The Cursed King by Abigail Owen

Chapter Seven

Airk sat, arms crossed and feet stuck out in front of him, in the wing-backed chair in the living area with a view of both exits to the suite. Belyy had gone back to his hidden mistress to sleep, leaving him alone with temptation. Angelika, of course, had refused to go into one of the guest bedrooms to rest, lying down instead on the couch. Also directly in view.

In less than an hour, the stubborn woman had commandeered his assassination and done what he couldn’t in the three other visits he’d paid to various white dragons: brought someone over to their side.

He’d seen the interest alight in Belyy’s eyes at the idea of their mating, and even in the midst of trying to decide whether or not to go ahead with his plan to kill the man or wait and see if Angelika’s way worked out, for a heartbeat, Airk had considered reopening that discussion.

Would white dragons be more inclined to follow them as a mated pair? The son and daughter of the two most powerful men in the clan before Pytheios’s reign? Of her sisters, Angelika looked most like a white dragon, too.

He dragged a hand over his face. Of course he wasn’t seriously reconsidering. Her presence tested his control to the edges of his limits. Dangerous didn’t begin to cover it. Why had he even hesitated?

You know why, a small inner voice piped up.

He cast his gaze over her features, so innocently breathtaking in repose—crystal clear gaze hidden from him, her dark lashes fanned out over flushed cheeks, pretty bow of a mouth pink and slightly open.

Wanting her was never the problem…or was the heart of the problem, if he was honest.

Even without the striking white-blond hair and the angelic face that made her name more than appropriate, she was…magnetic. Almost as though the darkness inside him was curious about the light inside her. But his turgid cock was no reason to deliberately put her in danger. Neither was her smile. And his darkness was enough reason to stay away.

“I can practically hear you overthinking,” Angelika mumbled without opening her eyes.

“I am merely keeping watch.”

She lifted her head at that, glacial eyes sparkling at him, daring him to loosen up, at least when it was just the two of them. “You’re trying to figure out how to get rid of me. Am I right?”

He refused to give her the satisfaction, not moving by so much as a twitch or a blink.

“See!” She laughed. “I am right.”

“You are in danger—”

She scowled suddenly, the expression adorable the same way a baby snow leopard pouncing on its mother was, and he found himself in the unaccustomed position of having to stow away a chuckle.

Gods, she was getting to him.

“I’m in danger anywhere I go,” she insisted. “A fact that has been true my entire life.”

“Meira’s gargoyles—”

She hopped up and padded across the room in bare feet, a fact he found eminently distracting. Toes should not be that sweet. Then she dropped suddenly to kneel between his outstretched feet, and the position that put her in—the proximity to a certain member of his anatomy already half-hard thanks to her presence—had him sitting carefully forward to wrap his hands around her arms. “Get up.”

She shook her head, stubborn chin in prominent evidence. “Even with the gargoyles, I’m not fully safe. I would feel dreadful if something happened to them because someone found me there.”

Unable to dislodge her without giving away what she was doing to him, Airk gentled his hold on her arms, though he didn’t let go. “Why me?”

“Well—”

“Let me rephrase.” He didn’t need a rehash of that. If she told him she wanted him again, he’d bend her over the couch arm and bury his pulsing cock in her in a heartbeat. Couldn’t have that. “I mean why did you pick me as the person to keep you safe?”

“Oh. Because…” She bit her lip, even, white teeth digging into the plump, pink flesh, and his dick jumped.

Fucking hells. The worst of it was, she was clearly unconscious of the effect she was having on him.

Her lips twisted as she glanced away. “You call yourself expendable,” she said and looked back up, gaze assessing. “I disagree, but that’s beside the point. I know you can handle yourself. So I feel less…guilty, I guess?…because you’re already being hunted, same as me, and already putting yourself in the position we’re in. So by coming with you, I’m not putting you more at risk.”

There went that soft heart of hers again. Compelling him to go along.

“I can do something good, Airk. I know it.”

Look at what she’s already accomplished tonight.

Airk kept the thought to himself, staring at her.

“I need to be part of this, even if it’s only in some small peripheral way.”

“As if you could ever fade into the periphery,” he muttered.

Angelika perked up, the innocent joy in her expression lighting her up like the heavenly creatures her name evoked. “Really?”

Damn, he shouldn’t have said that. It would only encourage her. He opened his mouth to take it back, but she held up a hand, stopping him. “Forget the mating thing—”

No.The knee-jerk reaction was near violent.

Oblivious, she continued. “I think as just partners approaching them together, we could coax more white dragons to follow us—”

“They will abandon us the second they discover our—”

She flinched as though anticipating the verbal assault. And maybe that’s how the word dormant felt to her. Broken, twisted, rogue—all those words were an assault to him. He understood. Maybe more than anyone else.

“Limitations,” he finally said.

The way her shoulders dropped, tension easing from her, a tiny warm glow lit inside him that he’d at least navigated that quagmire without hurting her. Even so, he had to tell himself that it was not making her feel accepted that caused that warmth inside him.

“So we are upfront with them about those limitations from the beginning. We tell Belyy in the morning. But I still say we are more powerful as a team. Apart we are…limited…as you say. I think your previous lack of success wasn’t just about you. Together, we become harder to ignore.”

Why was she starting to sound more and more reasonable? Only now all this talk of doing things together just made him think about doing…other things. Carnal things. His dragon pressed outward, as though reaching for her. So did his cock.

Chemistry, she’d called this thing between them.

Technically, he knew the word, but in relation to a man and a woman, he would have used something else.

Combustion, maybe. Folly, most assuredly.

What would she do if he released his cock and threaded his hands in her hair, urging those lips around him? What would it feel like? What noises of pleasure would she make? Anything like the ones when they’d kissed, and he might unravel. He had a damn good imagination, but he suspected it didn’t come near the reality.

He released her and gripped the arms of the chair to stop from doing exactly that and finding out. “We will do this your way. We will work together. Target leaders within the White Clan, and either you convince them to join, or I kill them.”

Angelika breathed a visible sigh of relief. “It’s a deal.”

The problem was, he wanted to please her. He wanted to do the things she asked. And giving in on this…gods, he wanted to give in on the rest, too. “About the mating—”

“Hey. I did not bring that up.”

No. He was the one doing that. Which was why, instead of doing something stupid like putting that back on the table, he said, “There are others you could mate who might give you leverage or power.”

His dragon snarled a protest inside him, and his gut turned sour, twisting in on itself as she silently considered him.

“Jedd wanted to mate me,” she dropped between them.

The wolf shifter that trailed her everywhere? The one she’d been pretending to be mated to before her true identity had been made known?

That darkness inside Airk grew fangs.

“Why didn’t you?” he forced himself to ask. “You appeared to be quite…friendly.”

“Exactly,” she said. “Friends. But never more than that. Not for me. There’s no—”

“Chemistry?” The word sprang unbidden from his lips, and he wanted to swallow it whole the second it was out there between them.

Angelika stilled. “I was going to say mutuality. He sees me as his to protect, not to stand beside. But chemistry is also true. Even more so. It’s important.” Her gaze searched his. “Don’t you agree?”

…

Airk had asked, but Angelika knew she was pushing him too far. Could see it in the way he held himself so stiffly. The both of them had been forced into cages not of their own making all their lives. His with bars, hers with fear. Guilt swirled, eclipsing the want and even the reality of their situation. “We can talk about something else—”

Lips, warm and firm, pressed against hers, and every word she was going to say ignited like paper on fire, burning right out of her head.

This kiss was so different than the last. As though he savored every brush, every slide of their mouths. The cherry-and-bourbon scent of him all around her.

“Silk,” he murmured against her lips. “This is what I always imagined silk must feel like.”

What he’d imagined while alone and caged? Her heart crumpled. She swayed and surged up to her knees, chasing more, pressing into him.

He groaned, tongue darting out to slide against her lower lip as though tasting. Tentative at first, then with utter control.

Had he fantasized about this? Not about her, but still, she wanted to give him more…better than those wishes in the dark. With a needy noise she’d never heard from herself coming from the back of her throat, Angelika crawled up into his lap to straddle him.

She took his face in her hands and sank into him, absorbing everything about him. The strength that had taken him through those very long years, the patience and perseverance, but also the power underneath. Lying dormant inside him, held back. Her fingers somehow found his shirt, awkwardly tugging it from his combat pants—she’d never undressed a man before—until she reached skin.

His stomach jumped under her touch. And she stilled, lips pressed to his, and waited. Then he inhaled slowly, relaxing into her, and she trailed the tips of her fingers higher, savoring the feel of him, the warmth and hardness, pausing at the first raised ridge of scarring.

“What did they do to you?” she whispered.

He said nothing, and she pulled back enough to look him in the eye, searching his gaze. The hardness had softened, leaving only a tender sort of refusal to speak of it.

“That bad?” she whispered.

“That bad.”

Her heart ached for the boy he must have been and the man he was then. Not the man he was now. Except she wished with all that aching heart she could make it better for him. Make the bad memories disappear. Heal the scars so he didn’t have to be reminded.

“Don’t pity me.”

She smiled and raised her hand to the neck of his shirt. “Never that.” She pushed the material to the side, then bent over and placed a kiss to the scar across his collarbone, a small part of her amazed at her own daring.

“Seven hells,” he muttered. “You must be part witch.”

“Why is that?”

He traced the lines of her neck to thread his fingers into her hair. “Because you make me want things I should not.”

Then he took over, claiming her with kisses that went beyond carnal need to something deeper. Something that wrapped around her heart.

With a gasp, she pulled away, staring into his eyes, breasts heaving as she battled her own needs and what she knew was right. “Have you ever had a woman’s mouth on you?” she asked.

He stilled, his lips against the skin of her shoulder, and shook his head. The need to give him that, to gift him that experience, to be his first in that way, flash flooded through her, and she slipped from his lap, undoing his pants with frantic hands.

“You do not have to—”

But she already had her hand wrapped around his cock, and he groaned long and low as she squeezed. “Do you want me to stop?” she whispered, desperately hoping he didn’t say yes.

Airk shook his head, blazing eyes on her.

With a smile that felt all woman, satisfied and sexy and in charge, she leaned forward and wrapped her lips around the pulsing, hot tip.

A first for her, too. So this was what this felt like.

“Gods.” The harsh whisper tore through him, his hands tightening around her shoulders.

But he still didn’t stop her, and she smiled around him before drawing as much of him into her mouth as she could. Breathing in the warm, male scent of his skin, she kept her eyes on his harshly beautiful face as she slid up and down his shaft, squeezing the base with her hand as she did, trailing her tongue up and down the backside and swirling it around the hooded crown. When he started to pump his hips, she paused, offering him a siren’s smile when his head snapped up, then dragged the pointed tip of her tongue between his balls and up that straining, rigid cock.

She’d read that in a romance novel once, and damned if it didn’t work.

“Fuck,” he groaned.

Only to groan again as she wrapped her mouth back around him and went harder, deeper, sucking and licking and doing her best to drive his body to the brink, trying to read his reactions and repeat anything he liked.

His cock swelled inside her mouth, but Airk’s hands, still at her shoulders, suddenly forced her back, as though he didn’t want his essence inside her. Ignoring the sting of hurt at that, she fisted him his cock, pumping her hand until hot spurts shot from his body and his shout of release hit the roof, falling all around her.

As he shuddered, relaxing into her touch, she released him and, after he cleaned up quickly, crawled back into his lap, wrapping her arms around him, her chest expanding and contracting as his arms came around her as well. Satisfaction surged through her because, even as untutored as she was, she’d given him pleasure. His first like that.

Something for her to treasure in the secret recesses of her heart, no matter what happened next.

He let out an unsteady breath and tried to move her away. “I need you to—”

His face spasmed, and the telltale shimmer of a shift settled over him, multiple parts of his body showing white scales. He gritted his teeth, gaze suddenly faraway, or turned inwardly as he shut everything down to leash the beast inside.

Oh gods.

Needing to help somehow, Angelika did the only thing she could think of and settled her hand over his heart and leaned in to place her lips at his ear. “Breathe. With me. In…out.” She inhaled and exhaled with the words.

After a beat, his chest moved. Jerking at first, then smoother, until they were breathing together, in harmony. After a few more inhalations, the scales disappeared and the shimmering left his body, but he didn’t relax. Instead, he sort of settled. Then he picked her up bodily by the arms and set her on her feet, well back from him.

“Do not do that again.” Back to cold and in control.

“I helped.” Couldn’t he see that?

The way his lips compressed, she could tell he wanted to deny it. But he didn’t. “You put yourself in danger.”

She shook her head. “I’ve experienced danger. That was not it. I do not fear you, Airk Azdajah. Any part of you.”

“Dammit.” The quietly uttered word actually made her jump. So this is what Airk looked like angry. Still in control but wound so tight he’d snap a spring any second. “I have never been that close to letting him out,” he said.

Accused, more like.

She put her hands on her hips, not backing down. “He won’t hurt me.”

“A feral dragon does not care about human life. He will not know you. Will not care about you other than as food or foe. And I will not be able to stop him.”

Even though her gut very definitely told her that she wasn’t in danger from either half of the man in front of her, she couldn’t truly be sure.

“What should I do?” she asked.

“No more kissing. No hugging, touching. None of that.”

Ouch.

Airk moved away and crossed the room to look out the window into the atrium, which glowed softly with light despite still being night. “Go back to sleep, Angelika.”

After staring at Airk’s back for a long bit, she lay down on the couch and scooted under the sheet Belyy had brought her.

Stubborn. Overprotective. Untrusting. And despite all that, she still wanted to hitch herself to this dragon shifter. Maybe even more now.

She could have wept for the walls between them.