The Rogue King

by Abigail Owen

  “You didn’t mention your bodyguard is the same bastard who snapped my leg in half,” the red-haired man snarled.

  “Rafe,” Bleidd spoke just the one word, a low warning in the name.

  Kasia tossed Rafe an unimpressed glance. “Given he was the one guarding me when you attacked him, I’d say logic should’ve helped you figure that out.”

  Before Rafe could respond, Maul appeared at Brand’s side.

  Rafe gaped. “Fuck me. That really is a hellhound!”

  Kasia grinned. She didn’t think she’d ever get tired of how her pet’s appearance made these big, bad shifters cower in fear, or at least exclaim in shock.

  “He’s the observant one in your pack?” she asked Bleidd, nodding to Rafe. The red-haired shifter glared while his leader tucked a secret grin behind a bland expression.

  Maul sniffed the air. Thankfully, he didn’t snarl at the wolves. Rather, he turned his massive head and searched for her, then stalked over, watching the shifters around her with wary distrust. Kasia smiled and patted his side as he stood beside her.

  Brand approached, almost as wary as the hellhound, face like the granite of the mountains that surrounded them like silent sentinels. Only now she noticed a slight limp. He was favoring his left leg. Had he been injured? When?

  She kept her questions to herself as he stopped beside her, invading her space in a way he knew she wouldn’t protest with all the shifters watching. However, he didn’t look at her, keeping his gaze trained on Bleidd. Then he gave a deep nod, a show of respect to the wolf shifter leader. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Brand Astarot. I hope we can put that previous incident behind us.”

  Beside Bleidd, Rafe snorted. “You want to be friends now?”

  Brand didn’t even glance his way. “Dragons are coming for you. You could use a few friends.”

  “You’re the only dragon I see around here.”

  Again, Brand didn’t bother to look at Rafe. “Whatever my mate saw in her vision had her rushing to help.”

  Bleidd glanced at her. “Mate?”

  Kasia gritted her teeth. “Only on a technicality.”

  Rafe sniggered.

  Bleidd ignored him. “I thought you were going to mate the King of the Blue Clan.”

  “I’m still going to offer to align with him.” And Brand could choke on that thought for all she cared.

  “Ladon and nine of his best warriors are circling above,” Brand interrupted. Only the new tense set of his shoulders showed any reaction to her words. “They’ve come to help. May I tell them they have permission to land?”

  Bleidd didn’t answer. Instead he turned to her. “You’re certain these gold dragons are coming?”

  She nodded. “Led by Uther himself.”

  Brand stiffened beside her. “You shouldn’t stay here.”

  She faced him, hands on her hips. “Stop trying to protect me.”

  He crossed his arms. “Never. I’m your mate, and I love you.”

  Kasia wanted to slap that smug expression right off his face. “Stop saying that.”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps we should take this somewhere more private,” Bleidd interrupted.

  “Fine.” She and Brand both snapped the word at the wolf while continuing to glare at each other.

  “I’ll let Ladon know they can land,” Brand added.

  “I’ll have them brought to us when they arrive,” Bleidd agreed. “My name is Bleidd Roark, by the way. Follow me.”

  The leader of the pack strode away, down what appeared to be the main street of sorts. She and Brand followed, then several of Bleidd’s people, with Maul bringing up the rear.

  “You’re adorable when you get angry,” Brand tossed at her out of the side of his mouth.

  Kasia cracked her neck she swung so hard to glare at Brand. “Quit it.”

  “I’d love to see what all that aggression looks like in bed.”

  Wolf shifters and dragon shifters all had phenomenal hearing. Kasia mentally reviewed the list her mother had made them memorize of all of a dragon’s most vulnerable places, because she was going to kill him after this was over.

  “What happened to your leg?” she asked sweetly.

  Brand audibly snapped his mouth closed. He got the point. A dragon was most vulnerable where wounded. “I tangled with dragonsteel when I heard you weren’t where I left you,” he gritted out. “Turns out that metal is harder than a dragon’s scales.”

  Now was Kasia’s turn to snap her mouth shut. What did that mean? She frowned up at him. “Were you caged?”

  He shrugged. “Just in Ladon’s dungeons.”

  “Ladon’s dun—” Kasia cut herself off and held up a hand. “Forget it. I don’t want to know.”

  …

  Stubborn woman.

  “Suit yourself,” Brand said, rather than do what he wanted to do, which was pin her body between his and a hard wall somewhere and kiss her into submission, kiss her until she stopped looking at him with those wounded, mistrusting eyes that were slowly gouging a hole in his soul.

  Bleidd led them to a two-story building in the center of the long line of old stone buildings topped with thatched roofs that made up the main street of the town. Inside, they made their way up narrow stairs.

  “What is this place?” Brand asked.

  Bleidd glanced over his shoulder as they moved down a long hallway, their footsteps echoing off the stone floors and walls. “This was a medieval village. But it’s inaccessible by anything but mule, and even if roads were built to it, the streets are too narrow for cars or machinery, so the people abandoned it in the early 1920s. We moved in around 1940. Human roads still don’t make it here, which means we are sheltered.”

  “And you kept it looking the same all this time?” Kasia asked.

  “Not entirely. The place was falling apart when we moved here, so we had to bolster everything, fix a lot of collapsing structures. We have running water and electricity that we pull off the human grid, but otherwise we live fairly simply.”

  Bleidd ushered them into a room furnished with two long leather couches and several tables scattered about. Comfier than Ladon’s conference room, if that’s what this was.

  Bleidd sat and waved to the couch opposite. “Unlike dragons, wolves don’t have hordes of gold. Besides, anything more than what we can do with our own hands would require human involvement and attract attention we don’t want.”

  Smart. Maybe wolf shifters had more to offer than dragons thought.

  Bleidd’s lieutenants moved to stand behind the couch, presenting a united front of aggressive male shifters. Get a photographer in here and they could make a calendar—the wolves of summer.

  Brand ignored them. He didn’t ignore how Kasia chose to sit at the opposite end of the couch. A smart man would give her space, but no one had ever accused him of being smart. Brand moved over a cushion, not touching, but definitely crowding her.

  Kasia stared ahead, stone-faced, and crossed her leg away from him, doing her best to make friends with the arm of the couch, which she was now plastered against.

  No one spoke as they waited for Ladon and his team to join them.

  The door opened, and Ladon stepped in, followed by Reid, Wyot, and Duncan. The king’s sweeping glance took in the room, landing last on Brand and Kasia. “I see I’ve arrived just in time to break the tension.”

  Bleidd’s neutral expression broke, and he tossed his head back and laughed, then he stood, offering a hand. “I am Bleidd Roark, the leader of this pack.”

  Ladon shook the wolf shifter’s hand. “Ladon Ormarr. King of the Blue Dragon Clan.”

  Intros done, Ladon joined Brand and Kasia on the couch, and his men stood behind, mirroring Bleidd’s men’s postures. Nothing like interspecies tensions to kick off an unlikely partnership.

&n
bsp; Bleidd turned to Kasia. “You said a vision showed us under attack?”

  She nodded. “I saw a group of about thirty gold dragons circling overhead. Below, several people are out in the street. They seemed oblivious.”

  “Any clue as to timing?”

  “Beyond a gut feeling that this is coming soon…” She glanced around, then shook her head.

  “You recognized Uther, though?” Brand prompted. She’d said Uther.

  “The dragon who attacked you at Hersh—” She cut off mid-name, and he knew she’d caught the warning twitch he’d given. “At that bar when we were on our way to Scotland,” she continued.

  Right. Hard to mistake that beast for anyone else.

  “Anything else?” Ladon prompted. “Time of day? Season?”

  “The beech leaves were golden, like they are now. No snow on the ground yet. The sun is about to lower over the western horizon. And…”

  Kasia frowned, her eyes going sort of glassy, as though she were seeing, but not seeing. Without warning, a flame leaped from her fingertips, jumping to Brand’s jeans. The wolves all tensed to scramble, but Brand simply put it out. At the same time, he watched her closely for any sign of pain or a need for his help. No ache entered his own body.

  Kasia, however, didn’t budge, still caught in whatever review of the scene was happening in her mind’s eye. Finally, she blinked, then gasped and shook her hands, her finger smoking as she willed the flames away. She indicated with a jerk of her chin a tall, lanky shifter with rich sable skin, black hair, and blacker eyes. “You’re standing close to that building with the green roof.”

  Bleidd twisted to see who she indicated. “Hunter?”

  “Yes. And his digital watch reads tomorrow’s date and 3:07 p.m. as the time.”

  Brand held still, doing his best not to react. When had she learned how to go into a vision at all, let alone apparently zoom in and pick out details?

  “Holy shit,” Rafe exclaimed. “That’s a fantastic advanced warning system you’ve got.”

  Brand didn’t miss the shuffle of shifting stances of the wolf shifters. All except their leader, who sat in calm thought, his gaze firmly on Kasia.

  Brand knew why. Kasia was gnawing at her lower lip like it was a meal. “Hey,” he murmured, pulling her attention his way. Yup, that was serious doubt in those frosty blue eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  Kasia blinked, and he thought a flash of something akin to trust warmed the deep oceans of those eyes for a heartbeat before she shut him out, turning to Bleidd. “You should know I’ve never had a vision like this. It’s possible my actions, bringing all these dragons here, may have changed the outcome, the timeline.” She gave a helpless shrug. “Anything. I honestly don’t know.”

  Bleidd nodded slowly. “Then perhaps it’s time you leave. You’ve warned us. We can take it from here.”

  Brand exchanged a glance with Ladon, then cleared his throat. “All due respect, you could use our help.”

  No way was he missing this opportunity. If Kasia’s vision was correct, they could match Uther and his forces dragon for dragon. Add in the wolf shifters and Maul, and this might be his best shot at Uther without risking the lives of every one of Ladon’s warriors.

  “Dragons are going to help wolves?” The guy called Hunter narrowed his eyes. “Bullshit.”

  Ladon and Brand both stood, and a snarl arose from the group of wolves gathered, only to be answered with rumbles from the dragons at his back.

  Bleidd raised a hand, and they all silenced.

  Brand nodded at the leader. “The dragons who treated you as beneath them are the old guard. The kings we are trying to remove from power. We’re—”

  “What? Different?” The youngest of the men stepped forward. With his light brown hair and crooked nose, Brand had a decent guess as to who this was.

  “You broke my nose and his leg.” Crooked nose waved an arm at Rafe.

  Definitely one of the wolves from his earlier altercation with them. “To be fair, you guys attacked me.”

  The young wolf bared his teeth in a half grin, half snarl. “We were rescuing Kasia.”

  Brand cocked his head. “That’s funny. So was I.”

  “By bringing her into the heart of a dragon clan so you can use her as a phoenix?” Crooked nose had a thing about dragons. What had caused that?

  “Enough, Cairn.” Bleidd rose to his feet as the guy named Cairn stepped back, though he continued to glare.

  Bleidd glanced between Brand and Ladon. “You fight with us, and I’m in charge. We know these mountains better than you do.”

  Ladon nodded. “Agreed. One request?”

  Bleidd raised his eyebrows in question.

  “We kill the king. Uther is ours.”

  Uther is mine, Brand silently swore. The final step toward the revenge he’d been slowly, meticulously plotting for over five hundred years. He just had to kill him to claim the throne.

  He caught Kasia’s small gasp and glanced down to find her glaring up at him. What had he done now? “Problem?” he asked.

  She clamped her lips shut and rose from the couch with a controlled grace that told him more about her anger than punching him in the face would have.

  Kasia turned to Ladon. “I had another vision you need to know about.”

  She paused, and Ladon nodded for her to continue.

  “Chante let the gold dragons into the mountain. My previous vision wasn’t proof positive, but I’m sure now.”

  Never liked that fucker. Brand glanced at Ladon, whose lips were white.

  “You’re certain?” the Blue King asked.

  She nodded.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Before more could be said, Kasia turned to Bleidd. “Do you have somewhere I could sleep? Maul and I took turns teleporting, but I need to rest if I’m going to be ready for tomorrow.”

  Bleidd flicked Brand a glance but nodded. “Of course. Cairn?”

  Pretty boy with the crooked nose stepped forward, and Kasia went to step around Brand to follow, but Brand moved into her path. “After you rest a few hours, you’re going back to Ladon’s camp.”

  She tipped her chin. “No. I’m staying here. I can help.”

  Again, she moved to pass, but Brand caught her by the arm as she stepped away. “You’re not going anywhere near that fight.”

  She jerked out of his gasp. “The hell you say.”

  “I forbid it.”

  She snorted. “Who put you in charge?”

  “I’m your mate.”

  “That doesn’t mean a damn thing, lizard boy.”

  Ladon and the other dragons stiffened, but the wolf shifters lost it, their laughter rolling over Brand’s tattered patience. “Kasia…” he warned through gritted teeth.

  Not the least intimidated, she rolled her eyes and turned to Bleidd. “Between my visions, which may or may not be of use, and my ability to teleport, I can help. Plus I have Maul to protect me, so none of your men or Ladon’s need to babysit.”

  To give Bleidd some credit, he did consider Brand’s thunderous expression. “The phoenix stays.”

  XVII

  Kasia flipped over in the twin-sized bed they’d found for her and stared out the window at the moonshot landscape. The fullness of the glowing orb in the sky cast the small town, the surrounding pine trees, and the mountain peaks in varying shades of dark blue, gray, and black.

  She’d left the window open, enjoying how the snap in the fall air cooled her fire-warmed skin. Out of sight, hidden beyond the line of trees, she could hear the content gurgle of the river. What had those watchful mountains witnessed over the passage of time? Human wars, dragon wars, shifter wars. What about love? Had the towering peaks seen that, too? As an immortal, what would she see?

  Her chest rose and fell with yet another deep sigh. Slee
p had eluded her tonight. Probably didn’t help that she’d taken a long, needed nap in the middle of the day.

  When she’d woken earlier, she’d sought out Bleidd—convincing herself that Brand being with him made no difference to who she was looking for. She discovered Brand, Ladon, and Bleidd still in that office with the couches, only they’d pulled out a map of the town and surrounding areas. In the hours she’d been asleep, they had devised a plan.

  “They will already have smelled our presence,” Ladon said. “So I am going to take my team and make a show of us flying back to Scotland.”

  “How does that change the whole scent thing?” she asked.

  “The strong scent leading away from here will make them believe we’ve left,” Ladon said. “When we’re far enough out, we’ll double back, behind Uther’s position. No dragons can camouflage like blue. He won’t see us coming.”

  “Meanwhile, I have already evacuated those of our people who can’t fight to a secret location where they’ll be safe,” Bleidd said.

  Angelika?

  Bleidd must have recognized the question in her gaze, because he gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  Kasia let out a silent breath. Thank the gods for that at least. Her sister would stay protected and secret.

  A small movement snagged her attention, and she glanced at where Brand stood in the corner of the room, arms crossed, gaze on her intent and unreadable.

  Was he still pissed about Bleidd letting her stay and fight? Too damn bad. Kasia raised her chin.

  “Who’s Angelika?” The thought came across as clear as day. Only no part of him was dragon.

  Panic and shock widened her eyes. He’d heard her? What have I done?

  Brand frowned.

  Gods. Had he heard that, too? Kasia could feel the blood drain from her face. She must’ve looked awful, because Brand straightened off the wall he was propping up and made as if he was going to come to her side.