by Abigail Owen
At the same time, Brand and Ladon sprinted forward, each grabbing a leg and pulling. Every powerful muscle in Ladon’s body screamed with the effort until deep red hair cleared whatever kind of portal they made, her arms still invisible.
Kasia.
“I can’t hold onto her,” she panted.
A knife’s edge of panic split him in two, pain and fear Ladon had to push down deep. “You got her?” he asked Brand.
The gold king nodded.
Bleidd showed up beside him, taking Kasia by the legs. “We’ve got her, too.”
Carefully, Ladon moved to her head and skimmed his hand down her arms, hoping that by touch he could access wherever Skylar was at the end of Kasia’s fingertips.
He had no fucking clue if this would work, but his mate was on the other end.
Shock scissored through him as, before his eyes, his hands disappeared. He could still feel Kasia, but Skylar wasn’t there. He pushed farther, heart rate jacking up as he made it to Kasia’s hands and still couldn’t feel his mate.
Only now, the strangest sucking sensation, as though the vortex was trying to yank him in, dragged at his body. Icy fingers clamped around his fists, the chill of death permeating his entire body.
Hurry. He had no idea how he knew he was losing time, but he wouldn’t ignore the instinct.
Finally, at the very tip of Kasia’s fingers, he felt her. Terrified that if he stopped touching Kasia he’d lose the connection, or if he jiggled either one, Kasia would lose her grip, Ladon moved with a slowness that felt as though time itself had crawled to a stop. With deliberate movements, despite urgency riding him hard, he inched forward, careful to keep in touch with Kasia.
The dragging sensation started to pull his feet across the floor, the cold going deeper into his body. Two men grabbed him, grunting at the effort to keep him still, the vibration against his skin noticeable.
Finally, he got his hands wrapped around Skylar’s wrists. He sucked in a sharp drag of relief. But this wasn’t over. “Pull,” he gritted. “Slowly.”
Working as a single unit, everyone took measured steps back. His shoulders, elbows, then hands reappeared, and the chill released his body from its grip as the first part of Skylar showed. The tunnel still had her caught, though. Shaking with the strain of the effort, he pulled until his mate’s head appeared, flopping forward, her dark braid dangling toward the ground.
Oh gods, have I lost her already?
Only he couldn’t stop to assess her state, needing to pull her from the grip of whatever had her. With agonizing slowness, they pulled the rest of her free. The second her feet appeared, the force turned off. She and everyone pulling at her flew back and hit the ground hard.
Ladon crawled over to his mate, pulling her into his lap, turning her so he could see her face. He checked her pulse, and a small part of his fear dissipated as a thready beat fluttered against his fingertips. “She’s weak, but still with us.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “Come on, Sky, open your eyes.”
Gods, she was like a block of ice.
Brand helped an exhausted Kasia to her sister’s side and she took Skylar’s hand, rubbing it between hers.
For the second instance in as many minutes, time seemed to slow as he waited for his mate to show some signs of life. “Come on,” he whispered, giving her a little shake.
Finally, her eyelids fluttered.
“That’s it, Skylar. Open your eyes.”
Gradually, she managed to lift her lashes, her blue eyes groggy, confused. “What…happened?” she whispered, as if even talking drained her.
“I told you that was too far.” Kasia pinched her sister’s arm.
“Ow.” Skylar frowned, obviously trying to remember how she ended up here. Then her eyes widened, focusing on Ladon. “You…”
“I pulled you out.”
“I could feel you there with me.”
Having traveled in that void himself before, with Kasia, Ladon knew she’d been cut off from sound and sight in there. “Barely. It took a lot of us.”
Even still half out of it, he could see the spark of recognition about what that meant. Shifters even in human form were still incredibly strong. If it took a lot of them, that nothingness could easily have taken her.
Damned if he ever let her teleport again if that result was on the table.
“Right. Well…” She rolled to sitting, though he had to help keep her from wobbling all over the place. “Let’s not do that again for a while.”
Kasia snorted. “You think?”
“We couldn’t stay there alone, Kas,” Skylar grumbled as she rubbed at her eyes.
He wanted to carry her back to their suite and just hold her, make sure her lips turned back to pink, rather than the tint of blue still bruising them. But he couldn’t. He’d already lost so much time. “Do you think you can fly today?”
“Are you kidding me?” Brand’s shoulders flexed with tension. “They’re both exhausted.”
Ladon lifted a hard gaze to his friend. “And we’re already a full day behind our people.”
“Strap me on in case I fall asleep. It’ll be fine.” Skylar waved a weary hand, slurring her words.
Dammit.
Kasia straightened. “Me too.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Brand snarled. But he let it go.
It took another hour to get the wolf shifters settled and introduce them to Ivar and Rainier. Having already fought side by side with the wolves when Uther had attacked their town to get to Kasia, they accepted the new additions to their arsenal more easily than they might’ve not all that long ago.
“Glad to have you here to help defend this place,” Rainier said as he nodded at Bleidd. “We have an entire floor of rooms where we can house you together.” He sent a significant look to Ladon, who nodded. Rainier would inform Bleidd about the full plan later and find a way to incorporate the wolves.
“You have our thanks,” Bleidd answered.
“We should go,” Brand said.
Ladon backed up and shifted, worry about his mate threatening to override the urgency driving him to get to his people. Using thick ropes, Ivar and Rainier lashed Skylar to the large spikes at his shoulders behind which she sat. They did the same with Brand and Kasia and, together—way the fuck more vulnerable to attack than he wanted to be—they launched out the wide door and into the canyon. Ladon remembered to stoke the fire in his belly as they quickly gained altitude, warming his mate’s delicate human form as the icy air buffeted them.
He and Brand set a punishing pace.
An hour into the journey—taking a different route from Kasia and Brand, both men deeming it safer to split up two kings and two phoenixes in case of attack—Skylar shifted positions, his first indication she was even still lucid.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. You mad?”
He had to strain to hear her soft answer as the wind snatched the sounds in the opposite direction. His mate was clearly still recovering. “You scared the shit out of me…”
“Sorry.” She shifted against him again. “I thought we could make it.”
“I’m not mad.”
Silence greeted that.
“Don’t believe me?”
“You yelled at me about doing stupid stuff without consulting you first only yesterday.”
“We’d already agreed to a plan. You made a call as part of that. One that involved trying to keep you and Kasia and Angelika safe. I’m not going to blow up over that.”
Shake her. Fuck her. Lock her in a cell. All things he’d considered.
“It was almost the wrong call.”
Ladon tensed at the anger in those words. She was beating herself up over this. He could tell by the tone in her voice. As king, even if for a short time, he knew going down the path of what-ifs was
an exercise in futility that only made you doubt yourself down the line. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t second-guess yourself. You’re better than that.”
Silence greeted his words. Had she fallen asleep again?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Skylar couldn’t figure her mate out. One second, he was pissed about her making life-and-death decisions without him, and the next he was telling her not to second-guess herself. Only she was too damn tired to argue about it. “Whatever.”
Silence greeted her grumpy, if somewhat garbled, comeback.
Skylar leaned against the spike in front of her, eyes closed, as she battled with the fear swirling in her gut and the questions whipping through her mind. All the different ways that last jump with Kasia could’ve ended beat at her. Forget herself, what if she’d killed Kasia?
Skylar blew out a long, low breath.
“Was the blonde claiming to be mated to a wolf your sister?”
Was he deliberately changing the subject? “Yes.”
“Are they really mated?”
“No.” She would’ve said more, but her speaking out loud meant others could listen in to her side. “Can anyone else hear us?”
“They’d have to get damn close, as softly as you’re speaking. Close enough that I’d know.”
I’m speaking softly? The effort to do that much was enough of a struggle.
While she’d been sitting here in a silent half sleep, her mind had finally had time to turn over some facts.
The largest of which was, despite his bloody reputation, Ladon Ormarr was a decent man who’d done nothing but offer her patience she suspected didn’t come naturally, support, and partnership in how they went after the men who’d threatened her family and his people.
Maybe it was time to add trust—gods that was a terrifying word—in what they could do together. Which meant sharing a few things.
“Did you know a phoenix is immortal?”
The muscles under her shifted, as though he’d tensed and then forced himself to relax. “I’ve heard the legends, of course. But where are you going with this?”
“Once we mate, we give that up.”
Silence spread over them as he continued to fly. A silence that just got longer and more awkward with every beat of his wings. Even the wind seemed to thicken, pushing on her harder. Or maybe he was going faster. Hard to tell up here.
“You’re telling me you gave up your immortality for me?” he finally rumbled. Her indomitable mate sounded…thrown.
“Yes and no. Mother never was sure how things would work once she passed her powers on.” She was trying to make him feel better. “There’s more…”
“Terrific. What other good tidings do you bring me?”
Did he not get what she was trying to tell him? Skylar bit her lip. “The oldest among dragon shifters remembers only my grandmother and mother. Maybe my great-grandmother. But each phoenix passes down our history to the next, so it won’t be lost.”
“Each?”
“A phoenix has mated a dragon for the last ten thousand years. When she senses her mate is nearing the end of his life, she willingly gives up her powers to her daughter so that when her mate dies, the bond between them will take her with him.”
Only her mother had to live with the hell of continuing on without her mate. Their bond had not solidified when their father had been murdered. “Is that what your grandmother did?”
“For my mother? Yes. That was when Pytheios struck. When they were at their most vulnerable. According to Mom, he was under the false impression that only the Red Clan had claimed phoenix queens before and assumed he’d be next, with her. They underestimated his obsession with power and perished because of it. Mom didn’t die with our father because their bond hadn’t solidified, and she didn’t bear his mark yet.”
There was more. Lots more. Including the fact that the Blue Clan might not be next up for High King. The White Clan was, in theory, though her mother had mated the White King, so who the hell knew what was next? But she wasn’t allowed to tell him the rest. Not until he’d captured her heart, her mother had always said. Dead serious about it. The trouble was, Skylar suspected Ladon might be the only one who could capture hers. A thought that scared her more than the void.
Another beat of silence. “Why didn’t you tell me before we mated?”
Damn. Did he regret mating her now that he had this information?
Skylar leaned her forehead against him, exhaustion washing back through her. “Mother always warned us not to. A man can fake love if he thought it would win him the gifts we give.” She paused, not sure she wanted to ask the question looming. “Would it have made a difference in your decision to mate me?”
“No.” No hesitation, which warmed her insides for reasons having nothing to do with fire.
But then the following silence dragged out even longer. What was he thinking?
“Why tell me now?”
A fair question. One Skylar took her time answering. “We’re partners, right?”
He bobbled in the air. The first real indication that she’d gotten to him. Why? Because she was the one to bring it up, acknowledge it without him pointing it out?
“Are you saying you don’t hate dragon shifters anymore?”
“I’m reserving judgment about one or two of them…”
A low grunt of acknowledgment rattled around in her head, and she gave a sleepy smile. “Because deep down, I believe in you,” she said. “Not the clans. There’s a hell of a lot that needs fixing about the clans. But you… You I can get behind.”
Heavy silence greeted her words. Had he even heard?
“I mean, you say things I don’t like and make assumptions all the time. You’re arrogant, and hard, and controlling, and a king. I should hate you.”
“But you don’t?”
She couldn’t get a read on how he felt about that. “Not at the moment.”
A dark chuckle greeted her words. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The kind of answer she would have wanted before, when she was trying to keep a distance between them so she could leave him one day. But, damn him, not what she was looking for now. That’s all he was going to say?
She shouldn’t be surprised. Talking about emotions was the same for him as it was for her. Something to be avoided. Still, disappointment skittered around in her chest. Skylar had no idea what she’d been expecting him to say, but sort of brushing off her statement as nothing wasn’t it. “Don’t let it go to your head or anything.”
“Why are you mad?”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Did you expect me to say something else?”
“Of course not.” Not if she had to drag it out of him. Or worse, he lied.
“I’m flattered, if it helps.”
“I’m not mad,” she gritted between clenched teeth.
“I can tell.” Amusement laced his words, only making her more irritated.
“I’d have to let you close to be mad,” she pointed out. He was already too close.
“So…you believe in me, but you don’t want to let me close.”
In a nutshell. “People can only hurt you if you let them close enough to do it.”
“Who has ever been close enough to you to hurt you?”
Heat surged through Skylar with each word. Not a good heat, but an angry heat. If he kept going, her head might start spinning any second. How dare he? He hadn’t lived her life, or even known she existed until recently. At the same time, she couldn’t deny that he was right. Which only pissed her off more.
“Thanatos was my father’s best friend,” he said when she didn’t respond. “He had my parents killed so they couldn’t challenge him for the throne Pytheios helped him claim. They disappeared, so I didn’t know he was thei
r killer, not Pytheios, until recently. He spent all those…centuries…pretending to still be a friend of my family’s, almost a second father to me. I thought he was a weak king, a bad leader, and uncaring of his people. But he was a murderer and a fiend.”
His confession came out flat, emotionless, as if he’d shut off everything he felt about it like turning off a spigot. “I killed him, this one-time friend,” he said. “Slit his throat and put his head on a spike in the middle of the city so no one could doubt his death.”
All the anger steaming through her lost its heat, seeping out of her in slow waves. “I’m sorry.”
She wished they were both human right now, so she could see his face. The best she could do was place her hand on one of his scales. A tiny show of commiseration, of solidarity.
“I didn’t tell you so that you’d pity me.” He was back to the harsh man she’d first met, but she had a feeling now that the harshness was a front.
“No. You told me to make a point. Good job. Point taken.”
“Yeah. What was the point?”
Skylar huffed. “Not to talk bullshit around you.”
Another snorted laugh had smoke drifting back to her. “Try again.”
She sighed. “Keeping my distance is not the answer. Neither is letting everyone in. About right?”
“About right.”
“I suppose you think you should be on the list of people I let in?”
“As your mate, it makes sense.”
“True. But as someone I barely know, you’ll need to earn it. And, to be fair, I need to earn it with you, too.”
“Damn. I was hoping that whole believing in me thing would take care of that. Now you’re going to make me work for it?”
“Damn straight—”
He jerked beneath her, cutting her off. “Fuck. Hold on!”
Skylar barely had time to register his words let alone grasp him tighter before Ladon performed a smooth but hard backflip. One that slammed g-forces through her, pinning her to his back even if the ropes hadn’t already been holding her to him.
