by Abigail Owen
Shock and awe.
Maybe more shock than awe. The likelihood of the dragon shifters being awed by her was low, arrogant bastards that they were. They considered themselves top of the supernatural food chain and untouchable. Wrong. Shock, however, she could work with. She needed only seconds once she got close enough to Kasia.
With careful steps and years of being the best pickpocket in her family—stealthy and quick with small hands that made light work—she made her way to where she knew Kasia and her mate would be meeting with the king and his personal guard.
Skylar tucked herself by the door and peeked inside a room set in the natural formation of the cave. A small meeting room with a nondescript conference table and uncomfortable-looking chairs. Sure enough, Kasia and her “mate” sat at one end with Maul, their faithful hellhound, behind her.
Skylar hadn’t been the least surprised to see the massive black dog with her sister. Her mother had arranged for Skylar to go to Tyrek. No doubt she’d taken the same protective steps for Kasia, Meira, and Angelika, wherever she’d sent them. Kasia apparently with Maul. The hellhound had been protecting their family ever since they’d found him as a puppy, so it made sense.
The king’s sister, who Skylar’d heard called Arden, sat beside Kasia, seemingly fast friends. Skylar shook her head at that. The woman was part of the king’s personal guard. A rare female-born, and even more rare female warrior. What was Kasia thinking, befriending the woman?
Around the table sat the rest of the king’s personal guard, who she’d mentally labeled the seven dwarves until she’d figured out their names and roles.
Despite herself, Skylar’s attention was drawn to the king. The tall man sat with his back to her, but she recognized him regardless. Black hair, worn cropped close to his head, broad shoulders that held perpetual tension, the sleeves of his dark blue shirt rolled up, as though he couldn’t quite submit to the bindings of kinghood.
The Blood King of the Blue Clan didn’t scare her.
Even with that long scar running down one side of his face, off to the left of his eye. A wound that had to be terrible not to have gone away with a dragon’s accelerated healing. Ladon Ormarr’s appearance was as brutal as his reputation.
That damned enticingly dark scent of his wended its way to her. She fisted her hands, irritation with herself spiking.
Focus.
Skylar refused to admit to a certain fascination with the king. Yes, he was striking in a brooding, scary-mother-fucker sort of way, but that should be exactly what turned her off. This was the closest she’d allowed herself to come to him since she’d arrived, and she could practically feel the power vibrating from him. A power that didn’t come from the title, but from the man himself, though she had no idea how she recognized that fact. Gut instinct told her that this was a man who could go toe-to-toe with any threat. Unwanted respect stirred but sat uncomfortably.
Could he handle me, though?
She had a suspicion that he could, and the idea insidiously settled within her as a point of…interest. Another mental shake was needed. She had yet to meet a man who could keep up.
He’s a fucking dragon king. Like Pytheios. Not to be trusted. Definitely not for you.
Skylar pressed her lips together and ignored that stirring of awareness warming her blood, as seemed to happen any time she caught his scent, frustrated as hell that she had to deal with the bothersome sensation at all.
Ladon gazed down the table at the man seated beside Kasia, her sister’s mate, Brand Astarot—a gold dragon, made obvious by his golden-hued eyes and his size. All dragons were big, even in human form, but gold dragons tended to be even taller and broader than the others.
“Brock Hagan is your biggest roadblock to the throne,” Ladon was advising in a voice that put her in mind of smoky bars and back alleys. She hadn’t been close enough to hear him speak yet. Damned if that voice didn’t echo the beast living inside him—a low snarl of sound.
Skylar shivered, then frowned and buried any hint of fear under what she had to do. Fear had no place here. Or had that not been fear? She scrunched her nose in distaste at the alternatives…interest, or, gods forbid, attraction.
I’d almost rather it be fear.
“But?” Brand asked.
Ladon didn’t move, and she couldn’t see his face to gauge his expression. “I would rather not lose my only allied king, or the phoenix, or both. It’s too dangerous. You’re too valuable.”
Anger tightened inside her, and Skylar clenched her fists. He was using Kasia, just like their mother had warned. Just like Uncle Tyrek had warned before she’d left the safety of her hiding place among a band of rogue dragon shifters holed up in the Andes Mountains to come here.
Damn dragon shifters. Power hungry. Assuming they were the pinnacle of the supernatural food chain. Sneering down on any other paranormal creatures apparently wasn’t enough. Any and every man who took the throne of one of the six dragon clans was not to be trusted when it came to what she and her sisters were. They would want a phoenix for their own selfish purposes, do or say anything to claim one.
“What do you suggest, then?” Brand demanded.
“We take the throne,” Ladon said.
Take the Gold Clan with only a handful of gold dragons as backup? As far as she could tell, most of that clan’s fighters were either dead or currently in a dungeon cell in this mountain.
Skylar rolled her eyes. Did these shifters think of nothing but who sat on a throne and who and what they had to use or kill or fuck to get them there?
“Killing more of my people?” Brand asked. “Why would they accept me as king after that?”
“There has to be a middle ground,” Kasia insisted.
Everything inside Skylar slowed and stilled. Why did her sister even care? Wasn’t she a captive in this situation?
“Such as?” Ladon asked.
This was as good an opportunity as any. Shock and awe time.
Skylar stepped into full view inside the door. “I’d love to hear this myself.”
In her periphery, she was vaguely aware of the king jerking around to face her, but Skylar was too busy glaring at Kasia and her new mate to pay him much heed. The men around Ladon’s table all jumped to their feet, low reverberations of warning filling the room, echoing off the rock walls.
“Skylar?” Kasia choked as she rose unsteadily to her feet, her skin leaching color, leaving her now-pale face in stark contrast to her dark red hair.
“Holy shit.” Kasia’s mate had to reach out to keep his chair from tipping over as he stood as well.
Maul raised his massive head from his paws and whined, a sound Skylar recognized as both a warning and a reprimand. He didn’t want her here? Too damn bad. Her sister needed her.
Ladon Ormarr stood as well, his gaze intent, penetrating even, though he said nothing. This close, she realized he had a cleft in his chin, which only added to his brutal looks. She shook off her strange awareness of him above all the others in the room.
A dragon king. So freaking wrong.
Arden was the only person to calmly remain seated, looking back and forth between Skylar and Kasia. “Who’s Skylar?”
Meanwhile, Ladon raised his head, sniffing the air. Phoenix smelled of smoke, like dragons, but with a sweeter underlying note. Would he scent the difference?
“Who are you?” He reiterated his sister’s question, but softly. Again, that shiver skated over her at the deep tumble of his voice, the command there.
“What are you doing here?” Kasia overrode his question before Skylar could answer.
“I’m here to save you from yourself.” She flung the accusation at Kasia more harshly than she intended.
Kasia scowled. “Dammit, Sky. I mated Brand by choice.”
“Not what I heard.” No way that could be true. They’d blackmailed her or brainwashed
her. No other explanation made sense.
Granted, the year since her mother’s death had shown Skylar a different side to dragon shifters. Living with them after over five hundred years of running from their kind and despising all dragons would not have been her choice of hidey-hole, but that had been different. Those shifters had been in the American colonies, loners fighting against the laws and traditions of the clans—fighting the rule of the dragons in this very room.
Kasia flung out an arm. “I don’t give a shit what you heard. We’re supposed to stay apart—”
Skylar cut her off. “We were supposed to stay apart so we could be safe from dragon kings and the clans. You went and mated one.”
Another growled warning filled the space as Ladon’s warriors and advisors took offense to her words and the venom in her voice. She didn’t give a flying leap about their delicate sensibilities. Skylar advanced into the room. If she could get close enough, she could send Kasia away, somewhere safe. Her own escape would be more difficult, but they could hash that out later.
Ladon stepped into her path.
Incredible blue eyes gave her pause—deep blue and so intense they stole the thoughts from her mind. She hadn’t been close enough to see them like this, or to be under his direct influence.
What am I doing? So what, his eyeballs are pretty?
With a sneer, she ran her gaze down him, sizing him up. Then she lifted a single eyebrow, in deliberate insult, making her finding him wanting obvious.
“You’re not going near her,” he said.
She crossed her arms, unimpressed. She had abilities she was about to rely on to get Kasia out of here. All he could do was shift, and that was doubtful in a room this size. He’d need more space. “You’re not going to stop me.”
“Who the hell are you?” His lips flattened.
Awwww…the poor king didn’t like repeating himself if his frustration was any indication.
Skylar smiled in grim delight. “I’m Kasia’s sister.”
“Fuck me,” Dopey exclaimed, his bald head shiny under the lights.
The rest of Ladon’s guard stirred, but she kept her gaze on the king, who focused on her in a way that made everything else shrink into insignificance, fading into the background like white noise, leaving only the two of them to face off.
Mimicking her posture, he crossed his arms and smiled back. “You shouldn’t have revealed your presence to me, little firebird.”
Those blue eyes took on a hungry expression that sent an answering, inappropriate, inexplicable heat rushing through her, both the look and her reaction resulting in a reverberation of shock that pounded through her like an avalanche.
She returned his watchful stare with a narrow-eyed glare of her own, trying to cover her reaction. “And why not?” she challenged.
“Because now you’re mine.”
Silence settled over the room so thickly it turned deafening. Skylar snorted to cover her sharp inhale. “Like hell.” She leaned around him to address Kasia directly. “I’m getting you out of here.”
The corner of the eye close to the scar twitched. “I can’t let you do that.” Ladon clamped a hand down on her arm.
“Bad idea, Ladon—” Kasia’s warning came too late—a warning for the king, not Skylar.
Before Kasia finished talking, Skylar rotated her hand in his grasp to grab his wrist in return. At the same time, she turned her hips, a move that shifted both his grip and his angle in relation to her, pulling him off-center and sideways. Needing him down fast, she followed up with a kick to the back of his knee. That should’ve put him on the floor, except his knee wasn’t there when she struck.
Ladon released his hold and spun out of her reach. She backed up quickly, needing to reset and reassess. Damn, he was fast for such a big man.
Ladon held out a hand to stay the men around the table who all appeared ready to step in and help subdue her. “I’ve got this.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Good. He was still underestimating her.
“I don’t want to force you,” he said, circling her slowly. “But I can’t let you leave.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Skylar prowled to the left, studying the way he moved, determined not to admire the powerful grace of his body, anticipating his attack.
Ladon lunged for her, and she blocked, then followed with a knee to his ribs. His grunt at the contact was music to her ears, but she’d gotten too close. He flipped her around and got an arm around her neck.
Luckily, he held her up against his body. Using his grip as leverage, she slammed her head backward, right into his nose.
“Fuck.” His grip loosened.
She shot a hand straight up in the air, then stepped back in to him, spun, and brought that arm down over both of his, breaking his hold and trapping his arms under hers. At the same time, she brought her other elbow across, intending to smash it into his face.
But he bodily lifted her with both limbs still stuck under her own. He tossed her back, away from him, then glared across the space between them. Ladon wiped his elbow under his nose, leaving a crimson streak of blood on the sleeve of his otherwise pristine button-down shirt, as well as across his face. “You’ve been trained.”
“No shit.” Dragon shifters were bigger, stronger, and faster. Her mother had been no dummy.
He shot across the space, using the speed most shifters could claim, and she jumped back, blocking his hand. Then struck for his face, only to have him block her in return.
They went at it, setting up a rhythm, almost a dance, as they struck, blocked, and parried, trying different moves on each other in rapid succession. Ten moves in, Skylar knew she couldn’t beat him. The man had incredible strength on his side, but he was also fast and a phenomenal fighter, one who’d obviously spent a lot of time perfecting his abilities. His technique was flawless, whereas she relied more on instinct and the element of surprise, an advantage she’d lost by now.
He wasn’t striking to disable her; he was merely trying to capture her. That meant he wasn’t bringing his A game. Worse, the skill he displayed was a big freaking turn-on. How her traitorous body could be reacting to him right that instant infuriated Skylar. Lust was the last thing she should be dealing with.
Frustration roiled inside her, causing her moves to turn more erratic, less precise. The more frustrated she got, the more he seemed to settle into a cold control.
After he tapped her cheek, as if to say he could put her down if he wanted, she let loose a low hiss. “If you’re going to hit me, then do it, asshole.”
Ladon grinned, a dark predator playing with his prey. “I don’t want to hit my future mate.”
That did it. Skylar went up in flames, her entire body alight with brilliant red-gold fire that lived and danced across her skin, casting beguiling shadows over the walls. Ladon dropped his hands at the sight, his gaze traveling down her body in a way that had her heart skipping a couple beats.
Focus.
She took advantage of his distraction and lunged, brought forth her fire in a flash of light, and shoved hard with both hands against his chest as she applied the only supernatural gift she’d appeared to inherit from her mother—teleportation. In a blink, he disappeared, leaving a hole of silence in the room.
Ha. Turned out the lame ability to teleport other people—everyone except herself—could come in handy after all.
She didn’t wait to gloat, and the fates were on her side for once. Kasia had stepped in front of her own mate to watch the fight.
Skylar ran at her hard and pushed her sister the same way she’d done Ladon. “Wait for me,” she ordered.
On a gasp, Kasia vanished as well.
Unfortunately, Skylar couldn’t go with her. If she could get to Maul, though, he’d get them both out.
As she pivoted to sprint to the hellhound, Brand flipped her ar
ound with a heavy hand on her shoulder, then wrapped his other hand around her neck and lifted her off her feet. “What did you do to Kasia?” he demanded through clenched teeth.
Maul lunged to his feet, letting loose a threatening rumble, but Brand ignored the hellhound.
Skylar clawed at his fingers even as spots appeared in her vision at the immediate lack of oxygen. Her fire doused itself as every part of her fixated on the need to breathe, to survive.
He brought her closer to snarl in her face. “I don’t give a shit if you are her sister. She’d better be alive and close by.”
Maul’s growls filled the room as he prowled forward. Even with her own eyes bugging out, she could see the dog’s red eyes glowing brighter.
“Get your hands off her.” Ladon’s voice cracked through the room, lightning in a bottle, making the hairs on her arms stand up even as she flailed.
Damn. I’ll never get out of here now. The thought pushed through the blackness trying to take over. She should’ve sent the king farther away than one room over.
Kasia suddenly reappeared beside them with zero warning she was coming, not even a disturbance of the air around them. Maul’s growls immediately ceased, leaving only silence. Kasia laid a hand on her mate’s arm. “I’m here, Brand.”
Instantly, he dropped Skylar, and not carefully, as he yanked Kasia into his arms, burying his face in her hair. “You’re going to be the death of me, princess.”
Skylar dropped hard; her disorientation from lack of oxygen had her collapsing to the ground. She rubbed at her neck as she sucked air in, trying to reorient. “Dammit, Kasia,” she wheezed through a painful throat. “Control the mongrel you mated, will you?”
Kasia kissed her mate before she dropped to her knees and put her hands on either side of Skylar’s face. “When are you going to learn to listen first and act second?”
