The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Airk did an about-face a human general would have saluted and marched back into the mountain. He paused inside the cavern entrance and glanced over his shoulder. Half of his clan was still leaving, Mös at the head of them.

Turning away, he closed his eyes against the sight. Angelika would have handled that better. He’d only achieved splitting his clan with indecision.

Two steps down the tunnel back to the kings, a voice sounded in his head—Ladon. “Five minutes. Positions.”

Angelika.

That meant Pytheios had gone to Kamen. Did it mean the phoenixes had gotten here unharmed? They assumed Pytheios would follow.

He couldn’t think of his mate now. He wasn’t dead, which hopefully meant she wasn’t, either.

Stuffing all those mating, alpha-male, protective instincts into a dark hole, Airk sprinted back to the mouth of the caves only to pull up short at the sight of his white dragons shifting and taking to the skies along with a tumult of blue dragons. They’d been blessed with one of those rare blue-sky days with plenty of fluffy white clouds drifting by, and his blue and white brethren who could blend in easily with one or the other had every intention of taking advantage of that fact.

Or running away. His entire clan could be deserting their posts for all he knew.

The last dragon blended in with the clouds as, with no warning or sound, red and green dragons appeared, pouring down on them from the skies as though the clouds above had burst open and instead of rain…poured out death.

Fighting the frenetic urge to go find his mate, Airk forced himself to sprint down a different tunnel, not far from where their wolf-shifter allies were already gathered. If any dragons made it into the mountain, they’d be forced to face wolf shifters in their human forms. Other than the entrance, none of the spaces here were big enough for dragons.

No use wasting the wolves outside in this fight. Dragons didn’t fight on the ground if they could help it and would only burn the land-bound shifters from the skies. Better that these allies remained inside as a last line of defense.

He skidded to a stop beside two massive wolves, already shifted—Bleidd with his dark gray coloring, and Jedd a lighter gray but with a cream-colored undercarriage and piercing hazel eyes. Both massive, muscles tensed under their fur. With them stood Madrigan, intense and listening to the thunder of fighting already raging outside, nose twitching at the scents of blood and battle but not yet shifted. He’d already explained that when he let his creature go, the carnage would be massive.

He was a last resort.

Getting a cursory nod from each—all of them grim faced, ready for war—he stopped and turned to face the entrance to the mountain.

Those who couldn’t fight—too young, untrained, too old, the sick, and especially all the injured from the previous attacks—were housed inside this mountain. A cave troll wasn’t the only thing these fuckers would find if they tried to come inside.

Even more important, the phoenixes were supposed to remain inside, protected. Angelika was safe here, and that was the only thing keeping his dragon from running to her instead of standing to post.

A massive boom blasted down the cavern tunnel, almost seeming to rock the mountain itself.

Hells, what was going on up there?

But Airk didn’t move. Instead, he focused on the sound of the wolves behind him breathing and any hint of intruders from ahead. Together, they waited.

“All those who still pledge their loyalty to me…”Pytheios’s decrepit voice suddenly sounded in his head. A grind of sound his dragon wanted to claw out of his ears even if it left him maimed. “Now is the time to show your brethren who the true High King is.”

…

Ladon’s muscles coiled at the sound of the rotting king in his head even as he plowed through a green dragon, shredding the thing with his claws, then discarding it. It didn’t take a genius to know what was coming next. Pytheios’s message was damn clear, and Ladon had just placed himself and his people, who blended in with the blues of the skies, between the red and green dragons who’d arrived below him and the white dragons above him, hiding among the clouds. The ones who were still leaderless.

Not a single king’s mark on a damn hand up there. If any of the white dragons were going to turn on them, now was that time.

“Incoming!”he shouted, taking an evasive maneuver before even bothering to look up.

Half a beat later, the impacts of bodies hitting bodies sounded like grenades going off around him. And the skies, even in bright daylight, lit up with a hundred fires.

“Permission to kill.”He sent the order not only to his people but to the others. “White dragons not switching sides, hold, or we’ll kill you, too.”

They couldn’t tell the difference otherwise. Airk, feral or not, needed to get his ass up here, because Angelika couldn’t, and this plan was already falling apart at the seams.

A swooping move took Ladon outside the fight and up into the sky, where he could get a dragon’s-eye view, assess, and coordinate.

“Skylar.”He shot the thought to his mate, still safe within the mountain. “Watch your back. We have turncoats.”

No answer.

He jerked his gaze in the direction of the entrance to the caves where she hid, trying not to allow fear to creep into what he needed to be doing right now.

“Skylar?”

Nothing.

“Answer me, mate.”

“I was busy slitting a throat or two, lover.” The sound of her voice had him bobbling in the air in relief, and he didn’t give a shit who saw him.

“Fuck, woman. You scared me.”

An unimpressed snort reached him down their connection, along with an emotion something akin to rolling her eyes and laughing at the same time. “You focus on you.”

From his phoenix, who was a fighter herself, he expected nothing less. “Next time, kill them faster,” he shot back.

“Ladon,”his Beta’s voice sounded in his head, Asher’s tone a warning.

Jerking his focus from where his mate was, Ladon turned in time to find red and green dragons on the move, rising from below in greater numbers to come at his people hard.

Fuck. They were surrounded.

…

Jaw clenched so hard his teeth threatened to crack, Brand watched as Ladon’s clan got pulverized from both sides, pinned between white dragon traitors and Pytheios’s own forces. But Ladon didn’t send out the signal for him.

Not yet.

He had to trust his friend and ally. But sitting on the sidelines doing fuck all had never really been his style.

From his hiding spot, over the edge of a mountain peak farther to the west, the metallic scent of blood and the burning ash of fire hit his nostrils. But he still didn’t move, him and his people remaining in human form deliberately to hide their numbers, waiting. Keeping the big guns for the secondary stage of this fight.

Pytheios’s voice in his head had made him want to rip out his eardrums. The words, however, had sent a cold spike through him. Keeping his back to his clan deliberately, as though he might not have heard the message, Brand waited for the first traitor to dare to turn against him, come at him.

Because, of all the allied clans, the Gold Clan was still the most torn over Brand’s rightful role as king. Many had prospered under Uther Hagan’s rule, and since Brand had taken over, all they’d done was fight off the red fuck who insisted on ruling. The rotting king who claimed to have a phoenix—but Meira had shown people proof. With all the ways she’d sent that video out, no way could it not have reached at least some of those with him. And no way did they keep that shit quiet.

Had Pytheios somehow missed that? Or did he know that many wouldn’t believe or wouldn’t care?

His only warning was a shout, but he was ready. Whipping around, he knocked the attacker out of the air and was on him in a heartbeat, jerking him to sitting by the neck.

Brand leaned closer, getting right in his face. “I thought I warned you.”

His people were all free to leave of their own accord without retribution, but for anyone who came at him or anyone aligned against him, the judgment was death.

If anything, the man’s bulging pale gold eyes grew larger, fear extinguishing the fire in them. “Don’t—”

Too late. Brand twisted the man’s head with both hands, snapping his neck with a satisfying crunch.

Letting the body drape over the rock at his feet in a heap, Brand stood and angled a look of pure alpha rage over those staring in a combination of disbelief, horror, and other emotions he didn’t have any fucking time for.

Shifting just his eyes, he used the telepathic connection and the bond with his people to communicate with them and them alone.

“You were given a choice long before we got here,”he said. “Join me. Or leave.”

Kasia had been the one to convince him of that mercy. Given the way things had gone down—the murder of his entire family, and no one seeming to question why the Hagans were suddenly the rulers—he’d planned on hunting down every last fucker without his family’s brand on their hands and executing them.

But Kasia had swayed him, and he’d given in. After all, many of his people could have been misled or ignorant of the truth. Benefit of the doubt and all that shit.

He’d thought that act of kingly mercy had worked, too, because while some had left, he’d let them go peacefully. Proving to all that he kept his word. Meanwhile, the rest who’d stayed…his brand marked their hands. With a frown, he dropped to a crouch over the dead man’s corpse, which was already turning ashy around the edges. Picking up her hand, Brand ran his thumb over the magical marking between thumb and forefinger on the back—only to find the skin there slightly puckered.

A gods-damned tattoo. Not a true mark of loyalty.

“Kasia,”he shot down the link to his mate. “Don’t trust anyone from the Gold Clan. Some are traitors.”

“Then I suggest you kill them before they make it a problem,”came her immediate reply.

Gods, he loved his mate. The fates sure as fuck knew what they were doing when they blessed his undeserving ass with that woman.

Rising to his feet, Brand couldn’t help the smile drawing his lips back. A nasty one, if the way the men nearest him flinched was any indication. Only one thing he could think of might work fast enough to deal with this now. Focusing on that mystical bond with his own people, he reached with his mind toward those whose brands were real, toward the magic and the loyalty that put those marks on their hands in the first place. Only then did he speak.

“If you are loyal to me, kneel now.”

Immediately, hundreds of men and women peppering the mountainside dropped. Those who were true, at least. Maybe eighty or so remained standing, staring at those kneeling with confusion.

“Kill the ones still standing,”he ordered.

Then he turned his back on the sounds of carnage, looking toward the dragons battling it out in the skies and waiting for his signal to join the fray.

No black dragons could be seen. Which meant Samael hadn’t received his signal yet, either.

Brand prayed Ladon didn’t need them for a few more minutes at least. Until his people took care of the traitors, they weren’t going anywhere.

…

Samael gritted his teeth as blood, fire, and bone rained down from the violent melee above his head. From the ground where he and his people hid camouflaged in the shadows of the massive pine trees that blanketed these mountains, it sure as hells looked like they were losing this fight already.

Ladon’s people were taking a pounding. Smart of Pytheios to cut their numbers by calling on all his traitorous followers, evening out the two sides facing each other, but also adding confusion of who to trust into the mix.

In fact, Samael had initially expected several from his own clan to turn on him.

Of the three kings standing against Pytheios, Ladon was the most secure, having been practically begged to take over long before the war. Brand was probably dealing with a lot of shit right now, his clan being the most contentious about their current ruler. But Samael…he was born common and had to fight his way up the chain of command. He wasn’t even royal.

But his previous king, a good man and a good ruler, had blessed him as the heir to the throne right before his own death. That had to be the only reason no black dragon shifters were turning against him, or against their own, right now.

“Ladon?”He sent the message not only to the blue king but to Brand and Airk as well as their mates.

No answer from his ally and brother-in-blood. No signal, either.

“We are as useless as two shits down here,” he muttered to himself.

Reaching down that beautiful connection between himself and Meira, he felt for his mate. She was nervous but calm, the glow of her perfect and unique, their child snug and warm in her belly. He’d never adore anything or anyone the way he did that woman.

“I love you,”he sent to her.

“Don’t do anything rash,”came her request. Not a demand, but she knew him. She knew why he’d say that to her. “And I love you, too.”

Spreading his wings wide, Samael launched himself into the sky with a single order shot to his own men. “Follow!”

In his head, Brand’s voice sounded the same order to his people.

…

The never-ending clash of dragons was unmistakable, even from inside these damn caverns.

“Samael didn’t wait for the signal,” Airk informed the wolves waiting with him in the dimly lit hollowed rock.

I should be there. With my people. Killing them or fighting beside them. Either way.

Maybe the white dragons who had turned wouldn’t have if they’d had a king to follow. Someone in the air with them.

But he couldn’t be that, and the knowledge was tearing his insides to shreds.

“No!” A female voice crying out echoed down the cavern to where he stood.

“Get away from us, you bastard.” That distinctive snarl he recognized completely. Skylar.

Airk didn’t hesitate. “Stay here,” he threw over his shoulder at the wolves as he took off at a dead sprint for the room where Angelika and her sisters were supposed to be waiting out the battle in safety.

He passed the body of one of their guards, throat slit. The scent of the blood indicated that had happened minutes, not seconds, before. How had he missed the sound of the scuffle?

The crackle of a familiar voice, though, had him put on a burst of speed, rounding the corner into the small “room” where Angelika stood, backed into a corner with her sisters. Airk pulled up short at the sight of Pytheios standing before them. The witch standing at his side must’ve teleported them inside in a blink.

“You’re mine, now,” Pytheios snarled.

The battle was a distraction?

Rage—both his and his dragon’s—consumed Airk, burning like a flash fire through every cell of his body. A growl formed from the depths of the hells he’d lived in for centuries and crawled out of his throat, clashing with every animalistic, protective instinct and turning into an otherworldly sound.

Pytheios swung to face him, even as Rhiamon remained focused on the phoenixes.

“I dare you to try to kill me,” Airk snarled.

He didn’t wait for the bastard to spout whatever vitriol was about to come out of his mouth. He ran at him. Fast enough the red dragon king didn’t have time to move. But Airk’s only thought was getting him away from his mate and her sisters. Rather than go for the kill, he swung Pytheios around by the arm, then drove his legs until the man backed out of the room. For once, he and his dragon worked as one, and together they slammed Pytheios into the cavern wall. Wrapping both hands around the king’s neck, Airk kept going, pounding his body in the wall over and over until a Pytheios-sized imprint formed in the rock.

And, for a microscopic second, the king’s limp response, the way his head snapped back and forth with each slam, had triumph rising inside Airk.

I’ll kill him now and end this.

Almost as though he’d waited until the moment that thought passed through Airk’s mind, Pytheios grabbed him by both wrists, halting the slamming. Hells, halting his fight full stop. Airk fought, muscles bunching and straining, against the king’s grip as the shifter pulled his arms wider and wider, forcing him into a weaker position.

Then, with no warning, Pytheios released him and slammed a fist into his gut. Airk heard the sound of his own rib snapping before the pain splintered through him.

Punctured lung.

But the agony of every breath didn’t cool his fury. Airk stumbled back, paused, then launched himself at Pytheios, coming out swinging. Only with every punch he landed, no matter how jarring, the king delivered back three even harder. The succession of blows stunned Airk with the old king’s speed and strength, weakening him more with every blow, slowing his return volleys.

“I may not be able to kill you, boy,” Pytheios sneered, “but I can take you right to the edge.”

The brutality that came next turned into a relentless barrage of pain and a blur of cavern rock as the fight took them farther and farther away from Angelika.

…

Angelika swallowed down the sting of bile and the urge to scream as the vicious sounds of Pytheios and Airk’s fight faded away down the cavern hall. The only thing keeping her from outright terror or running after them was the knowledge that Airk was right. Because of her own grandmother’s prophecy, Pytheios wouldn’t dare kill her mate.

Instead, she did the only thing she could.

Focused on Rhiamon. She frowned as she took in the witch’s withered appearance. Her skin had turned paler with a sickly pall, making her appear jaundiced, her eyes sunken in her skull and her body emaciated. As though the magic she wielded was sucking the very life force from her.

And maybe it was. Maybe that was the price she paid for such power.

Angelika ignored the small poke of pity for the creature in front of her. She needed to buy time. Their plan for dealing with Rhiamon depended on Delilah, who was supposed to have stopped the witch in Kamen earlier.

But apparently that hadn’t happened.

“Is this really what you want?” she asked the woman.

Rhiamon’s unblinking stare didn’t so much as twitch. She wasn’t looking at Angelika or any of her sisters so much as over them. Through them.

“Pytheios killed your son,” Kasia tried as well. “I saw it in a vision.”

Rhiamon didn’t move.

Angelika flicked a glance at Meira, who shook her head. Powers still off.

“He forced you to create a phoenix to take your place at his side,” Skylar prodded, her tone not pitying but disgusted.

Angelika’s heart pinched at what she was about to say next. “He is replacing your son with Tisiphone’s child as heir. How can you help him do such a thing?”

The witch gave the barest twitch, so fast Angelika wasn’t sure if she actually saw the movement.

“I have no choice,” Rhiamon whispered. “He brought me back. I am his to…control.”

His to control?

“He’ll have a hard time doing that from where we’re sending you.” Delilah’s husky voice sounded from the darkness, pinging all around the small cave.

As though manifesting from thin air, the mysterious woman appeared before Rhiamon, Alasdair at her side.

Immediately, hatred clawed Rhiamon’s expression into a harsh snarl that obliterated any remaining beauty. She raised her hands as though to attack, but then made a tiny sound of distress as her body froze. Her hands lowered to her sides in little jerks, as though she was fighting it.

“We can’t hold her long,” Delilah said almost conversationally, though from behind her, Angelika could see how the woman was starting to tremble.

Then, also from nowhere, a man appeared directly before the witch.

Tall and lanky, the older gentleman had salt-and-pepper hair—more salt than pepper—which he kept short, and a thick handlebar mustache. All that silvery hair stood out starkly against his deeply tanned, leathery skin, which spoke of countless hours in the sun, probably on a bike, because she knew who this was.

“Hershel?” Kasia’s voice filled with hope and relief.

Brand’s friend. Not a demon or an angel. Neither good nor evil. But ancient. An ancient spirit with incredible power. The man turned his head at Kasia’s exclamation. Bright blue eyes, undimmed by time twinkled, and crinkles that Angelika could tell came from smiles easily given fanned out from the corners.

“Hey there, love,” he greeted in a voice belonging to a man who must smoke a lot of cigarettes. Fire and brimstone in that voice, and yet so gentle.

“You came,” Kasia whispered.

He nodded while, beside her, Meira gasped, and Angelika flicked a glance toward her sister in time to catch her flinch. “The witch is afraid,” Meira whispered.

“She should be,” Skylar snapped.

“I hear you’ve been a naughty girl,” Hershel said, returning his focus to Rhiamon.

Then, he leaned forward as she jerked and trembled in her invisible bindings, desperation to get away clear even in the void of her eyes. Hershel kissed her. Placed his lips to the witch’s. Her skin immediately grayed and pruned, as though his very touch was mummifying her body.

Rhiamon’s eyes widened, pure fear glittering there. But then she sucked in, and for a brief moment her eyes turned human and Angelika swore she found relief there. “Kill me,” Rhiamon begged.

Hershel paused, frowning in what almost appeared like pity. “For that, love,” he said, “the hell I send you to won’t be…so bad.”

Alasdair grunted. “Work faster.”

Hershel clasped his hands to either side of the witch’s face, holding the touch as her body turned more and more corpse-like—shriveled, gray, and dead. He didn’t stop kissing her until, finally, he lifted his head and pulled his hands and mouth away.

Angelika swallowed at the sight of Hershel’s eyes gone fully, inky black. Then Hershel blinked, and his blue eyes were back to normal.

“Fuck me, she was something unnatural,” he muttered.

“Are you okay?” Kasia asked, reaching for his hand.

Hershel’s smile turned sad. “Whatever she was, she wasn’t human anymore.”

“What did you do to her?” Angelika asked.

“Sent her to the hells. Fourth level, and that was a mercy. They’ll determine where her soul belongs from there.”

“We can’t stay,” Alasdair said, grimacing apologetically. “The witch was our problem, and we took care of her. Pytheios is for dragons to deal with.”

“You did more than enough,” Angelika said when Skylar looked like she wanted to argue.

“We’ll catch up later, love,” Hershel said to Kasia. Then he was gone.

So were Alasdair and Delilah.

Before Angelika could even take a breath, Kasia and Skylar looked at each other, and she already knew exactly what they were thinking.

With their particular brands of teleportation, her sisters could fight. Angelika hadn’t ever seen them in action, but they’d described it. Kasia would take them both into the air, where they would drop over dragons, touching them and teleporting them elsewhere, taking them out of the battle. Sometimes sending dragons to other places, or more often to their deaths by cutting out thousands of feet to the ground without the creature losing momentum.

Their mates were fighting now. The rage of battle could be heard even this deep into the mountain. No way were her sisters not jumping into the fray.

“Keep each other safe,” Meira told them softly.

“We love you,” Skylar said to them both as Kasia took her hand, and then they were gone, too.

“Angelika?”

She turned to find Meira standing beside the mirror in the room. Powers restored, she too had a job: to set up in the area where those unable to fight were hiding. If she had to, Meira would try to get them out through reflections.

Meira would be safest there with dragons, wolf shifters, and a cave troll between her and death. Angelika wasn’t about to stop her. “Love you, too,” was all she said.

With a smile that said the same, Meira disappeared into the glass, leaving Angelika alone in a room with only her reflection.

“How sweet,” a female voice cooed from behind her.

In the reflection, a woman stepped forward, flames already dancing along her skin and in her eyes.

Flames that, as human as Angelika remained, despite her mating, she knew could kill her.

Whipping around, she faced a girl who could easily have passed as her sister. Same white-blond hair, same slender build. Eyes a deep red, now, rather than frosty blue.

“That isn’t your power that you wield,” Angelika informed her. Fury, rather than fear, filled her up. “It’s my mother’s power.”

Tisiphone smirked. “She’s dead. It’s mine now.”

Angelika had no way out and no way to defend herself. Tisiphone was going to use her mother’s fire to kill her. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. But at least Airk would go on without her. Because their bond hadn’t snapped into place yet, he was safe from her death.

If he survived Pytheios.

Angelika took a breath and focused. Damned if she wasn’t going down without a fight.

Skylar especially, but even Kasia, had taken to fighting like newborn foals to milk. But Angelika, while she hadn’t loved it like Skylar had, wasn’t entirely defenseless, either.

With a snarl that would do Airk proud, Angelika launched herself at the other girl.

Avoiding Tisiphone’s hands and skin where the flames rippled, she punched her hard in the sternum, which backed the girl up several feet, her expression turning satisfyingly stunned. Not waiting to enjoy the moment, Angelika kept at her, hitting her next in the shoulder. Then she leaned back and kicked her square in the stomach, which made Tisiphone double over on a groan. With the other girl’s balance thrown off, Angelika dropped into a crouch, and spun with one leg out, and swept that bitch right off her feet.

The other girl landed on her back, her head cracking hard against the rock and all the flames extinguishing in an instant. Before she could shake off the wind being knocked from her, Angelika was on top of her, taking her by the head with both hands.

“You think my mother left me vulnerable?” she snarled in the girl’s ear. She banged the girl’s head into the ground. “I promise you that I am not going to let you keep her inside of you.”

Without warning—no sound or even a twitch of her body—Tisiphone disappeared. Angelika dropped the few inches to the ground with a painful thud.

“There’s no way to get her out of me,” Tisiphone said from behind her. But the sound of flames more than her voice had Angelika whirling with a gasp.

Right in time for the false phoenix to blast fire out of her palms straight at Angelika, who threw up her arms as though that could ward off death.

A blur of movement caught her eye at the same time, and suddenly a wolf was between her and the fire. A gray wolf she recognized immediately. He took the brunt of the blast, his body going up in flames so fast the putrid smell of burning fur filled the small space.

“Jedd!” she screamed as more wolf shifters burst into the room.