The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,55
as she walked down the hallway, away into the darkness untouched by torchlight beyond, felt almost like a vision, like the fates warning him of things to come.
That, in the end, he would lose her.
Every trace of amusement vanished, leaving him vibrating with dread and no outlet for it, like a live electric wire flapping in the fucking wind.
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, then you are well and truly fucked.”
Samael jerked his head around to find Rune watching Meira’s progress down the hall. “I’m well aware of my fuckedness.”
Rune blew out a sharp breath and turned to face him. “And Gorgon? After all he did for you?”
Samael closed down at the question. But Rune, maybe more like him than he cared to admit, didn’t give up. “He made you Viceroy of War because he trusted you.”
“I know that,” Samael growled. “I also know his last request was that I protect her. I’m doing everything I can.”
Rune eyed him in silence for a long moment. “Yeah. I guess you are.”
A hell of an admission from his hard-ass captain.
“But you need to ask yourself… Is your priority her or the clan?”
“Is that what you asked yourself when you went rogue?”
Samael waited for Rune to lash out at that, aware he was being an asshole. Except the other man merely shrugged one shoulder. “I told Gorgon what I was planning before I did it.”
For once, the dour expression lifted. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”
No.
“I couldn’t tell my team. I wasn’t going to drag them down the same path. But Gorgon understood. In fact, he’s the one who reminded me about this place.”
Samael shoved his hands in his pockets as he mulled over that piece of information. “The king sanctioned you going rogue.”
“He couldn’t openly do that. But…yeah. Gorgon was a good man.”
“Is a good man. And I’m going to find him.” But what the hell would that mean for him and Meira, because he couldn’t turn his back on his mate, either?
Rune gave a sharp nod. “I believe you.” He glanced down the hall the others had disappeared down. “But if you can’t see the conflict of interest, I sure can.”
Not see it? It’s all he could think about, seeing no path to get them all where they were supposed to be. Where his bones told him he needed to be.
“Are you sure she’s your mate?” Rune asked.
“Have you mated yet?” Samael asked, rather than answer the question directed at him.
A muscle ticked at the side of his old mentor’s jaw. That was new.
“No,” said the man who’d been labeled a mate stealer but apparently was something else entirely.
Interesting. Samael didn’t push. They hadn’t exactly been close before, the relationship more that of asshole, know-it-all older brother. Rune had once told him that to make him the best fighter he could be, the scariest motherfucker on the planet, meant soft feelings like friendship were a waste of time.
Granted, his training technique had worked. Samael had risen quickly through the ranks, taking over as captain when Rune left for the colonies.
“This will be hard to explain, since you haven’t experienced it.” How did you tell a cold bastard like Rune Abaddon that, even now, with her walking farther away from him, his lungs were constricting, making it harder to breathe? “It’s primal. A knowing that settles deep.”
“Primal,” Rune sneered over the word. “Like we’re only as good or bad as our animal? Uncontrollable?”
“You control your dragon. So do I. But do you remember the first time you shifted, that edge to it that you might slip? That something bigger, more powerful than you might take control and never give it back?”
Rune snorted. “If finding a mate is like that, then no thanks.”
Again, the edge to Rune’s voice told Samael more was going on with the other black dragon. Something deeper than what he was letting Sam see on the surface.
“I took one look at her, and my center shifted. So did what was important to me.” Humans must have felt similarly when they discovered that the sun was the center of the solar system, not the earth.
Rune clicked his tongue and shook his shoulders as though twitching a cape off. “For now, I’ll just be grateful that the fates didn’t land me with a phoenix who is meant for my king, who may or may not be dead.”
A laugh punched from Samael. “Fuck you.”
Rune grinned, or his version of it, one side of his mouth drawing