Chapter Thirteen

As plans went, Samael had to admit his fell in the stupid bucket. However, using Meira and himself as bait before disappearing themselves was the only option he could come up with that he knew his mate would agree to. Despite her worth in their world, she didn’t assign much value to herself personally, more concerned about others.

He’d make sure she stayed safe.

“You want to what?” Rune snapped as soon as Samael explained the idea.

“There are already two mated phoenixes with plenty of power out there,” Meira said, expression earnest. “I’m a complication more than a help. Expendable, when it comes down to it. Definitely not worth your lives.” Almost word for word how Samael had imagined this conversation going.

“Sisters who would be devastated to lose you,” Sera said.

Meira winced, but the resolve in her eyes didn’t waver. “I brought this down on you—”

“We did this to ourselves,” Jiǎ muttered from his corner, earning a warning glance from Rune.

“With a little help from the regime of kings and clans,” Rune added. Arms crossed, the man was black dragon still, though from previous experience Samael knew a mass of angry energy lurked beneath that stoic surface. Much of it aimed at the woman now blithely agreeing to sacrifice herself for them.

“If you didn’t trust Meira before,” Samael didn’t hesitate to point out, “you should now. She’s putting her life on the line. For you.” He left asshole unsaid, but it hung in the air regardless.

Rune’s gaze slid to Meira and, Samael would’ve sworn, softened slightly. Then the other man drew himself up. “Do you know why I was happy to take the role of enforcer?” Rune asked, almost casually.

Which had Samael pausing to look closer. “I assumed because Gorgon asked you, as one of our clan’s greatest fighters.” To be an enforcer was considered an honor.

“He was going to send you, actually. I asked to go instead.”

Truth. Samael had no doubt. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t like how things with the clans were being handled, and I couldn’t stand by and watch my king, my friend, do nothing but insulate our clan and allow each small change, each subtle new shift in policy, each suspicious disappearance or death, happen. I didn’t know things would eventually get this bad”—he waved a hand around the room—“or I would’ve stayed and made sure we fought. The matings are one of many systems that have broken down since that red fuck took power. But to watch Gorgon, a man who’d been a giant, reduced to…something lesser—” Rune shook his head. “So, I came here.”

With each word, Samael’s muscles bunched and shifted, the burn of resentment rising up inside him like a tide of acid. “Gorgon kept our clan safer from Pytheios than any other king managed to do.”

“Through appeasement.”

Samael jerked his head, but not with as much conviction.

Rune must’ve seen it, his lips stretching in a proximation of a smile, but with no amusement in his eyes. “I heard a quote once that said an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

“Winston Churchill,” Meira supplied.

Samael would’ve laughed if he wasn’t in full rejection mode. He drew his lips back, baring his teeth. “Rune—”

“What?” his old mentor demanded. “Are you angry? You should be. I’m goddamn furious.”

The loyalty in Samael refused to budge. “Better what Gorgon chose to do than end up dead, leaving Pytheios to put a puppet on the throne like Thanatos or Uther. The Blue and Gold Clans suffered more than we did. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Ben Nevis has become a sad ghost of its former glory, their numbers reduced, their wealth disappeared.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“That could have been the Black Clan. You weren’t there. I was. Every fucking day. I witnessed the decisions Gorgon was forced to make.”

“I know the decisions he had to make,” Rune growled. “And I wouldn’t have been able to keep my mouth shut. So I helped him the best way I knew how and came here, until the effects rippled their way to those I was—”

Rune bit off the rest of what he was going to say, and silence dropped over the room.

Meira’s hand snuck into Samael’s, cold and small in his, her trust, whether she realized it or not, total. And humbling. Something about that touch got to him, opened him up and ripped out his heart. Had his life been that wrong? Everything he’d been protecting been the wrong way? The weight of the implications hit Samael hard enough that he bowed his head, staring blankly at a spot on the uneven stone floor of the cavern.

Had keeping his clan safe been the wrong move? Isolation meant that black dragons hadn’t suffered, or that was how the thinking had gone. Had their people been impacted anyway? In the colonies. In lives lost that could have been prevented. In mates they didn’t even know were gone.

Rune stepped into him. “If you’re going to take the throne—”

Samael jerked his head up. “I can’t—”

Rune cut him off with a pointed look at Meira. Based on the way her eyes tightened, Meira caught it, and she understood the implication but said nothing.

“If you do,” Rune insisted, “I suggest you be ready to fight. That’s what we need now. A warrior. It’s what we always needed.”

Samael shook his head. “Gorgon is alive. We’ll find him, and he’s a fighter now. He was waiting for the right time, the right allies, and he’s found that in Brand and Ladon.”

Rune settled back, the passion dying from him as though stripped away, replaced by a bitter disappointment. In Samael? Or in Gorgon? Or all of it? “I pray you’re right.”

“We’ll figure it out together.” Meira’s voice dropped quiet as rain into the void, soothing and yet, at the same time, filling Samael with an odd sort of pride. He squeezed her hand.

Rune gave a sharp nod. “Together or not at all.”

“Then let’s get on the same side,” she said. A challenge to everyone in the room, though put so mildly, it sounded almost like an entreaty.

“If we’re on the same side, then we can’t abandon you,” Aidan said. Each man in the room straightened, turning to face her fully. Even the green shifter in the back.

Except Samael knew Meira. She wasn’t going to allow them to protect her at the cost of their own lives. Not if she could save them. To a big heart like hers, the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. Always.

He knew he was right the second she sighed, the sound determined. “As the only queen in this room,” she said slowly, “I believe I outrank you all.”

Gods, she was incredible. “There’s a way we can all get away, but the timing has to be right.”

…

“This is only going to work if we can get enough of a head start. Agreed?”

Samael’s voice when he was in dragon form dropped lower, more of the animal in the raspy, dark tones. After years fearing the creature he was, Meira half expected to be terrified right now, standing beside the massive black shadow of a beast. But she wasn’t. Not even close.

They’d walked down the narrow tunnel leading out of the mountain, even Meira had needed to stoop to get through. How Sam, well over six feet, managed it, she didn’t know, though a few soft grunts told her he hadn’t been entirely successful.

Now they stood in unspeaking silence inside a wide caldera with a hole in the ceiling overhead, the moonless sky black above, stars scattered as though the gods had thrown diamonds up there. Only things that flew could get in and out of the room they stood in.

Only the two of them. The others waited for Samael’s signal.

Meira nodded.

“If I’m going to fly silent, I need to lay my spikes flat. You won’t have anything to hold on to, so I’m going to carry you.”

Not her preferred way to try dragon flight for the first time, but she understood. She gave a thumbs-up.

“Even the smallest sound, before we’re ready for whoever is after us to know where we are, could alert them to our presence.”

She kept herself from rolling her eyes and gave a more exaggerated double thumbs-up.

“Right.” It said a lot for Samael’s tension levels that he didn’t laugh. She almost expected him to.

Instead, he stood on all fours and flipped one large taloned claw under, opening the spikes of razor-sharp talons for her to be able to walk through and stand on his palm, before closing the talons upward around her, like a creepy birdcage.

With more qualms than she wanted to give voice to, or he’d talk her out of this—they’d all already tried to—she sat down in his palm and wrapped herself around the slimmest digit, the skin there more like leather, the scales starting farther up around the base of each talon.

“Ready?” he asked. Odd that the telepathic communication sounded so clear in her head. She almost expected to feel the vibration of the noise through his body, but he was utterly still.

With no way to vocalize without risking giving away their position, she patted the digit she held on to.

“Hang on.”

Samael extended his wings to either side, then gave a massive push, wind buffeting her and scattering small rocks across the surface of the ground. Good thing her clothes had dried from earlier. He rose, dipped, and then another downstroke, and up he went another twenty feet or so. Another dip. Another beat of silent wings until he cleared the mouth of the caldera. Still, he continued to lift them slowly from the ground, one stroke at a time until they hovered above the rocks. Even in early spring, the mountains were still blanketed in snow, the air cutting through her clothes and, since her own inner fire was spent for now, immediately freezing her to the bone.

Only she couldn’t say anything. So Meira gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering and held on tighter.

With a move that reminded her of a roller coaster dropping to gather momentum, Samael changed their trajectory. Like a shot, they flung forward. At the same time, he raised his legs, lifting her up until she lay almost on her stomach with her back to his belly, still surrounded by her taloned cage.

To cut the wind, she realized. The way an airplane pulled its wheels inside.

Also, against his belly, the warmth of his inner fire kept her slightly less frozen, allowing her to unclench her muscles. Not that she relaxed.

Like flowing ink, black against the only slightly less blackness of the sky around them, he set a steady rhythm of soundless strokes of his wings. After the initial shock of speeding through the air over the ground under the canopy of dragon wings, Meira closed her eyes and let herself simply feel. Gods, this was glorious. Total freedom. As though nothing, not even gravity, could contain them. Kasia was nuts for fearing this. Meira wanted to climb up Samael’s leg to stand on his back and fling her arms wide. If she fell off, she had every confidence he’d catch her before she hit the ground.

Silly and fanciful.

“They’re behind us.”

The gruff warning tumbled her out of the beautiful space where she was safe and free, and Meira instinctively grabbed onto him tighter and turned as much as she dared to glance behind them, but his tail, with the flat, mace-like barbs at the end pointing in the direction of the wind, blocked her view.

Behind them where? Too close? Not close enough?

This entire gambit depended on how they timed this. They needed to be followed, not so close that they didn’t have time to get away. But close enough, drawing their attackers away so that Rune and all the others could get out through the main entrance to their mountain. According to Rune, their attackers had blown it wide-open.

“Here we go.”

The wind tearing against her increased in violence as he put on a spurt of speed that made the mountainside blur beneath them. Or perhaps just made her eyes blur as tears naturally welled up to keep them from drying to dust or freezing to ice cubes in her head.

How much farther? Gods, she wanted to call out. Were they close?

“Almost there,” Samael said, no strain to his voice, utter confidence. This was where he came alive. It was obvious in the almost casual way he used his body. He was meant to fly.

A roar split the night air. Way too close. Practically on top of them.

“Are we going to make it?” she dared to ask softly.

He said nothing, his quietness an answer all by itself.

Suddenly, an answering roar blasted, but from far away, almost like a faint echo of the first one.

“Rune,” Samael said, voice grim.

The black dragon shifter—now in direct violation of her orders—seemed determined to make himself into a martyr. Not if she had anything to say about it.

She opened her mouth to scream or call out to alert those following that they were on the phoenix’s track, but Samael gave her a warning squeeze, cutting off her sound. “They’re far enough away, and we could use a few extra seconds.”

Meira clutched him harder.

“There.” A flash of silver ahead. A pond Samael had spotted during his earlier patrol, a plan that had come about after her use of the pond in the cave earlier.

Their way out. Bait and escape.

The next few minutes happened in a rush as he dropped suddenly, arrowing at the ground. Boulders and jagged edges of the sheer mountains rushed up at her so fast she closed her eyes. He stopped hard, slamming his wings wide, and Meira grunted as her body was forced against the cage of his talons. Rocks tumbled away under the force of the wind his wings generated and Samael landed, careful to keep her upright in his one talon.

Then he released her. In an equally silent glide of movement, as he shrank and realigned, Samael returned to his human form. Then ignited, allowing his black fire to dance on his palm, reflecting in the water of the mountain lake he’d brought them to.

“Quickly,” he said. “They’re coming.”

Without hesitation, Meira took his hand, letting his fire flow over her, seeping into her skin, igniting new flames inside her, which rushed over her in a torrent of red and gold quickly eaten up by the black of his own.

She couldn’t take them back to the clans, certainly not all the way to the gargoyles, but they’d already discussed where to go. She pictured it now, the way Kasia had described it to her. Maul had once shown her a mental image of the place, and Meira held that in her mind as she willed the thankfully still pond to display it. A breathtaking image appeared in the reflection, oddly angled, like they lay on the ground and gazed up at the sky.

“It’s going to be cold,” she warned. “It may be spring, but Alaska is too far north to realize that yet, and we’re starting in freezing temperatures here. Dive head—”

A shadow passed overhead, and, without warning, Samael grabbed her around the waist and jumped into the pond feetfirst.

Plunged into icy darkness, water went up her nose, and she struggled to reorient. Because up was down on the back side of the water. The grip around her waist tightened, and suddenly she felt as though she were being dragged down deeper.

Was he going the wrong way?

Darkness crushed in on her, and panic ignited in her chest. What if they didn’t make it to the surface? Without her fire, she’d never get them out of here.

Oh my gods, I’ve drowned us.

That same panic took over her muscles as flight instinct kicked in and she struggled against Samael’s grip. He clamped down, grip bruising, and, in a vague corner of her fraught mind, she felt him kicking hard through the water.

They burst through the surface, and Meira spluttered even as her lungs tried to replace water she’d sucked in with much-needed oxygen.

“Cold…fuck,” Samael spat as he released her. “If we don’t get out of here quick, we’ll turn hypothermic.”

A dragon, with his own heat source, saying that—and his voice told her he wasn’t joking—meant they needed to move. Now.

Muscles already turning heavy, her blood sluggish in her veins and making it difficult to force her limbs to function, Meira struck out for the shore, swimming as hard as she could make her limbs plow, skin already numb, aware that Samael matched her stroke for stroke. The shore seemed to hover out of reach, not coming any closer, for the longest time. The freezing air in her heaving lungs turned to razor blades with each inhalation. She kept pushing. Suddenly, her fingertips touched a slimy rock bottom, and she knew they’d made it. Meira swam a few feet more before she tottered to her feet on shaking legs that didn’t want to work and stumbled the rest of the way out.

Onto snow-covered ground.

Her teeth set to chattering so hard, she was worried her brain might dislodge.

“Dammit, woman.” Samael scooped her up in his arms, but even his warmth was obscured by the soaked clothing that was already turning crunchy in the night air. “Which way?”

“It’s n-n-nearby.” She managed to stutter the words. “Kasia said you can s-s-see it from the l-l-lake. A s-s-s-small c-c-cabin.”

Vaguely she was aware of how Samael jerked around. Thank the gods for dragon sight, because it took him only a few seconds, then he took off at a dead run, his speed, even in human form, a marvel she was too frozen to appreciate. Meira grimaced against the wind his speed created against her shuddering, soggy form.

In seconds, he made it around the edge of the water and into a one-room cabin. The place her mother had sent her sister, along with Maul for protection, the night she’d died.

Samael set her on the floor, not standing, but on her backside, because her legs wouldn’t support her anymore. He ran to the fireplace. “We’re in luck. There’s logs.” Then he blew a stream of black-tipped flames over them, igniting them in seconds, the wood popping and hissing a protest at such extreme heat.

Meira knew she needed to get her clothes off, but she couldn’t stop the rattling that was clenching her entire body or force her fingers to work themselves out of the fists they’d spasmed into.

“H-h-how’d I l-l-let you t-talk me into this-s-s?” she chattered.

“Me? I’ve learned to just go along with whatever you want these days.” He turned and caught sight of her trouble with her clothes. “I’ve got you. Come here.” Samael picked her up and stood her in front of the fireplace.

One arm around her waist to support her, he managed to strip her of her clothes. She was so damn cold, she didn’t even think to be embarrassed about her state of undress or how much skin he was witnessing. She only needed to get warm. Then he grabbed a blanket from the single bed that stood pushed up against one wall of the one-room cabin, wrapped it around her, and sat her down facing the fire, as close as he dared.

Behind her, she vaguely recognized the sounds of him undressing. Then he scooted her off to the side. A tiny whimper of protest escaped her, as the distance away from the fire was significantly cooler.

“It’ll be quick,” he assured. Then Samael dragged the mattress off the bed and over to her so that it lay as close to the fire as possible.

He picked her up and set her on her feet. “Sorry, but we need to share body heat right now.”

Before she could wonder what that meant, he unwrapped the blanket from her body, laid her down on the bed, and lay down with her, facing each other, her back to the fire. He covered them both in the blanket, tucking it in and around them tightly, before he wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head.

“You j-j-just wanted to get me n-n-naked,” she teased through chattering teeth.

A pulse of amusement reached her a second before Samael huffed a laugh, his breath teasing her hair, which was already drying, no doubt in a disastrous pouf of chaotic curls. “Not like this.”

“N-n-no?” Warmth was starting to steal through her, thawing first her chest and spreading out from there.

“No. Cold and wet were definitely not part of the fantasy.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

Lovely warmth was curling through her muscles, relaxing each in turn. She inched closer, pressing her cheek to his chest and enjoying the sound of his voice in her ear. “Makes you wonder how mermaids get it on.”

“Or water nymphs,” he murmured.

“Or the kraken.”

That made him snort, and Meira tucked her grin into his chest. Getting him to laugh was turning into a small obsession.

“There’s only one kraken. I don’t think he breeds,” he pointed out.

“Who said anything about breeding? I’m talking about sex. I’m sure even the kraken gets lonely, too.”

“I can’t believe we’re talking about this.”

Only now that Meira’s body was thawing, her mind was, too, and had glommed on to the question of kraken sex. “I mean, given his size, it could be difficult. He needs someone as big as he is.”

“Seriously, why—”

“A cyclops maybe, though they’re not the most attractive… Of course, the kraken isn’t exactly a runway model. Definitely a face only a mother would love. And the tentacles…” She shuddered. “Everyone deserves love, though.”

“I can’t believe I’m asking, but who said sex and love are the same?”

“Oh heavens…” A giggle escaped her, then another. “Could you imagine the size of his penis?”

“Are we still talking about this?”

He sounded strained, which only sent her further down the rabbit hole of giggles. Meira buried her face in her hands, laughing against him. “Gives a whole new meaning to ‘release the kraken,’ don’t you think?”

He tipped her chin up with one finger, inspecting her face in all seriousness. “Maybe you do have hypothermia and are delirious. Or in shock. We’ve had a lot thrown at us. Should I be worried?”

A statement that should’ve sobered her up, because it wasn’t entirely inaccurate, but didn’t. Instead, she only shook harder with laughter, picturing kraken sex and Samael’s face at the same time.

“I’m really kraken up here.” Then she smothered a hoot in his shoulder and just kept laughing.

“Gods, give me strength.”

Which only served to keep the laughter going.

“Maybe I should give you something more serious to think about,” he offered.

“I’m sure the kraken takes his love life seriously—”

“We need to contact your sisters.”

That had the desired effect, and all traces of laughter disappeared. Meira lifted her head on a gasp only to find Samael smiling softly at her. “I thought that might do it,” he said. Then he lifted a finger to trace her mouth. “Though I’m sad to see the smiles go.”

“No,” she whispered against his touch. “I was getting hysterical. I needed that.”

“I like the sound of your laugh.”

No one had ever told her that before. Though mostly only her sisters and mother had had a chance to hear it, probably. “Maybe someday I’ll get to hear yours.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Not if it’s about kraken sex.”

Meira buttoned her lips against another wave of laughter. He must’ve seen how close he was to sending her back over the edge. “Come on.”

He reached for her hands, but Meira pulled back, staring at his wrists. Samael had removed his leather gauntlets, and the skin underneath was…

Without thinking, she reached out and smoothed her fingers over the ridged, uneven skin that had been badly burned at some point in his life. So badly even shifter healing couldn’t remove the scars. The only part of him marked by trauma. “What happened?” she asked quietly, still touching.

“Remember that fire that took my family?”

“You tried to get to them?” The ache of his pain wrapped around her, seeping into her bones. She knew that kind of grief. “I’m sorry.”

What would he do if she kissed the scars?

“Me too.” He pulled away from her touch before she could give in to the urge. Then he got them both up and wrapped her in the blanket—keeping his gaze strictly on hers, she noticed this time. She hadn’t paid much attention earlier, too consumed by her physical condition.

Meira didn’t do the same when he turned away to grab another blanket for himself. The studious part of her mind appreciated the perfection of his form—lean and muscled and well balanced. No one part of him overpowering the other parts or underdeveloped. Delicious bronzed skin covered in rough black hair only shouted his masculinity.

“Ready?” he asked.

She jerked her gaze to his. “I should probably get dressed.”

“Your clothes are still soaked.”

She went to an old-fashioned armoire standing at the foot of the bed and started digging through it. “Kas left in a hurry, so I bet she left clothes behind.” She grimaced. “Nothing for you, though. You should probably put yours in front of the fire to dry faster.”

Then she frowned, because the armoire was empty. “Nothing.”

“No luck, huh?” he asked from behind her. “I’ll put your clothes with mine.”

She barely heard. The more she thawed, the more urgent what they needed to do next became. “Where are my pants?”

“What?”

“My pants. I saw a satellite setup as you ran me up to the house. I need my tablet.”

Samael grabbed them from where he’d placed them by the fire and tossed them to her. Quickly she fished the folded device out of the leg pocket where she kept it. Good thing she’d slept in her clothing.

Unfortunately, the thing had been through two soakings. It wouldn’t turn on. “Dang,” she muttered. Then moved into the kitchen, fishing through containers.

Found it.

A bag of rice. She dumped her tablet right into it and then set it by the fire, but not too close.

“Rice?” Samael asked dubiously.

“Don’t knock it. It’s a hack that works. Let’s hope it saves my tablet.” Holding her blanket tight around her, she stood and looked around the room. “We should look around the place. If Kasia had a satellite hookup, she probably had tech.”

Unfortunately, a search turned up nothing except a hidden wall panel that, when slid back, showed a bunch of exposed wires. Someone had been here.

What next?

Her sisters. They should touch base. No doubt Kasia and Skylar would both be awake. Skylar would be wigging out with the new arrivals, whom Meira had sent directly to her via the mirror in her bedroom. Which meant waiting for dry clothes was out. She’d have to do this wrapped in a blanket, unfortunately with Samael at her side, feeding her fire.

She’d barely been able to get them through to Kasia’s cabin, even with his help. Hopefully this worked and they didn’t have to wait for her to recover fully. That would not go down well with her sisters at all.

Meira moved back to the armoire and closed door to stand in front of the narrow, inlaid mirror, then turned to Samael and held out a hand. “Let’s get this over with.”

His gaze ran over her form wrapped in the blanket, and desire—heavy and real—touched her more in that one sweep than when she’d been pressed up against him, skin against skin, leaving her pricklingly aware.

“This should be interesting,” he said. Then stepped closer. Rather than take her hand, he tugged the blanket up in a few spots, covering more skin. “There. That’s more…respectable.”

Meira clutched it tighter. Either that or drop the blanket and beg to go back to earlier when she lay pressed to his body and ruined the moment with jokes about kraken sex.

Thankfully unaware of her thoughts, Samael took her hand then lit his fire, the dancing black-tipped flames flowing over him to her, warming her better than any puny burning logs in a fireplace ever could. Meira took a second to close her eyes, absorbing the power he gave so freely. Steady resolve fed through the connection. Both previous times, they’d been in a rush. Right now, selfishly, she wanted to indulge in the way the heat touched every part of her, sank into her skin, and traveled through her veins.

The sudden need to know he was going to be okay, always, shook her to the core, setting up a trembling inside her. Because, somewhere along the way, this man with his loud emotions and his walls and his faith in a fate she couldn’t see had become important to her.

Oh gods, she was going to lose him soon. Once they found Gorgon and got to Ararat, and she took up her new role as the queen and he was back to being her captain…

“Mir? You okay?”

She snapped her eyes open. “Mmm-hmm.”

On that witty and succinct explanation, she reached for her own power, pulling up a new image in the reflection even as a draining sensation immediately sucked at her, exhaustion winding itself around her. She couldn’t let herself want impossible things.

Luck was with them and Skylar was in her rooms with Ladon, sitting in front of the mirror with a chair drawn up, elbows on her knees, and expression drawn.

“Thank the gods,” she burst out the second she saw Meira. “What the fuck has been going on?”

Before Meira could answer, Skylar jumped to her feet. “First, all these women show up in my bedroom.” She leveled a glare at her side of the mirror. “While we were fucking, I might add. It’s a good thing you sent the tiny dragon boy through last, or he would’ve got an eyeful.”

Meira grimaced. Beside her, Samael choked. For his part, Ladon raised his gaze to the ceiling as though he might find peace up there.

“Sorry,” Meira said. “They’re—”

“They explained,” Skylar cut her off. “It would’ve been nice to hear it from you, but you disappeared. I thought you were—” Skylar flung out an arm.

“I’m sorry,” Meira said.

Skylar paused in her ranting and pacing to stand before them. “I’ve been worried for hours. With the other news we got, your timing was damn ugly.”

“News?” Meira prompted. More had happened beyond the people she’d sent for protection.

Skylar hesitated—never a good sign with her outspoken sister—and glanced at Ladon, who’d gone scarily serious, his mouth a flat slash.

“Gorgon is dead.”