by Abigail Owen
He spread his hands wide and forced the next words out, no matter how they grated. “Not a dare. More like a challenge, or a proposal if you like. Kasia believes in our vision for the future. Give me the chance to show you.”
And now he was back to wooing a phoenix, using time he didn’t have. Fuck.
She considered that, considered him. “Why?”
“I won’t lie. I can’t risk a phoenix falling into the hands of one of the other clans. I’m also not an idiot. I know I can’t mate you without you choosing me.”
Or he’d definitely burn up in her fire. With dragons, the fates determined who were destined couples. But phoenixes were different. Skylar’s own magic would add a whole level of complication and uncertainty to the process. As he understood it, she had to choose him.
Ladon groaned inwardly. Gaining Skylar’s approval would likely be the most challenging thing he’d ever tried to accomplish, taking the Blue Throne included. Forget wooing and forget comfort levels. He’d tried that with Kasia before Brand claimed her and look where that got him. She fell for the wrong guy. Not that Ladon’s heart had been affected. With Skylar, he’d have to be unrelenting. In his world, he only had time for black and white. Shades of gray were excuses. Until she was his, Skylar Amon was all kinds of gray.
“I can take care of myself.” Skylar’s chin went up in a gesture so like her sister’s the similarity finally showed. “And I don’t trust you.”
“If she stays, Skylar chooses who to mate and when.”
Kasia’s statement dropped into a vat of silence.
Skylar swung around to glare at her sister. “Excuse me?”
Ladon narrowed his eyes as he assessed the words and Kasia’s hard expression. “I’m not that kind of man. As you know.”
Skylar scowled, and he held up a hand. “I don’t force women…even for the greater good.”
Even if he already wanted Skylar more than he’d wanted a woman in a long damn time. A physical reaction he wouldn’t bother to deny.
Skylar snapped her mouth shut.
But Ladon remained focused on Kasia. She obviously had something in mind. For her part, she stared at him long and hard before switching her gaze to her mate. Out of the corner of his eye, Ladon caught Brand’s nod, as if he was agreeing with whatever Kasia was thinking. Their bond as mates must be strengthening if they were already able to communicate wordlessly like that.
Kasia let out a long breath. “I trust him, Sky. I think you should, too.”
Those amazing lips pinched. “Nothing you do or say could convince me. He tried to mate you, and now he’s just moving on to the next phoenix in line.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Kasia insisted. “I trust him with our lives.”
The emphasis on “our” snagged at Ladon’s attention like a spark catching fire. Something about the way she’d said that meant more than what he could discern. He had no doubt of it. But what?
Skylar jerked back a step, only to bump into him and hastily hop to the side as if he were radioactive. “You wouldn’t,” she hissed at Kasia.
The tension between the sisters was way too high for the surface words. What was Kasia threatening?
Kasia glowered back. “Do you think I would risk it if I didn’t believe a thousand percent that he could be trusted? Do you?”
“No…” Skylar conceded slowly. “But—”
Kasia turned sharply to Ladon. “There are four of us.”
Skylar sucked in sharply.
Ladon frowned, glancing between them. “Four of who?”
Kasia pulled back her shoulders. “I have three sisters. Skylar, and two others—Meira and Angelika—who are still in hiding.”
Her revelation slammed through him, impaling him like the spike of a dragon tail.
Four… Four phoenixes.
How was such a thing even possible? And what the hell did it mean? Dragons believed for millennia that mating the phoenix—as in only one—designated which of the kings would be High King. Ladon had naturally assumed Brand, his friend and ally, would one day be High King because of it and was fine with that. Two of the firebirds in existence already called that belief into question.
But four?
Skylar threw up both hands, and Kasia would be a puddle on the ground if looks were laser beams. “I can’t believe you did that. I am out of here. Hopefully I can get to our sisters before your mate and his goons.”
With that, she slammed out of the room.
“Shit.” Kasia took a shuddering breath. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“No.” Ladon stepped in front of her before she could follow Skylar out the door. “Let me.”
Kasia snorted. “She’s not going to listen to you. That’s for damn sure.”
“I can be persuasive.” Before she or Brand could say any more, Ladon turned to Maul. “I need to get outside quick, buddy.”
The hellhound cocked his head. Kasia could teleport, but so could her pet, and Ladon needed to convince Skylar without an audience.
“I won’t hurt her,” he promised. He’d merely kidnap her if he had to, because she was damn well not leaving yet.
Maul gave a low bark Ladon took to mean “yes.” He put one hand on the animal’s spiky-furred shoulder, and they disappeared.
CHAPTER THREE
I can’t believe Kasia did that.
Incredulity vied with dark fury in a toxic mash-up that wanted to spark the fire inside her and had Skylar prowling through the massive mountain the Blue Clan called home. She kept to the human-sized hallways, not bothering to watch out for the shifters she might come across. Not that any crossed her path. Though in the mood she was in, they’d be better off staying out of her fucking way.
With every step, she churned through the implications of what Kasia had just revealed.
Their sisters. Their family. How could she put them in danger like that?
Was Kasia that sure these kings could be trusted? Despite seeing her sister and that Brand character together, Skylar had thought, until today, that Kasia had been forced to mate the unsmiling brute of a man.
Apparently, she’d got her wires crossed.
The shock of what Kasia had shared ebbed, and Skylar’s steps slowed. Kasia wouldn’t easily give that information—she would never play with her sisters’ lives—unless she was beyond sure. Hell, even Maul wanted Skylar to stay, if those images he’d shown her meant anything.
Stay and be a part of taking down the regime of dragon kings who’d been responsible for so much pain. Her own included.
An actual purpose to her life—not just running and surviving—stirred inside her like a cauldron of insidious, seductive potion.
But she wasn’t an idiot. No way would Ladon allow her to choose another shifter to mate, or allow her to stay here indefinitely, without binding her to him. He couldn’t risk her power, such as it was, falling to his enemies. Even she got that.
Based on his instant claiming of her as his, she’d bet dollars to doughnuts he’d want that binding sooner rather than later.
The alternative was to go back to where she’d been. Hiding like a coward with her uncle in the mountain of misfit toys. For what?
Or she could seek out Meira and Angelika. To take them where, exactly?
Kasia trusts these men.
Could she, though? Mate a dragon?
A mental image of mating Ladon Ormarr—the two of them wrapped in a tumble of sheets and limbs and fire—came unbidden to her mind, and a throb of instinctual wanting pulsed through her. From a simple physical perspective, mating the man wouldn’t be a hardship.
Shit. Why am I even considering this?
Her steps sped back up as she tried to outrun her body’s ridiculous reaction to Ladon as well as the crazy ideas banging around in her head. Better to leave now. Survive to fight another day, so to spe
ak.
Exactly how their mother had taught them.
Skylar came to a thick dragonsteel door that she knew led outside. After checking that the way was clear, she punched a code into a keypad that she’d managed to witness one of Ladon’s people enter a while back. The door beeped, the panel lighting up green, and she burst through a side door onto a wide landing platform that faced out over a natural canyon formed by the mountains of western Scotland. This was where she’d teleported Kasia to wait for her earlier.
As Skylar scanned the craggy mountainside above her, she idly wondered what Angelika and Meira had inherited. What would the dragons do with them when they found out? The thought could be paralyzing if she let it, so she focused on getting away. One thing at a time. Teleporting herself would be nice about now, because without that, she had to climb her ass out of this place, the same way she’d arrived.
Only this time the sentinels weren’t distracted by a battle.
With teeth gritted, she grabbed a handhold and got started up the rock face. She’d made it twenty feet up or so when a massive shadow passed overhead, blocking out the watery light of the late autumn sun. Only one thing could make a shadow like that—dragon. Skylar stilled and made like a hole in the wall, slowing her heartrate and hushing her breathing so as to not make a sound.
“You didn’t think I’d let you run away that easily, did you?” Ladon’s gravel-laden voice penetrated her mind.
Wind whipped, tugging at the loose tendrils of her hair, and a massive blue talon plucked her from the side of the mountain. The action gouged marks into the rock, boulders tumbling out of sight into the canyon below. His grip on her, however, was like being hoisted over a shoulder, knocking the wind from her.
“Ouch,” she protested, more for him than because it’d hurt. She could tell he’d attempted to be gentle.
With a powerful downward push of indigo-colored wings, Ladon shot them up the mountain. Skylar didn’t bother to fight. She didn’t feel like being dropped, and no way would she make a dent against him anyway, not without a weapon. Instead, she waited. He’d have to put her down eventually. Dragons couldn’t stay aloft indefinitely. Even the greatest of all the shifters—according to them—needed to rest every now and then.
Stone facing flew past her in a rush, close enough to touch if she reached out. With Ladon’s bulk above her, as they continued to fly upward, she couldn’t get a view of where they were headed. Until, with almost jarring suddenness, the mountain ended, and they burst into the sky. Ladon leveled out above the ground, his momentum slowing until he hovered before touching down, carefully releasing her and letting her move out from beneath him before putting down his back leg.
She started in on him even as he backed away. “If you think you can force me to stay—”
“I don’t.”
Skylar paused, both at the words and the sight of him in full dragon.
She had to give it to the bastard—dragons were nothing short of terrifyingly magnificent. Ladon stood at least thirty-five feet high. Wicked spikes rose from the back of his neck and trailed down his spine to a tail that was a weapon all by itself, like a mace. Long and lean, every ridge of his muscled body stood in stark relief. His scales were a striking shade of indigo lightening to slate blue in the centers like his eyes. Under the sunlight, he’d shone like the living waves of a stormy ocean, a swirl of blue in motion as his body rippled with each move, each thrash of his tail, each heave of his lungs.
Whoa.
She shouldn’t be impressed, but reluctantly, she couldn’t ignore the spark of wonder that ignited inside her. To counteract the effect, she went on the attack. “You don’t want to force me to stay? What do you call kidnapping me?”
The massive creature snorted, a blue flame slipping out the side of his maw. “I call it saving you from stupidity. That fall would’ve killed you.”
So weird hearing his thoughts while his mouth stayed shut. Most shifters could project their thoughts when in creature form. She should be used to it, especially after the last year, but she had tried to stay scarce when the people she’d lived with shifted.
“So, this was for my benefit?” She waved her hand, like doffing her cap to him. “Thank you, sir. I can take it from here.”
She marched off in the direction she knew would take her over the easiest path off the mountain.
Instead of answering, he said nothing. Skylar frowned and tossed a glance over her shoulder, only to catch the faint shimmer around him, like seeing water in a desert when none was there.
He’s shifting.
She sped up, though even once he was in human form, she’d never outrun him.
Another series of glances showed his shift as she increased the distance. In silence and a smooth motion that appeared to blur before her eyes, his body changed. Scales morphed into skin and clothing and hair, towering beast became six foot plus, his spine realigned as he pulled upright to stand on two feet, and suddenly standing behind her was a man.
Skylar whipped her head around and kept walking, muttering to herself. “Stubborn dragon shifter. Just leave me alone. Pretty damn obvious that I have no intention—”
The faint rustle of footfall against the stone warned her of his approach. Probably deliberately loud, because no shifter made that much noise by accident.
“Go away.” She tossed the words over her shoulder.
Silence.
A quick glance showed him only five feet behind her. She faced front and kept marching. Only he made it obvious that he continued to follow her.
With a grrrr of frustration, she lit her hands and spun, lunging for him. Only he hopped out of her way before she could touch him.
“I’m not falling for that twice,” he said with a grin guaranteed to raise her ire.
Skylar doused her fire, her fingers taking a second to stop glowing, and kept walking. “How long are you going to be back there?” she asked after another minute of being ridiculously conscious of her ass and the fact that he was probably watching it right now.
“Until you listen to me.”
“I have no interest in listening to someone like you.”
“No shit.”
She braced herself for another round of arguments, not to mention the impact he seemed to have on her. She refused to give way to idiotic, ill-timed attraction—he was too rough for her, too rugged…and way too dragon.
But hearing him out was obviously the only way to get him to leave her alone. She jerked to a halt. “Fine. Say what you have to say.”
In a blink, he stood before her. Skylar eyed the man in front of her and tried to filter through conflicting information. Ladon Ormarr was a mass of contradictions—murderer and protector, king and pauper, dragon and man… Destroyer or savior? All growl, that low rumbling voice was a reflection of the creature inside him, but what was his bite like?
Kasia trusts him. Skylar batted that thought aside. Kasia could be too quick to trust.
Except she’d put all four of their lives in the hands of this king. Kasia trusting her mate was one thing, but trusting Ladon… Could she? Could they? Could new kings alter the course of so many fates?
Maul thought so. What did the hellhound see in Ladon Ormarr?
Again, the elusive pull of purpose tugged at her. Skylar crossed her arms against its sway and waited him out.
He held up both hands. “I’m not your enemy.” But she didn’t miss how he glanced over his shoulder. Searching for what? Backup from other dragons coming to help him capture her?
Skylar tipped up her chin. “Yeah?”
He leveled a look on her that dared her to ask that question again. She’d bet no one questioned this man, but that was not her style.
“Don’t leave. Stay and at least see how things are here.”
“And I’d be free to go anytime?” she scoffed.
He lowered
his hands, moving closer, slowly like she was a trapped animal he didn’t want to fly away. “Yes.”
She had no reason to trust him, but something in his eyes—hard but resolute—told her he meant that.
Am I even considering this? If she stayed, ultimately that would mean mating.
“I’ll be honest. I don’t have time to court you,” he said.
See. Right to the mating. “Mating is not on the table.”
His jaw worked, as though whatever problems he shouldered were piling on him right that instant. “I need to make you mine. I won’t deny that.”
Who knew intensity, when focused solely on her, could shoot heat through her body like lava in her veins?
“But…” Ladon continued. “I won’t force you. Even if I could without being burned to a crisp, I refuse to build my kingdom that way.”
A dragon king not just taking anything his greedy hands could grasp? Was such a thing possible? A small voice whispered that her grandfather and her father had been good men, and her uncle still was. “As a phoenix, I could be the difference between your success or failure as a king. You’re saying you’d pass that up if I choose to leave?”
Ladon’s gaze didn’t waver, rock steady. “I’m trying to save my people. I’d do anything for them. Anything.”
She believed him.
Ladon rolled his shoulders. “Except be like the kings who’ve ruled these five centuries.”
Skylar eyed him dubiously. “The Blood King has a moral center?”
He took a step closer, crowding her—leashed power and determination. “Stay and find out.”
For a long beat, Skylar searched his face. She’d always trusted her instincts about people. But, in this case, she was having trouble wading through her own prejudices and a growing attraction that was fucking with her senses. She needed more time. “Prove it to me.”
He frowned. “Prove what?”
“Prove to me that I can trust you,” she said.
He considered that, his gaze never leaving hers. Did he ever blink? “How?” he asked.
Skylar shrugged. “That’s up to you. Just know that I’m not Kasia. I don’t trust anyone.”