“Better than any fairy-tale princess,” Kasia teased.
Meira managed a chuckle at that. Of the four, Meira had been the one who’d preferred the earlier eras they’d lived through. As the modern age had dawned, she’d fallen in love with fabled tales of knights and princesses that reminded her of those times. A reminder of chivalry and gallantry and a different way of life. “That’s clearly what I was going for.”
Skylar snorted but otherwise kept her derisive thoughts to herself. They were all well aware Meira had had little choice in today’s events, swept along by tradition and the need for all three clans to put on a show for the rest of the dragon shifter world.
“Ready for the last touches?” Kasia asked.
At her nod, Skylar picked up a small gold chest, ornately decorated—a traditional token for Meira’s soon-to-be mate—and placed it in her hands. Then Kasia lifted the sheer black veil with matching jewels decorating the edges, settling it over Meira’s face, clouding her vision and giving everything around her a darker cast.
She glanced in the mirror off to the side. Only instead of herself in that reflection, for a heartbeat she honestly expected to see…him.
A memory she should do her best to forget.
That day when someone had seen through her magical ability to turn mirrors into portals had shaken her to the core. No, not just someone…Samael Veles. Ever since then, when she looked into mirrors, a small part of her expected to see him standing there, demanding, hard, and suspicious.
Except she didn’t. Instead, she saw him in person all around the mountain or at Gorgon’s side. The only person in this place whose emotions were locked down so tightly, she had no idea what he felt, or what he thought of her and of this mating.
She jerked her gaze from the mirror and put a stop to all those thoughts, facing her sisters’ expectant expressions instead.
“I wish Mama could be here.” She smiled, trying to take the sting of her longing out of her words for herself but also for her sisters.
“She is,” Kasia whispered. “In spirit.”
Kasia and Skylar stepped closer and put their foreheads to hers through the veil, like they’d done since they were children, a show of solidarity.
Meira closed her eyes. Spirit wasn’t going to help them win this war, or help her take this step.
…
Raw. The only word that could describe Samael Veles on this day.
Meira Amon’s mating day.
Like a fresh kill ground up in the butcher’s shop. Like a gaping wound left by the slash of dragon claws followed by a blaze of dragon fire disintegrating his flesh from the inside out.
He’d looked into a mirror and seen a woman. That was it. He’d seen her for a handful of seconds before he’d scared her away. At the time, he’d hardly been able to reconcile what he’d seen. A woman in a mirror like a damn ghost.
She was no ghost, it turned out, but she’d been haunting him all the same.
Raising a steady hand—his hands never shook, no matter the provocation—he knocked on the heavy wooden door to the small chamber situated just off the front of the throne room. This chamber was usually reserved for the king and his Curia Regis of advisers. Today, however, three men stood inside waiting.
Samael offered a brief acknowledgment to Brand and Ladon, their allied kings. Then he turned his attention to his own leader, Gorgon. More than a king to Samael. His mentor, his friend, and after all this time without a family of his own, a father figure.
“All is ready,” Samael said.
At those words, he struggled to quell the beast inside him, his dragon thrashing against what was about to happen. Even now, the smoky scent of his own fire wound around him, stronger, the beast close to the surface. Months of his dragon raging, lambasting him from the inside. The rage had grown bad enough that Samael didn’t dare loose the animal side of him anywhere near Ben Nevis while Meira Amon remained safely ensconced there with her sisters. Not until her mating was complete.
He’d seen her for a moment in a mirror, and the next time she’d shown up in his life, she’d offered to mate his king. Samael knew his reaction to her, to this, was extreme. Unreasonable, even. And only growing worse the longer he’d been near her.
He knew what it meant. This kind of immediate possessive response could only indicate one thing. But Meira wasn’t human, fated for only one mate. She was phoenix, and she got to choose. He had a choice, too, one he’d already made—to stay out of it.
The animal half of him, though, was all instinct and fighting this mating hard, but the man knew where his duties lay.
Though duty could only carry him so far. What in the seven hells would he do when his new queen came to live in Ararat, the mountain fortress of the Black Clan, making it her new home?
Nothing. That’s what you’ll fucking do.
This would go away. The gods and fates would have heard his many prayers and would take this…this endless ache of wanting…from him once this day was over. Once Gorgon claimed his new mate and the fates deemed each worthy of the other.
Then it would be over. Done with.
Samael could go back to doing what he’d been forged by the gods to do. He might not have been born to it, with not a drop of royalty in his bloodline, as lowborn as they came. Regardless, he’d damn well earned his place as Captain of the King’s Guard. None could match his fighting skills, nor his intuition for danger. Nor his loyalty, dammit.
Gorgon turned to the other two kings. “I will see you out
