The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Leaving the wolf shifters to deal with Tisiphone, Angelika ran to where Jedd lay on the ground, still in wolf form, and dropped to her knees beside him. She didn’t dare touch him.

A sound like a whine accompanied every tortured, agonized breath her friend took. Even so, he tried to lift his head. “Angie?” His nickname almost broke her. “I’ll be fine.”

The nurse in her knew that was a lie.

The burns covered the entire side of his body that had taken the brunt of the impact. Charred black around the edges, and there weren’t many edges. Most of his flesh was a massive open wound that looked like raw hamburger and yet white at the same time. In spots on his legs where there was less flesh, she could see bone.

Gods, the smell. In this closed environment, she couldn’t escape it.

Touching him was out of the question. Infection was a massive problem with burns like these. At the same time, there was nothing she could do to help him from here—the medical equipment lay deeper within the mountain, with Meira and all the other injured.

Angelika swallowed and smiled back at him. “That was probably a bad move in hindsight,” she attempted to tease.

Because the only thing she could do now was ease his pain a little. Her only hope was that the burns happened so fast and deep that the nerve endings might be numb from the shock of being severed. At least for a little bit.

The shimmering of Jedd’s shift whispered about him, reflecting strangely in the dim light of the room until he lay there in his human form. Which was so much worse, because the severity of his injuries was more obvious to her now.

Jedd raised a shaking hand and placed it against her cheek, caressing her cheekbone with his thumb. “Worth it,” he said in a voice gone so ragged, she couldn’t deny that he’d inhaled some of those flames.

Which meant they’d be eating him alive from the inside out.

Doing her best to hide the knowledge of what was coming, Angelika leaned into his touch. “I forbid you to leave me,” she whispered.

Jedd eyed her with a flash of spirit in eyes already turning cloudy and said nothing.

“Please don’t leave me.”

He wasn’t her mate, but he’d been her friend. One of the best men she knew. This world would be far worse off without him in it.

Because of me.

“Would blood help?” She was technically a dragon shifter, and she’d try anything at this point.

Or…all shifters used that method, and she looked over at Bleidd, realizing for the first time that the room had gone silent. Tisiphone was gone. Damn Mama’s teleportation. The wolves were all watching, mourning beside her, the pain in their eyes too much to take. She knew that if they thought he could be saved, they’d be carrying him to the cave troll now.

But Jedd tipped her gaze back to him and managed to shake his head. “Too…late…”

Even swallowing appeared to take him a lot of effort. He waved an ineffectual hand in the air, as though he couldn’t quite control the limb, and she took it in hers, squeezing. “Jedd?”

What could she do? She had to fix this.

He seemed to understand the question in her tone. “Take down Pytheios. Keep your promises to my people.”

He was saying goodbye. She shook her head, silent tears no longer staying locked inside, trickling over his fingers. “You have to help me do that,” she insisted. “You’re part of that alliance. That promise.”

Her voice broke over that last word, and she had to try two more times to get it out.

A boom rocked them from outside the mountain, the battle raging even as he died in her arms.

Jedd’s eyes started turning glassy with the onset of death, but his gaze remained steadily on her face. “I’ve always loved you, Angelika Amon.”

Angelika’s heart shattered at the truth in his voice. Gods, what had she done? He couldn’t die. Not like this.

Suddenly, Jedd’s face relaxed into an expression nearing contentment. “Find…peace.” He was barely getting the words out now, inhaling with a whine of agony between each word. “With…your…mate.”

“Not at this price.” Her whisper was as wrenched as her heart.

Jedd squeezed her hand. “For…me.”

Angelika squeezed her eyes shut because she understood what he was saying. To live her life for him. To love and move on and hurt and laugh and all of it…for him.

Leaning down, she put her lips near his ear. “I love you.”

And she did. Not in the way she loved Airk, but in the way two souls who were always meant to be part of each other’s lives loved. A bond that even death could not break.

“I…know.” She heard the grin in his voice. “And…that’s…enough.”

As she pulled back to see it on his face, Jedd’s body bowed up, as though his soul was fighting to escape the pain. Then he went limp in her arms. Chest still. Eyes unseeing.

A wail rose from inside her like no sound that had ever come from her before as she dragged him onto her lap, heedless of the blood, rocking them both back and forth as though she could will him back to life.

“Awww… That’s too bad. Was he a friend?”

The sugary female voice had Angelika jerking her head up on a gasp. Through the haze of tear-clouded eyes, she recognized that Tisiphone had reappeared between her and the wolves. The woman raised her hands to blast fire at Angelika again.

A loud yelp was the last thing she heard as two rocky arms emerged from the floor below her and dragged Angelika into the wall of the mountain itself.

All vision and hearing went dark and soundless, as though someone turned off a switch, because Angelika was still wide awake. Pressure and stillness consumed her, encased her, and threatened to crush her. Fear, however, didn’t factor into the sensation because she knew exactly who had her.

Meira’s gargoyles.

They hadn’t agreed to help in the war against Pytheios, but perhaps they were still fulfilling the promise to her mother to protect her daughters.

Technically, that should only apply to Meira, but maybe…

“I have to help them,” she tried to say.

Them.

Airk. Her sisters. Her brothers-in-blood. The wolves. Her people. Even the ones misled by the rotting bastard who stood at the heart of all this carnage.

Angelika thought her mouth moved, but no sound came out, her voice only in her head, and even that she couldn’t hear.

What little oxygen had been in her lungs leached away, and with it her ability to stay conscious. If she could see right now, she’d be mesmerized by black spots as she passed out, her head turning woozy.

She didn’t bother to struggle. Bound by the rock, she couldn’t move anyway. And she had every faith the gargoyle wouldn’t let her die. He or she had just saved her from Tisiphone. She knew, without a doubt, that’s what they were doing.

Suddenly, the impenetrable hardness crushing her opened around her as though the mountain spat her out. She and the gargoyle rose together from the floor of the mountain into a different chamber to the sound of stone grinding on stone, rough and raw to ears that had only been listening to silence. He’d brought her to a room filled with sunlight and an opening leading to sky outside. Sky teeming with dragons and fire.

A chaos of color.

Like a flock of birds wheeling, a squadron of black dragons, Samael in the lead, flew low over the ground, pouring flame down over a mass of white dragons on the ground. White dragons. Her people.

Gods, what had happened?

Even as she watched, a spearhead of multiple-colored dragons, headed by an onyx black dragon that wasn’t Samael—Rune, maybe?—formed and burst through a swath of red and green dragons attacking blue who were clearly fighting white from above. But through the gap they made in the sky, more red and green dragons poured in. Airk and Pytheios were nowhere to be seen.

Turning, she found a male gargoyle, intimidating and fascinatingly beautiful in his way, standing in full gargoyle form, with a body carved from solid stone, wings flared wide as though he might wrap them around her at any second.

His grotesque face in this form appeared to be made from the carvings of many different beasts—the mane of a lion, head of a water buffalo, brow of a gorilla, tusks of a wild boar, legs and tail of a wolf, ears of a bat, and body of a bear. The strangest part was his eyes. Human eyes surrounded by delicate, purple-bruised skin that faded underneath the cracked rock that surrounded them.

Like a being possessed.

“Where is Meira?” he asked.

This had to be Carrick, the leader of the chimera of gargoyles who’d taken Meira in after their mother’s death.

“Meira went through the glass. She’s in the safest part of this mountain. Near the cave troll who protects her.” Angelika pointed at the skies, where she suddenly caught sight of Brand ramming through from above like an avalanche of gold. “Can you help us?”

His face did nothing, made no twitch, no sign of emotion. “Gargoyles don’t get involved.”

Just like wolves didn’t, and witches didn’t, and every other blasted creature on this planet didn’t. Except some had today. Even if only in part.

“If you think Pytheios will be satisfied with controlling only dragons, rest assured, he’ll come for others next. A war with the wolves. A war with your people.”

“He’d have to find us first.”

“Or you could avoid the war altogether with one battle. Now.”

The gargoyle merely stared at her long and hard. “Stay away from that woman, daughter of Serefina.”

That’s when Angelika caught it. The flash of emotion. This man had been in love with her mother. How had Meira, with her empathic abilities, missed that little tidbit? Had her mother held any returning affection for him? She’d mourned her missing mate all her life, but maybe this gargoyle had helped assuage the hurt, even if only for a short time.

Angelika put her hand over his. “My mother was lucky to have a friend in you, Carrick. Thank you for that.”

A tiny pause, then he nodded. “I will watch over Meira.” With the grinding of stone, he sank back into the floor.

As soon as the bulk of his body was gone, Angelika looked out and caught sight of Airk. Somehow, he and Pytheios had fought their way outside the mountain. His back was to her, short shock of white hair unmistakable, and as she watched, his head snapped back as he took a punch.

Then Pytheios, faster than she’d seen any dragon shifter in her limited time with them, rose and shifted into the massive beast he could become, bloodred scales almost grotesque in the harsh light of day. Like looking at someone’s insides. He snatched Airk, still human and swaying on his feet as though a light breeze would tip him over, up in one claw and took off into the sky.

“No!” Angelika shouted.

“Pathetic,” Tisiphone said from right beside her. Appearing out of nothing, unharmed and smiling. “Time for a little trip.”

The other girl wrapped her hand around Angelika’s wrist in a bruising grip, and suddenly sight and sound blanked out again. This time in a familiar way as they traveled the in between—that realm of nothing between space and time—to wherever Tisiphone was taking her.

…

Airk was holding on through sheer will alone. His own blows seemed to have barely nicked the king. Meanwhile, his own body had been beaten to the hells and back. But what concerned him more than the pain, more than the blood coating his throat and mouth and pouring from his nose, more than Pytheios flying him down the mountain, was the silence of his own dragon.

His animal half wasn’t raging, wasn’t clawing to be released to defend them both. It sat inside him, near the surface, watching but silent and unmoved.

Why?

A howling sounded below, coming from inside the mountain—the distinctive call of wolves. Ones who had lost a brother.

Airk managed to turn his head to see green and red dragons landing and running toward the entrance. He hoped like hells that had been a deliberate move on the part of the wolf shifters. Setting themselves up as bait to draw some of the fighting to their ground.

As the first dragons moved inside, a sound like an animal in so much pain it unleashed rage—somewhere between a wolverine and a demon—went berserk, echoing off the insides of the mountain.

And Airk, even through the haze of pain, realized exactly what that was.

Madrigan had unleashed whatever he became.

Last resort.That was supposed to be a last resort. Even after all the proof these fuckers had been shown, the loyalty to Pytheios had set them on the losing side.

We’re losing.

“Fight,”Pytheios snarled in his head before dipping low to scrape him over treetops.

Airk curled in on himself, taking the brunt against his spine and trying to use Pytheios’s talons as cover, but he refused to shift and refused to answer.

“Fight, damn you.”

Airk frowned at the tone in Pytheios’s voice that time. Frustration. As though he was being thwarted and didn’t know how to deal with that. Why was the king so angry that he wouldn’t engage? Why not leave his bleeding body on the mountainside and hope someone else finished the job?

Honor.

The word whispered through his mind. Not Pytheios’s honor for himself, but the perception of others. All the dragons out here could see them now. If he didn’t kill Airk, he’d be branded a coward. If he killed Airk still in human form, that also made him a coward.

Neither of those acts were worthy of a High King, and the fucker was starting to realize his mistake bringing their fight out here.

Airk’s dragon, still leashed inside his head, whipped his tail, nudging at Airk, as though trying to tell him something.

Maybe because the dragon half of him knew as well as Airk did that Pytheios wouldn’t risk that fucking prophecy and actually kill them. But what if the king did? What if they could drive him beyond reason?

What if I can force the prophecy?

At that, the dragon in him uncurled, baring razor-sharp teeth in a smile filled with hatred and satisfaction.

He knew what his dragon wanted.

But Angelika?

Pain wrapped around his heart as though it had tangled up in barbed wire only to get shredded, and the way his dragon whined, Airk knew he felt the same.

This sacrifice was more than about them now…it was about their mate.

Angelika’s perfect face planted itself in his mind’s eye, her gaze sad. He would leave his mate behind broken and alone. Like her mother had been.

But she’d be alive, and Pytheios would be dead.

Trees slapped at him again, one striking just right and peeling off several layers of flesh from his back. He held in his cry of pain, like he had so many times in Everest, refusing to give this bastard any satisfaction, because he knew that, more than anything, pissed the false king off.

With a roar, Pytheios dove, talons outstretched as though he might drive Airk into the ground.

Airk didn’t so much as look or flinch, staring back at the dragon’s underbelly and calling on the patience that had served him well. A flash of movement caught his eye as an indigo dragon streaked toward them. Ladon. Four red dragons rose up in the king’s path, cutting him off from helping.

Airk closed his eyes. He used to escape into his mind, making up stories or visiting his parents and having a conversation with them. Anything to not be mentally in the room. He did that now. Picturing Angelika the last time she’d shared his bed, all sleepily sated and smiling at him.

“I love you,” his imagination’s version of her said in his mind.

Words they hadn’t exchanged. Hadn’t dared to. He had convinced himself in those moments that they didn’t need to. That she was his mate, and that was all that mattered. Now…

“I wish I could have truly heard those words from your lips,” he told this vision of her.

Maybe…maybe the flesh-and-blood Angelika would hear. Would feel the truth of his love for her.

The ground hit hard, yanking him out of his own head, but not hard enough to kill. Damn the king.

Pytheios released him, leaving him uncomfortably draped over boulders, injured enough that every movement, every breath, hurt like a son of a bitch.

“Hold on.”Samael’s voice pounded in his head. “We’re coming.”

Airk didn’t hold out hope, though, staying focused on his task. Through the pain, Airk pulled his lips back in a grin coated in his own blood and spittle.

“Cannot do it, can you, coward?” It took every effort to hurl those words out.

He ignored Pytheios’s warning growl as he coughed, then spat out a large clot of blood. Then grinned again. “Now everyone can see how scared you are of a phoenix’s prophecy. She told you the man who killed me or ordered me killed would be dead shortly after, and you can’t face the odds that she was right.”

“Shut up, brother,”Brand voice sounded in his head, which only made Airk grin wider.

The dragons around them could hear him, and that was exactly what he wanted.

“Do it,” he hissed at Pytheios between teeth clenched in pain. “Show them you don’t fear a phoenix.”

Even through the blood and swelling closing his eyes, Airk couldn’t miss the moment Pytheios’s control snapped. The moment the decision was made to kill him, so obvious in the resolve that hardened the rage in the rotting king’s eyes.

The king raised his head, the rumble of fire in his belly a sign he was stoking his flames to burn him to death, but Airk refused to look away or try to escape. If he died, the prophecy meant Pytheios would soon follow. Now he looked at the bond between him and his mate not solidifying as a blessing. He wouldn’t take her with him to the grave. And that was enough.

“I love you,”he tried to send the thought to Angelika. He wasn’t sure if she heard him. Gods, he prayed she did.

“I have a better idea, my king.” A woman’s voice pierced the air, even over the constant thunder of dragons battling overhead.

Airk jerked his head around to find Tisiphone standing on an outcropping a few feet away, hand clamped around Angelika’s arm.

Pytheios paused, talon midair.

“Burn his bitch instead,” the false phoenix crowed.

Time apparently didn’t slow down when fear flooded your veins. It sped up. Because the next moments seemed to happen simultaneously.

Pytheios inhaled, stoking the fire in his belly, the scales above Airk casting a red-gold glow over his vision. Tisiphone disappeared. And Angelika reached a hand toward Airk, his name forming on her lips.

Then a torrent of flame hailed down on her, obscuring his view of her. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw feathers, delicate red-and-gold feathers, through the red of the flames. But that had to be wishful thinking or his mind protecting him, because what he really saw was her eyes on him as her mouth opened in a scream. One he couldn’t hear over the roar of dragon fire, but he felt to the depths of his soul.

Three screams shattered through his mind. Her sisters, wherever they were, sounded as though they were burning with her.

Pytheios didn’t stop.

The flame kept going and going. As though all his rage could be absorbed by annihilating her completely.

Then, with jarring abruptness, the heat and light and sound cut off as Pytheios swallowed the flames. Even the sounds of the fighting had crumbled into silence. Screaming silence.

As the smoke cleared, Airk searched for her. Searched for his mate’s body on the rock, but he couldn’t see her. Ignoring the pain, though moving so fucking slowly, he pushed to his knees with a groan. He tried to get to his feet but couldn’t make his body stand. So he crawled. He crawled as fast as he could push himself, leaving a smear of blood over the rock underneath, aware all the while of the king standing over him, dragon teeth bared in a cruel smile.

When he reached the boulder where Angelika had stood, all he found of his mate was a pile of ash.