The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,112

against rock, sliding down the mountainside.

One of his dragon’s voices sounded in his mind. “Was that—”

“Padram. Yes,” Samael answered, voice grim. “We’re fighting some of our own today, brothers. If you can’t face them, get the fuck off the mountain.”

A cry went up around him. A roar of fury and grief. No one wanted to fight men they’d lived with, joked with, eaten dinner with, fought beside.

They had no choice.

Use your words. Meira’s teasing voice haunted him. Could words help them now?

Samael pulled his wings in against his body, dropping him like cannon shot.

Around him, the sky lit up, not with lightning, but with flame as his outlying forces engaged the larger one coming at them. Only white and black flame.

Where are the green dragons?

Their cunning and extraordinary agility made them the hardest dragon shifters to capture or kill. Which was why few had remained in the blue mountain of Ben Nevis even after the attack that had almost lost Ladon his clan’s home.

Coming out underneath the storm in clearer skies, the clouds churning slowly above him, changing shape and color, Samael leveled out.

“Brothers and sisters of the Black Clan.” He sent the thought to every dragon in and around Ararat, particularly aiming his message at those black dragons fighting against their people. “My name is Samael Veles and I am the captain of King Gorgon’s guard.”

Immediately protests of “traitor” came from a small number of voices. Hopefully not those on the mountain to his left.

“Your king lives.”

Another garbled mess of answers, but with less conviction.

“Taken by Pytheios, Gorgon has returned to Ararat and leads us once more. Leave the fight now, and we will welcome you home with open arms after the battle is won.”

“How can we trust the word of a commoner who didn’t protect his king when it mattered most?”

The single thought penetrated his mind through the noise.

“Because your king commands your trust.” Gorgon’s voice thundered through Samael’s mind, so loud it reverberated against the inside of his skull, and he wobbled in the air.

As soon as he regained control, he swiveled his head to search for the main entrance, the door still wide-open. No black dragon stood in its gaping maw. Only a woman and a hellhound.

Meira.

Where was Gorgon? He’d left for his chambers. Too exhausted to fight. He couldn’t be out here.

Silence followed the king’s statement.

Why silence?

The blast of dragon roar followed the electric crack of lightning close by. The sky flashed, showing him the clash of titans happening in the raging sky. He couldn’t spend any more time appealing to those who fought against their own kind.

“Make your choice,” Samael commanded.

He waited for another flash to show him where dragons lurked, then shot straight up, coming at them hard.

In the dense clouds, only the sound of hissing and spitting dragons gave him an idea of what direction to head. That and the sound of the bellows that marked a dragon stoking its fire, told him where to go. He flew through a small pocket without clouds and twisted to avoid hitting the pewter-colored dragon from his own clan who faced off against two white dragons.

Except silver-tipped fire followed Samael as he shot past. Another traitor. Avoiding the flames, he flipped backward then came up under all three. At the last second, he reoriented his body again, coming at them talons first, which he sank into one of the white dragon’s belly.

The thing gave a terrible screech as his claws managed to rend their way past dragon scale and the metallic scent of blood filled the air. It thrashed in his grip and would have used its long tail to skewer him, but Samael had struck at such an angle that he’d wrapped his own tail around the white dragon’s, immobilizing it.

Sucking in, stoking his own fire, he aimed the black torrent directly at the holes he’d gouged, letting go to drop away as his fire melted the dragon from the inside out, its screams and writhing so violent it hurt him to watch.

It started to spin with one wing out and the other pulled in to cradle its gut, which was spewing a streamer of red blood into the sky. The scent of charred flesh on the air was nauseating.

Samael kept his head angled to watch his back as he dropped away. The dying dragon’s partner roared and followed him. A glittering stream of incandescent white flame reached with fiery claws for Samael, but he was falling too fast, and white dragons, while built