And tried her damnedest to forget what she just saw.

After several long minutes of him running a soothing hand down her hair and back, Angelika relaxed into him. “That sucked,” she muttered.

Airk sighed against her. “Yet you are going to go out there again tomorrow anyway?”

She nodded. “And the next day, and the next, and the next after that. However long it takes, I’m going to convince them all. Win them all.”

With a small growl, he laid his cheek against the top of her head. “I would argue that it is a losing battle, but I more than anyone know how convincing you can be.”

She huffed a laugh, a tenderness she’d never expected for herself with her mate welling up inside her. “Look at how well that turned out for you.” She poked him in the chest with the tip of one finger.

Airk grinned. She felt it all the way through her soul. Gods, this man.

…

Pytheios strode purposefully through Everest toward the massive room where all his warriors gathered. He pulled on a pair of supple leather gloves as he walked. Even his people’s respect as he passed by was deeper, more gratifying, as though he suddenly commanded their attention.

He needed to drain those fucking phoenixes and steal immortality from their souls. But for that, first, he had to win this war—without killing the three mated kings until after he’d sucked their mates dry.

Starting today.

In a darkened tunnel, his private entrance to the training room, he stopped beside the man who had to be held up by two others, head lolling between his shoulders.

Purposely, Pytheios had what remained of Jakkobah poured into one of his fancy, collarless silk suits. He’d chosen a deeply red one that made the Stoat appear even paler than usual. Hard to do, given the man was near albino. Although the effects of torture probably accounted for his appearance more than the color of his clothing.

With satisfaction, Pytheios tugged at the jacket, resituating it more squarely on a frame that had turned even bonier. “You know what to do.”

This traitor was going to pretend that he’d escaped and gather Pytheios’s prizes together in one spot for easy plucking. That was the deal they’d made to stop the torture.

Jakkobah lifted pale eyes that had popped so many vessels the whites were now red with blood. The Stoat’s gaze hardly seemed to register the world around him, but then he mumbled out an answer. “I will ask for the kings and their phoenixes to be brought to me.”

Pytheios nodded. “Don’t move from where Rhiamon puts you.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Jakkobah slurred.

He wasn’t wrong. The man couldn’t stand without help. Both his Achilles tendons being sliced open so many times they never healed properly had assured that.

Next Pytheios moved to stand before the cloaked woman who was off to the side, as though she didn’t want to be near others. Or perhaps they didn’t want to be near her. “My love,” he murmured and feathered the back of his fingers over her skin, trying not to show his revulsion at the paper-thin texture and the way it moved under his touch as though not attached to the bone and muscle below.

Rhiamon lifted those eerie eyes—voids inside the sockets of her skull. “Merikh?” she asked, tapping one of her fingernails against the side of her thigh, the only indication that she wasn’t as serene as she appeared.

“Soon, my love. Once this war is won, we will bring him back from the depths of death together.” The only promise he knew would bind her to his will. “We need the phoenixes for that.”

A lie, because he had no intention of using the firebirds’ powers to resurrect his pathetic excuse for a son, but as more incentive for the mother.

Rhiamon nodded.

“Let’s go get them.”

He turned and continued the rest of the way down the tunnel. The instant he appeared in the war room, every soldier at his command—a massive army of red and green dragons—already lined up in rank and file, hit the floor, going to one knee, heads bowed. He’d pulled all his forces away from every mountain except Everest for this. For today. They’d done so quickly, ready to strike before the other kings got wind of his movements.

“Rise,” he commanded, then strode to his generals. “Are we ready?”

King Fraener of the Green Clan, the most loyal of his allies, stepped forward. “Yes, my king.”

Pytheios nodded, satisfied. When he’d tried to take the Black Clan, he’d made the mistake of ignoring how the phoenixes’ powers allowed them to move large groups quickly, which meant he had faced not one clan but three.

He was ready for that this time. In more than one way.

Turning, he glanced over his shoulder into the darkness where his witch waited. He nodded. The last time they’d tried this, she’d sent them to a field well away from where they would attack. From there, they had shifted and coordinated.

This time, he had a different tactic in mind.

He bent his gaze to the floor and waited for Rhiamon’s magic to strike. A white mist crept from the tunnel, and his men, the lesser-trained of his warriors—after all, he’d had to fill in his lost ranks with bodies—shifted on their feet but held position. They’d been told how this would work.

The mist slunk across the smooth rock floor of the cavern, polished by thousands of steps, both human and dragon, over the ages. It grew thicker, denser, until it obscured his feet. Then, like a room filling with water, the mist began to rise.

Like last time, the strangest sensation of losing himself in an otherworldly realm, one where his senses—all of them—were turned off, came over him as the white closed over his head. His mind told him he should at least smell clouds, the combination of ozone and water, or feel the droplets condensing against his clothes and skin. Hear the breathing or feel the body warmth of the men at his side.

But nothing. She encased them all in…nothing.

There wasn’t even the sense of having moved, as though his feet were still on solid ground. Until, with an abruptness that sent shock lancing through his body, the ground disappeared, and gravity yanked his body down hard and fast.

As agreed, Rhiamon had dropped them over the top of their target, high enough that he and his men would all have time to shift before they hit the ground. She landed them sideways from how they’d be standing so each unit was stacked on top of the other in the air, allowing them to shift in waves to give them space.

Pytheios, at the top, shifted immediately, then flared his wings and hovered, giving his men time to do their jobs.

Surprise was on their side. If his plan worked, they should infiltrate the mountain before most of the dragons inside had a chance to shift, let alone defend.

Sure enough, the swarm of red and green dragons, in all their vibrant, glorious colors, quickly took out the sentries outside the mountain. Then they poured inside. The chaos and cacophony of battle reached his ears. Then screams joined the sounds only shifters with their enhanced senses would pick up on.

“Don’t come yet, my king,”King Fraener’s voice sounded in his head.

He narrowed his eyes but stayed where he hovered in the skies. Patience was a virtue when warranted. He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

This was not how this was supposed to go. They had the greater numbers, surprise on their side, and his witch.

What the fuck was taking so long?

Suddenly, all sound cut off. In the air, Pytheios cocked his head, listening.

“We have the phoenixes cornered.”

Smug satisfaction rolled through him. As planned.

“Hold them there,”Pytheios shot back.

Finally, he could end this all right here and now. Finally, he’d make dragons whole, taking the powers that should have rightfully been theirs, setting his people free of the sway phoenixes held over them.

Pytheios dove, weaving in and out of his men posted outside to keep any strays from escaping. Landing on the flat outcropping of rock, he shifted as he strode inside the Blue Clan’s only remaining mountain of Ben Nevis, where he’d already driven the Gold and Black Clans.

At the back of the massive cavern, he found five white dragons—likely those who had pledged themselves to Skylar Ormarr—shifted and standing in a line, their wings flared wide, facing off against several of his own men.

From his lower vantage point, now that he was human, he could see Jakkobah on the ground with three of the four phoenixes kneeling over him, the three kings standing beside them, grim as fuck.

And they should be.

But Pytheios frowned. “Where is the fourth phoenix?” he demanded softly, so he couldn’t be heard, as he came alongside Fraener, still a dragon of a camouflage green that always reminded Pytheios of dog shit.

“Only the three showed, my king.”

Fuck.

He needed all four. He was sure of that. But perhaps he could drain the last one later. She’d be easier to capture than the others, anyway, without a mate to worry about. Pytheios strode inside and addressed himself to the white dragons protecting their precious good-luck charms. Fools.

“Bow to me now, and maybe I won’t kill you.” He wouldn’t ask again.

“Meira?” Kasia asked her sister.

“I can’t,” came the answer. “She’s taken over the reflections.”

Pytheios didn’t bother to hide his smile. Rhiamon had turned off the bitch’s use of reflections to teleport. No getting out that way.

A low growl emitted from Ladon, whose entire face was lit with the blue of the flames in his eyes. “Skylar—”

Then, before Pytheios’s very eyes, every single one of them disappeared. Pytheios’s satisfied smile froze on his face before dying a swift death.

“What the fuck just happened?” he demanded.

No one answered at first. Pytheios stared at the space where his prizes had been a second before. Jakkobah had been with them, and now he and the white dragons were gone, too.

“Report,” he demanded.

“My king,”Fraener said. “The mountain is…empty of all except those we killed.”

Shock rocked him to his core. Either the phoenixes had grown in power, or they’d been warned. Either way, he’d lost them. Again.

A roar thundered up his throat and out into the sky as he shifted with a swiftness that rode the edge of pain. “Where did they go? Get me answers now!”