The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,87

features. But she nodded.

Meira steeled herself for the next part. “If something happens, tell Kasia and Angelika I love them. You too.”

Skylar’s eyes flashed open. “I wish you were here,” she said softly.

Skylar, who was never soft. She was steel. Suddenly Meira was glad she’d left the glass between them solid rather than open a full portal, because if she could feel her sister’s emotions in this moment, she might chicken out. “Me too,” she whispered.

“Be careful,” Skylar urged. “I love you.”

“I will.” Meira took a deep breath and stepped back. “Good-bye.”

With a flick of her will, she changed the view.

Instead of the cavern suite of the King of the Blue Clan, a new caverned room reflected in the mirror before her. The skinniness of the view didn’t give her much to go on. All she could see from this vantage point was a basic bathroom. No gilded anything. No marble countertops. A stand-up shower only, blocked by a rock wall that would probably come up to her chin.

She glanced at Samael, who nodded. “That’s it.”

“Right. Let’s go.” She held out a hand, but when she went to step into the mirror, he tugged her to a stop.

Flipping her hand over, he placed a kiss in the center of the palm, then closed her fingers over it. “Just in case.”

And he meant that. Even through his walls, his fear, mostly for her, was palpable. Hers was, too. Gods help them if this didn’t work.

How could she lose him now? Not only because they’d mated, but because they were starting to become a part of each other. Sharing their lives, their worst moments, their fears. Not holding back. To glimpse a life with him as her other half only to have it ripped away would destroy her.

But they had to do this.

Forced single file by the skinny mirror in Kasia’s armoire in the cabin, they stepped through. After helping her down from the roughly hewn stone counter, more a part of the cavern wall than anything added after the fact, Samael led her into the suite itself.

He paused in his bedroom and took her face in his hands, kissing her long and soft, lingering over the touch before pulling back to smile down at her. “Welcome home, mate. You look good here. Right.”

A sudden lightness coming from Samael, a wellspring of satisfaction, dispelled the weight of worry. Only for a moment, but he was right. Whatever happened next, she had Sam. She would always have him.

“Let me call my men and bring them here. Best if they convene Gorgon’s Curia Regis and escort us there. The council are who we must win over first.”

Releasing her hand, he disappeared through the large, open doorway that led to the rest of the apartment.

Curious, Meira looked around her at her new mate’s home.

The basic bathroom led into a basic bedroom. Single king-size bed. One armoire for clothing and one bedside table also carved from the rock wall, protruding like a hovering ledge. No personal items. No pictures or books or even a small token or memento. As though his life hadn’t been worth remembering. A thought that pressed on her heart. Together they’d make memories worthy of keepsakes that they’d both get to enjoy.

The bed was made simply with black sheets and a gray comforter. She smiled at the sight. The colors of his clan, of course.

My clan.

A shout in the hall beyond the suite snapped her out of her wandering, and she swung around to find Samael already crossing a small entryway to a door of solid dragon steel.

“What was that?” she asked.

He held out a hand, telling her to stay there, and she waited quietly as he cracked the door open. She couldn’t see, her view blocked by the wall of the bedroom, but she could hear fine. Feet pounded by through the hallway.

Samael closed the door and locked it before moving to the other side of the suite. Meira moved forward, hovering in the doorway that opened into a living/dining/kitchen combo. Like in Ben Nevis, a massive glass door looked out over a stone outcropping. Not a balcony, exactly—more a slab of solid rock, big enough for a dragon to perch, that protruded out over a massive cavern.

Even from her vantage point, she could see dragons flying past, their shadows flashing through the sheer black curtains, though she didn’t hear a sound. Silent black dragons. So different from Ben Nevis. The blue dragons created a whirlwind when they flew inside the