The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Twenty-Four

Determined not to be scared off by the previous attack on her, Angelika had set herself to walking among her father’s people every day.

My people.

The underground city here was a large one. Larger even than Ben Nevis, which was a smaller mountain. Regardless, the size meant it would take some time to visit everywhere. But at least the word had spread. Fewer shocked faces greeted her when she showed up, though they still stared. Fewer bowed and curtsied, word seeming to have also gone round that she didn’t require such tributes.

No more attacks. She was pretty sure no one wanted to test Airk again.

That wasn’t what she wanted for him, though. To lead by fear. Not here, with these people who had once been friends. A place he had felt safe as a child. But for now, they had to use the tools the gods and fates had granted them, and his reputation definitely fell under that category.

This particular shop was no hardship to visit, at least. Angelika ran a finger down the soft wisps of silk hanging on a rack. “This looks like Givenchy couture.”

The man running the shop smiled at a woman who might be his sister or his mate, Angelika wasn’t sure. “It is,” he said. “In addition to my own designs, I am able to replicate human designs for our people.”

At a fraction of the cost, no doubt. “I always wanted to dress like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina.”

The man lit up. “One of my favorite fashion film moments.”

Angelika tried not to blink. She’d grown up on the “outside” among humans. Spent centuries of life participating in the changes wrought on societies, living and absorbing them all in real time. The invention of and the rise of motion pictures was possibly one of her favorite developments. Although air-conditioning in hundred-degree-plus Kansas summers might just beat that out. Still, it often surprised her when dragons talked of more modern inventions. She had to remember that they didn’t live in strict isolation, though they stayed fairly separate from humans. Mates were found among humans, and they helped introduce changes in language, technology, and so forth over time.

Airk, meanwhile, was a complete blank. Because he had been forced to live in isolation. She snuck her hand into his. “Sabrina is a movie from the 1950s,” she explained. “We can watch it together, sometime—”

The abrupt and unmistakable sound of screams—hundreds of them—struck hard and fast, coming from outside.

Angelika ran for the door. Airk got there ahead of her, slamming his hand against the wood so she couldn’t tug it open. At the same time, he wrapped his other hand around her wrist as though anchoring her to him before she could do something rash like…like rush out into the street.

Which was exactly what she’d been about to do.

“Wait,” he demanded.

Heart pounding, she still recognized the common sense in the demand and nodded.

Pulling away from the door, he cut his gaze to Tovar, on escort detail with them today. The other man ran outside without another question. Waiting for him was Angelika’s own personal hell. The wails of terror outside diminished slowly but still washed over her until she wanted to cover her ears against the sound. Instead, she focused on her mate. On his eyes. The strength of his shoulders. Not that Airk went unaffected. A muscle ticked in the side of his jaw as he looked steadily back at her.

The door jerked open before she saw the flash of movement of Tovar’s approach. “Angelika needs to come. Now.”

“Why?” Airk demanded.

“Her sisters—”

She didn’t wait for more, pushing past Tovar and sprinting out into the streets. Chaos reigned as the people who lived in the mountain rushed to implement the safety protocols all dragons drilled, battening down the hatches. Weaving in and out of the press of bodies, she tried to move toward the sounds still coming from what she realized was the hangar and training room all dragon mountains touted.

“Excuse me,” she muttered as she avoided a shoulder to the face.

A growl behind her sounded half a beat before she was swept up in Airk’s arms. “Everybody move,” he bellowed, and immediately a path cleared before them.

He took off at a sprint, the walls and faces blurring around her as he ran them toward the shouts and cries.

Toward her sisters.

The second they made it through the smaller tunnel leading into the cavern, Angelika gasped. Because there were at least a thousand dragons in the room. Blue. Gold. Black. All of them in some state of shock, panic, or injury.

“Oh my gods. What happened?” she breathed, heart squeezing hard as she tried to force her mind to make sense of it all.

Airk’s fingers flexed against her hip where he held her—not shock but support, she vaguely identified. “Over there,” he said, then took off again.

She clung to his neck, the nurse in her wanting to stop him and put her medical training to use helping those visibly bleeding and worse. More than one dead body lay on the ground, most with someone keening over their loved one, grief contorting their features.

Meira had to be miserably blocking her empathic powers with everything in her pure little soul.

I should be helping.But she needed to see her sisters before she could hope to do any good.

Their faces suddenly appeared between the throng of people, and Angelika almost tried to climb Airk to get a better view.

“Meira!” she yelled.

Strawberry blond curls flared out as her sister spun, her gaze searching for Angelika. Airk ran the last bit, and before she could even ask, she was on her feet, her arms wrapped around Meira’s neck.

“You’re okay,” Angelika said. Then said it again, because she needed convincing.

Meira nodded, then took a deep breath before she crumpled in Angelika’s arms, tears coming hard and fast. “My power wouldn’t—”

But the words choked off.

“Where are Kas and—”

From the ground where they were kneeling over someone, Kasia and Skylar also leaped up, closing around her, and Angelika closed her eyes on a sigh of stark relief. They were unharmed. Thank the gods.

“How did you get here?” Because there wasn’t a reflection big enough.

“Kasia and I used our combined teleportation powers,” Skylar said. “We’ve been practicing ever since the attack on the Black and Gold Clans drove us all together.”

Angelika knew what they were talking about. Kasia could take anyone with her, but only a short distance. Skylar could send anyone a very long distance, not including herself. If they worked together, they could combine the effect. They must’ve gotten amazing at it to get all these people here so fast.

“What happened?” she asked.

“My vision was wrong,” Kasia said, bitterness in every word. Her sister’s extra pale face hardened with anger. “I was wrong.”

Wrong? Her vision? Which one?

Skylar squeezed Kasia’s shoulder as they all broke apart. “He wasn’t coming here,” she said. “Pytheios attacked Ben Nevis.”

Gods above.

Angelika, still holding Meira, turned her head, looking around at the carnage and the devastation the rotting red king had wrought. Families uprooted and ripped apart. He’d brought this down on three clans—half his kingdom—like a child throwing a tantrum because someone took his favorite toy away.

Why was he so hells-bent on being High King?

She met Airk’s gaze over her sister’s heads and drew strength from the anger and determination swirling in his otherwise stoic eyes.

Her mate would not let this stand. Neither would she.

“I have to help,” Angelika said to Airk as much as her sisters.

“The infirmary can’t hold this many people,” Tovar said from behind her, and again she allowed her gaze to roam over the room, now professional, assessing.

“Set up triage here,” she ordered. “I want the critically wounded in the south corner. Send the Healers to them. I’ll be here for more minor treatment. I’ll need equipment.”

Tovar blinked at her, and she had to remind herself that not everyone knew all of her story yet. “I’m a nurse,” she said.

Whatever emotion flashed in his eyes, it disappeared in the next blink. Then he was gone, obeying her orders. Her sisters and their mates immediately started moving through the room, spreading the word, helping sort and move those who needed moving.

Angelika knelt over the nearest body to her. A man who might’ve passed for a white dragon, except for the tint of red in his hair. Physical traits of all sorts were common among dragons, regardless of clan, thanks to the human mates, but there was something familiar about this man.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“Jakkobah.” Ladon, nearest to her, was the one to answer.

She blinked again. “Your informant?”

Ladon’s jaw tightened. “Yes. He’s been tortured, I think. Can you help him?”

Her training kicked in, shutting down her shock. First, she checked Jakkobah’s pulse, finding it weak, thready. At the same time, she listened to his breathing. His chest was moving, but his lips were a bluish hue, and a slight whistle was coming from somewhere on each inhalation.

Immediately, she ripped open the ornately embroidered silk overcoat he was wearing and hissed between her teeth. Not only had the man clearly been starved, but he’d been beaten. Severely and often enough that one set of injuries hadn’t had time to heal before the next round was doled out.

He could survive that, though, now that he wasn’t being reinjured.

But someone had pierced his lungs multiple times, shoved some kind of metal tubing down the hole and let his body’s accelerated healing seal the skin around it so that with every inhalation most of the air entering his lungs whistled out of the tubes, blood and spittle coming up with the air.

Those tubes would have to come out, but in surgery. Not here on the floor. With them grown into the surrounding tissue all the way through, probably, removal would be tricky. Her first priority was his ability to breathe until then.

“I need something to plug these tubes,” she said.

After that, she didn’t look up, focused first on Jakkobah, then on each new case, each new person as they came to her. Mös stopped by at some point to inform her of what was being done from a logistics standpoint, shutting the massive doors that closed in this space from the outside. Bringing in all their scouts and guards. Arranging for all the new arrivals to at least have blankets or sheets to sleep with. Almost four full clans within these walls were thousands more than this mountain was built and stocked to accommodate.

She’d agreed to all his suggestions, giving him full control over the mountain at least until the chaos died down and she wasn’t needed in here anymore. At some point, each sister checked in, Meira bringing her food and forcing her to stop and eat.

Airk, however, didn’t leave her side. He helped. Lifting people, moving them, holding pieces together for her to bind. But he was never more than twenty feet away.

Over time, more people were brought to her rather than fewer. The Healers—those dragons with the universal donor blood type—were relatively rare. Most clans had a handful. Usually one, maybe two, stayed with the king. Others were assigned to other mountains or to the Alliance or Enforcer teams in each of the colonies. Unfortunately, because healing required them to give blood to heal those in need, after a while, they had to rest and regenerate more blood or they risked their own health.

Most of the Healers also had medical training, though, and they worked side by side. She didn’t know how long. Hours and hours. Through the night. Until her brain had to take an extra beat to process each word spoken to her, each request made, and her body felt like little lead weights had been sewn into her skin, making her moves sluggish.

Each sister then started to try to convince her to stop. To rest.

“I’ll rest when no one needs me,” she’d insisted, not stopping what she was doing.

Airk didn’t ask, though. He watched her with flat-lipped intensity. Not disapproval. More like reluctant support.

More food and coffee were shoved at her as she went along, until finally…finally…the last patient had been seen to.

“That’s it,” one of the Healers said when she looked for the next person. A blue dragon. She thought maybe his name was Fallon, but her brain was too fuzzy to be sure.

She slowly blinked. “All of them?” she asked when his words finally penetrated.

He nodded. Then, “Well done, my lady.”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t just me.”

The way the Healer glanced nervously over her shoulder told her Airk was standing there, though she didn’t need that hint because the hairs on her nape stood up. With a sigh, she turned and wrapped her arms around his neck, sinking into him, eyes closing of their own accord.

“Are you going to sleep now?” he asked into the top of her hair.

She huffed a laugh. “Yup.”

Somehow, with his arm around her waist, she managed to walk all the way back to their suite. Though she was so exhausted she hardly had any recollection of the journey once she was there. He managed to get her to brush her teeth and change into another oversize T-shirt. Then they were slipping between cool sheets and he was wrapping his body around her like a protective barrier.

“You are incredible,” he whispered.

With a smile and a sigh, her body let go, relaxing into instant, blissfully deep sleep.

…

A tiny puff of air against his arm wasn’t the first Airk had felt. Probably the fifth in the last hour or so. He’d hoped, when he’d felt Angelika stir against him, that she’d go right back to sleep. After how hard she’d worked, her body needed the rest.

But she was awake.

Awake and brooding if those tiny, noiseless sighs were any indication.

Curling his arm around her waist, he settled her into the curving crook of his body and set his chin on top of her head. He didn’t ask her to talk about it. Too many people, since he’d gotten out of his prison, had wanted him to talk through his troubles. It never helped. But he let her know he was there.

Her sigh this time was audible.

“We can’t support almost four clans’ worth of people in a single mountain,” she pointed out.

He was right. She’d been brooding.

“No we cannot,” he agreed.

“All those people…” She breathed in, her ribs lifting his arm with the movement. “It happened so fast.”

“It did.” He’d talked with the other kings, and their own shock at the speed of the attack had been evident in hard, glassy eyes and hands that involuntarily curled into fists.

“It’s a miracle my sisters got them out. Especially with Meira’s power shut off.”

After a second of quiet, Angelika scooted around, twisting over to face him, frosty eyes solemn in a way that told him she was deep in her head. “Is it hopeless?”

Hearing that question from her lips, from the one person who had never given up on him…Airk’s heart spasmed.

Blowing out his own breath, he lifted a hand to smooth her white-blond hair back from her face. “That is what Pytheios does,” he said eventually. “He makes you believe giving up and letting him have what he wants is the only choice. That it will save lives. That it will keep the peace.”

Angelika listened, gaze searching his.

Anchoring himself on the feel of her in his arms, he didn’t fight the emotions. The fury, the need to quit, give up, the urge to end his own life.

“He might even convince you that he is right.” When he’d been younger, he’d been more easily led astray, more desperate to be set free. “I found myself wanting to believe that Pytheios had been justified. Forgetting who my parents were. Who Zilant was. What good even looked and acted like.” He shook his head.

“How?” she asked. No judgment. Simply trying to understand.

Airk didn’t answer right away, giving her question serious consideration. “Pytheios believes in what he is doing. He is convinced that dragons relying on a phoenix to bring us peace, or luck, or dictate who rules is wrong. He believes our kind are strong enough not to need another species.” His lips twisted. “He believes this so strongly, he is willing to sacrifice anyone who gets in his way. He is sure he is doing this for his people, whether they understand it or not. That his actions and decisions, even the most difficult ones, are all about what true leaders do.”

“But…”

Airk’s lips quirked. “But then I remembered that, historically, our people’s peace and prosperity was always greatest when a phoenix mated a High King, and worst when a phoenix could not be found for whatever reason. Also how my father always said that leaders should never hide their actions from the people. Every action, every decision should be in the open. Pytheios only works in the shadows, concealing his true actions behind lies and sycophants.”

Angelika remained quiet for a moment, then, “You’re incredible, too,” she said. Repeating his own words back to him. “I hope you realize that.”

Her words stilled his bones. His soul. Incredible wasn’t exactly high on his list of words he’d use to describe himself. Broken. Cast aside. Forgotten. Those were more accurate.

She pressed a hand over his heart. “I’m serious. That you could hold on to your hope, after so long…” She shook her head, then inched closer and pressed her lips softly to his. “The rest of us have no right to give up in the face of what true determination looks like.”

Like him?

“I was not hopeful all of that time,” he reminded her.

She smiled, the spark returning to her eyes, and inched even closer, winding her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts against him in the most distracting manner. “But you held on, and that’s what matters,” she whispered.

Airk’s body stirred with her so close, plastered down his front, her fresh-air-and-summer scent filling his lungs, her warmth and her smile right there for him alone. But giving in to his needs could wait. “You should rest.”

This was about her. Her needs.

“You know what would really help me rest?”

The way she wiggled against him had him squeezing his eyes shut, muscles tensing against the urge to roll her under him. “What?”

A long pause had him opening his eyes again.

“If you make love to me.” She grinned, the beauty of the way her face lit up for him threatening to steal his heart and never give it back.

“That is not restful,” he pointed out.

Why was he arguing with her?

“It is afterward,” she shot right back. Then rolled her hips against him, pressing into the hardness of his already pulsing erection.

There were all those Kama Sutra positions he wanted to try, not to mention the fact that he could finally…let go…with her. Entirely.

Airk growled and rolled her beneath him like he’d wanted to anyway. “You do make an excellent argument.”

Which earned him a giggle, the sound shooting straight to his groin. One that quickly disappeared as he claimed his mate’s mouth in a kiss meant to banish all the doubts, all the fears. Even if only for a short while.

In one swift move, he swept the oversize T-shirt over her head. Leaning on one elbow, he trailed his fingers over the curve of her neck, her collarbone, between her breasts to her belly. “Gods, you’re so…soft.”

Fascination blended with need as he took his time exploring by touch alone. Desire ratcheted higher at the sight of his hand against her skin and the way her muscles would flutter and jump under his touch. He teased a particular spot at her hip, then, curious, leaned down to feather his lips, his tongue, over the sensitive flesh, and smiled when she groaned.

He did it again, nipping at her hip with his teeth, and she shuddered.

“Does that feel good?” He truly wanted to know.

“Mmmm,” she sort of hummed. “Want me to show you?”

“Yes.”

Almost of one accord, they rolled so that she leaned over him. Only she didn’t immediately show him. Instead, she kissed him, taking her time, teasing with soft brushes, until he speared a hand through her hair and deepened the kiss, entwining their tongues, sucking at her lower lip.

“Whoa.” She pulled away finally, breathing heavily. Staring at him with desire flushing her features, her hair tousled from his hands. Sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen.

Now he understood why Ladon stared at Skylar like she was an obsession. Because she was. And he was for her, too. Airk could see that much in the way Angelika’s gaze skated over him as possessively as he ever did with her.

Which only made his cock harden to steel.

With a smile, Angelika scooted lower, pausing to kiss and nip her way down his body. She stopped when her head was level with his hip and traced the dip and swell of the muscles and bones forming the V there with the softest brush of a fingertip. Sure enough, his muscles jumped at the touch, as though they couldn’t take the pleasure.

With a low chuckle of satisfaction, she leaned over and used her lips, her teeth, her tongue, and damned if he wasn’t groaning the way she had at the same touch.

Eventually, she lifted her head, pinning him with eyes aglow. “What’s the verdict?”

“It feels good.”

She smiled. “Yes, it does.” Then, before he could fathom what she was up to, she moved the tiny bit needed and sucked his cock into her mouth, going only halfway down.

“Fuck,” he groaned, hands back in her hair, lifting the tresses away so he could watch, fascinated by the sight of those lush lips wrapped around him.

“More?” she asked, her warm breath whispering over his straining hard-on.

“I am supposed to be taking care of you.”

“Mmm. But if it’s what I want, too…” She took him in her mouth again, and he couldn’t stop himself from holding her still while he thrust, in long, controlled slides in and out of her perfect mouth.

But he only let the desire build so much before he stopped her, pulling her away. Before she could protest, he was off the bed, swooping her up only to set her on her feet. He dropped to his knees before her, using his hands to gently spread her legs wider.

The first swipe of his tongue was…heaven. He wasn’t sure which was better, her taste or the sound of her moaning his name.

He lifted his head, pinning her with a commanding look. “You may not come,” he told her. An order.

A fantasy he’d been playing in his head for a while and could now give full rein to.

Surprise and a small flash of defiance lit her eyes. He slid a single finger inside her and didn’t look away as he fucked her with it. “Trust me,” he said, meaning it.

Gods, he meant it because she could, and he’d never thought that possible.

After only the barest hesitation, she nodded.

Smiling, he placed his lips over her clit, playing her with his mouth and using his fingers until she was whimpering and so close. The fluttering against his fingers told him that much.

Moving fast again, he got up on his feet. He spun her around, clasping her to him, her back to his chest, and whispered in her ear. “In one of Nathair’s books, I read about this position that is supposed to encourage female orgasm. I would like to attempt this with you. Yes?”

“Gods, yes,” she breathed.

“Good.” Pressing his hand to her spine, he pressed until she bent over in half at the waist. “Reach your hands up toward me,” he demanded.

She did without question, and he clasped her by the wrists so that she could do the same, anchoring them together. This would allow him to hold her upright while he…

Fuck.

Airk took a long moment to enjoy the view. The pale globes of her ass spread so that he could see her pretty nether parts, glistening and ready for him.

“Ready?” he said.

“Yes.”

Muscles already straining with the need to possess her, he positioned his throbbing cock at her entrance and pressed inside, filling her, strangled by her.

“Oh my gods, Airk,” she whimpered.

“Hold on,” he warned. Then reared back and thrust back in, hard, sinking deep until he filled her to the hilt.

The sound that came from her was somewhere between a moan and a scream.

“Keep going?”

“If you stop, I’ll kill you,” she told him.

Grinning from ear to ear, he didn’t stop. The pace he set was brutal on purpose. Partly because the sounds of pleasure pouring from her drove him to it, but also because, in the back of his head, the idea lingered of wringing her body with pleasure to the point that she could let go of her worries, if only for a few hours, and sleep. He’d exhaust her with orgasms.

“Oh.” Her body rippled around his cock.

Deliberately, Airk used his dragon speed, increasing his thrusts.

“Oh. Oh. Oh, gods!” She clamped down hard on him, her orgasm tipping him into his own pleasure with a loud bellow as he continued to thrust in and out of her body.

Only he wasn’t done.

As both of their orgasms waned, he had her on the bed, his mouth back on her, fingers inside her, playing with her. And he didn’t stop until her breathing picked up in time to his mouth, and her hips started to undulate, chasing the touch.

That telltale flutter hit his fingers, and he latched his mouth around her clit, that nub of nerves that seemed to be the button to set her off. He sucked. Hard.

And she screamed.

Her legs clamped around his head as he sucked her through not one but two more orgasms, the second one softer, shorter, but no less potent, if the sounds of her pleasure were any indication.

He stopped when she involuntarily jumped at the touch of his tongue, turning too sensitive to handle more.

Smiling in a way he hadn’t in years—fuck, in centuries—Airk crawled back up her body to pull her into the curve of his own in such a way that he surrounded her but could allow his gaze to linger on her face.

I do not deserve her. This.

For once in his life, he pushed the thought away, buried it in the dark hole where he usually stuck his dragon. Time enough tomorrow for worries.

Angelika tried to open her eyes, the lids fluttering, and smiled as their gazes connected. “I like that position,” she murmured.

Slurred, more like, but he chuckled anyway. “Sleep, my mate.”

Almost as though she’d obeyed an order, Angelika went limp in his arms, snuggling her head under his chin. “You too, mate.”