No. Better to forget this happened. If he saw her again, he’d get the truth from her. Now and always, his duty lay with his king.
Chapter One
Today, Meira Amon would mate a dragon shifter.
Not for the first time in her life, she wondered if fear could kill a person. Her heart was beating so hard it hurt. Not that she would back down. Her heart had to settle down eventually, right?
Phoenixes, after all, were able to choose their own mates, rather than rely on the fates, and that’s exactly what she’d done. She’d chosen.
Gorgon’s shock when he discovered not one or two but four phoenix sisters in existence had been the sharpest emotion the man had given off in the very short time she’d known him. Her and her sisters’ existences had been a miracle that some dragon shifters might not believe to be real, but the king, at least, believed them and had accepted her offer to mate.
Her offer.
She’d partially expected the fates to give her a sign that she was doing the right thing mating King Gorgon—a dream, a gust of wind with creepy timing, a bolt of lightning, even. No such luck. Love and loyalty had driven her. She might not be her sisters—never having come close to Skylar’s form of rash bravery, or Kasia’s version of steady courage, or Angelika’s bright confidence—but Meira was starting to find her own kind of resolve.
Including, any minute now, walking through the massive double doors that led to the throne room in Ben Nevis, the mountain stronghold of the Blue Clan, to bind herself to a good man, but one she didn’t love.
Oh gods. I’m really doing this.
They’d taken a few months to plan the ceremony. Neither Kasia nor Skylar had had a mating ceremony, simply skipping to the physical part of binding their lives to their mates through fire and sex. Gorgon had insisted that all dragon shifters needed to see that at least one of the phoenixes had done things the proper way, which was why they’d risked waiting as arrangements had been situated to the smallest detail.
Not quiet months, unfortunately, with constant attacks from the Green and White Clans. The Red Clan, meanwhile, had remained unnervingly silent, more concerning than direct attacks.
What was Pytheios up to?
Meira had a hard time hating anything or anyone, but her hate for that man threatened to consume her, the emotion a physical flaying of her heart. Every single day.
Hate for the man who’d murdered her father and grandparents before she was born. Who’d sent her mother into hiding, pregnant and alone, until he tracked her down and killed her, too. More horrors that she’d learned recently could be laid at his feet. All in pathological pursuit of a crown and power.
Meira would do anything to help stop him.
Offering to mate a dragon shifter king fell under the heading of “anything.” The tie that would bind the Black, Blue, and Gold Clans together.
If it turns the tide of the war as the legends claim, it will be worth it.
She’d made her decisions, ones that set her future in stone. A future that only needed her to open the door before her and step through.
If only her legs would stop shaking.
Needing to bleed off the tension buzzing through her, Meira fluffed out the skirt of her midnight-black mating gown, the color of her new clan. The sparkling jewels in all the colors of the dragon shifter clans—black, white, blue, green, gold, and red—sewn into the delicate material flashed and glittered with the movement.
Angelika, the only one of her sisters whose existence had still not been revealed to any but the three allied kings, was already inside with the wolf shifters their mother had sent her to for protection. She would continue to pretend to be one of them, hiding her existence from all but a handful who knew the truth.
She had been pissed as hell not to be included in the ceremony, storming into Meira’s room the day she found out, luckily when only Kasia and Skylar had been around to witness.
“I’m supposed to be part of this day,” Angelika had grumbled.
Meira had taken her by the shoulders. “You are.”
That had earned her a wrinkled nose. “Yeah. Sitting at the back of the room with the rest of the rabble.”
“Wolf shifters aren’t rabble.”
They’d stared at each other a second before both snorting. “To us, maybe,” Angelika had said. “But as far as most dragon shifters are concerned…” She’d shrugged.
Meira had said nothing, because there was nothing to say. Angelika wasn’t wrong. Dragon shifters called the wolves mutts behind their backs, sometimes to their faces. But they were men to be trusted as far as the sisters were concerned. As long as the wolves were keeping Angelika’s existence secret, she had to pretend to be mated to one, which meant she wouldn’t stand at the front of the great hall with Meira today.
But at least Angelika was there.
Kasia and Skylar moved to stand in front of her, their overbright smiles hiding their doubts.
Their emotions pelted her anyway.
Of the powers she’d inherited when their mother had died, being an empath was one she could’ve done without. It was what had driven her to bury herself in technology rather than interact with people. Computers and code were consistent, predictable. People were less so, even for an empath like her.
Right now, her sisters’ concerns wrapped around Meira like a thick blanket, stifling and suffocating.
Telling them she was okay wouldn’t make it go away—she knew, because she’d tried. Instead, she just blocked the emotions.
“You look so beautiful.” Kasia took her hands, giving them a squeeze.
Dressed in a silken gold gown the color of her own clan, her dark-red hair pinned up, Kasia was equally stunning. So was Skylar, beside her in a matching gown of blue, black hair also intricately
