The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,115
cry rose from White and Green Clans. Only the red dragons suddenly halted midair. A silent, hovering threat.
What were they waiting for?
“Dragon shifters of the Blue, Black, White, and Green Clans, hear me.” A voiced boomed through her mind even though she wasn’t a shifter.
“I am Pytheios Chandali, the one and true High King of all dragon clans. Witness my phoenix mate.”
A massive red dragon dropped slowly through a gap in the clouds, the slow beats of his wings holding him aloft. The Rotting Red King was rotting no longer.
Small holes still pierced the membranes of his wings, allowing pinpoints of light through, and his scales appeared dull, as though coated in dust, but otherwise, this dragon was in excellent health. All reports of ragged, moth-eaten wings, stooped bones, and withered scales that didn’t fully cover his hide were either wrong or he had mated successfully, phoenix or not, and was healing rapidly.
Holy hellfires.
Pytheios crumbling and decrepit was one thing. But fully healed…
Pure fear ran through the ranks of her people so sharply, she couldn’t block it all, and Meira jerked with the physical pain of it.
How many would fall to his side now? How many would think she and her sisters were lying about who they were?
On his back, a woman stood. She actually stood, rather than riding astride. No fear. Her long, white hair whipped in the wind behind her. Her skin glowed with red flame, a dance of light that brought out a design on her skin.
A design Meira knew only too well. Phoenix.
Could it be true?
It had to be. She was witnessing with her very eyes, and Gorgon had shared his own experience with the woman.
“Cease your fighting and bow to your true leader…” Pytheios let the sentence hang. “Or die.”
Hatred and determination overrode the wave of fear like a riptide, dragging at her. Not only her emotions, but those of every dragon shifter opposing the monster who killed her parents.
No.
Even with a phoenix at Pytheios’s side, no way in hell were she or her sisters, nor their mates, submitting to Pytheios. Ever.
“We will never accept you.”
Gods above, that was Sam. He rose in the air to face off against the red king. Defiant. A fighter. A true leader.
“Then you die.” Pytheios looked to his right, and a massive copper-colored dragon dropped into place beside him.
Brock Hagan.
“Go get her,” Pytheios ordered.
Dread cascaded through her in a fall of ice along her nerve endings. Meira had no doubt whom the red king had sent Brock for.
He’s coming for me.
With a blast of golden fire, Brock blinked out of sight. He couldn’t teleport, so how the hell was he doing that, and where was he?
In the same horrible instant, every red dragon sent up a roar of challenge, plunging into the fray. In one gigantic, enveloping move, dragons from the Red Clan overwhelmed Ladon’s forces and Sam with them, vanishing from her sight.
“There you are.” An almost cheerful voice slid through her mind.
Meira gasped as a massive gold dragon materialized out of nowhere, the ozone stink of magic all over him as he hovered inside the hangar, then landed with surprising lightness of foot not a hundred feet from her.
Brock.
“Just as Pytheios predicted,” he said. Had he been in human form, he’d probably be examining his nails, suiting action to the boredom in his tone, only his emotions were a riot inside him. All that hatred stored up now aimed at her was like poison in the air. “Your sisters won’t stay away long. They’ll find some way to try to save you. Then I’ll take all four of you to him.”
Meira glanced around, but she was nowhere near a reflection and she was backed against the stone of the mountain. No place to run and hide. Only the edge and the ravine below. Certain death.
As the gold dragon slithered toward her, Meira reached for her fire anyway, but none came. As though her soul had gone coldly empty. Like a switch had been turned off.
Samael—
Her mate’s name screamed through her mind a heartbeat before the gold dragon lunged for her and she threw herself from the precipice. Only instead of plummeting off the side, an arm emerged from the mountain itself, wrapped around her waist, and dragged her into the rock.
…
Samael had always known the secret to his ability to fight—a lack of fear.
Even as a boy, he’d been able to shut off emotion and focus only on what had to be done. It meant he took