The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,75
able to get them through to Kasia’s cabin, even with his help. Hopefully this worked and they didn’t have to wait for her to recover fully. That would not go down well with her sisters at all.
Meira moved back to the armoire and closed door to stand in front of the narrow, inlaid mirror, then turned to Samael and held out a hand. “Let’s get this over with.”
His gaze ran over her form wrapped in the blanket, and desire—heavy and real—touched her more in that one sweep than when she’d been pressed up against him, skin against skin, leaving her pricklingly aware.
“This should be interesting,” he said. Then stepped closer. Rather than take her hand, he tugged the blanket up in a few spots, covering more skin. “There. That’s more…respectable.”
Meira clutched it tighter. Either that or drop the blanket and beg to go back to earlier when she lay pressed to his body and ruined the moment with jokes about kraken sex.
Thankfully unaware of her thoughts, Samael took her hand then lit his fire, the dancing black-tipped flames flowing over him to her, warming her better than any puny burning logs in a fireplace ever could. Meira took a second to close her eyes, absorbing the power he gave so freely. Steady resolve fed through the connection. Both previous times, they’d been in a rush. Right now, selfishly, she wanted to indulge in the way the heat touched every part of her, sank into her skin, and traveled through her veins.
The sudden need to know he was going to be okay, always, shook her to the core, setting up a trembling inside her. Because, somewhere along the way, this man with his loud emotions and his walls and his faith in a fate she couldn’t see had become important to her.
Oh gods, she was going to lose him soon. Once they found Gorgon and got to Ararat, and she took up her new role as the queen and he was back to being her captain…
“Mir? You okay?”
She snapped her eyes open. “Mmm-hmm.”
On that witty and succinct explanation, she reached for her own power, pulling up a new image in the reflection even as a draining sensation immediately sucked at her, exhaustion winding itself around her. She couldn’t let herself want impossible things.
Luck was with them and Skylar was in her rooms with Ladon, sitting in front of the mirror with a chair drawn up, elbows on her knees, and expression drawn.
“Thank the gods,” she burst out the second she saw Meira. “What the fuck has been going on?”
Before Meira could answer, Skylar jumped to her feet. “First, all these women show up in my bedroom.” She leveled a glare at her side of the mirror. “While we were fucking, I might add. It’s a good thing you sent the tiny dragon boy through last, or he would’ve got an eyeful.”
Meira grimaced. Beside her, Samael choked. For his part, Ladon raised his gaze to the ceiling as though he might find peace up there.
“Sorry,” Meira said. “They’re—”
“They explained,” Skylar cut her off. “It would’ve been nice to hear it from you, but you disappeared. I thought you were—” Skylar flung out an arm.
“I’m sorry,” Meira said.
Skylar paused in her ranting and pacing to stand before them. “I’ve been worried for hours. With the other news we got, your timing was damn ugly.”
“News?” Meira prompted. More had happened beyond the people she’d sent for protection.
Skylar hesitated—never a good sign with her outspoken sister—and glanced at Ladon, who’d gone scarily serious, his mouth a flat slash.
“Gorgon is dead.”
Chapter Fourteen
Those three words flayed Samael from the inside. His dragon loosed a terrible roar in his head, and he flinched.
His king was dead.
The man who’d given him a chance no other royal would have, let alone a king. In a time when Gorgon precariously held his clan together already, he had given a poor, lowborn, orphaned nobody a place of honor.
He can’t be dead…
Samael tipped his hand. The brand, the mark of his clan, had disappeared as quietly as his king apparently had. Without his knowledge. That or he’d missed the loss in the rush of everything else going on. From all accounts, losing a brand was supposed to be painful, a burn. But what if his loyalty to his king had been tried and found wanting? Why hadn’t the mark been replaced with the new king’s mark? His mark, in theory. By technical right. Shouldn’t that have happened immediately, or was he rogue now?