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

process shock as he plucked her from the spot she stood with claws she was fully aware could rend her into tiny pieces. He gently placed her on the ground, then curled around her in a circle, going so far as to drape a single wing overhead while his snout ended up directly in front of her. Warmth cocooned her from every direction.

He’s protecting me.

Slowly, Meira reached out and ran a hand over one of the scales, fascinated by the glasslike appearance. Obsidian, yet strangely softer.

He growled at her touch, though the sound was more of a purr.

“I’m safe,” she said quietly.

At least, she hoped she was. She still wasn’t sure exactly where she’d brought them.

…

It took a while—the protectiveness his dragon side held toward Meira meant it didn’t want to cede control to the weaker human side—but Samael managed to wrest it back. That was the closest he’d ever come to losing himself to the animal. Even his first shift had gone smoother.

Meira watched in silence until he finished his shift. Then her eyebrows rose slowly. “I was worried I was about to be a snack earlier.”

“I would never hurt you.” The words left his mouth before he thought about them.

“I know.”

“How do you know that?” He could have killed her.

“Call it instinct.” She glanced away, pulling into herself and away from him.

Instinct. Right. Did she know what she was admitting? That instinct drove her to a faith in him that was beyond reason. Couldn’t she see the danger of trusting that or, worse, what that might mean?

Samael lifted one hand then dropped it back to his side before she saw. Now wasn’t the time or place to discuss it. “Where did you bring us?”

“I don’t know.” Her expression turned so rueful, if his own protective instincts weren’t screaming at him, he’d have laughed.

Instead, he glanced around, dread sinking through his bones. This was a dragon mountain, no doubt about it.

The natural caverns had been hollowed out more. Though slightly smaller, the space was like the training area in Ben Nevis and Ararat with its tall ceilings and flat floor, obviously created for the purpose of easy landings, an entrance large enough for a 747 to fly through. Or one extra-large dragon. At least one hallway no doubt led deeper into the mountain, though several doors were placed along the walls.

“Do you have a guess at least?” he asked.

“I would love to hear this myself,” a familiar male voice sounded from behind him.

Pissed his focus on Meira had allowed anyone to come close without his knowledge, Samael swung around with a snarl that he cut off midsound as soon as he saw the owner of the voice. “Rune?”

“What the hell are you doing here, Veles?”

“Rune?” Meira asked, breaking into what was already heading toward an awkward reunion as she glanced back and forth between them. “Rune Abaddon?”

Now how the fuck did she know that name?

Dark eyes not unlike his own slid to the woman at Samael’s side, glittering with a hard sort of curiosity, and Samael had to stop himself from stepping between them. “You know me?” Rune asked.

“My name is Meira Amon.”

The black dragon shifter who’d been labeled a traitor for years narrowed his eyes and said nothing.

“You helped my sister Skylar.” Meira started forward, but Samael stepped in front of her. Only to get smacked on the shoulder for the effort. “Stop that. He’s not going to hurt me. My mother trusted him.”

The fact that she dared to hit him, even just that tiny tap, made him pause, but it was her words that pulled him up sharply. “Trusted him?”

Meira’s eyes narrowed, turning icy white. “Why the disbelief?” she asked, voice uncharacteristically cool.

“Because I know this man better than you do.” Once a reliable member of his clan, a respected warrior, Rune had gone rogue and had been stealing mates for a decade, at least.

“Obviously not anymore,” Rune said drily.

Rather than question him, though, Meira shot Rune a glance filling quickly with doubts. “How do you know him?” she asked Samael slowly.

A show of faith. In him. Despite her mother’s trust and her sister’s situation, whatever that had been.

“Rune was captain of the guard when I first joined. Before he left to become an enforcer, upholding the laws of the clans in the Americas colonies.”

“He was a scrawny rookie with more brains than brawn last time I saw him,” Rune commented, his calculating gaze turning wryly amused.

Samael cursed his luck. Of all the dragon shifters in the world, she brought them to this one.

Meira’s white-blue eyes darkened, her brows drawing down in a slight frown as she gave the man an unimpressed stare that would give his old mentor a run for his surly money. “Clearly you don’t know him now, either,” she pointed out, about as irritated as Samael had ever heard her get.

Then her eyes flared wide and she flicked a quick glance at Samael, and he had to tamp down on a ridiculous grin because he could easily read her thoughts. Where had that outspoken side of her come from? The woman he’d been around the last three months would never have spoken back to Rune that way.

For him.

His phoenix was changing, finding her own voice, almost before his very eyes.

Meanwhile, Rune, whom he remembered as being an emotionless bastard, shifted on his feet. Only slightly, but Samael caught it and struggled between shock at her defense of him and another arrow of ill-timed amusement at Rune’s discomfort.

Given how hard Rune had pushed Samael those few years they’d worked together, their relationship had been contentious to say the least. An odd combination of respect and dread on Samael’s part. Seeing his old mentor put on the back foot by Meira was worth all the mishaps that had brought them here.

“Why do you have a kitten?” Rune asked, almost idly.

Samael ignored the red herring and skipped to the bad part. “Rune steals mates.”

Meira shook her head, cuddling the tiny cat closer to her breast, as