The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Thirty-One

The electric strands Angelika still held tethering every living soul around the mountain remained where they were, a manifestation of her will and the power now filling her so full she buzzed with it. Her skin was alive with it. Airk was the anchor to which she tethered her humanity to keep that power from overwhelming, from taking over. Just as she was the anchor for his dragon.

They were one and the same, the two of them.

A true bonding. This was why a king mated to a phoenix was named High King. Because the partnership of their souls was what would bring the supposed luck or blessings. Together, and only together, were they truly balanced.

Angelika released her hold on her sisters and brothers-by-blood. The movement in the sky of a black, blue, and gold dragon dropping down to join their mates was something she was aware of but not focused on.

Keeping the rest of her captives tethered, Angelika adjusted so that they could move and speak but still not go anywhere. No more death. This was about Pytheios…and him alone.

“Go,” she said to Airk.

The ease and peace with which he shifted nearly took her breath away. No pain. No struggle. No fear. He and his dragon were finally one.

Fully in control, he took off into the sky, the wind his wings generated beating at her. And she watched him go. Watched him nod at Samael, Brand, and Ladon as they passed one another.

Please let him be victorious.

She had faith, but nothing was written in stone, and they’d only now truly found each other. This was the final hurdle. And a man who could kill two kings and two phoenixes wasn’t to be underestimated.

The second Airk hovered before the rotting king, Angelika released Pytheios from her hold.

“It’s just you and me now,” Airk snarled.

The red dragon pulled his lips back, baring his teeth. “I’ve already bested you once, whelp. I can do it again.”

The two dragons flew at each other, the slam of their bodies booming off the mountains around them. Pytheios went for the jugular, but Airk did some kind of flipping maneuver, coming down on top of the red dragon. They were close enough to the top of a mountain that he sank his claws into Pytheios’s wing and slammed the bloodred dragon into the rock face, carving a swath through the trees and rocks. Relentless.

Until Pytheios got his legs underneath him and shoved at the mountain, dislodging Airk, who flipped back but stopped himself midair. Pytheios hadn’t waited, though, launching himself off the rock and right at Airk. But Airk used the king’s momentum to pivot and fling him into the skies.

With a gasp, Angelika jerked several of those electric lines, pulling other dragons out of the path of the fight.

Pytheios charged again, but again Airk flung him away, this time getting in a swipe with his tail as he did.

Could everyone else see what she could see?

Airk, when he and his dragon had been at odds, had been fighting himself as much as his enemy. Trying to maintain control. But now that he and his dragon were joined, they were in control.

And a thousand times more powerful.

Pytheios had beaten Airk before because Airk had been human and holding back. Now…her mate was only waiting for the right moment. Which came with shocking speed.

Pytheios went for another swipe, but this time Airk, instead of diverting him, met him head-on. The two dragons beat at each other, relentless and fierce. Every blow that landed reverberated off the mountains. But Angelika didn’t wince.

As she watched, her heart in her throat, a hand slipped into hers, and she turned her head to find Meira there. Then another hand in her other one, and on her other side she found Kasia. Skylar wrapped her arms around Angelika’s waist, her chin to her shoulder. Behind them, her sisters’ mates watched the battle in the sky, grim and yet confident. Did they see what she did?

A cry from all those in the air had her jerking her gaze back upward to find Airk and Pytheios plummeting to the ground, only something was wrong.

Pytheios was on top. He was controlling the fall, driving them downward.

Angelika sucked in sharply, clasping her sister’s hands harder. “Airk,” she whispered, knowing her mate would hear her.

The two thrashing dragons passed out of view behind the peak of the mountain. A second later, a crash of sound louder than thunder preceded a whoosh of wind that flattened trees, threw dirt everywhere, and knocked Angelika and her sisters off their feet.

The air hadn’t even cleared before she struggled back to standing. “Airk,” she called out.

“I’ll send you.”

She whipped around in time to catch Skylar’s shove in the chest. Then all sound and sight blanked out for a moment before she appeared at the edge of a crater.

Dirt and debris still hung in the air, and at first she couldn’t see anything. But her brothers-by-blood dropped down over the space, their wings clearing the air, blowing the dirt away…

To reveal Airk standing over Pytheios’s broken, limp body, teeth sunk into his jugular but not punctured yet.

“This is our kill,”his voice said in her mind. All the minds. “Yours and mine.”

He was right. Angelika took a shaky breath and released the dragons held immobile in the sky, only vaguely aware that the fighting didn’t resume. Instead, they all moved to hover in the skies and watch.

Witness.

A glance at Skylar, who had arrived with her sisters, and Angelika was instantly transported to the bottom of the crater, standing on a rock near Pytheios’s head.

She stared into one large red eye, filled with so much hate and fire.

“For killing my father, Zilant Amon, King of the White Clan, I judge you,” she said, letting her voice ring out for everyone to hear. “For killing my mother, Serefina Hanyu, my father’s mate and a phoenix, I judge you. For killing my grandparents, the King of the Red Clan and his phoenix mate, your rulers, I judge you. For bastardizing the witch Rhiamon’s power, I judge you. For killing your own son Merikh, I judge you. For creating a false phoenix, I judge you. For stealing the lives of hellhounds and other creatures to extend your own, I judge you. For deceiving your people, I judge you.”

She paused, staring at the dragon shifter who had wrought so much pain and devastation. “Do you have any last words?”

Pytheios, despite the state he was in, despite facing his own death, seemed to smile. “I regret nothing,” he spat at her. “Nothing, except that I didn’t kill off your entire species when I had the chance. Dragons don’t need you. We are the most powerful creatures in this world, and we don’t need any others determining who rules or how. I did this…all of this…for my people.”

He truly believed that. She could see it in that snakelike eye staring back at her unblinking. Unflinching.

Angelika tipped her head. “Don’t you see?”

“All I see is abomination.”

“What you see is your origin. Dragons came from the first phoenix. You are what rose from the ashes that first time.” Closing her eyes, she placed her palm gently over a scale, feeling the tremble of his hate and fear. But she ignored that, knowing Airk would hold him.

“See the truth,” she whispered.

And shared with him…with them all…the history that she had been shown in death before she’d risen from the ashes.

In a void of light, she’d been surrounded by her ancestors. All the phoenixes who had come before, and they’d shown her…

The first phoenix, a creature all instinct and fire, turning to ash, and from that ash arose a thousand tiny lights, like stars of all colors, which became the first dragons. And a single brighter light that became the new phoenix to guide them, temper them, and bless them.

The dragon under her hand shuddered at the vision, but she didn’t stop. She showed him more.

Generations upon generations who had followed. Every so often, dragons would lose faith and rise against one another or the phoenix. Three times this had happened before. And with any wrongful death of a phoenix, the shifters would lose a part of themselves as punishment rather than the blessings they could have had.

First the split of soul, creating the possibility of feral dragons if they didn’t anchor their animal to their humanity. Like Airk. Then the creation of the clans, separating brother from brother by color. Then all female-born dragons becoming sterile.

The death of Angelika’s own grandmother had been what split the new life in her daughter’s womb into four phoenixes. And finally, with the death of Angelika’s mother, the full blessings of the first phoenix that had been buried inside Angelika were awakened by her mate.

A dragon.

“Oh gods.”Pytheios’s voice inside her head broke. Because even the king, whose soul was as rotten as his flesh had once been, could feel the truth of what she showed him. “What have I done?”

A small part of Angelika ached for this man. Power had consumed and distorted him to what he’d become. What he’d wrought. Power and a broken heart. Because she truly believed he had loved her mother, now that she could see beyond him.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I will set it all right again.”

With that, she let the fire come, pouring over her skin, over every part of her. Those flaming wings extended behind her, and, with a single touch, the king was gone.

A swift death, more merciful than his actions deserved, but to her, this was the right way to end all of the violence and fighting that his reign had brought down on her people.

She closed her eyes and held on to her fire, picturing the world of her people as the magic of those visions showed her how it had been to start.

The power inside her built and built and built, thrumming through her.

With a cry, she flung her arms out, and the light that burst from her was so radiant her sight was blinded. But she didn’t stop.

Every dragon, not just here, but those all over the world, including dragon mates as yet undiscovered, became a precious glow to her. As though she could see them all, touch them all.

Heal them all.

Her body started to shake with the enormity of what she was trying to do, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

It was too much.

Arms came around her—softly, though, a hand cradling her head. “I am here,” Airk whispered through the light.

The shaking eased as she drew on her mate’s strength, still searching, seeking and finding every soul she needed to touch. Her brothers-by-blood, her sisters, and Airk were the last she reached for.

“For us all,” she whispered. Knowing they would all hear her.

Then her power burst from her in a single, sharp wave, and darkness consumed her vision, the sound of Airk’s voice calling her name growing fainter with each passing moment as she disappeared once again into oblivion and fire.

…

Airk found himself holding his dying mate in his arms, surrounded in her fire but not burning with it, because he was hers now, as she was his.

Angelika had given everything. Like everyone else, he’d seen it all. Everything she had to fix…ages of betrayals, to fix consequences, to save their people.

But this time, despair didn’t consume him, didn’t drag him down into the pits of the seven hells. He was her mate, the binding so strong that he could still feel her, even in this form. The funny, indestructible, glorious soul he’d been blessed to walk beside in this life.

She wasn’t dead…because he wasn’t. His body wasn’t turning the same ashy gray as hers. The fire wasn’t touching his flesh.

A shadow fell over him, and Airk lifted his head to stare at the three women who dropped to their knees beside their sister.

Kasia. Skylar. Meira.

Tears poured down their cheeks, shock turning their skin pale, and a hopelessness rounding their shoulders that Airk couldn’t understand.

“She’s not gone,” he said softly.

All three jerked their gazes to him, confusion darkening frosty eyes to a darker blue.

“What?” Meira’s question trembled on her lips.

“You can fix this.” He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.

Maybe witnessing how a phoenix could pass on her powers to her child and yet still live was how he knew. He’d been there the day the red queen had passed her powers on to her own daughter, Serefina.

Realization lit Kasia and Skylar up with hope almost as radiant as Angelika had been when she’d risen before. But Meira’s head dropped, her hand going to her belly, where a sleeping dragon prince lay.

Kasia wrapped her hand around Meira’s. “You saw your son take the throne,” she said. “He’ll be dragon, not phoenix, but he’ll live.”

“Do you see it?” Meira asked. “What we’ll become?”

Kasia shook her head, a sadness tempering the hope there. “But our grandmother lived. So will we.”

Skylar, on Meira’s other side, took her other hand. “And so will Angelika.”

Meira turned to look over her shoulder at Samael, and Airk couldn’t miss the way the King of the Black Clan swallowed. The pure fear in his eyes for his mate…and his unborn child. But he also didn’t hesitate, dropping to one knee behind Meira, he placed a kiss on her lips. Unspoken words passed between them.

Ladon closed his eyes for a second, then did the same with Skylar, who put her forehead to his. Brand dropped to both knees and wrapped an arm around Kasia’s waist. “I’ll follow you to the grave happily, mate.”

The three phoenixes didn’t hesitate. Didn’t wallow or take time to reconsider.

How they knew what to do, Airk had no idea. But each raised both her hands in the air and held them, palms together, fingertips spread, like a lotus flower, up to the skies.

Then, one at a time, they called forth their power—Kasia’s gold fire, Skylar’s blue fire, and Meira’s black fire. The flames flowed over their entire bodies at first but, as he watched, gathered and crawled softly upward, moving up to gather and coalesce in the palms of their outstretched hands, as though each was holding an orb of intense, dancing power.

But the more flame they gathered, the grayer their skin became, morphing from healthy flesh to something that resembled a stone carving. A marble statue ancient peoples would have worshiped.

The last part of them to change was their eyes, and all three, in unison, tipped their heads back on a silent, final inhalation.

Then the orbs of fire still held in their hands floated, one by one, down to Angelika’s body, now almost as gray as her sisters. Each orb absorbed into her unmoving heart, lighting up the organ through the layers of dying flesh and visibly absorbing into her blood, her veins turning a fiery orange.

Molten lava pulsed through her body in orange-red spurts. But nothing else happened.

Airk didn’t look away from his mate. Waiting.

The soft tread of a paw preceded a shadow crossing Angelika’s body, and Airk raised his head to find Jedd nosing at his mate’s arm.

An image flashed in Airk’s mind: an image of a shared laugh between the wolf shifter and Angelika, a moment of pure friendship. Then the tiny hellhound lifted its head to the skies and opened its mouth in a silent howl. Instead of sound, a similar orb of fire rose from the pit of his maw. Like with her sisters, the orb moved to hover over Angelika’s body before sinking into her flesh and absorbing.

With a wobble, Jedd fell to his side, the red glow of his eyes dimming, then dying out entirely, leaving holes of black nothingness.

Lining up behind them, each of the other hellhounds did the same one by one. First Brand’s father, who chose to share the image of Brand’s first shift with his son, the pride of that moment palpable even now. Brand swallowed convulsively. “Take care of our family in the afterlife until we can join you,” the gold king whispered.

Then Brand’s father was gone, sending his fire into Angelika.

Then Airk’s own father was there, moving to stand before him. Only instead of one image, a multitude flashed through his mind. Not their time together, but images of Airk after his parents’ death. From afar, as though seen through the veil of death. Airk surviving in the dungeons, growing into a man, learning despite the hopelessness of his situation. His escape and the moments that had led him here.

His father, his mighty father, bowed before him. Then, before he could have just one more moment with his parent, the hellhound sent his fire following Jedd’s and Brand’s father’s into Angelika, before falling dead at Airk’s feet.

Only this time…this death…held peace. Not horror. Not fear. Not sorrow. Just peace.

The last hellhound, the incarnation of King Hanyu, finally stepped forward, and he stared long and hard at the figures of his four granddaughters. Then an image appeared in Airk’s mind—all minds—as perfect as the day it happened.

The day their mother, Serefina, was born.

The joy, the sheer delight of a father, and now that of a proud grandfather who had been avenged, radiant in the moment.

Please let her be able to see this, he begged the gods. To know this moment.

Then the final hellhound gave himself over to her.

Once that last piece absorbed into her, Angelika jolted, and her heart lit up, the flash so bright Airk had to close his eyes. Only to open them and watch in utter awe as her heart pumped once. Twice. Then, as the glow of fire faded, it picked up a steady rhythm.

But none of the sisters moved.

Airk leaned forward and whispered in Angelika’s ear. “Open your eyes.”

And she did.

The gray ash coating her cracked with the motion and fell away to reveal healthy flesh beneath. She stared at him with new eyes. Eyes a kaleidoscope of colors, as though she was everything now. All things to her people, not just one clan.

She took in his face, then smiled, and more ash fell away as Airk’s heart soared to the very heavens.

“Thank the gods,” Brand breathed.

A swift glance showed Kasia, Skylar, and Meira all emerging from the ash that had coated them.

Except the sisters all turned to look at the hellhounds lying dead on the rock beside Angelika.

“I am sorry—” Airk started to whisper.

Angelika shook her head. “It’s okay. Look.”

All four death dogs were starting to glow. Airk hadn’t been there when Maul died, but he’d heard descriptions that sounded like this. Unlike Angelika, this was not a bright, heavenly light, but red, like the hounds’ eyes—eerie. Each of the bodies pulsed with the color that lifted from him like an aura before solidifying into streamers of flowing red, casting its light over everyone gathered near the hellhounds.

The streamers slipped and swirled and coalesced, forming not one image but four. Murky at first, then clearer, as each of the men who’d finally finished what had been needed of them in this life became more defined with every passing moment until they stood, hovering above the hellhounds’ corpses. They gazed down at the upturned faces of their kin and friends…and smiled.

“See?” Angelika whispered. “Everything is better now.”

As though they agreed with her, the figures, still smiling and gazes still trained on their loved ones, faded away.

With a rumble that shook them all, the ground from whence they’d sprung closed up, sealed tight.

A deeply contented sigh escaped Angelika, which seemed to be a signal to all of them. Each mated couple wrapped each other up in arms and lips and relief.

“My love…” Ladon’s voice held wonder, not concern. “Your eyes.”

Airk peered closer. Like Angelika, Skylar’s eyes had changed. So had Meira’s and Kasia’s, each now the colors of their mates—a deep gold, brilliant blue, and onyx black.

Meira put her hand to Samael’s cheek. “I’m a dragon now. We gave her everything.”

“Disappointed?” Kasia asked Brand.

The gold king snorted. “No. Now I get to call you lizard girl.”

Kasia groaned and rolled her eyes but also tightened her arms around Brand’s neck. With sharp breaths of joy, all four couples took a moment to simply hold each other.

“Umm…” Angelika murmured into Airk’s neck. “I’m not a dragon.”

Airk pulled back, unable to keep the smile from his face. “No. You are perfect.”

“Shit, brother,” Ladon muttered, though his tone remained laughing. “Don’t say things like that or all our mates will expect it.”

“I think I’d throw up if you said something like that to me,” Skylar quipped.

The sound of Angelika’s soft chuckle was sheer bliss.

They’d done it. They’d defeated Pytheios. They’d all survived it. Jubilation would come. He knew that. But for now…gratefulness was all he felt.

“I hate to interrupt this little…celebration.”

Airk raised his head to find Tovar, shifted and standing a respectful distance away.

His old friend raised a hand, indicating all the previously battling dragons and wolves watching in silence. “But you have some things to sort out.”