According to dragon law, that marked these people as traitors and rogues, to be shunned or even executed on sight.
The pulse of sensations swirling around those wishing to return would have taken her to her knees if she hadn’t muted the effect, once again holding a flame in one fist. Still, the emotions reached for her with grasping fingers. The pressure of anxiety. Dizziness that she associated with respect but also a fear of losing control. Either could apply. The itching of blame or jealousy. A heaviness of fear. And a hollowed-out sensation she couldn’t put her finger on overlaid everything. Closed mindedness would be a bad sign. Negativity was better, but not by much.
“My name is Haikaf Nar. I own a small produce stand in the city.”
Gorgon nodded.
The man named Haikaf continued. “We came to ask our king, face-to-face, to readmit us to the clan.”
With a deep breath that likely only she caught because the action pushed against her, Gorgon straightened, taking all his weight. “Why did you leave?” The words were a growl, the king’s opinion of his deserters made clear in his tone.
To give him credit, Haikaf paled, and that dizziness of fear of losing control spiked around her. Meira blinked through it. Haikaf stood his ground in the face of his king’s disapproval. “We were afraid, my king.”
“Afraid? Of what?”
“You were gone, dead, we heard. Your beta dead. Your queen, who many rumored had killed you, disappeared. Even more confusing, the Captain of the Guard gone with her. Then we hear from the same woman that you are not dead. That another man has died in your place. A doppelgänger who posed as you with no one close to you noticing.”
“And you didn’t believe her? The woman I’d made vows to?” Gorgon’s lips pulled back, baring his teeth.
“No.” Haikaf shook his head. “We did believe her. Because Samael Veles stood at her side, we believed her.”
Meira tried not to show how that one sentence caught her attention, but she allowed her gaze to skate over the men gathered behind Haikaf. These weren’t like the people whom the king had introduced her to earlier.
Those men and women had dressed in fine clothes, business suits, some more casual than others, but still in quality with hair perfectly coiffed. Which meant that Gorgon had met primarily with the elite today, the power brokers of the mountain, the politicos who could make or break the support he received from the clan.
But could they?
The people in front of her reminded her more of the humans her family had lived around in Kansas when they’d worked at the diner. Hardworking, hard living. Less educated primarily, and poorer, which often went hand in hand, at least in the human world. Also, at least to Meira’s way of thinking, kinder and more grounded. Willing to give their last dime if it helped out someone they felt needed that dime more.
Sam’s people.
Gorgon apparently came to the same conclusion. “You’ve come back because Samael Veles has returned.”
Not a question, a statement.
Haikaf shifted on his feet and said nothing, and that hollowness of insecurity thickened in the room.
Samael’s walls were mostly up, but a small feathering of surprise slipped through.
Meira had to keep from glancing at Samael, pride in the man she’d chosen for her mate threatening to burst from her, drowning out the emotions coming at her from the gathering. She’d bet if she allowed herself to look it would be to find Sam completely shut down, as stone-faced as Carrick and the other gargoyles. The upper class of the Black Clan may not entirely trust him—yet—but the commoners sure as hell did. Realization whispered in her ear—based on the numbers in front of and behind her, they outnumbered the upper class, at least two to one if not three to one.
Not to mention the services they provided ran the mountain, true in every society she’d experienced. And yet the upper class never clued in to the fact that if the lower-middle and working classes stopped supporting the system, it would crumble beneath their privileged feet.
Samael, look at your people, she silently willed him. Power was found in numbers, power in giving the voiceless a platform, a common element to unite them.
How could he think to walk away from them? From her?
“I will allow your return on one condition,” Gorgon said.
Haikaf glanced at the men standing closest to him, as though not quite believing it could be that easy. “What condition, my king?”
“A vow, here and now, that no matter what happens in the days to come, you will not abandon your king, whoever he may be, and clan again.”
Haikaf stared at Gorgon for a long beat, then turned his back, a dangerous move a warrior would never have made, to confer with those around him.
Meira watched Gorgon’s face, as the king no doubt could hear much of the discussion. She also watched for when he might need to lean on her again. From this angle, she could see how he swayed slightly, like a skyscraper in harsh winds.
“We will,” Haikaf snapped at the other men on a burst of prickles over her skin.
She shifted her gaze to the prodigal shifters across the way. The debate across the room had clearly heated, with Haikaf shaking his head vigorously.
“I will,” he finally snarled at a man taller than himself by a head, large for a black dragon, more a gold dragon’s size with muscles layered over muscles. “Do what you fucking want.”
Haikaf stepped back, still facing his people. “If you are unable to make this vow, leave now.”
“We will be killed if we try,” someone from the back shouted.
“Samael.” Gorgon waved his beta forward. Meira couldn’t help
