Chapter Seventeen

Consciousness returned not softly. More like with a jolt and a big fucking headache. Through the pain, eyes still closed, Samael processed everything his senses were telling him. Cool yet damp air that wasn’t moving more than it had to. Thin mattress with no sheets or pillows. The constant sound of dripping.

The dungeons in Ararat sat under a massive underground lake. Damn.

Hand to his head, Samael sat up in the bed he’d been put on and took inventory. They’d broken three of his ribs in the fight, one he was pretty sure had punctured his lung. His nose and possibly his eye socket had also been fractured. He still couldn’t see out of his left eye, but he could breathe okay. A good sign. They must’ve brought the healer in.

“Took you long enough, Captain.”

No mistaking Amun’s voice coming out of the dark beyond the bars.

That’s right. The last thing Samael remembered was Maul jumping into the room and his own last-ditch attempt to shift midair, which meant throwing himself out the window. Only the asshole standing in front of him had snagged him by the foot, and the force of the stop slammed his head against the wall. Everything went black after that.

Except…

In the vague recesses of his memory of those last moments, he’d swear he’d heard Meira gasp. She had to have been close by, now that his brain was engaging, or the hellhound wouldn’t have been involved.

“Meira.” He jumped up, ignoring the ringing pain in his head, and grasped the dragon-steel bars to peer into the darkness. “Where the hell is she?”

A flicker of dark flame and Amun stepped forward, his eyes alight. “Safe enough. She and the hellhound are in a different area of the dungeons. They came willingly. We didn’t have to beat the shit out of them like we did you.”

Relief punched the breath from his lungs. “Thank the gods.”

Amun said nothing, but no burning questions was a positive sign.

Samael turned serious. “Given the way Gorgon disappeared, someone got to him. I don’t know who I can trust. Clearly, I’m not the only one worried about that.”

Amun sighed. “Protecting the king is my first priority. You taught us that.”

“You will never have to protect him from me,” Samael ground through clenched teeth. Except for claiming his mate while the king was supposedly dead.

“I hope that is true. But with what’s been going on these days since the mating ceremony, we operate now on a policy of ask questions first and trust later.”

Another quote Samael had been known to toss at his men. A reluctant smile raised one corner of his mouth. “I’m glad to hear you were listening to at least some of what I said.”

Amun smiled back, though the expression remained guarded.

“I assume the fact that I’m not dead is a good thing. Please tell me Gorgon is actually here, and that his being alive wasn’t part of a trap.”

“A trap? Is that what you thought?” Amun crossed his arms. “Makes sense, I guess. Your timing couldn’t have been worse.”

The implication being pretty damn obvious. “So, he is alive.”

“Yes.”

“I need to see him.”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

They stared at each other for a long beat as Amun made no move, then Samael raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to open the door?”

“I need you to give me your word that you’re not going to go crazy again.”

“I didn’t go crazy. I just wasn’t going to that dungeon.”

Amun shook his head, gaze turning wary. “You didn’t see you from my point of view. I’ve never seen you like that. You fought like a man possessed.”

Or like a desperate mate.

“I had reason. I’m protecting the queen.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Amun said in the lazily sarcastic way that had used to make Samael laugh. “We still have her locked up.”

Samael scoffed. “Not if her hellhound is with her, you don’t. He teleports. If Meira is still in her cell, it’s because she wants to be there.”

Amun’s eyes widened, the humor disappearing from his eyes. “Fuck me. We thought she sent him through the mirror she stepped through.”

“Doubtful. You would have been fucked if she wanted to turn him loose on you. There’s little more deadly than a hellhound, brother.”

Amun shook his head, but he also keyed in the code, and the lock sprang back with a clank. “Let’s take you to the king. Dealing with you is hurting my head.”

Outside the dungeon, Samael turned right to head up three more levels to the atrium, where they could shift and fly the rest of the way.

Amun grabbed his arm and jerked him the other direction. “If you think I’m letting you loose in dragon form, you’ve lost your mind. I’m a damn good fighter, but I’m not stupid.”

“Right,” Samael muttered. Confirm and trust later.

They took the long path through the winding human tunnels of the mountain. Though the tunnels were often fairly empty, they didn’t pass a single soul. As though the mountain itself was as empty as Samael’s heart.

“What’d you do?” Samael asked. “Clear the tunnels so no one had to lay eyes on me?”

Amun’s lips flattened. “Half the clan is gone.”

Samael stopped in his tracks to eye the other man. “Gone where?”

But Amun only shook his head. “You should discuss all this with the king.”

They made the rest of the journey in silence. At Amun’s knock a guard let them into the king’s suite. The damage from the fight had been cleaned up. A glance at Bero revealed an equally black eye, and Samael sent the man a smirk, earning a glare in return.

The sound of a voice, soft and broken, sounded from farther inside the chamber, pulling his attention from the room, and Samael turned slightly to find Amun watching him closely, as though he’d turn feral any second and start removing heads.

“Where is he?” Samael asked.

“His bed. He’s in bad shape. The healer, other than pausing to work on your ass, has been with him constantly.”

That did not help Samael’s guilt any.

Each step felt an eternity as Samael crossed through room after room of the king’s larger chamber, down a dome-topped hallway—a natural formation of the mountain caves—past an office and several other bedrooms to a doorway left wide open. Inside, he found several of the advisers who made up the king’s Curia Regis, along with more of the guard, surrounding the bed, obscuring Samael’s vision of the man lying there. Only Gorgon’s feet under the blankets showed through gaps in the crowd.

But the scent was undeniable. Familiar. Rain and smoke.

Gorgon.

The men turned and formed a wall. Against their own. Regardless of the hundreds of years he’d led them, fought at their sides.

“Let him through.”

Seven hells. Was that his king’s voice? Gorgon sounded as though a razor blade had been taken to his vocal cords.

The men parted, and Samael, ignoring the suspicion ripe in the room, got his first clear look at the king. Gorgon was black and blue from head to toe, bruising gone deep and much of it in various stages of healing. Which meant whoever had taken him had beaten him, let him heal partially, and then done it again. Over and over. The man had also lost weight, his face dramatically thinner, cheekbones protruding.

“Samael.” Gorgon reached out a hand, and he crossed to the man who had been like a second father to him. “Why do they protect me from you?”

Instant burning lanced through the skin on his hand. He didn’t need to look to know that Gorgon’s mark had returned. What did that mean? “They don’t know what to believe.”

“Why?”

Quickly he filled his leader in on what had happened in the days—had it only been days?—since the mating ceremony. Not everything. He left out his mating the woman who was meant to be Gorgon’s queen. Telling him now wouldn’t be right. Not while the king was in this condition.

“When were you taken, my lord?” Samael asked.

Gorgon’s eyebrows raised, probably at the “my lord,” then he winced and consciously relaxed his face. “After the ceremony when I talked to Brand and Ladon privately—they left me in the chamber, I don’t remember why. All it took was a minute. Someone hit me from behind. I have no idea how they got in or out. My guess is Pytheios’s witch.”

Fuck. Could that explain how Brock had been tracking them, too? If she could do that inside Ben Nevis, after expending the energy to do that flame thing, nothing could stop the false High King.

“Where is Meira now?” Gorgon asked.

“She’s here. Safe.” He left out the bit about Maul and the dungeon.

“I want to see her.”

Samael searched for the nearest mirror and, finding one, gave a nod. The men around him tensed until, from the large, ornate mirror propped against one wall, Meira appeared, stepping out of the glass like Aphrodite must’ve stepped out of the sea when she was created. He’d had no doubt that she’d have the hellhound transport her to a place from which she could watch when he was removed from the dungeons. Samael spotted Maul behind her waiting in the room beyond. His own room.

The men shifted on their feet, no doubt realizing now that she could have gotten out any time she wanted. Samael shot Amun a look, and the other man crossed his arms with a glare.

For her part, Meira’s gaze skittered over the men in the room, pausing on Samael for a heartbeat before she moved to the bedside. With a gentle smile followed by a grimace of pain, Gorgon reached for her hand, and she sat on the edge of the bed to take it. Samael deliberately stepped back. Either that or gnaw his king’s hand off for touching her, his dragon going wild in his head at what he was watching and the thoughts now screaming in his mind.

“I need to explain everything,” Gorgon said.

She shook her head. “I heard through the mirror.”

“I’m sorry—”

“This is not your fault. This is Pytheios.” A quick, unreadable glance at Samael, and he took another step back. Meira’s eyes turned darker blue than they already were, but she turned away from him in silence, disappointment written into every line of her tense body. But he couldn’t help that. Now he had to be strong for both of them.

“We have no time to waste,” Gorgon said. “We must complete our mating now.”

The seven hells collapsed in on Samael, raining fire and brimstone down on his head, even as he stood in total silence in a room filled with those loyal to the man on the bed. Himself included.

He waited for her to reveal their secret. Tell the king she was taken. But that was dangerous.

“You must rest.” She softened the words with a smile.

Gorgon coughed. “Pytheios has successfully mated the woman named Tisiphone. She appears to be a legitimate phoenix. All the signs were in place. I witnessed the coupling myself.”

The king paled and suddenly spasmed into a fit of coughing that racked his body, pain evident in every accompanying grimace and grunt and the way he tried to cushion his body from each blow. Finally, he settled back on the pillows, breathing hard, skin ashy beneath the natural hue and beaded with sweat.

Meira gripped his hand tighter. “We can’t mate.”

Samael straightened. He had to stop her from confessing to the king. If she told Gorgon here, with the king this vulnerable, with all these untrusting eyes focused on the two of them, Samael couldn’t guarantee her safety. “Meira—”

She shot him a warning look and continued. “Not when you’re in this condition, or you risk death. I won’t see you burn again. Let’s give you more time to rest, then we should talk with the other kings and my sisters. There is…much you don’t know.”

The understatement of the fucking millennium.

…

Guards walked ahead of and behind her as Meira returned to Gorgon after meeting with her sisters. The long skirt of her dress swished against her legs, swirling the cool mountain air against her skin. Back in her normal clothes. As though she’d hit a reset button on her life.

She was hiding again, but the part of her she’d discovered while she was with Sam, the brave part, was just biding time.

Up ahead, the door to the king’s chamber opened. “I’ll return in an hour,” someone was saying.

It took everything in her not to stumble to a halt at that familiar, darkly smooth voice. Samael.

She couldn’t see him thanks to the guard in front of her having wide shoulders and blocking most of her view.

For two days now, as Gorgon recovered, any time she’d entered a room, her mate had exited. No doubt he’d heard her coming just now. Surprise hadn’t lit his gaze as it had connected with hers.

Which meant he was actively avoiding her.

The wall was still up, blocking his emotions from her so completely, he was a void to her. Possibly, now that he knew of her ability, he could actively will that to happen. Either way, she had no idea what to do about it. Except bleed internally and wait.

By unspoken agreement, they had yet to inform Gorgon of their mating. The king was healing, but still weak, calling the healer to provide blood less often now, but still needed. That alone was a strong sign that he wasn’t ready to hear the truth.

Samael stayed in his personal rooms while Gorgon had her staying in one of the extra bedrooms in his own suite. When she’d gone to protest, Samael had been the one to override her.

What was he thinking?

As they drew up to the door, Samael turned to leave. Their gazes connected and she waited, heart slowing in each pump of her life’s blood through her body.

Time didn’t stop. Because he didn’t stop, and his walls were solid, keeping her out.

“My queen.” He nodded and walked briskly by.

Damn the man.

“Samael.” Deliberately, she avoided his nickname.

With visible reluctance, he turned to face her, eyebrows raised.

“I’m not giving up,” she said, willing him to understand. Unable to say more because of their audience.

But her lover’s walls were sky-high by now. “Of course, my queen.”

“Don’t,” she choked, then sucked in a breath.

Pain, a wasteland of it, lashed out at her, only to be reined in so fast, she almost questioned what she’d felt.

“I must go.” Without waiting for her response, Sam turned and walked away.

Time might not have stopped, but her heart came to a screeching halt before plummeting to her feet, where it got trampled to a gory pulp. Her heart crawled, bloody and bruised, in the opposite direction, wanting to go with the man walking away from her.

She had a horrible, piercing dread about what was going on in his head. The fact that his king’s brand had returned was a bad sign as far as their mating was concerned. But to acknowledge the terrible possibility of what Sam could be contemplating might kill her, whether or not their bond had solidified.

She wouldn’t let him, dammit. But until she could figure out how to convince him, she’d wait. So, for now, she focused on helping the king get better, helping the king bring his lost sheep back into the fold, and discussing next steps with the Blue and Gold Clans. Because Gorgon might be back, but the news he’d brought, about a successfully mated Pytheios, changed everything.

If the woman he’d taken as his mate was truly a phoenix, what the hell did that mean for all of them? What did it mean for this war? Legitimized High King or not, he’d proven himself a corrupt leader. No way could they follow him. He’d kill them all eventually anyway, even if they did pay public tribute.

“Meira?” Gorgon’s voice came not from the bedrooms down the hall, but off to her right.

Leaving her guards at the door, she followed the sound to find him in an office—all smoothly carved-out rock walls, built-in bookshelves she could lose herself in, mahogany wood furniture throughout, and one wall of state-of-the-art computing systems. An entire freaking wall.

She tried not to let her gaze linger or run over and touch. It had been too long since her fingers had caressed a keyboard or a touchscreen. Days.

Deliberately, she turned her back on temptation. The back wall, facing the atrium, was entirely made of glass, the window giving this room an almost normal feel. After five hundred years not living in caves and mountains, the change had been rough. For Angelika, too, she’d bet. Her sister had always preferred to be outdoors and in the sun.

Gorgon, sitting behind his desk, had remained quiet while she’d looked her fill, muted emotions coming from him, as usual, but nothing to cause alarm. She turned her gaze to him with a smile, and suddenly a pulse of elusive emotions ran over her skin. That had been happening with him since he’d returned. She still couldn’t put her finger on what, but he didn’t feel the same as before. Not suspicious or angry. No blame. But something…

She managed to hold her smile as it disappeared, whispered away. “I like this room. It might be my favorite place in Ararat.”

He returned the smile—without an accompanying grimace of pain for the first time since he’d returned.

Gorgon got to his feet, the tremors gripping his body the last few days finally gone. “I thought you might. You’re excellent with computers, I understand.”

Totally geeked out was more like it, though she doubted he’d understand the slang. However, they’d talked about this before the mating ceremony. He’d been courting her—or that’s how he’d put it, at least—and the old-fashioned notion had made her warm to him. That and many other things had made it easier to choose him as a mate.

But that was before Samael Veles had finally let her in…

“In fact,” Gorgon continued, “I ordered these before we made our vows, so they’d be waiting for you when we returned.”

Taking her hand, he led her to the wall of technology. This time she let her gaze devour each detail—a custom-built set of rack-mounted systems. She spotted three Supermicro 2U Barebones with AMD Rome 64 Cores with PNY Technologies Quadro RTX 8000-48 GB. GPUs as opposed to CPUs. They’d handle the cryptographic workload better. Meira hummed as she ran her fingers over the shiny new objects.

She turned back to the man at her side with a grin. “How did you know what to get? I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you specifications.”

The king chuckled, obviously pleased with her reaction to his gift. “I may have asked your sisters for advice on a mating gift you would enjoy and talked to the computer system experts in all three clans as well as having my people here research human hackers. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

Mating gift.

Trying to keep her smile in place, Meira turned her face away, back to the console he’d built for her. “I can hardly wait to dig in.”

If I ever get to.

Gorgon picked up a tablet similar to the one she’d drowned—rice had not helped—and handed to her. “I rarely saw you without your tablet thing before,” he said.

She unfolded the device and passed her hand over the smooth glass surface, immediately feeling slightly more grounded than she had a second ago. It would be so easy to sit down at this console and lose herself in her quiet, dependable, predictable digital world again. But the part of her awakened since the ceremony couldn’t do that anymore. Couldn’t stick her head in the sand and hide.

“I already have a job for you to apply your skills to.”

That pulled her gaze back around.

“I received information while in Pytheios’s…care.” He sneered at the word. “Over the centuries, he’s taken a good deal of wealth from the other clans, not to mention other paranormal creatures. Rather than keep it in physical gold or jewels, staying apart from human systems of currency as shifters normally do, he has hidden much of it in human banks and investments.”

Meira stared at Gorgon for a second, hardly noticing the yellowing bruises on his face as her mind clicked over on what he’d told her. “We can trust this account?”

He grimaced. “I wasn’t sure at first, but the evidence provided to me was enough to make me think it’s worth checking into.”

She trailed a hand over the keys. “You want me to track the money?”

He cocked his head. “Hit him where it hurts. If what you’ve told us about the colonies and mates is true, I think cutting off his supplies in many forms would be a…”

“Worthy endeavor?” she supplied.

“Indeed.”

She stared at the blank monitors, fingers itching to get started, already bending her mind to where she would start. Getting into Pytheios’s network within Everest jumped out as the best bet, but then what?

“I plan to check the veracity of my source with your brother-in-law.”

She swung back to him. “Brand?” After all, Kasia’s mate had been a rogue and a mercenary, bent on revenge for the murder of his family, before he’d taken the throne. It stood to reason he’d have spies and contacts within each of the clans.

“Ladon.”

Ladon? How in the name of all the heavens had the King of the Blue Clan—who’d been the first to take his throne from one of Pytheios’s puppet kings in a bloody coup—managed to establish a trusted contact within Pytheios’s own mountain? “You’re sure we can trust this informant? That he has access to this kind of information?”

“He’s one of Pytheios’s most trusted advisers.”

Her shock must’ve shown on her face, because Gorgon coughed a chuckle. “My reaction exactly. We’ll discuss with Ladon tomorrow on a secure line.”

Meira nodded.

“Until then, I have one more day to recover, then we have other things to discuss. Agreed?”

That elusive pulse skated over her again. What was going on in his head? Meira swallowed as she considered the man in front of her. Perhaps the king was ready to hear her news. He appeared a hundred times better today than he had yesterday. The fact that he was out of bed was an encouraging sign.

Meira opened her mouth to say the words, get this over with now. The truth had been eating at her. An acid inside her mind and heart. She should tell him before he talked to the other kings. Instead, what came out was, “It’s nice to see you on your feet, my lord. We had been told you were dead.”

Gorgon’s lips twitched. “This is a marked improvement, then.”

Guilt surged inside her, but telling Gorgon without Samael at her side, without having discussed it with him at all, wasn’t right, either.

Would Sam go for the plan she’d been formulating these last days? Obviously, the two of them ruling the Black Clan was no longer a viable option. Given the glares she received from the few she passed any time she left the king’s chambers—hell, her guards would probably have killed her themselves if they weren’t under strict orders to keep her alive—told her being accepted as queen would be like pushing a square boulder uphill only to have a giant kick it back down again.

Had this been the Meira pre–Samael Veles, she would have been tempted to think she wasn’t built for that kind of challenge. She’d always thought of herself more of a behind-the-scenes girl, anyway.

But now she’d had a taste—a fantasy—of what she could have been to these people…at Sam’s side…

In her head, she and Samael would tell Gorgon together, then, most likely depending on the king’s response, make it easy on everyone involved and disappear, to the gargoyles maybe, or go to Rune and help him with the problems in the Americas. Help her sisters whenever they needed transportation by mirror or someone to hack a computer system.

If she could get Sam on his own and talk to him, dammit.

“Anyway, I’m glad you like the computers,” Gorgon said.

“I do. Do dragon shifters have a native tongue?” she asked, well aware he probably thought this was a random segue. “Mother said they speak most of the contemporary human languages after thousands of years living around them, but…”

“We do. It is a guttural language. Harsh. We call it Vritranvhis. Only older dragon shifters know it any longer. A dying language, I’m afraid.”

“How do you say ‘thank you’ in Vritranvhis?” She stumbled over the word, unfamiliar on her tongue.

He tipped his head, expression apologetic. “No word for thank you exists in my people’s language.”

That told her a lot.

Gorgon took her hand and escorted her to a small leather sofa set against a wall, seating her first before he dropped heavily into the seat beside her. His legs were obviously still not entirely stable, but she refrained from commenting.

“Did you know the ancient Vritranvhis have a story of how the world ends?” Gorgon paused and ran a hand over his face, which had gone pale, obviously feeling the effects of being up and about.

“Should you lie down?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I am sick to death of that bed.” He dropped his hand. “Though perhaps that is an ill choice of phrases.”

“Mmm…” Meira patted his hand. “We were immune to human diseases, but Skylar broke her leg once and had to stay in bed for a month. She was a terror to be around the entire time.”

“I can imagine.”

Meira relaxed, the butter-soft leather making no noise at her movement. “So…how does the world end?” Her curiosity had got the better of her. “In fire?”

He shook his head. “In ice and water.”

What dragons feared most.

“Before our kind knew of the Americas, it was said that beyond the great waters were untamed lands. From these lands a terrible war would arise, setting a blaze even we could not calm, scorching all the earth. Every tree, every creature, gone. Leaving nothing in its wake except ash and dragons who are immune to fire. The heat caused by this fire would melt massive sheets of ice at the ends of the world, flooding everything with freezing water and consuming the last of us in the end.”

“Sounds like most end-of-the-world stories from culture to culture,” Meira murmured. “I wonder that they were wise enough to guess at more land, or even the polar caps, at a time when they couldn’t have known.”

Gorgon considered that but shook his head. “I think maybe they did know.”

She tipped her head in question.

“Humans aren’t the only breed with a few adventurous spirits. Even if that wasn’t the case, I think your ancestors might have helped?”

“Mine?” Meira raised her eyebrows.

“According to my father’s father, who I knew as a boy, a phoenix has ruled beside a dragon since the beginning. If you can walk through mirrors, and Kasia can have visions, I imagine those phoenixes must’ve seen something.”

“Something terrifying.” Meira grimaced. “Do you believe in the legend?”

“I believe that the legend is a warning. Your sister has changed a few of the outcomes she’s seen, simply by seeing them and telling others. What if one of your early ancestors did the same? Told others to keep it from happening.”

“Wouldn’t that have been passed down through my kind?” Meira asked. “My mother told us many stories that a phoenix only passes on to her child.” Or children, but Serefina Amon had been the first to have more than one.

“I don’t know. But I have found, the longer I live, the more wisdom is to be gleaned from ancient beliefs and words. At the very least, they should not be dismissed out of hand.”

Meira let her gaze wander away, not really seeing. Had one of the women in her line left a hidden message in an old prophecy? A message meant for her? Or was it simply a story, reflecting the fear of people facing mortality, no matter how long their lives?

That same elusive surge of emotions from the king eddied and then disappeared.

“I never wanted to be king,” Gorgon said, his voice lighter suddenly. “In fact, I was never meant to be king.”

She turned her head to find him watching her. “But you rule so well.”

He huffed a small laugh. “After this many years, I’ve learned my way around the throne. However, I was a third son, with two brothers ahead of me, never meant to rule. I preferred to operate behind the scenes, as an adviser to my father, particularly in matters of politics, though never officially. My gift is reading people, knowing what they want or need, sometimes before they know themselves.”

“A handy talent.”

Could he see what she wanted now? Because it no longer included Gorgon. Not as her mate, at least. Only, he didn’t know about Sam, and the guilt was pressing on her like stones piling upon her chest poised to crush her.

“My father and I spent many late nights talking,” Gorgon said. “Some of my fondest memories. I loved him and miss him to this day.” He searched her gaze. “You know the kind of missing I speak of. Your mother—”

“Yes.” Pain hurried her to cut him off, and they sat in silence for a long beat. She got the impression Gorgon understood exactly. “What happened to make you king?” she asked.

He cleared his throat. “My father died of old age, taking my mother with him to the grave.”

“And your brothers?”

“Both killed in the same fight not a year later. A dispute with the Blue Clan over territory, actually. Before Ladon’s time. Before the king before him, even. Suddenly I found myself leading a people who didn’t know me. Who wanted anyone but me, to be honest. While I would have preferred to put another man on the throne and be a council to him. But by blood, I could not turn my back on my birthright.”

Meira cast her gaze over Gorgon, trying her best to picture him young, inexperienced, and unwilling. Trying to picture the clan unwilling to be led by this man whom they now so obviously revered. “How did you gain their trust?”

“Patience. Time. The latter of which you don’t have.”

She hummed a dry amusement. “Gee, thanks.”

“I will offer this advice…” He paused, as though ensuring she listened. “That which you cannot avoid, welcome.”

Meira tried not to frown as she searched the expression of the man in front of her for any clue as to his real thoughts. His emotions remained steady, as usual a barely there thread, like a spider’s web brushing against her skin. Was this kindly advice meant to help? Or had he guessed what had happened between her and Sam?

Meira dropped her gaze to her lap. “My mother used to say that if you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and when to quit.”

“Wise words, though I’m afraid they don’t help me.”

She lifted her gaze, raising her brows in question.

“A king doesn’t have the luxury of quitting.”

What about a queen? What about a phoenix? What about…?

Gorgon leaned toward her, slowly, but with intent clear in his eyes, offering her a kiss.

With a gasp, Meira jerked back slightly, and he froze, his brows lowering at the telling action.

Thinking fast, she licked her lips and hoped the lie didn’t sound like a lie. “The last time I kissed you, you died.”

A flicker of something in his eyes and a shiver of…questioning?…told her he wasn’t buying that. “The last time wasn’t me.”

Heat rose in her cheeks. “It’s stupid, I know.”

Gorgon lifted a hand to cup her face, only kindness in his expression now. “You’ve been through a lot. We all have. Perhaps—”

“My king, we are ready.”

Meira flinched at the sound of Sam’s voice and jerked her head to find him standing at the entrance to the room, gaze narrowed on her and the king, but no expression. Not a single emotion. A man carved from iron.

Gorgon turned his head more slowly to address his captain. “Excellent.”

The king got to his feet, and Meira stood with him. “Ready for what?”