The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,90

doorway, zeroing in on Meira, who stood back, obscured by the curtains, her jasmine and smoke scent drifting out the door he’d left open behind him.

Did she sense his animal’s fear?

Fear. They hadn’t succumbed to it in centuries. Not since the day he’d forced his way into the still-burning shell of a home to find his sister’s form charred in her bed. Not since. Until now.

Fear. The acrid, metallic taste of it filled his mouth.

“It’s going to be okay,” his mate murmured from inside the room.

His dragon must’ve believed her, because he breathed, the tension trembling his muscles easing as the animal ceded control to the human side. Except the human side was painfully aware that Meira couldn’t know that. Not for certain.

Too many variables were in play.

Including a biological, bond-driven need to make sure Meira was safe and happy. No matter the cost to himself. She may have chosen him when she thought Gorgon dead, but if the king wasn’t, she would be pulled in a million directions—Samael, Gorgon, her sisters, the clans that depended on the phoenixes to break Pytheios’s hold, the debt he knew she felt she owed her mother, revenge for her father…

As for him, his people were depending on both of them making the right choices. Even if that meant—

Stop. Find out the truth before you make decisions.

Samael jerked his wings out and performed a flipping maneuver off the back of the perch that shot him between two other dragons descending in wide circles, arrowing him straight down.

Ahead of his trajectory, he sent out thoughts to the men he trusted most among the guard. “Where is he?”

“Captain?” Bero’s voice burst into his mind.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Guafi’s response layered over the other. “You show your face here? Now?”

Another three similar responses turned into a shocked jumble of words and sounds in his head.

“Where. Is. He?” Samael cut through the noise to demand. An order. His men would know that.

Silence—way too long given the order—and finally Amun, his lieutenant, responded with the answer Samael was in search of. “His chambers.”

Samael slammed his trajectory to a halt, flaring his wings in such a way that he changed direction in a sharp arc that bent his back, shooting upward. Toward the perch at the king’s residence.

“On my way. If you’re not already there, get there.” Another order.

He prayed to every god he could think of, even the ones he didn’t trust, that his men obeyed. That he still stood as captain in their eyes.

In seconds, Samael reached the outcropping and landed with the silence of his kind. He stalked toward the door, changing back to human as he did. Finding the door locked, he rapped his knuckles—still covered in black scales as he completed his shift—against glass tempered to block out even dragon fire. A new feature installed in the last few decades.

The curtain drew back to show the pale-skinned face of one of the newer guards among his men. Shock and fear lit the fire in the man’s eyes, a pale gray that glittered almost like silver.

“Let me in,” Samael commanded, using both his voice and the telepathic link he had access to even as the scales faded from his skin.

“Sir. I don’t know—”

The sound of a barked order came from inside the chamber. The guard’s face disappeared, only to be replaced by the harsh visage of Amun.

Only he didn’t unlock the door. “Where the hell have you been?”

Samael scowled. “You know where. Keeping our queen safe until we could find the king. We knew the man she killed was not him, as we said when she spoke to the clan days ago.”

Through the glass, Amun searched his face, no give in the man. The lack of trust in those eyes struck deep. Samael had fought beside these men for ages. Watched them become who they were. Hell, he’d helped most of them become who they were, training them himself.

And now they didn’t trust him? He’d expect that from the king’s council and the people, but from his own men? Fuck them, then.

Amun gave a sharp nod, and the click of the lock sliding back sounded a heartbeat before the door opened.

“Where is he?” Samael demanded as he stepped inside and strode past.

Silence greeted the question, and he swung around to find Amun staring at him with narrowed eyes. “Why are you missing your king’s mark, Captain?”

Fuck. The brand on his hand was still gone.

“Yours isn’t? Mine disappeared when I was told the king was dead.”