The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,92

she’d trust to send into that room had to be with Kasia. He hardly left her sister’s side. Flying through image after image, room after room, getting dizzy with the speed of the blurring outlook before her, Meira didn’t stop searching until she found him.

There. A flash of black with glowing red eyes. The image stopped and held.

“Maul,” she yelled. “I need you.”

The hellhound, who’d been lying in a boulder-size lump at Kasia’s feet in a conference room, didn’t hesitate, jumping to his feet and bolting for what she guessed on his side of the connection had to be a monitor used for teleconferencing.

“What the hell—” Brand and her sister jumped up.

Meira ignored them. Maul disappeared and then reappeared in the room beside her on a wave of smoke and stench. Immediately, she cut the connection, blanking out her sister’s concerned face.

There was not enough room, and the dog was scrunched like packing peanuts into the bathroom that was not designed to hold a hellhound. His thoughts pierced her mind through that physical contact. Images of Meira hurt or bleeding.

“I’m okay. I’m fine. It’s Sam. He’s in trouble.”

Slapping the mirror with her palm, she showed him the room.

Sam had managed to get to his feet, only now he was moving funny. Like one side of his body wasn’t working properly. One eye was shut entirely by swelling, and he was clearly protecting his right side.

He backed away from the men, a few of whom had clearly come off worse in the encounter. Slowly, he moved closer to the glass door again.

“Don’t let him get into the atrium and shift,” one of the men, Amun maybe, said. “We’ll never pin him down if he goes dragon.”

Sam’s lips tipped in a smile that was full-on arrogance, made more sinister by the black flames consuming his one open eye.

“Help him,” she begged Maul.

The hellhound, using his own form of teleportation again, disappeared in silence and appeared in the room with Sam a heartbeat later with a snarl that poured shivers down even her spine, and she’d been expecting it.

All five men spun to face the new threat, several backing up rapidly. In the same instant, using their distraction to his advantage, Sam lunged for the window, in what appeared to Meira to be an attempt to jump over the edge and plummet to his death rather than be taken. Four of the men remained facing Maul, but one went after Sam. Amun.

Meira went to change the image and try to catch him through a window as he fell, but she paused when all motion in the room jammed to a stop. Amun’s legs braced against the glass door while the top half of him was blocked from view.

“Got you, you son of a bitch,” Amun shouted.

Then Sam’s obviously limp body was hurled with superhuman strength back into the room. He hit the wall with a crack, then dropped to the floor in a heap. From where she stood, Meira could only see his legs, but he wasn’t getting up.

Maul jumped in front of him, and all five men froze, their faces a comical mix of horror and awe. Mostly horror.

She knew it well. The hellhound, with his massive size, glowing red eyes, and putrid scent of death had struck her dumb with fear regularly when they’d first found him, and he’d been nothing but gentle with her and her sisters. Kasia in particular, but Skylar, too, had played with him, while Meira tended to keep her distance. Angelika had been a bit of a mix.

Now Meira was grateful for him as he held the men off.

“He’ll take the captain away. We can’t let him,” Amun said and took a step forward.

Maul pulled his lips back, baring his teeth, and none of them dared come any closer. Not even their leader.

Amun’s frustration showed in the way he twitched his shoulders. “If we rush him—”

“Stop!” Meira commanded and stepped through the mirror herself. She didn’t shake or hesitate or even think of herself at all, because Samael’s life depended on her.

“Fuck me,” one of the men muttered under his breath.

“We should have known by the hellhound that you were close by,” Amun spat.

She ignored the venom in his voice, because she could feel them. These men were confused, and deep down they were scared, looking for someone to blame. That made them lash out, because apparently dragon shifters could be emotionally stunted. She couldn’t read minds, too, but Meira was fairly certain these men didn’t