Dangerously so.
The animal side of him would press toward her, like Meira’s cat rubbing against Airk’s leg like he was one of her favorite humans. Harder for Airk to contain because the problem wasn’t about caging his animal. It was about fighting himself and the dragon at the same time.
“If you’re finished being bandaged up,” a familiar male voice sounded in his head via the telepathic method with which all shifters were able to communicate when in their animal forms. Meira’s mate, Samael Veles. “We need to talk.”
Not able to shift, Airk couldn’t answer in the same way. Samael damn well knew that. Airk stopped in the middle of the stone hallway, arms crossed, and waited.
“Meet me in my chambers,” came the direction.
Perhaps better than going to his room alone with too much time to think. Turning on his heel, Airk made his way back through the same halls. Given the labyrinthine passages, it took him a solid ten minutes to reach his destination. One would not know, gazing at the nondescript, heavy dragonsteel door, that this was the chamber of royalty. His knock was answered almost immediately by Samael himself, rather than servants.
The king ushered Airk inside and didn’t bother with niceties. “So this last attempt to recruit others didn’t go well.”
“I believe you witnessed the results,” Airk answered.
“Tell me about what happened before that.” An order. Samael, like Ladon and Brand, wasn’t entirely sure how to handle Airk. As a peer of royal blood? An ally? An added danger to their people? Consequently they tended to lean toward treating him like a soldier.
He could handle that. “This last attempt definitively showed me to be unsuitable for this endeavor.” The sarcasm he did not bother to hide. A rare luxury he was getting used to. Letting it show as a captive had often gotten him beaten—or worse—for the effort.
Samael ran a hand through his black hair. “Damn. I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”
Airk paused. Had the allied kings been relying so heavily on his ability to sway more dragons of his clan to their side? Fewer to fight, Angelika had said.
Only this was an ineffective use of him as a tool.
“I have a better idea.” Airk had been thinking on this since his pitiful first attempt and had worked it all out in his head.
Samael lifted thick black brows in vague interest. “Oh?”
“I would make a much better assassin.”
To give the other man credit, he didn’t hesitate or question. Instead, he took his time thinking through it. “Not a bad idea. In and out with Meira’s help. Start with the White Clan and take out leaders identified as intractable in which side they come down on.”
His thoughts exactly. “In addition…I am expendable.”
Samael didn’t quibble. Airk didn’t expect him to because they both knew his words were truth. A dragon no one trusted because he couldn’t shift, or, if he did, risked killing many, was of no use to anyone. Usually feral dragons were put down, the brutal action seen as a mercy. By all rights and laws, the kings should have turned him loose as a rogue the second he showed up at the very least.
However, an assassin who, if they lost him, cost them nothing…that was another situation entirely.
“I’ll talk with Brand and Ladon, and we’ll draw up a list of targets.”
Airk pulled a folded piece of paper out from one of the many pockets of his pants. Modern fashions had a few decent new developments. Combat pants and socks that stayed up on their own were two of his favorites. “Start with these. Tell me if I am wrong about any of them or the order in which I have listed them.”
Samael unfolded the paper, and this time his brows did go up slowly with each name he came across, then he raised a gaze full of questions to Airk.
“I have had a long time to think about who might be traitors within my clan.”
Samael nodded slowly. “I’ll inform the other kings, but they won’t have a problem with this list.”
“I will start with the lower-ranked names first.”
“Why them?”
“Because unless the way clans work has altered, the lower ranked do most of the dirty work at the orders of those higher up.”
Also, starting with them would put the fear of the gods that he was coming into those leaders who’d abandoned his parents and Angelika’s parents when Pytheios took over. He wanted to see terror in those traitors’ eyes when he slit their throats, their warm blood pooling around them as they watched in horror. Some wounds even dragon shifters couldn’t recover from. He intended a slow death for each and every person who’d done nothing when the time came.
“Remind me not to piss you off,” Samael muttered, smoothing a hand over his jaw, his stubble scratching roughly in the silence of the room.
“You have nothing to worry about from me,” Airk said. “My dragon is another matter and merely another reason to send me away.”
Samael didn’t argue, and Airk appreciated that from the other man. A good leader could face hard truths head-on.
“When do you plan to go?” Samael asked.
“As soon as I determine the location of my first kill—”
“Mark,” Samael corrected.
Airk paused, then realized he was being given a more modern term. “My first mark,” he adjusted with a nod of thanks, “and a plan to get to him, I will go. Hopefully no longer than a few days.”
“It’s probably best if we don’t advertise your new mission. The High King has his spies.”
“As do we,” Airk agreed.
A hard glint entered the king’s black eyes. “Yes, we do. I’ll reach out to my network rather than have you do it.”
“Has Meira infiltrated their financial systems yet?” She was a computer whiz, whatever that meant. He’d heard how she had been spending most of her hours trying to track Pytheios’s money. Airk didn’t understand the way money was real but not tangible, stored in something called the cloud along with all sorts of other things, but if it crippled Pytheios in any way, he was all for it. Only a select few were aware of that mission as well.
“Not yet.” Samael’s lips flattened, his gaze sliding to a doorway. Probably to the room where Meira was working. “She’s been putting in long hours.”
The man clearly was not thrilled with that state of affairs. Airk wouldn’t be, either, if his mate put any part of herself, including her health, at risk. But women of this time period were different than what he remembered as a boy. More independent. More involved. Fighters in their own right. A state of affairs to which he would need to accustom himself.