The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Epilogue

Angelika stared into the mirror at a woman who was her but not her.

The eyes in particular were taking some getting used to. But today she was more not her than ever. All gussied up in a dress that had taken way more discussion than a dress should take. Everyone—her sisters, the newly established council for the White Clan, all the other clans, the designer—had an opinion.

Dressing by committee sucked.

Worth it this time, she tried to tell herself. Because this was Airk’s coronation day.

It had taken months…months…of dealing with details and the fallout of everything that had led to Pytheios’s death. Months of healing, but also decisions and new laws and reaching out to those who’d been discarded or left behind by the previous rulers. Months to take Pytheios’s stash of wealth, combine it with all the clans’, and redistribute equally, starting fresh. Months to start on the dreams her own father had held when he’d been prepared to become High King—for the clans to live in equality, the colonies to govern themselves, and to dissolve the mating council, giving mates the time and resources to find their mates themselves.

They’d allowed the clans to go back to their own mountains and select their leaders anew. Even the Gold, Black, and Blue Clans had done so. In the end, Brand, Ladon, and Samael had all kept their thrones, Brand doing so perhaps the biggest surprise.

Though perhaps not, after what Angelika had shown her people that day combined with the appearance of his own father at the end.

The Red Clan had chosen no one of royal blood, not entirely trusting anyone Pytheios had allowed to live who could be a political threat to his throne. Instead, taking a leaf from the Black Clan, they’d chosen a warrior with not a drop of highborn in him. The Green Clan had chosen to execute King Fraener, the only king to remain by Pytheios’s side throughout the war. In his place they’d selected a female-born named Meilin, the first queen dragons had seen in millennia.

Thathad been a shock.

However, the reports that whatever Angelika had done that day had touched female dragons, allowing them to mate, allowing them to bear children, had come hard and fast these past months. There were even a few reports that had started months or even years before her rising from the ashes. Almost as though the promise of her coming power had started to change things even when it lay dormant inside her and split between her sisters.

Moreover, human mates had also changed, no longer showing a sign on their neck unless their specific mate’s fire was used to bring it forth. No more need for second-guessing or for a mating council that could be manipulated or corrupted.

Hearts, too, had been changed that day.

Not all hearts, though.

Some of her people didn’t believe or refused to let go of old ways, but many fewer than Angelika would have thought possible. There was still more to do. New systems would always have kinks to iron out. They weren’t perfect by any means. Or completely safe. After all, dragon shifters were as volatile as their fire.

But they had peace. They would build from there.

This dress, however…

Angelika sighed and plucked at the skirt, making a face at herself in the mirror. They’d decided that as the mate of the man about to be crowned King of the White Clan, she should wear white. However, as the phoenix, they wanted her to represent the other clans as well. Which had been a tricky prospect, with many of the considered gowns making her look more like a clown car exploded on a white canvas.

But they’d finally settled on this design.

The dress was a figure-hugging, white satin slip with delicate, detailed lace overlayed. Wide straps of lace over her shoulders turned into a sheer backing down to her waist. The skirt flared out from mid-thigh in layers and layers of the same lace, reminding her a bit of traditional flamenco dancers. The bottom of the skirt had been dyed in vibrant hues blending up from black at the bottom, representing all the other clans, but in a gradient that looked remarkably like flame.

The dress was absolutely gorgeous. That wasn’t the problem.

The problem was her in it. Fancy was not her way. They’d curled and styled her hair down with the sides drawn back and done her makeup to lovely effect. The woman staring at her was beautiful in a way she’d never seen herself. Her sisters had always all had more color than she did. She’d seen herself as a pale version of them most of her life.

Especially when her powers had remained dormant.

But this creature looking back at her from the mirror was all color, all fire, all things. And she wasn’t sure she was up for that. As thephoenix—the only phoenix, now—she was all things to dragon shifters.

“My lady?” Jordy appeared in the reflection behind her.

“Is it time?”

He shook his head. “Not quite yet. The king has…disappeared.”

Disappeared. The small frown that tugged at her brows wasn’t worry so much as confusion. “What do you mean?”

“He said he had something he had to do before the coronation. That it was important.”

Angelika thought for a moment of his behavior leading up to this day, and realization dawned with the softness of sunlight peaking over mountaintops. Just to be sure, she closed her eyes, feeling her way down that connection that mates had.

“It’s okay,” she told Jordy. “I know where he is. I’ll go get him.”

Airk’s faithful friend, now one of their closest advisors, smiled.

As soon as Jordy left the room, Angelika used the teleportation—both Kasia’s and Skylar’s combined inside her now—to go to the one place she should have known he’d need to see.

Everest.

Curious, she glanced around the surprisingly large chamber that housed the dungeons where Airk had spent most of his life. New dragonsteel doors to each of the eleven cells were spaced evenly around the edges of the circular room. Sunlight streamed in from the glass moonhole directly above.

Angelika closed her eyes for a moment, heartsick that this and only this had been her mate’s entire world for centuries. She offered up prayers of gratitude that he had survived it, lasted long enough to get out and find her.

Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and strode—slippered feet almost silent on the stone floors, the whoosh of her dress louder in the space—to the one cell with an open door. Looking inside, she found Airk sitting on a stone slab she knew from his descriptions had been his bed, elbows on his knees and head in his hands.

Angelika didn’t enter. Instead, she held out her hand, beckoning. “My love?”

Slowly, Airk’s head came up, and his eyes ignited at the sight of her.

“How did you get here?” she asked, starting off with something easier to answer.

“Delilah helped me.”

“I would have—”

He shook his head, though his gaze gentled. “I thought I’d get in and out while you were getting ready.”

Angelika read between the lines. He’d needed to do this alone. Something she could understand.

“I had to come here,” he said, seeming to mistake her silence for disappointment.

“I know.” She held out her hand. “But this is the last time. We should only look forward from here, don’t you think?”

After a long pause, almost as though he was gathering his strength to leave, Airk rose to his feet.

Dressed in a very simple black suit with a crisp white shirt, a foil to her own clothes, he looked every inch the king he was about to become. Somehow, as usual, he’d managed to get away with refusing a tie or any other accessories. Probably the growling had convinced the others to drop it and focus their efforts on her instead. Even so, her body ignited—metaphorically—at the sight of him. Gods, her mate was something else.

He took her hand and allowed her not only to lead him out of the cell, but, after one last glance around, he nodded, and she brought them right back to their bedchamber in Kamen.

With a shuddering breath, Airk wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her back against his chest and laying his chin on the top of her head to stare at the two of them in the reflection of the mirror they stood before. “You look beautiful.”

She wrinkled her nose. She did, but she’d been expecting some comment about where they’d just come from.

“Why the face?”

She raised her eyebrows at his teasing. “Are you saying my face looks funny?”

He chuckled. “You are the most beautiful thing in my world, and you know it.”

She hummed a little. Who knew her mate would turn out to be a big romantic and a poet with words? He told her things like that all the time. Much to the laughing chagrin of her sisters’ mates.

“Mrrow…” A tiny little sound had her looking down, and Angelika couldn’t help her chuckle.

“I think she would prefer to be the most beautiful,” she teased him.

A gift from Meira, who had informed Airk that he clearly was a cat person or hers wouldn’t love him so much. The little white ball of fluff dogged his footsteps like he was her mama.

Airk just grunted, giving the kitten a mock glare even as he scooped her up gently before setting her on top of the impressive cat tower he’d bought for his new pet.

Someday, he would be an amazing father. Gods, she loved him.

“Are you ready?” he asked, turning back to Angelika.

Shouldn’t she be the one asking that?

“No.” She sighed. “But I’m the one who should be asking. It’s your coronation.”

An odd little twinge reached her through the connection between them. Not worry or anything bad, really. Just…odd. It had been going on the last few days, but she figured he’d tell her when he was ready.

Airk moved closer, only to frame her face with his hands, fire blazing in his eyes as his gaze skated over her features. “My miracle,” he whispered.

“No pedestals.” She poked a finger in his chest.

Airk grinned. “Of course not. Only endless love.”

She grinned back. “I can handle that if you can.”

Airk leaned forward, pressing his lips to hers. As happened every single time with them, passion flared with the simple touch. Angelika had to be the one to draw away. “It’s time.”

Her mate sighed, forehead to hers. “I know.”

After she reapplied her lipstick, she took his arm, and together they left the small antechamber to enter the throne room in the mountain of Kamen together. Arm in arm.

Airk had insisted.

Wherever the king went, so went the queen. Usually ahead of him, he joked, forging the way.

Their clan was all gathered, dressed in their own finery, to witness this moment. Mirrors were set up all around the room, the same way they had done for Meira’s wedding to King Gorgon, when Angelika had still been hiding amongst the wolves. Ages ago, it felt like now.

No more secrets. No more appointed kings. Everything done in the open.

Using the power Meira had given her, Angelika ignited her flames, no doubt making her dress appear even more remarkable. The reflections in those mirrors changed to show the other clans there to witness as well. At the front of the mirrors from the kings’ seats in the mountains of Ben Nevis, Store Skagastølstind, and Ararat stood her sisters and their mates—strong, steady, and smiling at her.

In Meira’s arms lay sleeping a healthy baby boy with a shock of black hair poking out above his baby blanket. Kasia, meanwhile, wasn’t yet showing her own pregnancy, though Brand’s protective hand around her was a dead giveaway. Behind Ladon, Arden stood with Reid, now mated and glowing with happiness. Skylar, holding on to her mate with one hand, shot Angelika a thumbs-up with the other. The rest of the mirrors showed other locations. The Enforcers and Alliances from each of the colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Australia. The wolves. The gargoyles. The witches. As usual, they hadn’t been able to track down any hellhounds, though hopefully none of their loved ones remained in that form.

The ceremony was quick—also at Airk’s insistence—and before she knew it, he turned to thundering applause, the newly appointed King of the White Clan. The last of the six rulers to be crowned.

Angelika breathed in both relief and pride. Their people were whole again.

Except, instead of turning to offer her his arm as they’d rehearsed, Airk raised a hand, and silence descended. “As the dragon shifter king mated to a phoenix,” he boomed out for all to hear, “it is technically my right to also take my place as High King on this day.”

Angelika clasped her hands before her, trying not to shift self-consciously at all the stares coming her way. They’d discussed this. Airk had decided to give up that right and make all the kings into a mutual council instead. The others had agreed.

How would their people take it, though?

“However, I believe that these past five hundred years have shown us how power lying with one man can be a dangerous thing. An addiction, even.”

A low murmur swept through the room.

Airk raised his hand again for silence. “I have conferred with all the other rulers, and we have agreed on two things.”

Two? This is new.Angelika tried not to frown.

At Airk’s nod, the five rulers of the other clans, with their mates at their sides—those that had mates, anyway, including her sisters—stepped through the mirrors into the throne room in Kamen with them. “The six rulers will form a council that confers and determines all laws together.”

Those rulers stepped up onto the dais with Airk, turning to face their people as a unit.

Angelika smiled. This was right.

“And…” Airk continued. “The first act of this council is to crown our phoenix, Angelika Amon-Azdajah, as High Queen.”

A loud buzzing hit her ears about then. Or maybe it was more that all rooms were buzzing with murmurings and her ears had muffled the sound because of the shock running through her system.

She even shook her head as Airk looked back at her. She hadn’t asked for this.

“Our old system did not work,” he continued, turning to smile at her. Speaking to her as much as to their people. “I think we all agree on that. Time for a new way. Our High Queen will not make decisions alone. All things will happen through her council of rulers. But she will be the constant. The northern star.”

He turned, backing down the few steps of the dais to the floor, then dropped to one knee, head bowed. Each of the other kings and queens turned and did the same, forming a line before her, their allegiance palpable. Not a smidge of hesitation in a single one.

After a small pause, in silence, every other dragon shifter she could see rose from their seats, then kneeled in a wave of submission.

To me. Gods give me strength.

“I love you.”Airk’s words reached her through their connection, almost as though he’d heard her silent plea. So did his strength and his certainty that this was right. “You can do this.”

Still she hesitated.

“You were born to do this, my love.”The surety in his voice, in the frost-colored eyes he lifted to her face, melted away her qualms.

Angelika pulled her shoulders back, lifting her head high, looking out over her people as her mate’s love and support washed over her. She looked at each of her sisters, happy and safe and empowered. She looked at her sisters’ mates, good men each one.

Her mother and father would be proud and happy…and relieved. They were watching over them from the heavens. Angelika knew that. Knew that all her phoenix ancestors were there, too.

Angelika sent up a new plea to them—grant me wisdom, strength, courage, and kindness to be the ruler our people need.

The finest attributes of the four women Serefina Hanyu Amon and Zilant Amon had brought into this world.

At the slightest bow of her head, accepting the honor they were asking of her, Airk rose and approached, pulling out a delicate silver diadem from the inner pocket of his jacket. The delicate swirls of metal formed tiny little feathers and flames.

He placed it on her head, then backed up a step and bowed again, from the waist. “Gods bless our High Queen.”

As one, their people rose to their feet, shouting that phrase three more times. But Angelika hardly heard them, breaking what she was sure was some sort of protocol and going up on tiptoe to kiss her mate in full view of the gods, her sisters, the kings and queens, and everyone.

“If you thought I was bossy before…” she whispered against Airk’s lips.

“Maybe I should have said gods save the king,” he whispered back with a chuckle and went right on kissing her.

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