The Blood King

by Abigail Owen

  She flicked the thought away as she turned and slowly made her way back to her room, inside the massive, gothic castle where Carrick’s people lived in the Ural Mountains of western Russia. A castle magically hidden from the world, not that the world came close that often, as deep into the wilderness as this place was.

  The perfect hiding place for a precious phoenix. Something Meira wished with all her heart she wasn’t.

  She sank into the feather mattress of her bed, pulling a silk-covered pillow into her lap and hugging it.

  She pictured her sisters’ faces, their eyes like hers, but otherwise little shared resemblance. The gods knew she missed them fiercely, the heart-wrenching pain of losing their mother only exponentially worsened by the fact that she’d essentially lost her siblings the same night.

  What do I do? She lifted her eyes slowly to the gilded full-length mirror leaning heavily against the stone wall across from her four-poster bed.

  Almost in a trance, as if drawn to the instrument she’d requested be placed in her room when she’d figured out what her power involved, Meira got up from her bed and moved to stand before the polished glass, her reflection staring back at her.

  Dressed in the more formal garb of her gargoyle protectors, a floor-length dress of black velvet with soft white fur at the cuffs and collar, her long strawberry blond curls tamed into ringlets and pinned up, again harkening back to times long gone, she could already see the glow of flame in her arctic blue eyes.

  Her body had decided before her mind, it seemed.

  Calling on her power, she summoned the fire to the surface, bright white flames edged with brilliant red—bloodred—skated over her body, though she felt only a pleasant warmth, something that had kept her comfortable during the colder days, and even colder, longer nights of this far north region. The castle had been snowbound for some time now.

  With practiced ease, after a year of traveling first throughout the castle, and eventually farther afield, she thought of Kasia and the location Carrick had provided, willing the mirror in front of her to do her bidding.

  The one gift she’d inherited from her mother had been subtle and taken her some time to discover.

  Her mother had been able to teleport. Meira had stumbled on the fact that she could as well, sort of. Her version of the power was catoptric teleportation—the use of mirrored and reflective surfaces to bridge the distance between spaces. So far, she hadn’t been successful stepping through, but she’d got damn good at watching. No one ever saw her.

  With her heart fluttering at the thought of finally seeing Kasia, now that she knew where her sister would be, she drew on her ability.

  Immediately, the mirror before her morphed from her image to a different one. Darkness.

  Meira frowned. This couldn’t be right. She should be seeing Kasia right now. A sliver of light lit the darkness, appearing as though a door was being opened.

  “Where is everyone?” a low male voice asked.

  The sliver became a blaze of white light. Meira blinked, trying to allow her vision to adjust. Several people stepped inside. Before the door closed, she caught a glimpse outside. Swirling snow and ice over what appeared to be razor-sharp mountaintops. This had to be the right place. Only the door closed, and the space was shrouded in darkness again, obscuring her vision.

  She found herself leaning in, trying to peer closer.

  Then the image jumped. Another mirror farther inside, this one located in a lit corridor of some sort reflected in her own now. Meira gasped. “Kasia,” she whispered.

  Her sister’s deep red hair was unmistakable, not that Meira got a good look, as Kasia was surrounded by a hoard of men much taller than she. They paused in front of a set of massive double doors, iron with intricate scroll work rendering them beautiful, if intimidating.

  “Ready?” a massive man beside Kasia asked in the same low voice Meira had just heard.

  With a nod, he yanked the doors open.

  The view changed again. Meira blinked as a dozen images appeared, like a kaleidoscope, of her sister in a large room surrounded by giants of men—the image duplicated from different points of view. Luckily, Meira had experienced this multiple perspective thing before. Her power was showing her every mirror in the room.

  “Someone’s a bit vain,” she muttered. Who needed that many mirrors?

  She dipped her chin, focusing her gaze on a single image, and the view in her mirror changed, showing her only that. Much easier to discern the scene this way rather than in fractals. The room in which Kasia stood seemed to be in a cavern of some sort, arches formed of the natural cave surrounding her in a round pattern. Sure enough, between each archway, a large mirror was set into the wall. Meira’s perspective was to the front and side of Kasia.

  Her sister stood beside the man who’d spoken a moment ago. Now that she had more light to see him by, Meira gazed at a brute, all shoulders and muscles and a hard gaze which would’ve made Meira back up a step if it were turned on her. He wore a short-sleeved black T-shirt with jeans and mean-looking boots. In winter in Norway? Definitely a dragon shifter. Also, not kingly garb by any stretch of the imagination, but it suited him regardless, giving him an edge of danger that couldn’t be denied. It also showed off the tattoo that covered one entire arm. She was too far back to see the details, though. Even from the safety of her room, she shivered.

  Kasia mated a beast of a man.

  Behind them stood several men of varying coloring and size, but all large and muscled and with that dangerous look. Most had dark hair, which would be unusual for gold dragons. Again, her distance was a problem. She couldn’t see the color of the men’s eyes to peg them by clan.

  “What’s going on here?” a decidedly pissed-off male voice demanded.

  Meira adjusted the view to swing slightly behind Kasia. A group of eight men sat in chairs at the front of the room. The Curia Regis—the men making up the gold king’s council? But no gold king, as far as she could tell. The way overdone throne sat empty.

  Kasia and the man beside her stepped forward. “My name is Braneck Astarot Dagrun,” he said. “Your king.”

  “By whose authority?” The man at the center of the Curia Regis got to his feet to ask, except rather than intimidating he came off more whiny.

  “All authority,” her sister’s mate boomed.

  Now that’s intimidating.

  Whiner guy clamped his mouth closed and sank to his seat. “Uther’s son, Brock, is next in line by right of succession,” he insisted. Though his pale skin turning pink rendered that statement not as confident as he’d probably hoped.

  Kasia spoke for the first time. “If that were the case, then you would wear his mark on your hand, and not my mate’s.”

  Meira sucked in a sharp breath. Kasia was defending her mate? Standing side by side with him?

  Whiner man’s pale eyes snapped to her sister. “And who are you to speak on such matters?”

  No surprise that Kasia’s hands fisted at her side. Her sister couldn’t stand male chauvinism any more than Skylar could. Her mate slipped his hand into Kasia’s and she tipped her head to search his face before smiling. Then she turned back to the men waiting for answers. “I am a phoenix and Brand’s queen.”

  A murmur of protest arose from the Curia Regis. “Impossible,” an older gentleman hissed. “The last phoenix has been dead these five hundred years.”

  Kasia did smile at that. “Says who? Your pitiful High King Pytheios? The man who murdered my father and grandparents. The man who eventually found my mother and killed her, too?”

  “Lies!” The old man jumped to his feet to bellow. “We’ve heard the rumors. There’s already one discovered with a band of rogues in South America.”

  “My sister Skylar,” Kasia interrupted. “Who is with us now, mated to King Ladon.”

  “She couldn’t be. She was found only r
ecently. Besides, more than one phoenix is impossible.” His gaze cut to Kasia’s mate. “You and Ormarr got greedy.”

  Meira reached for the mirror, wanting to protect her sister somehow, ready to yank her through the reflective surface to safety with her.

  Before anyone took another step, Kasia went up in flame and blinked out of sight before appearing directly in front of the man, some twenty feet away from where she’d been standing. “I’ve seen you in my visions,” she snarled quietly, menacing all of a sudden. “Do you want to know what I saw, traitor?”

  Another blink and Kasia reappeared beside Brand. Her flames extinguished, and with supreme calm, she took Brand’s hand. Meira lowered her own trembling hand, hardly recognizing her sister. Had Kasia learned that evil-looking glare from her mate?

  Suddenly, Brand’s image wavered, as though she was witnessing a mirage in the middle of a castle, a sure sign he was shifting. Only no way could the room accommodate a full-sized dragon. Also, Kasia and the other men stayed where they stood, rather than moving back to give him space.

  In an impressive display of control, Brand brought forward his wings only. Meira hadn’t even known dragons could partially shift such a large piece of their body. That had to be unusual, right?

  “I state this for all the gold dragons within range to hear…”

  Meira knew about how dragon shifters communicated telepathically when in dragon form. Based on his choice of words, that had to be what Brand was doing now, communicating to every shifter near him.

  “My name is Braneck Astarot Dagrun. Son and only living heir of King Fafnir. Slayer of the false king Uther. And the man whose mark you bear on your hands. I am the rightful King of the Gold Clan of dragon shifters, and I will take my throne.” Brand pointed to the empty gilded chair on a raised dais behind where the men of the Curia Regis sat.

  “The warriors of the Blue Clan, led by King Ladon Ormarr, represented here by the captain of his guard, Reid Herensuge, and the king’s sister, Arden Ormarr”—a tall man with an unimpressed glower bowed his head as did the smaller woman beside him—“and the warriors of the Black Clan, led by King Gorgon Ejderha, represented here by the captain of his guard, Samael Veles”—an intense looking man with slightly shaggy dark hair and fathomless eyes bowed his head—“are here as proof of the support I bring with me. I can take my throne by force, but I would rather save my people from the bloodshed. Swear allegiance to me now and you’ll live.”

  The previous king’s viceroys paled with each word Brand uttered. Two of the men sitting before Brand covered the marks that could be seen on the fleshy part between their thumbs and forefingers.

  Finished with his claim, Brand lifted his head. He listened, and the room sat in silence for a long time, tension piling on tension until it reached screaming pitch. Until one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile that sent another shiver cascading down Meira’s spine.

  “My people have spoken,” he murmured. “Bow to your king.”

  One by one, each of the men stood and knelt before their king. All except the oldest of the gentlemen. Brand gave a single nod to one of the men on his left, who took that man into custody and led him out of the room.

  “Brock will not sit by for this without a fight,” whiny guy warned.

  The fact that Brock—whom she understood to be the son of the previous ruler—wasn’t there had Meira frowning. Why would he leave his people so unguarded?

  “Yes. Where is the son of a murderer?” When none answered, the men still on their knees looking to each other in obvious confusion, Brand lifted a single unimpressed eyebrow. “We’ll see how he does against two armies and a clan now sworn allegiance to me.” He waved a hand at the door. “Please go with my men. I’ll talk to each of you when I’m damn good and ready.”

  The men vacated the space, practically running out of it. As soon as the door closed behind them, Kasia threw her arms around Brand’s neck. “You did it,” she whispered.

  Brand scowled, as if he didn’t like that. “It’s not over yet,” he murmured before claiming her lips in a kiss so reverent, Meira lowered her gaze, feeling the need to give them privacy.

  Brand lifted his head to stare down at her sister, possession and something more in his golden gaze—adoration, love, desire, protectiveness. Even for someone who’d never witnessed destined mates firsthand, Meira could still recognize it when she saw it.

  The mass of anxiety in her belly eased, though only slightly. Her sister had found her mate and appeared happy. She was far from safe, mated to a king with a precarious throne, but she was where the fates had clearly decreed she should be.

  Meira touched her sister’s reflection in the mirror. “I’m happy for you,” she whispered and hoped that perhaps Kasia knew, that she heard those words in her heart.

  Brand and Kasia parted. “I need to talk to Ladon. Now.”

  Together, they led the remaining men in the room away. Meira was about to turn off her powers when one of Brand’s men stepped in front of the mirror. She froze. This was the man Brand had introduced as Samael Veles, the captain of the black king’s guard.

  She allowed her gaze to travel over him—almost painfully handsome with a strong jaw covered by dark scruff. She could see why such a man would earn that position. He had hardened warrior stamped all over him—from the wide military stance, to a body honed for battle, and a hard light in his eyes as black as night that never stopped checking the corners of the room.

  A kick of unaccustomed awareness shuddered through her only to be replaced by a cold fear as her gaze connected with those fathomless black eyes.

  He was staring directly at her.

  Meira held still, not even daring to breathe. He couldn’t see her. No one ever saw her.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  With a gasp, she stumbled backward, dousing her flames, her mirror immediately changing to show only her reflection. Meira rubbed at her arms, both fear and the chill from the loss of her fire penetrating down to her bones in seconds.

  How could I have been so careless?

  …

  Phone to his ear, Ladon listened to Brand break down the current situation. The entire time he listened, he watched Skylar, who watched him right back. She didn’t pester, didn’t ask questions, merely watched him, worry icing over the determination in those chilly blue eyes.

  “Got it,” Ladon said. “Any sign of where Brock went?”

  He’d hoped against hope that Brand’s gambit to go in first would stave off a fight. But Brock’s absence told Ladon he’d been right all along. The gold dragon had abandoned the weakest of his people, people a man like that would regard as useless and disposable.

  “No sign of him. Samael is returning to Gorgon now.”

  Which meant the black king’s captain had realized the same thing Ladon had. “They’re going for Ben Nevis.”

  “I agree. Next phase?”

  “Next phase,” Ladon confirmed. After arriving here openly with all the combined blue and black forces, he’d spent the last several days sending half the men back to the mountain. Ben Nevis was ready.

  Hopefully Skylar had rested long enough for the second part of his plan.

  “You watch your back until you hear from me again,” he told Brand. “A show of force never hurt anything.”

  A snorted laugh came down the line. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  Ladon hung up.

  “Well?” Skylar asked before he even pushed the button to end the call.

  “They’re in, with most of the shifters inside the mountain having sworn allegiance to their new king and the rest in cells.”

  She said nothing for a moment, then straightened. “When do we go?”

  He crossed his arms to stare at her, taking in the purpose in shoulders drawn back, body practically vibrating with the need to get started.

  “Wha
t?” she asked slowly when he didn’t speak, just kept staring.

  “I never put much store in the fates. But perhaps they know what they’re doing after all.”

  Skylar raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

  He wasn’t ready to confess the surge of pride that had him staring, the knowledge that this strong, capable, action-first woman was his. He knew the stories about how drawn to each other mates could be, how they clicked on more than a physical level, and he’d never been interested. But he couldn’t deny that Skylar worked for him on a basic level that spoke to the heart of who he was as a man.

  “Let’s just say that I’m not the type to handle female emotions well. The fact that your first reaction was to get shit done…” He shrugged again. “I like that about you.”

  As soon as the words left his mouth, Ladon gave a mental pause, rattled. Because he liked his mate. She was stubborn, and rash, and standoffish. She was also brave, and loyal, and determined.

  He liked her. Every part of her.

  A fact that should have scared the shit out of him, but somehow settled comfortably into the center of his being.

  “My king,” Asher’s thought clanged through his head. Ladon froze and waited for the next thought he knew was coming. “Ben Nevis is under attack now.”

  Beside him Skylar gasped, and Ladon cut his gaze to her. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yes.”

  He frowned. She shouldn’t have heard. Asher had sent that thought to Ladon alone, knowing his king would prefer to decide what to do on his own. But he couldn’t address that now. “Back up,” he said to Skylar.

  Without argument, she scooted back as he started his shift. This was one of those moments when the process took too much damn time. As soon as he was able, he continued to talk to Asher. “How do you know?”

  “Rainier broke comms to relay it.”

  “Is it Brock?” It could be another clan helping him.

  “Yes. He’s going for the people loyal to him who we still have in our cells. Just as you predicted.”

  Take out the heart then attack with a bigger force. Exactly what Ladon would’ve done.