Meira nodded at her sister, her natural grace and long neck making the mundane action regal. Her vibrant reddish-gold curls at odds with her quiet nature, and those ever-changing eyes fascinated him. Her hands were slim and graceful with long, tapered fingers. The growing obsession to see their paleness against his bronzed skin gnawed at him. She was taller than her sisters, willowy, and would fit just under his chin if he held her.
And she smelled of jasmine and smoke. His personal weakness.
His dragon prodded him to go to her, but Samael gritted his teeth against the urge, like razors scraping the inside of his skin, and shut down that instinctive response. Instead, he stood to post at the side of the doors.
No one would harm the two people he was now sworn to protect to his dying breath. Not on his watch.
On an unseen signal, the doors opened just enough for Kasia and Skylar to enter ahead of Meira.
Facing the door, she glanced neither to her right nor her left, keeping her gaze straight ahead, eyes blank, and suddenly she appeared almost small, as alone and afraid as the last memory he held of his young sister, only ten years of age the day she died.
“My queen.” The words passed his lips before he had the conscious thought to speak.
Gods, she was beautiful…and terrified. Holding herself together by a thread, he’d bet. The tidal wave of need to wrap himself around her and shield her from anything that could put that look in her eyes was impossible to deny and still unwanted. She was not his.
Samael had to stop himself from doubling over to keep his dragon inside.
If you can’t have her, you can still help her.
Chapter Two
“My queen.”
With a gasp she couldn’t quite contain, Meira turned to face Samael, who was standing to the side of the door. A man she should not be so painfully aware of when she was about to mate another.
How had she not felt him there?
Too locked in her own fears, and his emotional walls were impenetrable, that’s how. Now, in his eyes she found compassion. She swallowed, and suddenly a jolt of desperate protectiveness hit her. As though those walls of his had wavered, just for an instant.
Meira tightened her grip around the small gold chest she held. But she couldn’t force her gaze away from the man before her. Samael was acting as security today, not part of the ceremony. As captain, perhaps he found it more effective to project a stomach churn–inducing kind of intimidation.
Forceful.
She’d thought so the first day she’d seen him in that damn reflection. Almost painfully handsome with a strong jaw covered by dark scruff. She could see why such a man would earn a high position. The Captain of the King’s Guard, and it fit. The man had hardened warrior stamped all over him—from the wide military stance to a body honed for battle and a hard light in those eyes, as black as night, that never stopped checking the corners of the room. But she suspected there was more to him, walled away from the rest of the world.
Getting behind that wall shouldn’t be her concern. Nor a curiosity. She’d made promises. Her life was on a specific path. She couldn’t let herself want…something else. Gorgon deserved more. He deserved all of her.
“My queen,” Samael repeated.
Meira blinked at him through the haze of fear coating her own delicate emotions in a thin veneer.
“Meira,” Samael said, softer now.
A small frisson of surprise threaded through the fear hanging over her, like a sliver of sunlight breaking through dark clouds. He’d never used her first name before.
Would she be feeling the same disquiet if he were standing at the end of the aisle—
Meira cut that insidious thought off like chopping the head off a snake.
Samael seemed to press closer, though he didn’t move, ebony gaze entirely fixated on her. “You can do this.”
Shock held her immobile. How did he know she’d been trying her damnedest not to run? Was it that obvious she was terrified? Conflicted?
Meira swallowed hard and jerked her gaze forward. I can do this.
She should probably thank him for the support, acknowledge his helping her over a moment of fear and doubts, but the words just wouldn’t come. She focused instead on what she had to do.
I can do this, she repeated to herself.
With a whisper of will, she ignited her own fire. Like walking or breathing, her body just seemed to know how, and had done since the moment her mother took her last breath. As though the fuel was in her blood and all she needed was the spark of a thought to set off the firestorm. The flames started inside her and pressed through her veins and her flesh to manifest outside her in red-gold flickering glory and dance across her skin as though rejoicing their release.
She risked one last glance at Samael, who had remained close, a pillar of strength she suddenly needed there, to draw that steadiness into herself for what she was about to do.
Steeling her spine, she waved at the two women waiting to open the door for her. With a flourish, they pushed the remarkably silent doors forward, revealing the massive chamber beyond.
A hush of feet sounded as those gathered to witness and celebrate with the new mates stood and turned to observe her lonely trek over the age-worn, uneven stone floor to the dais where her future mate waited.
For her mating day, they had set up ornate golden mirrors around the circumference of the throne room. She used the magic that came from her fire, tapping into it like a well, manipulating the mirrors. Through those reflections, she allowed the Gold and Black Clans to witness this ceremony from their own mountains, rather than leaving
