The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Six

Pytheios strode at a clip his previously rotting body had not allowed. The oldest of all living dragons, his body had been deteriorating until his recent mating to Tisiphone—with the help of his witch. Perhaps he should have mated and extended his life sooner. The freedom of simple movement filled him with relish, the power coursing through his veins unstoppable. Soon he’d live forever. Though, right now, that pleasure was eclipsed by a fury he planned to take out on the traitors in his mountain.

His money was gone. All of it.

Disappeared into thin fucking air. He’d been so smart, hiding it within human banking systems behind smoke screens of human conglomerates and companies. But someone had found his secret accounts and emptied them.

He needed to take those fucking phoenixes out before he couldn’t afford this war any longer.

But first, he had to deal with a traitor.

With purpose in his stride, he made his way through one of the more populated centers of Everest, nodding at his people, who bowed and scraped as he went.

The mountain commons were unique to his mountain. The early designers had deliberately brought nature inside. Everest, usually ice and snow and cold on the outside, could have been so inside as well. But once the early dragons figured out how to bring sunlight and air to the interior and warm it, they’d constructed a flourishing garden in the center of the massive mountain.

Green rolling hills were dotted with lush trees with pops of color thanks to beds of flowers. The landscape spread up the sides of the cave walls, like a valley. They’d even designed it to rain. The mountain was eternally spring with a stone ceiling for the sky, illuminated by strips of lighting that reflected the daylight outside. This was usually a place of peace inside Everest—one where his people came together. But with a single order, Pytheios was about to turn a corner of this untouchable land into a warning to all.

He nodded at the two guards standing shoulder to shoulder, keeping the gathering crowd at bay, and the rumble of angry voices dimmed as they realized who was in their midst.

Pytheios knew exactly who waited behind the guards. He’d left the fucker here for several days, both as part of the warning and because in his own initial anger he would have killed the man too quickly. He needed information. After that, the traitor could suffer.

One of the guards stepped aside, almost like a living door swinging open, and Pytheios’s gaze landed on the captive chained to a chair. Not any chair. Humans were rarely good for anything, but during the years of their so-called Middle Ages, they’d shown some imagination when it came to torture. This particular device he’d had modeled after one of those.

Made of dragonsteel, it included a stiff seat with the back that didn’t come up to the captive’s neck. Spikes were placed to stick onto the flesh along the spine, at the back of the knees, and along the undersides of the arms.

The mistaken soul who deserved this punishment was chained—naked, of course—not only by wrists and ankles. A collar had been locked around his neck, and another larger one around his middle. If Jakkobah dared to shift forms, the dragonsteel metal wouldn’t break. Instead, it would decapitate him, as well as slicing the man in half and severing his hands and feet.

Blood dripped over the edges of the chair’s arms and seat, pooling in the lush green grass beneath. His pale red hair, typically pulled back in a neat ponytail, hung around his face in greasy strands, and his previously perfectly manicured nails were missing entirely, only bloody, raw sockets where they had been until recently. Jakkobah’s head lolled forward, hanging between his shoulders limply, as though he were either asleep or could no longer hold it up. But his heartbeat told Pytheios the man was awake.

“Look at me,” Pytheios commanded quietly.

Jakkobah slowly lifted his head. For once, his pale eyes didn’t seem to take in the room or even Pytheios himself. Almost as though he was no longer aware of what was being done to him.

Perhaps I have left him too long.

Pytheios waited.

As he did, he allowed his gaze to skate over the liar he had considered his most loyal advisor until a few days ago. Bony to the point of being emaciated, the man was all angles. Unusually pale for a dragon shifter, Jakkobah’s only nod to the fact that he came from the Red Clan was his hair, technically red but really more orange. Even his eyes were milky imitations of what they should be.

I should have known the man they call the Stoat was not to be trusted.

Everyone knew weasels were liars. Thieves, all of them. Jakkobah had proved this truth when he’d stolen from Pytheios. Stolen his secrets and his trust. Caught passing information to Ladon Ormarr. This man had taken from Pytheios more than anyone except Serefina Amon and now her fucking phoenix daughters.

“Ah.” Jakkobah blinked and seemed to return to the here and now, his gaze suddenly sharpening, focusing on Pytheios. “Our ever benevolent, ever wise, ever true High King,” he croaked in that nasal voice that had always been an irritant to Pytheios.

“Take his head!” someone from the crowd held at bay by the guards shouted.

Loyal dogs. Pytheios allowed himself a satisfied smile. “More true, it seems, than you.”

“You lost your way long ago,” Jakkobah stated, almost unhurried.

All reports indicated he’d taken his punishment thus far with not a word or sound. Not for much longer, though. Usually, this man loved to play to the crowd, but he wasn’t doing so now, only addressing Pytheios. Perhaps the urge for those mind games had been beaten out of him.

Good.

“My loyalty is to dragon shifters,” Jakkobah said. “You’ll ruin us all if left to rule.”

Pytheios examined the backs of his hands. He found himself looking at his unmarred, youthful hands often lately. So strange to look down and see young skin rather than age spots, gaping sores, and the flesh falling away from his bones.

He fisted his hands, reveling in the energy, the capability, then bent a bored look on Jakkobah. “Before we get started…a small demonstration.”

A nod over his shoulder, and two of his men escorted Nathair up to where they stood together.

His younger brother—a late-in-life oops on his parents’ part—did not meet his eyes. Not from guilt. Nathair had difficulty looking anyone in the eyes, a condition of his brilliant mind. His dark hair flopped over his forehead and into his eyes, and despite the hold the two guards had on his elbows, his brother’s fingers moved in midair in unison, as though he still held the cube toy puzzle that usually kept his mind from overwhelming him with information.

A toy that had disappeared the same day Airk Azdajah and Skylar Amon had escaped Everest.

Turning to the crowd, Pytheios shared a little story…

“When Skylar Amon escaped, at first I assumed she’d had help or somehow had a power that aided her.” After all, he’d figured out centuries ago how to contain Airk. “But then my own brother’s behavior drew suspicion.”

Nathair’s fingers didn’t pause in their movement over an invisible cube he no longer held. If anything, they sped up in a sign of agitation.

“After reviewing footage of the cameras in the room, I now have proof that Nathair Chandali is directly responsible for her escape.”

And Airk’s. But that wasn’t for his people to know.

“You wouldn’t dare execute your own brother,” Jakkobah sneered behind him. “His mind is too valuable to you.”

True. But then again, he could no longer trust that mind to work for his good. Jakkobah’s betrayal, while a surprise, hadn’t hurt, only enraged. But his own brother…

Even now, the razor’s lance of pain ate at him.

Pytheios slowly turned to face the Stoat, cocking his head in curiosity. At the same time, the guards backed away from his brother on cue. “All traitors are subject to judgment,” he said to Jakkobah.

Before anyone could so much as take a breath, Pytheios shifted a single part of his body. His dragon’s tail whipped out and slammed down on his brother, the mace-like spike driving through bone and flesh with a slurping crunch and a finality no one could deny.

In fact, Pytheios had to shake the corpse off himself before reversing the shift and tucking the tail away.

Jakkobah’s pale skin turned a sickly green as he stared at Nathair’s pulverized body, horror more than evident in his usually blank gaze.

“If you tell me what I need to know,” Pytheios said, not even bothering to glance over as the guards dragged his brother’s body away—Nathair was nothing to him now. “I will make your death as quick. But if not…” He shrugged.

Jakkobah’s horror remained etched in his eyes as he turned them away from the bloody trail the body left behind. “You are so hungry for power, you’d murder your own kin—”

“I judged a traitor. And my rule is not about my power. It never was.”

Jakkobah shook his head, unbelieving.

Pytheios stepped closer, lowering his voice. “I am the only one ensuring that we don’t have to rely on mating some flaming bird to move forward as a species.”

The Stoat scoffed, though the noise brought on a fit of coughing. “By creating a false phoenix and mating her instead?”

At the murmur from those nearest them in the crowd, Jakkobah came as close to a smirk as anything. “Will you tell that to all of our kind after you take out the Amon sisters the same way you did your own brother?”

“A desperate man spreading lies,” Pytheios dismissed with a wave. And silence descended behind him.

What his witch had done…Tisiphone was no longer false. Created, not birthed, she wielded the powers many phoenixes before her had. A weapon he intended to unleash at the right moment. He didn’t need to explain his actions to this man, this betrayer who clearly could not see the future Pytheios pictured. “Now…what did you tell that bastard on the blue throne?”

Jakkobah’s mouth thinned. Weaselly fucker.

Nothing from his former advisor, despite the continued green cast to his pallor. Still…the man had never been privy, until this moment, to the way Pytheios interrogated traitors.

Anticipation welled inside him, fizzing in his blood. He’d make this pale excuse for a dragon shifter break. And he’d enjoy doing so.

…

“What the fuck, Angelika?” Airk said, sounding more like Brand suddenly. Coldly in control as always, but his anger—the first time she’d witnessed that strong of an emotion from him—edged his reaction like embers eating away at a forest floor during a controlled burn.

She held up her hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Hear me out.”

“Nothing you can say could possibly make this right.” He didn’t move closer as he stared at her. “Have you taken leave of your wits?”

Oh, hells no.That question was always a sore spot for her. Forget convincing him. She dropped her hands, eyes narrowed. “No more than you,” she snapped.

He straightened at that, holding himself almost painfully stiff. “You think me a fool?”

So that was his Achilles’ heel? Others thinking that his long imprisonment had broken his mind?

“No more than I,” she said. And maybe the adamant tone in her voice convinced him, because his stance eased marginally.

“I can help you here,” she insisted.

There went any give in him. “I cannot do what I need to if I am worrying about you.”

“I can handle myself. My mother trained us all to fight.” She drew her gun from her holster, careful to keep her finger off the trigger and aiming at the floor as she showed him the weapon. “I’m not defenseless.”

He passed a hand over his face. “Go back to your sisters, Angelika. Pytheios is after you.”

“This is the last place he’d look.”

“You only put both of us in more danger being here.”

She crossed her arms. “People like me.”

He snorted. “What does that indicate? That they would hesitate to kill you because you make them smile?”

She cocked her head, sizing him up. “Do I make you smile?”

“Do not change the subject.”

“I’m not.” She was perfectly solemn, eager, even. “I meant it. If I can make you smile, feel a pleasant emotion, even if only every once in a while, then I can definitely convince others to join us. Or, at the very least, keep them from killing us first and asking questions later.”

“They are going to take one whiff of you and assume you are—”

“Not a phoenix,” she broke in. “Exactly.” She couldn’t help herself, adding a teasing, “Although if we want to fool them into thinking I’m a dragon, it might be best if you rub up against me.”

Yes, she was in the midst of trying to convince him to let her try this. Despite that, her lips twitched at his sour expression, and at the same time her body tightened at the mere thought, blood heating. What an inconvenient moment for awareness to strike like a hot poker.

He crossed his arms. “I am not here to negotiate,” he said, expression going flat. “I am here to kill.”

Angelika’s jaw dropped. Killing people was not part of her plan. “Since when? Meira would have said—”

“Samael didn’t want to burden her with another worry.”

Oh dear. No doubt her brother-by-blood would be informing her sister now. Angelika almost snorted a laugh at the mental image that made. Not that she wasn’t taking this seriously, but Meira would be furious, and at the same time, she’d kept Angelika’s role a secret as well.

Stop. Focus on the man in front of you.

Angelika quickly flipped through and discarded myriad options. Actually, this didn’t change things. Not really. “So, we both do this a little differently.”

“No. You go back, and I kill my mark.”

Stubborn, intractable jackass. He wasn’t the only bloodthirsty one in this fight, dammit.

Without thinking about it, she stepped into his space, because this had to work. “My way is better. Let me convince you—”

Airk went even colder and slowly stepped away from her. “Angelika.”

Uh-oh. The growling of her name was a bad sign. “Don’t you see? We start with me trying to convince people to join us.” She knew she could. She’d always been blessed with that knack. “If that doesn’t work, you do your…killing thing…then we leave.”

Yes, she was simplifying, but still.

A dangerous glint entered his eyes, one that would’ve had her backing up if she wasn’t so damn determined. This was the only way she could think of to stay in the conflict in some small way.

“Go back,” he demanded.

“No.”

“If I must drag you through that mirror myself—”

“I know I can do this. Just give me a chance—”

In a blink, Airk shot out an arm, hand over her mouth. With no regard for handling her roughly, he dragged her backward down a short, unlit hallway and into a room, plunging them into darkness.

“Be quiet,” he hissed in her ear.

No shit.

She kept the thought to herself and at the same time did her best not to shiver in stark response to suddenly being plastered against Airk’s body. When he’d arrived in Ben Nevis, he’d been gaunt. But he’d filled out since, replacing those bones and hard angles with a wall of muscle. Her body wanted him. The sensation was turning into an unbearable need inside her.

Hells, he smelled incredible. Like good bourbon, tart fruit, and the underlying smoke of a dragon.

But he’d been clear. He didn’t want her. So she did her best to pretend her own reaction wasn’t a thing, focusing on why he’d hidden them back here.

The sound of the sliding glass door leading from the dragon perch outside into the suite stole her breath. She had to consciously slow her heartbeat, in case the person entering heard her.

Hopefully, he didn’t smell them, even though she and Airk had just been standing by that door.

She almost expected the boom of a giant’s footfall and a deep, “Fee. Fie. Foe. Fum,” like in the childhood stories that became popular some two hundred years after her birth.

Airk, meanwhile, was a statue behind her, so still she would’ve wondered if he still lived if his breath wasn’t lightly feathering over the back of her neck. Right over the spot where, if she mated successfully with a dragon shifter, his family mark would appear. With a hand locked to her mouth and another arm locked around her stomach, she could practically feel his intensity seeping into her muscles through his touch.

Footsteps padded in the opposite direction from their hiding place, followed by the sound of running water—the shower.

Airk blew out a breath and released her, turning her to face him at the same time. “Stay here.” He whispered the words, and in the dim light, she had to focus on his lips to make them out.

“Let me speak with him first.”

“You risk too much. It’s reckless.”

She plopped her hands on her hips. “All right, John Wilkes Booth, what was your plan?”

“Who?”

“An assassin from American history—” Why was she explaining? “Never mind.” She waved for him to go on.

“I attack now, while he is most vulnerable. That was always the plan.”

She stared at him hard. There had to be more that he simply wasn’t sharing with her, because that plan sucked. “And you call me witless?”

“I said reckless—”

“Let’s not go down that road again.”

She glowered at him, and he stared back, unmoved.

But she held out. Long enough that his lip suddenly curled. “You are not going to leave, are you?”

A small twinge of guilt pricked under her skin. “Actually, I can’t. Not until your prearranged time with Meira.” She frowned suddenly, as the timing struck her as off. “Wait. Why do you need a week here if you planned to kill him immediately?”

“He is not the only one on my list.” His expression didn’t change by one twitch, and Angelika had to suppress a shiver.

She closed her eyes, visions of what she could achieve slipping away in the face of his intractable determination. “Fine. I’ll stay here while you go do whatever you have to do.”

His dark brows lowered in a deep frown as she opened her eyes again, but she was through pushing.

Airk’s lips pinched. “Follow me.”

With that, he turned and walked out of the room, down the hall, and paused in the common room. “Stay here,” he whispered. “Faster escape when I’m done.”

She nodded.

Then watched him disappear down the hall that led in the opposite direction they’d come from. Angelika turned away, hoping not to hear the killing. Gods, what a mess.

Instead, she tried to distract herself, focusing on the paintings hung up in here. As she turned toward the back wall, a small movement caught her eye, and she turned, only to stumble to a halt in front of a tall man, one too lean, as though he didn’t eat enough, his bronzed skin stretched over bone rather than muscle. Unusual for a white dragon, his hair was inky black. But the feature she focused on most was his eyes, filled with white fire.

“I thought I scented something sweet on my perch,” he snarled.

Angelika didn’t dare glance away to see where Airk was. This man clearly sensed them, but at the moment he didn’t seem to realize she wasn’t alone.

Brazening it out, she offered her sweetest smile. “My name is Angel, and I was hoping for a moment of your time.”

“A moment of my time?” he repeated, flames in his eyes setting an eerie glow flickering across his features.

Older. Her parents’ contemporary, had they lived this long, though with dragons and the way they aged, she often found it difficult to tell. Still, if he was the age she guessed, had this man been around when her father was killed and her mother ran? Was that why he was on Airk’s list?

Damn. I really messed things up.

“For what, may I ask?” he prompted when she didn’t speak.

The polite words didn’t dispel the look of certain death in his eyes, but she refused to back down. Instead, she took a huge risk and a leap of faith that her guess was right. “Actually, my name is”—Airk was surely going to kill her for this—“Angelika Amon.”

The man’s head snapped back like she’d socked him in the jaw with a well-placed uppercut.

She kept going. “I am the daughter of Zilant Amon and Serefina Hanyu Amon. I am assuming by your reaction that you knew my father?”

Flames were doused, leaving his gaze smoldering in wisps of smoke. “Gods above,” he rasped, voice cracked like burned wood. “You are the spitting image of your father.”

Then his gaze skittered around the room as though searching for something. Airk or the ghosts of his past? Angelika dared to glance over her shoulder. No Airk. Where was he?

Please don’t already be dead.What if this man had killed him before coming out to her?

Swallowing and trying to keep her heart from pounding, she turned back. “I am not here to harm you.”

Whoops. Okay, so that was a semi-lie, because while she might not be there to slit his throat, Airk was, assuming he was still alive. Angelika hid a cringe. Not the best way to start negotiations.

“Then why are you here? To curse me? To—”

“I’m here to ask you to pledge your allegiance to me and my sisters.” Technically, she should be asking for his allegiance to the kings, but the few white dragons who’d switched sides had done so for Skylar, and more had come later, following the way Maul had died and the revelations about who she and her sisters were had come out. Maybe they had a better chance getting these stubborn shifters to go against their clans if their change of heart wasn’t for another clan but for a phoenix. Or four.

Well…three, technically.

The man—she really should learn his name—sort of stumbled backward until his ass landed on the couch. Elbows to his knees, he ran his hands through his hair in a distracted manner, gaze aimed somewhere at her feet, not really seeing anything she suspected. “I knew this day would come,” he mumbled.

He had? Angelika said nothing, but she took another risk. Sorry, Airk. She cast the thought behind her in the dark of the hall where she hoped like hells he lurked.

Angelika crossed the room to the man who she could only describe as weighed down with a terrible burden, his shoulders stooped with the effort to bear it, head bowed. She sat beside him and took one of his hands in hers, noting how his bones felt frailer than he looked, like holding a bird.

At her touch, he lifted his head to stare at her. “Whatever your sins,” she urged, “it’s not too late for redemption.”

Again, she was merely guessing at the reasons for his reaction.

“You are asking me to go against my king. Go rogue.”

She shook her head. “Pick one of my sister’s kings, and you will not be rogue. The white dragons who have joined us carry their brands instead.”

He swallowed, the loose skin at his neck working with the action. “Then you are asking me to declare war within my own mountain. Setting brother against brother.”

“I am asking you, as the daughter of the man who would still be your king if Pytheios hadn’t murdered him, to take the stand you should have all those centuries ago. Here and now. Let the others follow as they will. Or we can get you out if we have to.”

Even though she knew they were running out of room in the three mountains they had. Pytheios had taken all the other mountains of the Blue, Black, and Gold Clans, leaving each clan with only one.

He stared, gaze fathomless. Was she getting through?

“Only half will come with me,” he said. “The others, I can tell you, will remain loyal to whoever takes the white throne now that Volos is gone.”

Volos, the puppet king Pytheios had placed on the throne after her father’s death, had disappeared weeks ago without word or contact since. All assumed he was dead.

“Volos was unmated and without child. Wouldn’t his Beta take the throne?”

A nod and held a hand up to show the king’s symbol on his hand was still that of Volos’s house. “Mös’s name has been put forward. We are waiting on approval from the High King and his…phoenix.”

Angelika frowned at the way he’d paused.

Tisiphone. That’s who he was talking about.

Angelika and her sisters had had no idea of another phoenix in existence or their mother having any other offspring ever. Their father died while they were still in the womb. And yet Pytheios had apparently successfully mated a woman who showed every sign of being exactly what he claimed, flaming marks of feathered wings and all.

“She is not a phoenix,” the man whose hand she still held said heavily. Then ran his free hand through his hair. “I don’t think.”

Angelika suddenly realized why Airk did that stonelike-impersonation-of-a-gargoyle thing instead of reacting. Because if she even breathed, she would show the shock ping-ponging around her insides, and that might influence the man’s own reaction.

“What do you mean?” she asked slowly.

He straightened, looking her directly in the eyes. “Pytheios’s new mate is the spitting image of a young woman I know well. One brought up here. Her name is also Tisiphone, but she wasn’t a phoenix. She is…was…a female-born dragon shifter.”

Another bolt of shock ricocheted through her even harder, and she clasped his hand in an attempt to keep hers from noticeably shaking. How was that even possible?

“You lie,” a low, soft voice snarled from the darkness. Twin flames of white appeared in the dim hallway, lighting only Airk’s face, the angles of his cheekbones suddenly taking on a demonic bent.

Granted, most demons didn’t glow, but she’d heard of their uncommon beauty. Made more so because of that whiff of death that surrounded them. She hadn’t understood the appeal until right this second. Airk was…breathtaking.

What a word, and what a moment to think it.

The man beside her on the couch stiffened, his hand gripping hers with a sudden ferocity of tension, but he didn’t speak. Not at first. Instead, he stared, as though trying to make sense of the man standing before him.

“Georgei?” he whispered.

The quaver to his voice spoke volumes to Angelika. Was the old man seeing Airk’s father in the younger version before him?

Airk stepped farther into the room. Prowled, more like, with the indolent, contained grace of a jaguar, pale gaze intent on his prey. Where had he learned to move like that when he’d been kept for so long in such small confinement?

And why did she want to wrap her arms around him right now?

“No,” he said. The word soft, contained. “Not Georgei.”

This wasn’t going well. Angelika summoned her courage and a pleasant smile, waving a hand in Airk’s direction. “May I introduce Airk Azdajah.”

“Do you not remember me, Belyy?” Airk asked, still quietly, before the man could speak. “You used to bring me exotic fruit from your travels to the other clans.”

Angelika winced at the stranglehold the older man now had on her hand, even as she noted his name.

“Dragon fruit was your favorite,” Belyy whispered. “Airk? Seven hells, the rumors were true for once.”

Airk remained unmoved. How did he contain his emotions that way? It couldn’t be healthy.

Angelika squeezed Belyy’s hand, pulling his focus to her. “Airk was imprisoned by Pytheios all this time,” she explained. “I won’t lie. Unlike me, he is here for vengeance while helping our cause.”

Belyy cast a quick, cautious look in Airk’s direction and swallowed hard at the immovable wall of dragon shifter watching him. “If you are trying to gain allies, bringing him is perhaps not the best move.”

“Proof of what the High King has done to this clan? A man who is still one of you—still a dragon of the White Clan?” She left out the not-shifting part. “A man who, other than myself and my sisters, holds the most legitimate claim to the throne?”

“You are mated?” Belyy asked, glancing between them as though that changed the situation. Which it would.

Tempting to toss an “I told you so” look in Airk’s direction. She resisted.

“We are not mated,” Airk stated categorically.

Belyy frowned, but Angelika bent a warning look on the mass of tightly leashed fury standing across the room. So self-contained it hurt her to witness.

Give me a chance, she urged him silently.

A hiss of frustration ripped from his throat.

She turned to a confused and frowning Belyy. “I posed the idea. He turned me down. I believe honor had something to do with it.”

See?she was trying to say to both of them. A man of honor would give you a second chance.

“We are not discussing this,” Airk snapped.

Apparently Airk wasn’t listening to her underlying message. And she was only making the alpha-male vibes radiating through the room worse. Best to return to the topic at hand. “Airk is here to kill you, but if you swear allegiance to me and my sisters, fight for us, and bring those you can to our side, he will not.”

“Angelika.” The sound of her voice couched in a deadly growl lifted the hairs on the nape of her neck. Not in fright, but full-on and sudden throbbing need. If he did that when they made love…

Holy hells.

She tried her damnedest to shake it off and shot him a glare. “You will not harm him if he does. He is too valuable to us as an ally.”

“A man who let his king and his Beta and their mates die?”

Belyy appeared to shrink in on himself with each word emotionlessly hurled at him. But Airk did not let up. “You stood by and watched your friends be murdered at the hands of that usurper.”

“I witnessed nothing. None of us were there. Only rumors and lies reached me. Then I was removed from the Curia Regis.”

Airk kept talking as though Belyy hadn’t spoken. “Murdered by a man who then turned around and placed kings loyal to him on every throne—”

“Pytheios was High King—”

“Without a phoenix?” Angelika pressed, though gently.

The older man flicked his gaze to her. “Not a day—not one—goes by that I do not regret.”

“You owe my father more than regret.” Airk’s hand moved to the hilt of the dagger still sheathed at his side. “You owe your king, her father, much more.”

Belyy released his hold on her hand and rose to his feet, slowly so as not to trigger Airk’s predatory instincts. “You ask me to choose between two different deaths.”

“Exactly. How would we ever trust you?” Airk asked.

Angelika frowned as she stared at him, trying to see beneath the surface control. How was he still so bloody cold in the midst of this moment? Not a twist of a lip or a tweak of emotion, save the flames in his eyes.

“If he changes allegiances and means it, his king’s mark will change,” Angelika pointed out, well aware that the hope in her heart was shining through her voice. They needed this—more allies—and she needed to prove her worth.

“He carried Zilant Amon’s mark right up until the moment your father was slain.” His hand fisted around the dagger, though it remained sheathed.

“If that is the measure of loyalty,” Belyy said, “then no dragon shifter in all the world is innocent. We all allowed this to happen.”

“Except me.” Airk went even quieter.

Because he’d been a boy, and the only reason he hadn’t been killed immediately was a prophecy made that very day. That any man who killed Airk or gave the order for his death would not be long for this world. Pytheios had been too afraid to kill him outright. And that had turned Airk into the man he was, standing before them now.

What else might convince him to let go of his hate?

Angelika was wincing at what she was about to do before she did it. She got to her feet and moved to stand directly before Airk. Not touching, but close enough to absorb the heat of his skin through his clothes and hers. “We find us a witch or warlock who can perform an oath spell.”

She ignored the sharp intake of breath behind her, focused on convincing the man in front of her.

A ripple of emotion that might even be called a sneer flickered over his features. “I do not want his soul bound to mine.”

“Fine. Then he makes the oath to me.” After all, Airk wasn’t the only one expendable around here.

Airk finally jerked his gaze from over her shoulder to her face, eyes flaring with something that looked suspiciously like possessiveness. But she had to be mistaken.

“No.”

Without thought, because she was a toucher, she laid her hand on his arm. “I’m well aware of the dangers.”

Airk’s gaze managed to both soften and harden at the same time. “How could you possibly be? Have you ever had that spell performed on you?”

“No, but I know that the magic is unpredictable. No one ever quite knows how the oath will be upheld.”

“It could harm you as easily as it could harm him should it be broken.”

“It’s worth the risk. This mountain could be strategic. Turning more dragons against Pytheios could be even more so. We have to try.”

“I’ll take the oath,” Belyy offered from behind her. “Whatever it takes to right my wrongs. I’ll do it.”

Airk searched her gaze.

“Will you trust him otherwise?” she demanded.

He struggled with the question but finally gave a tiny growl. “No.”

She nodded.

Airk looked over her head at Belyy. “Both of us. If you break it and the oath doesn’t kill you, I will.”