The warrior king, p.25
The Warrior King, page 25
But the scent was undeniable. Familiar. Rain and smoke.
Gorgon.
The men turned and formed a wall. Against their own. Regardless of the hundreds of years he’d led them, fought at their sides.
“Let him through.”
Seven hells. Was that his king’s voice? Gorgon sounded as though a razor blade had been taken to his vocal cords.
The men parted, and Samael, ignoring the suspicion ripe in the room, got his first clear look at the king. Gorgon was black and blue from head to toe, bruising gone deep and much of it in various stages of healing. Which meant whoever had taken him had beaten him, let him heal partially, and then done it again. Over and over. The man had also lost weight, his face dramatically thinner, cheekbones protruding.
“Samael.” Gorgon reached out a hand, and he crossed to the man who had been like a second father to him. “Why do they protect me from you?”
Instant burning lanced through the skin on his hand. He didn’t need to look to know that Gorgon’s mark had returned. What did that mean? “They don’t know what to believe.”
“Why?”
Quickly he filled his leader in on what had happened in the days—had it only been days?—since the mating ceremony. Not everything. He left out his mating the woman who was meant to be Gorgon’s queen. Telling him now wouldn’t be right. Not while the king was in this condition.
“When were you taken, my lord?” Samael asked.
Gorgon’s eyebrows raised, probably at the “my lord,” then he winced and consciously relaxed his face. “After the ceremony when I talked to Brand and Ladon privately—they left me in the chamber, I don’t remember why. All it took was a minute. Someone hit me from behind. I have no idea how they got in or out. My guess is Pytheios’s witch.”
Fuck. Could that explain how Brock had been tracking them, too? If she could do that inside Ben Nevis, after expending the energy to do that flame thing, nothing could stop the false High King.
“Where is Meira now?” Gorgon asked.
“She’s here. Safe.” He left out the bit about Maul and the dungeon.
“I want to see her.”
Samael searched for the nearest mirror and, finding one, gave a nod. The men around him tensed until, from the large, ornate mirror propped against one wall, Meira appeared, stepping out of the glass like Aphrodite must’ve stepped out of the sea when she was created. He’d had no doubt that she’d have the hellhound transport her to a place from which she could watch when he was removed from the dungeons. Samael spotted Maul behind her waiting in the room beyond. His own room.
The men shifted on their feet, no doubt realizing now that she could have gotten out any time she wanted. Samael shot Amun a look, and the other man crossed his arms with a glare.
For her part, Meira’s gaze skittered over the men in the room, pausing on Samael for a heartbeat before she moved to the bedside. With a gentle smile followed by a grimace of pain, Gorgon reached for her hand, and she sat on the edge of the bed to take it. Samael deliberately stepped back. Either that or gnaw his king’s hand off for touching her, his dragon going wild in his head at what he was watching and the thoughts now screaming in his mind.
“I need to explain everything,” Gorgon said.
She shook her head. “I heard through the mirror.”
“I’m sorry—”
“This is not your fault. This is Pytheios.” A quick, unreadable glance at Samael, and he took another step back. Meira’s eyes turned darker blue than they already were, but she turned away from him in silence, disappointment written into every line of her tense body. But he couldn’t help that. Now he had to be strong for both of them.
“We have no time to waste,” Gorgon said. “We must complete our mating now.”
The seven hells collapsed in on Samael, raining fire and brimstone down on his head, even as he stood in total silence in a room filled with those loyal to the man on the bed. Himself included.
He waited for her to reveal their secret. Tell the king she was taken. But that was dangerous.
“You must rest.” She softened the words with a smile.
Gorgon coughed. “Pytheios has successfully mated the woman named Tisiphone. She appears to be a legitimate phoenix. All the signs were in place. I witnessed the coupling myself.”
The king paled and suddenly spasmed into a fit of coughing that racked his body, pain evident in every accompanying grimace and grunt and the way he tried to cushion his body from each blow. Finally, he settled back on the pillows, breathing hard, skin ashy beneath the natural hue and beaded with sweat.
Meira gripped his hand tighter. “We can’t mate.”
Samael straightened. He had to stop her from confessing to the king. If she told Gorgon here, with the king this vulnerable, with all these untrusting eyes focused on the two of them, Samael couldn’t guarantee her safety. “Meira—”
She shot him a warning look and continued. “Not when you’re in this condition, or you risk death. I won’t see you burn again. Let’s give you more time to rest, then we should talk with the other kings and my sisters. There is…much you don’t know.”
The understatement of the fucking millennium.
…
Guards walked ahead of and behind her as Meira returned to Gorgon after meeting with her sisters. The long skirt of her dress swished against her legs, swirling the cool mountain air against her skin. Back in her normal clothes. As though she’d hit a reset button on her life.
She was hiding again, but the part of her she’d discovered while she was with Sam, the brave part, was just biding time.
Up ahead, the door to the king’s chamber opened. “I’ll return in an hour,” someone was saying.
It took everything in her not to stumble to a halt at that familiar, darkly smooth voice. Samael.
She couldn’t see him thanks to the guard in front of her having wide shoulders and blocking most of her view.
For two days now, as Gorgon recovered, any time she’d entered a room, her mate had exited. No doubt he’d heard her coming just now. Surprise hadn’t lit his gaze as it had connected with hers.
Which meant he was actively avoiding her.
The wall was still up, blocking his emotions from her so completely, he was a void to her. Possibly, now that he knew of her ability, he could actively will that to happen. Either way, she had no idea what to do about it. Except bleed internally and wait.
By unspoken agreement, they had yet to inform Gorgon of their mating. The king was healing, but still weak, calling the healer to provide blood less often now, but still needed. That alone was a strong sign that he wasn’t ready to hear the truth.
Samael stayed in his personal rooms while Gorgon had her staying in one of the extra bedrooms in his own suite. When she’d gone to protest, Samael had been the one to override her.
What was he thinking?
As they drew up to the door, Samael turned to leave. Their gazes connected and she waited, heart slowing in each pump of her life’s blood through her body.
Time didn’t stop. Because he didn’t stop, and his walls were solid, keeping her out.
“My queen.” He nodded and walked briskly by.
Damn the man.
“Samael.” Deliberately, she avoided his nickname.
With visible reluctance, he turned to face her, eyebrows raised.
“I’m not giving up,” she said, willing him to understand. Unable to say more because of their audience.
But her lover’s walls were sky-high by now. “Of course, my queen.”
“Don’t,” she choked, then sucked in a breath.
Pain, a wasteland of it, lashed out at her, only to be reined in so fast, she almost questioned what she’d felt.
“I must go.” Without waiting for her response, Sam turned and walked away.
Time might not have stopped, but her heart came to a screeching halt before plummeting to her feet, where it got trampled to a gory pulp. Her heart crawled, bloody and bruised, in the opposite direction, wanting to go with the man walking away from her.
She had a horrible, piercing dread about what was going on in his head. The fact that his king’s brand had returned was a bad sign as far as their mating was concerned. But to acknowledge the terrible possibility of what Sam could be contemplating might kill her, whether or not their bond had solidified.
She wouldn’t let him, dammit. But until she could figure out how to convince him, she’d wait. So, for now, she focused on helping the king get better, helping the king bring his lost sheep back into the fold, and discussing next steps with the Blue and Gold Clans. Because Gorgon might be back, but the news he’d brought, about a successfully mated Pytheios, changed everything.
If the woman he’d taken as his mate was truly a phoenix, what the hell did that mean for all of them? What did it mean for this war? Legitimized High King or not, he’d proven himself a corrupt leader. No way could they follow him. He’d kill them all eventually anyway, even if they did pay public tribute.
“Meira?” Gorgon’s voice came not from the bedrooms down the hall, but off to her right.
Leaving her guards at the door, she followed the sound to find him in an office—all smoothly carved-out rock walls, built-in bookshelves she could lose herself in, mahogany wood furniture throughout, and one wall of state-of-the-art computing systems. An entire freaking wall.
She tried not to let her gaze linger or run over and touch. It had been too long since her fingers had caressed a keyboard or a touchscreen. Days.
Deliberately, she turned her back on temptation. The back wall, facing the atrium, was entirely made of glass, the window giving this room an almost normal feel. After five hundred years not living in caves and mountains, the change had been rough. For Angelika, too, she’d bet. Her sister had always preferred to be outdoors and in the sun.
Gorgon, sitting behind his desk, had remained quiet while she’d looked her fill, muted emotions coming from him, as usual, but nothing to cause alarm. She turned her gaze to him with a smile, and suddenly a pulse of elusive emotions ran over her skin. That had been happening with him since he’d returned. She still couldn’t put her finger on what, but he didn’t feel the same as before. Not suspicious or angry. No blame. But something…
She managed to hold her smile as it disappeared, whispered away. “I like this room. It might be my favorite place in Ararat.”
He returned the smile—without an accompanying grimace of pain for the first time since he’d returned.
Gorgon got to his feet, the tremors gripping his body the last few days finally gone. “I thought you might. You’re excellent with computers, I understand.”
Totally geeked out was more like it, though she doubted he’d understand the slang. However, they’d talked about this before the mating ceremony. He’d been courting her—or that’s how he’d put it, at least—and the old-fashioned notion had made her warm to him. That and many other things had made it easier to choose him as a mate.
But that was before Samael Veles had finally let her in…
“In fact,” Gorgon continued, “I ordered these before we made our vows, so they’d be waiting for you when we returned.”
Taking her hand, he led her to the wall of technology. This time she let her gaze devour each detail—a custom-built set of rack-mounted systems. She spotted three Supermicro 2U Barebones with AMD Rome 64 Cores with PNY Technologies Quadro RTX 8000-48 GB. GPUs as opposed to CPUs. They’d handle the cryptographic workload better. Meira hummed as she ran her fingers over the shiny new objects.
She turned back to the man at her side with a grin. “How did you know what to get? I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you specifications.”
The king chuckled, obviously pleased with her reaction to his gift. “I may have asked your sisters for advice on a mating gift you would enjoy and talked to the computer system experts in all three clans as well as having my people here research human hackers. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
Mating gift.
Trying to keep her smile in place, Meira turned her face away, back to the console he’d built for her. “I can hardly wait to dig in.”
If I ever get to.
Gorgon picked up a tablet similar to the one she’d drowned—rice had not helped—and handed to her. “I rarely saw you without your tablet thing before,” he said.
She unfolded the device and passed her hand over the smooth glass surface, immediately feeling slightly more grounded than she had a second ago. It would be so easy to sit down at this console and lose herself in her quiet, dependable, predictable digital world again. But the part of her awakened since the ceremony couldn’t do that anymore. Couldn’t stick her head in the sand and hide.
“I already have a job for you to apply your skills to.”
That pulled her gaze back around.
“I received information while in Pytheios’s…care.” He sneered at the word. “Over the centuries, he’s taken a good deal of wealth from the other clans, not to mention other paranormal creatures. Rather than keep it in physical gold or jewels, staying apart from human systems of currency as shifters normally do, he has hidden much of it in human banks and investments.”
Meira stared at Gorgon for a second, hardly noticing the yellowing bruises on his face as her mind clicked over on what he’d told her. “We can trust this account?”
He grimaced. “I wasn’t sure at first, but the evidence provided to me was enough to make me think it’s worth checking into.”
She trailed a hand over the keys. “You want me to track the money?”
He cocked his head. “Hit him where it hurts. If what you’ve told us about the colonies and mates is true, I think cutting off his supplies in many forms would be a…”
“Worthy endeavor?” she supplied.
“Indeed.”
She stared at the blank monitors, fingers itching to get started, already bending her mind to where she would start. Getting into Pytheios’s network within Everest jumped out as the best bet, but then what?
“I plan to check the veracity of my source with your brother-in-law.”
She swung back to him. “Brand?” After all, Kasia’s mate had been a rogue and a mercenary, bent on revenge for the murder of his family, before he’d taken the throne. It stood to reason he’d have spies and contacts within each of the clans.
“Ladon.”
Ladon? How in the name of all the heavens had the King of the Blue Clan—who’d been the first to take his throne from one of Pytheios’s puppet kings in a bloody coup—managed to establish a trusted contact within Pytheios’s own mountain? “You’re sure we can trust this informant? That he has access to this kind of information?”
“He’s one of Pytheios’s most trusted advisers.”
Her shock must’ve shown on her face, because Gorgon coughed a chuckle. “My reaction exactly. We’ll discuss with Ladon tomorrow on a secure line.”
Meira nodded.
“Until then, I have one more day to recover, then we have other things to discuss. Agreed?”
That elusive pulse skated over her again. What was going on in his head? Meira swallowed as she considered the man in front of her. Perhaps the king was ready to hear her news. He appeared a hundred times better today than he had yesterday. The fact that he was out of bed was an encouraging sign.
Meira opened her mouth to say the words, get this over with now. The truth had been eating at her. An acid inside her mind and heart. She should tell him before he talked to the other kings. Instead, what came out was, “It’s nice to see you on your feet, my lord. We had been told you were dead.”
Gorgon’s lips twitched. “This is a marked improvement, then.”
Guilt surged inside her, but telling Gorgon without Samael at her side, without having discussed it with him at all, wasn’t right, either.
Would Sam go for the plan she’d been formulating these last days? Obviously, the two of them ruling the Black Clan was no longer a viable option. Given the glares she received from the few she passed any time she left the king’s chambers—hell, her guards would probably have killed her themselves if they weren’t under strict orders to keep her alive—told her being accepted as queen would be like pushing a square boulder uphill only to have a giant kick it back down again.
Had this been the Meira pre–Samael Veles, she would have been tempted to think she wasn’t built for that kind of challenge. She’d always thought of herself more of a behind-the-scenes girl, anyway.
But now she’d had a taste—a fantasy—of what she could have been to these people…at Sam’s side…
In her head, she and Samael would tell Gorgon together, then, most likely depending on the king’s response, make it easy on everyone involved and disappear, to the gargoyles maybe, or go to Rune and help him with the problems in the Americas. Help her sisters whenever they needed transportation by mirror or someone to hack a computer system.
If she could get Sam on his own and talk to him, dammit.
“Anyway, I’m glad you like the computers,” Gorgon said.
“I do. Do dragon shifters have a native tongue?” she asked, well aware he probably thought this was a random segue. “Mother said they speak most of the contemporary human languages after thousands of years living around them, but…”
“We do. It is a guttural language. Harsh. We call it Vritranvhis. Only older dragon shifters know it any longer. A dying language, I’m afraid.”
“How do you say ‘thank you’ in Vritranvhis?” She stumbled over the word, unfamiliar on her tongue.
He tipped his head, expression apologetic. “No word for thank you exists in my people’s language.”
That told her a lot.
Gorgon took her hand and escorted her to a small leather sofa set against a wall, seating her first before he dropped heavily into the seat beside her. His legs were obviously still not entirely stable, but she refrained from commenting.
