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

Amun’s face over and over. He appeared to be gaining the upper hand, except two things happened at once.

Amun broke his grip, and a shadow from outside her field of view rushed him.

“No!” Meira yelled. Only she wasn’t affecting the mirror in a way that he’d hear her warning.

Sam managed to jump back just in time, and the fight continued.

Needing to be closer, she scrambled up on the countertop to put her hands to the mirror and pressed her face in to watch the action, with her heart trying to fly out of her throat and jump into the fray.

Trust me, he’d said.

To what? Get himself killed? She knew why he hadn’t gone with his men to the dungeons to sort things out. She’d seen the dawning suspicion in his eyes. That Gorgon’s supposed return might be a trap to lure them out of hiding.

If that was the case, it had worked.

Samael’s face, covered in blood from his nose, which she hoped wasn’t broken, gave him a gruesome appearance. But he kept swinging, his back to the glass door leading outside as he fended off the three men, moving and maneuvering so that he only took on one at a time as much as possible.

If she hadn’t been so damn terrified, Meira might’ve appreciated the skill her mate displayed. No wonder they’d made him captain. She’d heard of his skill in the air as a dragon, but he was damn impressive in human form, too.

Another two shadows flickered at the edge of her view, and two more men joined the fray. No way could he stand up against five. In less than a minute, he went down as the three men coordinated their attack like hyenas taking down a lion so they could steal the kill.

Fear pumped adrenaline through her like a giant needle had been plunged into her heart. Only one thought got through the noise. She had to help him. Desperate, Meira let the image go for a second and shifted it to Kasia’s mountain, searching as fast as she could.

“Come on,” she gritted through clenched teeth. “Where are you?”

The one creature whom she’d trust to send into that room had to be with Kasia. He hardly left her sister’s side. Flying through image after image, room after room, getting dizzy with the speed of the blurring outlook before her, Meira didn’t stop searching until she found him.

There. A flash of black with glowing red eyes. The image stopped and held.

“Maul,” she yelled. “I need you.”

The hellhound, who’d been lying in a boulder-size lump at Kasia’s feet in a conference room, didn’t hesitate, jumping to his feet and bolting for what she guessed on his side of the connection had to be a monitor used for teleconferencing.

“What the hell—” Brand and her sister jumped up.

Meira ignored them. Maul disappeared and then reappeared in the room beside her on a wave of smoke and stench. Immediately, she cut the connection, blanking out her sister’s concerned face.

There was not enough room, and the dog was scrunched like packing peanuts into the bathroom that was not designed to hold a hellhound. His thoughts pierced her mind through that physical contact. Images of Meira hurt or bleeding.

“I’m okay. I’m fine. It’s Sam. He’s in trouble.”

Slapping the mirror with her palm, she showed him the room.

Sam had managed to get to his feet, only now he was moving funny. Like one side of his body wasn’t working properly. One eye was shut entirely by swelling, and he was clearly protecting his right side.

He backed away from the men, a few of whom had clearly come off worse in the encounter. Slowly, he moved closer to the glass door again.

“Don’t let him get into the atrium and shift,” one of the men, Amun maybe, said. “We’ll never pin him down if he goes dragon.”

Sam’s lips tipped in a smile that was full-on arrogance, made more sinister by the black flames consuming his one open eye.

“Help him,” she begged Maul.

The hellhound, using his own form of teleportation again, disappeared in silence and appeared in the room with Sam a heartbeat later with a snarl that poured shivers down even her spine, and she’d been expecting it.

All five men spun to face the new threat, several backing up rapidly. In the same instant, using their distraction to his advantage, Sam lunged for the window, in what appeared to Meira to be an attempt to jump over the edge and plummet to his death rather than be taken. Four of the men remained facing Maul, but one went after Sam. Amun.

Meira went to change the image and try to catch him through a window as he fell, but she paused when all motion in the room jammed to a stop. Amun’s legs braced against the glass door while the top half of him was blocked from view.

“Got you, you son of a bitch,” Amun shouted.

Then Sam’s obviously limp body was hurled with superhuman strength back into the room. He hit the wall with a crack, then dropped to the floor in a heap. From where she stood, Meira could only see his legs, but he wasn’t getting up.

Maul jumped in front of him, and all five men froze, their faces a comical mix of horror and awe. Mostly horror.

She knew it well. The hellhound, with his massive size, glowing red eyes, and putrid scent of death had struck her dumb with fear regularly when they’d first found him, and he’d been nothing but gentle with her and her sisters. Kasia in particular, but Skylar, too, had played with him, while Meira tended to keep her distance. Angelika had been a bit of a mix.

Now Meira was grateful for him as he held the men off.

“He’ll take the captain away. We can’t let him,” Amun said and took a step forward.

Maul pulled his lips back, baring his teeth, and none of them dared come any closer. Not even their leader.

Amun’s frustration showed in the way he twitched his