The Warrior King (Inferno Rising #3) - Abigail Owen Page 0,98
bruises on his face as her mind clicked over on what he’d told her. “We can trust this account?”
He grimaced. “I wasn’t sure at first, but the evidence provided to me was enough to make me think it’s worth checking into.”
She trailed a hand over the keys. “You want me to track the money?”
He cocked his head. “Hit him where it hurts. If what you’ve told us about the colonies and mates is true, I think cutting off his supplies in many forms would be a…”
“Worthy endeavor?” she supplied.
“Indeed.”
She stared at the blank monitors, fingers itching to get started, already bending her mind to where she would start. Getting into Pytheios’s network within Everest jumped out as the best bet, but then what?
“I plan to check the veracity of my source with your brother-in-law.”
She swung back to him. “Brand?” After all, Kasia’s mate had been a rogue and a mercenary, bent on revenge for the murder of his family, before he’d taken the throne. It stood to reason he’d have spies and contacts within each of the clans.
“Ladon.”
Ladon? How in the name of all the heavens had the King of the Blue Clan—who’d been the first to take his throne from one of Pytheios’s puppet kings in a bloody coup—managed to establish a trusted contact within Pytheios’s own mountain? “You’re sure we can trust this informant? That he has access to this kind of information?”
“He’s one of Pytheios’s most trusted advisers.”
Her shock must’ve shown on her face, because Gorgon coughed a chuckle. “My reaction exactly. We’ll discuss with Ladon tomorrow on a secure line.”
Meira nodded.
“Until then, I have one more day to recover, then we have other things to discuss. Agreed?”
That elusive pulse skated over her again. What was going on in his head? Meira swallowed as she considered the man in front of her. Perhaps the king was ready to hear her news. He appeared a hundred times better today than he had yesterday. The fact that he was out of bed was an encouraging sign.
Meira opened her mouth to say the words, get this over with now. The truth had been eating at her. An acid inside her mind and heart. She should tell him before he talked to the other kings. Instead, what came out was, “It’s nice to see you on your feet, my lord. We had been told you were dead.”
Gorgon’s lips twitched. “This is a marked improvement, then.”
Guilt surged inside her, but telling Gorgon without Samael at her side, without having discussed it with him at all, wasn’t right, either.
Would Sam go for the plan she’d been formulating these last days? Obviously, the two of them ruling the Black Clan was no longer a viable option. Given the glares she received from the few she passed any time she left the king’s chambers—hell, her guards would probably have killed her themselves if they weren’t under strict orders to keep her alive—told her being accepted as queen would be like pushing a square boulder uphill only to have a giant kick it back down again.
Had this been the Meira pre–Samael Veles, she would have been tempted to think she wasn’t built for that kind of challenge. She’d always thought of herself more of a behind-the-scenes girl, anyway.
But now she’d had a taste—a fantasy—of what she could have been to these people…at Sam’s side…
In her head, she and Samael would tell Gorgon together, then, most likely depending on the king’s response, make it easy on everyone involved and disappear, to the gargoyles maybe, or go to Rune and help him with the problems in the Americas. Help her sisters whenever they needed transportation by mirror or someone to hack a computer system.
If she could get Sam on his own and talk to him, dammit.
“Anyway, I’m glad you like the computers,” Gorgon said.
“I do. Do dragon shifters have a native tongue?” she asked, well aware he probably thought this was a random segue. “Mother said they speak most of the contemporary human languages after thousands of years living around them, but…”
“We do. It is a guttural language. Harsh. We call it Vritranvhis. Only older dragon shifters know it any longer. A dying language, I’m afraid.”
“How do you say ‘thank you’ in Vritranvhis?” She stumbled over the word, unfamiliar on her tongue.
He tipped his head, expression apologetic. “No word for thank you exists in my people’s language.”
That told her a lot.
Gorgon took her hand and escorted her to a small leather sofa set against a wall, seating her