The Warrior King (Inferno Rising) by Owen, Abigail (reading a book txt) 📕

shouldn’t be annoyed that he held them back so hard. If anything, she should be grateful. So why wasn’t she?

“We got in here,” he pointed out.

Meira turned off her tablet and propped her head up on one hand to address him more upright. “Only because I have permission. Gargoyles hold a special magic that makes the place they guard impenetrable. When Carrick agreed to watch over me should the time come, he and my mother made a blood oath on my name. Otherwise, I would never have found this place again once I left.”

Face in shadow, she could see enough by starlight to watch Samael’s jaw work as he chewed over that information. “That’s handy,” he said. “How does one get a gargoyle to swear a blood oath like that?”

Good question.

Meira shrugged, the silk of her duvet rustling with the movement. Her turn to strap down strong feelings. A necessity when she thought of her mother. “We didn’t even know Mama knew any gargoyles, and Carrick gives me a different answer every time I ask.”

Samael ran a hand around the back of his neck. The first outward indication of stress she’d ever seen from the man. “I suppose it’s not an option that gargoyles would want to be widely known?”

“I came to the same conclusion. Like the mob.”

A pulse of amusement coming from Samael lit her up. Only not at her expense…more like he thought her cute. “I’m almost afraid to ask,” he said. “But the mob?”

“You know. Secretive. It’s all about who you know. But don’t break that trust. I mean, where is Jimmy Hoffa, anyway?” Meira shifted in the bed and tried not to blink at how easy it was to talk to him. While she’d never call herself shy, she wasn’t exactly a talker, either. Except, maybe, with her sisters.

Samael lowered his head. Was he smiling? Hard to tell in the darkness. “Makes sense.”

A small part of her tension eased. Not everyone found her factoids interesting.

“Do I need to order you to come?” she asked. Then winced. That had way too many connotations that she hadn’t meant.

“To bed,” she tacked on. No. That was worse. Heat flared in her cheeks. “To sleep. Order you to come sleep.”

His head snapped up. “You are not my queen yet. I only respond to orders from my king.”

She frowned. Not, for once, because she’d apparently angered him, but because of his words. “You’ve called me your queen before,” she pointed out. “And if I’m not, then why are you here?”

He said nothing, a wall of nothing.

“If I’m not your queen, and you are protecting me, in the eyes of your clan, that makes you a—”

“Traitor. Yes, I am well aware.”

Oh gods. She’d done that to him. Any fool could see how important his role in his clan was to Samael. He lived to be the warrior he was. Now she’d stolen that from him. Guilt heaped on the piles she’d already collected today. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t.” He levered off the windowsill and stalked around the bed in that strangely silent way all black dragon shifters had.

Surprise skittered through her as he lay down on top of the duvet rather than getting between the sheets. Still, at least he’d decided to finally rest. Exhaustion dragged at her like grasping fingers pulling her into a grave. He had to be the same.

Samael folded his hands behind his head and stared at the canopy overhead, eyes glittering in the firelight. Gods, the man smelled incredible. Like smoke and sand—reminding her of heat.

Quit noticing.

Her body should definitely not be on high alert. His warmth, his size weighing down the mattress and rolling her slightly toward him. Rejection slapped at her, coming from both of them.

Sharing a bed had not been her idea.

Carrick was the one who had insisted they remain in the same room, though his reasoning had been to keep the two people they now guarded together for his own people’s sake. However, Samael had agreed. Okay, not so much agreed as growled that he wasn’t letting Meira out of his sight. Meira had tried to dismiss the warmth those words sent blooming through her as embarrassment.

Pushing aside the echo of that memory, she tried to remain focused on the practical, which was sharing a bed if they both wanted to get sleep this night.

Meira wiggled onto her side to face him more fully, wrestling with the sheets and covers to get comfortable and recapture a modicum of her warmth. “Is there anyone we should contact among your people?”

“No.” He didn’t turn his head.

No one? She found that difficult to believe. Perhaps he’d misheard the question. “I mean family, or friends maybe, who might be worried about you?”

“My family is dead.” No emotion.

Given what he’d just said, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was holding back everything associated with that history. The continued wall of nothing but reluctance was like an invisible barrier between them.

Knowing exactly how badly losing family hurt, Meira couldn’t help reaching across the space between them to put a hand on his arm above the leather gauntlets that never came off. “How old were you?”

He tensed beneath her touch. She hadn’t missed that he always did, at least the few times she’d dared to make physical contact. But he didn’t shake her off. “I had just reached my hundred and fiftieth year.”

She did quick mental math. Given the rate at which dragon shifters aged, that would’ve put him around nineteen in human years, both physically and developmentally.

“They died in dragon fire.”

She sucked in a gasp at the words. How could that be?

She wanted to ask a hundred questions but got the impression Samael would only share what he wanted. The fact that he offered up any information without her prompting she took as a positive sign. If they were going to figure all this out, find Gorgon and fix the rift, they needed to be able to work together.

When he didn’t offer more, she cleared her throat.