The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,22
who had a regular influx of other cultures, dragon shifters could learn a thing or two from this woman. She didn’t draw away from him or the children, but even so, he could feel her closing off even more. He didn’t like it. “Have you shown them your fire?”
The question pulled a full-on grin from her, and a pair of dimples flashed at him. Practically knocked him on his ass. So, this was what winning one of her real smiles was like. It could become addictive.
“Oh yes,” she said. “They weren’t much impressed. As far as I can tell, the only thing gargoyles are afraid of is ice.”
“Make sense,” he speculated aloud. “After all, ice splits rock apart. Glaciers have been known to flatten mountains, or even shear them in half.”
Meira cocked her head, studying him with an expression that hinted at her being oddly impressed. “Exactly.”
He grunted to cover another reluctant chuckle, still put off at the absurdity of the situation—the gargoyles, the woman, and the conversation. “Why do you sound surprised that I figured that out?”
She turned her gaze back to the children. “I thought you were a warrior.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know…” Then she bit her lip, obviously regretting the words.
What did she think he was? A dumb brute? A killing machine with no mind of his own?
“On behalf of myself and all the warriors under my command, I must say I’m deeply offended.” He should be, at least. He was fucking proud of who he was and the position he’d earned. Only he wasn’t offended. Probably because he could tell she didn’t mean to hurt his feelings.
Her cheeks turned rose red, and not from the heat put off by those massive fireplaces. “I apologize,” she said stiffly, not looking at him. Drawing inside herself again.
He told himself to give her space, take a firm step back. He wasn’t the one who should be coaxing her out of her shell.
Instead, Samael found himself squatting down before he knew what he was about. He pulled back his sleeves to reveal his own skin, darker beside hers, made more so by the whorls of black hair over his arms. With a push from his dragon, which was always lurking close to the surface around her, he turned the skin to scales so black they would’ve sucked any light into the void had they not also been glasslike, reminding most who saw him in dragon form of obsidian.
He held his arms out to the children, who transferred their oohs and ahhs to him, touching the diamond-hard scales that, to the touch, were also surprisingly supple, more like a snake’s underbelly, but impenetrable. A living armor. To him, the roughness of the children’s own tentative touches was like being rubbed down with a dried-out loofah.
“You did that earlier,” Meira commented.
He glanced up to find her gaze on him, surprisingly unguarded fascination in her eyes, and his body quickened in response. “What? Shift only part of me?”
She nodded. “Isn’t that a rare skill?”
Samael gave a noncommittal grunt. The truth was, she was correct. In theory a skill reserved for royalty, though he knew of royals who couldn’t, but it had always been one of his talents. Only the scales. No other parts, except the day he’d seen her in that mirror and his feet had changed to talons. That had been out of his control, though. Not like Brand Astarot, who could shift any part of himself he wanted to any size. That was impressive. “Why do you think warriors are dumb brutes?”
She gasped, seemingly horrified. “I would never use words like that.”
No. She wouldn’t. It would hurt her to hurt someone else’s feelings that way.
“But you were thinking them. Don’t worry about my feelings. I’m just curious.”
He turned his head to find her watching him with worry in her eyes that disappeared as she once again tried to turn off an inner light that apparently she didn’t like to share. Or maybe that was just with him.
He didn’t think she was going to answer, but then she sighed. “I spent my entire life running from your kind because apparently you can’t discern for yourselves when a leader is as rotten as a bad apple riddled with worms. You keep taking bites anyway.”
Which begged the question, why had she left the safety of the gargoyles? Why had she offered herself to Gorgon? Especially when she could probably have hidden here indefinitely.
Carrick returned to human form, which seemed to be some kind