The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,7

from the rest of the world.

Getting behind that wall shouldn’t be her concern. Nor a curiosity. She’d made promises. Her life was on a specific path. She couldn’t let herself want…something else. Gorgon deserved more. He deserved all of her.

“My queen,” Samael repeated.

Meira blinked at him through the haze of fear coating her own delicate emotions in a thin veneer.

“Meira,” Samael said, softer now.

A small frisson of surprise threaded through the fear hanging over her, like a sliver of sunlight breaking through dark clouds. He’d never used her first name before.

Would she be feeling the same disquiet if he were standing at the end of the aisle—

Meira cut that insidious thought off like chopping the head off a snake.

Samael seemed to press closer, though he didn’t move, ebony gaze entirely fixated on her. “You can do this.”

Shock held her immobile. How did he know she’d been trying her damnedest not to run? Was it that obvious she was terrified? Conflicted?

Meira swallowed hard and jerked her gaze forward. I can do this.

She should probably thank him for the support, acknowledge his helping her over a moment of fear and doubts, but the words just wouldn’t come. She focused instead on what she had to do.

I can do this, she repeated to herself.

With a whisper of will, she ignited her own fire. Like walking or breathing, her body just seemed to know how, and had done since the moment her mother took her last breath. As though the fuel was in her blood and all she needed was the spark of a thought to set off the firestorm. The flames started inside her and pressed through her veins and her flesh to manifest outside her in red-gold flickering glory and dance across her skin as though rejoicing their release.

She risked one last glance at Samael, who had remained close, a pillar of strength she suddenly needed there, to draw that steadiness into herself for what she was about to do.

Steeling her spine, she waved at the two women waiting to open the door for her. With a flourish, they pushed the remarkably silent doors forward, revealing the massive chamber beyond.

A hush of feet sounded as those gathered to witness and celebrate with the new mates stood and turned to observe her lonely trek over the age-worn, uneven stone floor to the dais where her future mate waited.

For her mating day, they had set up ornate golden mirrors around the circumference of the throne room. She used the magic that came from her fire, tapping into it like a well, manipulating the mirrors. Through those reflections, she allowed the Gold and Black Clans to witness this ceremony from their own mountains, rather than leaving those hard-won havens unguarded and at risk of attack. They and their allies couldn’t afford to lose even one of their strongholds.

I could jump through one of those mirrors and disappear.

After all, she was the one controlling the magic.

She could simply change the location in the nearest one and be gone before anyone could stop her.

The gargoyles would take me back.

Maybe. Notoriously closed off from the world, the protectors her dying mother had sent her to tended to not like visitors coming and going.

Not that she was seriously considering returning to them. She’d made a promise.

With a will she didn’t know she possessed until this moment, Meira pulled her shoulders back and forced her feet to move, taking one step, then another. Away from the man at her back and toward the king at the end of the aisle who was meant to be her future.

Standing at the back of the dais, Maul, their massive hellhound, watched the room, eyes glowing red, ever their protector since they’d found him as a puppy. As Brand and Ladon stepped forward to lead her sisters to their places at either side of the steps to the dais on which the throne sat, they cleared the way to Meira’s own future mate.

Strong and tall, with wisdom in his eyes, Gorgon bore himself with a regal authority that, after ages on the throne, was probably as natural as blinking. He didn’t need to be dressed in the formal onyx suit—detailed with intricate embroidery in shimmering threads, again of all the colors of the dragon clans, matching the design of the jewels in her gown—to project an air of utter control and power.

Despite the fact that he should scare the hell out of her, over the last few months, he’d been nothing but kind. She’d