by Abigail Owen
Kasia studied him intently. “But?”
“That’s when our bond solidified.”
Kasia jerked upright. “I have to go.”
She hustled out of the room, and Ladon ended the call. He stared at the black screens in front of him, battling the helplessness trying to drag him under and drown him. “I shouldn’t have left her,” he muttered.
If anything happened to his mate…
“My king is with her.”
Ladon stiffened, then turned. Samael had come into the room and he hadn’t even noticed. Dark eyes, even darker in the dim light of this particular room, reflected the same emptiness of the wall of monitors. Just…nothing.
“Can we trust your king?” Ladon asked, quietly.
The question was more of a throwaway. Hypothetical. To his surprise, the man before him considered it for a long moment before his jaw clenched. “He doesn’t confide many of his plans to me. I’m merely his captain, but I believe his intention to ally with you is true.”
That was the best Ladon could hope for. However, even if Samael was correct, even if Gorgon gave his life fighting for Skylar, Ladon was the one who’d left his mate behind. Left her unprotected.
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” Eye twitching, he turned back to the screens, mocking him now with their empty, black stares.
She’d better fucking be all right.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
What the hell am I lying on?
The cave floor maybe? But why was she lying on the cave floor? Did she roll out of her bed—
Skylar gasped and jackknifed to sitting as memory bombarded her. Pytheios. Her hand flew to her neck where she could feel the slightly puckered skin at the nape. Ladon’s mark upon her, the bond now permanent.
Dammit. Not now. Not when Pytheios was going to kill her. Why had it formed now? Because she’d wanted to tell him she was going to stay when this was over? That she wanted him, too? Because she’d called to him as she’d been taken?
Taken where, though?
A glance around revealed that hadn’t been a horrible nightmare like the ones she’d had growing up when they’d been on the run.
The dark cell was impossible to mistake as anything except a prison. Only this place was something else. Bars surrounded her on three sides with a solid wall at her back. She was clearly inside a mountain. Her prison room faced into a larger circular chamber with what were obviously more jail cells around the perimeter. What held her attention were the walls and ceiling.
Instead of stone, the walls and a large moonhole in the ceiling appeared like night sky, the black sky crystal clear and awash in stars. In the distance below, icy peaks of mountains stretched as far as she could see.
“It’s not an illusion.”
At the sound of a deep male voice behind her, Skylar jumped off her rock slab bed and crouched in a defensive position.
The shadowy figure of a man stood in the next cell over, separated from her by floor-to-ceiling bars that were no doubt dragonsteel. Another prisoner?
Skylar lowered her hands, coming upright. “Who are you?”
The man, almost as tall as Brand if she had to guess, six-three or thereabouts, moved forward until he stood at the bars, light from the moon struck his face, and Skylar gasped again. Ice-blue eyes, so like those she saw every time she looked in a mirror, or at her sisters, stared back at her from a face ruggedly handsome, though gaunt. Thick black eyebrows in contrast to a shock of white hair that appeared to have been hacked at to keep it short, somehow seemed to go together in a way that made this man starkly beautiful.
And her body didn’t give a damn. Neither did her heart.
Curiosity, however, had her in a firm grip.
He cleared his throat. “My name is Airk Azdaja.” His voice sounded scratchy, as though from lack of use.
Airk? Why did that sound familiar, as if an echo of her mother’s voice was whispering through her mind. “Are you a white dragon shifter?”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, but Skylar didn’t push him. She got the feeling he was grappling with something.
“You look like your grandmother,” he finally said. “And your mother.”
At his words, she took a halting step forward. “Who do you think is my mother?”
“Serefina Hanyu Amon. You are her spitting image, your grandmother as well.” He waved a hand at his eyes. “Except here. The color of your eyes is all King Zilant.”
Her breath deserted her in a whoosh. “You knew them both?” She had to force the words out through a throat gone Sahara dry.
Airk nodded slowly.
“How?”
“I am the son of Zilant’s Beta, his best friend. I was no more than a child when your parents mated. After he killed your father, Pytheios killed mine as well, before he locked me in here.”
Even through the reverberations of shock still shaking her, Skylar knew he’d skipped something important. “Why put you in here rather than kill you?”
“You can thank your grandmother for that.” Airk’s lips pulled back in a sneer, one that balanced on the edge between amusement and fury. “Her last act as a phoenix was predicting that the man who tried to kill me, or gave any order to have me killed, would be consumed in his own fire.”
That would do it. No way would Pytheios risk his rotten hide, not when he could do this. “For over five hundred years?” Incredulity snuck into her voice.
He nodded again.
Gods above. How was this man still sane? Though…maybe he wasn’t. Still, he was her only ally right now. Skylar moved closer to the bars, tilting her head back to talk up at him. “Obviously you couldn’t get out.”
“Pytheios has a witch who suppresses the powers of anyone in this room.”
Come again?
Skylar immediately called on the fire inside her, trying to ignite, but nothing happened, as though her pilot light had gone out and needed to be relit. “Son of a bitch.”
Airk’s lips tilted in a smile, though tinged with bitterness. “Indeed.”
“My…” Skylar paused and cleared her throat. She’d almost said sisters, dammit. Inside a fucking cell where anyone could be listening. “My people will come for me.”
Did they even know she was gone yet? Ladon would lose his shit when he found out. He’d tear down this entire damn mountain to get her back. A thought that sparked a deeper hope inside her.
“Do they know where you are? That you’re still alive?”
Skylar gripped the bars between them. Crap. They would know only that she was gone. Not… She glanced around. “Where are we, exactly?”
“Everest.”
“Oh.” Her eyes went wide as she glanced out at the landscape again. “We’re at the top?”
“Yes.”
“How on earth are we still breathing?”
“Air is piped up here for us. The inside of the mountain is pressurized past a certain elevation.”
A tightness lingered in her new cellmate’s voice, and she returned her gaze to him. Realization dawned. “I see. The dungeons are up here so that you can see the sky but never fly.”
“Exactly.” Airk’s gaze moved over her head, taking in the view. “Nights like this are the hardest.”
How demented could you get? And for centuries. “When they come for me, we’ll get you out of here, too.”
A large, rough hand fell over hers on the bar. “I hope so…” He paused with a frown.
Right. She hadn’t given her name. “Skylar.”
He searched her eyes with an intensity that reminded her of her mate, except she didn’t warm under that gaze, her blood pumping at the same steady rate.
“I truly hope that shall come to pass, Skylar Amon,” he said.
Skylar blinked at the more formal use of words but reminded herself that this man had been l
ocked in here for ages. “I suppose you haven’t had much contact with the outside world?”
“This is a longer conversation than most,” he said. “Let us sit.” Airk sank to the ground, leaning against the rock slab that made up his bed, one knee bent, and she did the same, crossing her legs to face him.
“My contact has been primarily limited to Pytheios and his witch, whose name is Rhiamon. They have a son, Merikh.” He made a face at that.
Skylar raised her eyebrows. “And the witch survived? I thought only turned dragons could survive childbirth with a dragon shifter.”
He grimaced. “She is powerful.”
In other words, this Rhiamon person, who held them prisoner, was going to be a formidable block to escape.
“My other contact has been with other prisoners, though that doesn’t last long. Lately, most of those to join me in this place have been other kinds of creatures.”
“Creatures? Like what?”
“All sorts. A griffin. A juvenile sphinx. A minotaur. Several kitsune, also juvenile. They had only one tail each.”
What on earth could they be doing with that eclectic mix? Especially the Japanese shapeshifting foxes.
“The witch seems to be particularly interested in hellhounds and fire creatures.”
Oh gods. Maul. Please the fates, she’d sent him far from Pytheios’s grasp. “Do you know what they want with them?”
“Not definitively. However, Pytheios continues to age. He appears worse every time I see him, but, by my calculations, his deterioration should have killed him long ago.”
Skylar nodded slowly, thinking back to the state he’d been in, in his dragon form with those moth-eaten wings. “So, you think it’s something to do with keeping him alive?”
“Or keeping his witch alive. She has lived long past when most humans survive.”
And still looked pretty damn good. Skylar frowned as a memory triggered. The witch’s words before she’d knocked Skylar out. “I think she’s going to drain my powers.” It had to be how they’d lived this long, right?
Airk’s right hand, draped casually over his knee, clenched and unclenched several times, though he didn’t seem to even notice. A tic, perhaps. Or a tell? Come to think of it, she’d taken this man at his word that he was who he said. What if he was a plant, here to gain her trust and extract any secrets she might have? Could she trust him?
“You have an expressive face, Skylar Amon.”
She raised her gaze to find him watching her with that unblinking stare. “So I’ve been told.”
“You are wondering if you can trust me.”
Rather than deny it, Skylar looked him directly in the eyes, unflinching, watching him as closely as he watched her in return.
Airk didn’t even blink. “You can. Can I trust you?”
Skylar lifted a single eyebrow. “You think I wanted to be captured and dragged in here for whatever Pytheios has in store for me?”
“No.” Airk chuckled, the low sound more hacking than a true laugh, like he hadn’t had cause to use it in a long time. “They stopped trying to trick me over three centuries ago. Besides, you are too much your mother not to be who you are.”
Skylar considered his words, thinking through the underlying truth. Despite his emaciated form, she could see Airk was around her age, a little older, which meant his story about knowing her mother as a boy lined up. For now, she’d be careful to keep her secrets well guarded. Thank heavens she hadn’t revealed the existence of her sisters.
Still, she’d always been an eerie judge of character, and her gut was telling her Airk was who and what he claimed to be. Yet another person affected by Pytheios’s power-hungry claim on the throne.
“So, we agree to trust each other, then?” Without any clue as to why she’d risk it, Skylar held a hand through the bars.
Airk glanced at her hand then back up to her face before wrapping her hand in a surprisingly warm and strong grip. “We are agreed.”
The new mark at the back of her neck suddenly heated, the sensation closer to stinging than a comforting warmth.
“Skylar.” Ladon’s voice sounded beside her, and inside her, as though he’d placed his lips near her ear and whispered her name.
With a sucked-in breath, she released Airk’s hand and twisted to look around the space behind her. Empty.
And silent. Black hole silent. Outside, wind scattered the ice and snow off the mountainside like a veil of sheer white floating away in the moonlight. But the sound of that wind didn’t penetrate this room.
Please tell me that wasn’t some weird mate thing where I’m not allowed to touch another man. She considered touching Airk again, just to test the theory, but didn’t want to rock the rather new trust they’d founded.
“Are you unwell?” he asked, eyeing her with concern.
A man locked away for centuries thought she was the crazy one. Terrific.
Skylar lifted a hand to feather a touch over the back of her neck, but the sensation had disappeared along with Ladon’s voice. “Honestly…I don’t know.”
But no matter what, she couldn’t sit here like a freaking lump of uselessness. Her mother’s words flitted through her mind. Always have a plan. Always be thinking several moves ahead of your opponent. If you get caught, determine what you can use to get away.
Airk was all she had in here.
“You must have a plan,” she said.
“A plan?” Wariness crept into Airk’s voice.
Skylar scooted closer to the bars and lowered her voice. “To get out of here. In all this time, you can’t tell me you haven’t tried it.”
Airk remained silent for a long moment, searching her face.
She didn’t blame him for hesitating. If she’d been a prisoner as long as he, she wouldn’t trust anyone else, either. “I’m a phoenix, and the man who slaughtered my parents and grandparents has me prisoner. I’m not here to harm you.”
She held her breath while he considered her words, her earnest expression. “I have tried many times.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. “What happened?”
He gazed back with eyes flat with defeat. “I am still here, am I not?”
“Good point.” She sighed, biting her lip as she thought. “Did you ever get close?”
“They always found me before I could get out of the mountain.”
Damn. Except…
“Could you tell if the witch’s spell to hold back powers is limited to this room?”
Airk frowned. “How could I tell?”
“The dragon half of you… When you got out, could you feel him?”
“I always feel him. He’s me. I simply cannot let him out.”
Dang. That left that question as a gaping hole.
“Why do you ask me these things?”
“If I can access my powers, I can teleport you to my…people.” Now why was she reluctant to say mate?
Realization followed swiftly on the heels of the question. Because it hurt too much, that was why. Being parted from Ladon forcibly like this made her want to crawl out of her own skin.
Skylar buried it deep, because it didn’t help anything. “Then at least they’ll know where to find me. As of now, they likely think either the White or Green Clans have me. They only saw the white dragon who snatched me, not Pytheios. They’d be wrong.”
If they knew yet at all. She had no idea how long she’d been here.
Maybe, if she could get out of this dungeon in the sky, she could hear Ladon again. She hated to admit how much that thought was driving her now. Just to hear that deep, gravelly voice fed her hope. If they’d had more time together before this, maybe she could even feel him inside her head…
Again, Skylar pushed her thoughts away. Wishing wouldn’t make it so. As of now, she had to assume that she needed to save her own ass.
/>
“I am fairly certain I could not feel anything different,” Airk said slowly.
But something to the cadence of his voice caught her attention. She raised her gaze to find him watching her with an intensity that, despite his staring so far, still struck her as off.
He mouthed some words, and she understood. Likely Pytheios’s witch had set up some way to listen or some modern surveillance of the space. No way would they be left in here together otherwise.
What? she mouthed back.
I have a plan.
Relief, like cool spring water, soothed the edge of her fear.
In the morning, he mouthed.
…
Ladon sat on the edge of his bed, the stone floor cold against his bare feet. A chill ran up his body, wrapping around his heart with a viselike grip, making it hard to breathe. This was the only place he could think to come where he might feel Skylar. Maybe hear her again.
The second Brand had confirmed the attack on Gorgon and their men and the fact that Skylar couldn’t be found, his first instinct had been to fly to where they’d lost her. As her mate, maybe he could feel where she’d gone.
His next thought was to burn down the fucking world to find her. But he had no damn clue where to start. They’d been attacked by the Green and White Clans. One of them had to have her. But which one? And where would they have taken her?
He had reached out to every resource he had, including witches. Everything that could be done to find her was being done, and right now he had to wait. It had only been hours, but each second felt like years.
Fuck, he hated this shit.
No one would know the way his jaw hurt from the tension riding his body. No one could tell that the dragon inside him battled to be released and wreak death and destruction until his mate was found.
He was king. He couldn’t afford to fall apart, even as he quietly died inside.
He’d learned patience, building his following and waiting for his opportunity to take out Thanatos. However, that skill seemed to have fucking vanished, because every second Skylar remained missing he wanted to rip a hole in the entire goddamn world.
Clan be damned.
“My king?”
