Excerpt of The Blood King by Abigail Owen

The rest of Ladon’s guard stirred, but she kept her gaze on the king, who focused on her in a way that made everything else shrink into insignificance, fading into the background like white noise, leaving only the two of them to face off.

Mimicking her posture, he crossed his arms and smiled back. “You shouldn’t have revealed your presence to me, little firebird.”

Those blue eyes took on a hungry expression that sent an answering, inappropriate, inexplicable heat rushing through her, both the look and her reaction resulting in a reverberation of shock that pounded through her like an avalanche. 

She returned his watchful stare with a narrow-eyed glare of her own, trying to cover her reaction. “And why not?” she challenged.

“Because now you’re mine.”

Silence settled over the room so thick it turned deafening. Skylar snorted to cover her sharp inhale. “Like hell.” She leaned around him to address Kasia directly. “I’m getting you out of here.”

The corner of the eye close to the scar twitched. “I can’t let you do that.” Ladon clamped a hand down on her arm. 

“Bad idea, Ladon—” Kasia’s warning came too late—a warning for the king, not Skylar.

Before Kasia finished talking, Skylar rotated her hand in his grasp to grab his wrist in return. At the same time, she turned her hips, a move that shifted both his grip and his angle in relation to her, pulling him off-center and sideways. Needing him down fast, she followed up with a kick to the back of his knee. That should’ve put him on the floor, except his knee wasn’t there when she struck.

Ladon released his hold and spun out of her reach. She backed up quickly, needing to reset and reassess. Damn, he was fast for such a big man. 

Ladon held out a hand to stay the men around the table who all appeared ready to step in and help subdue her. “I’ve got this.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Good. He was still underestimating her.

“You’ve been trained.”

“No shit.” Dragon shifters were bigger, stronger, and faster. Her mother had been no dummy.

He shot across the space, using the speed most shifters could claim, and she jumped back, blocking his hand. Then struck for his face, only to have him block her in return. 

They went at it, setting up a rhythm, almost a dance, as they struck, blocked, and parried, trying different moves on each other in rapid succession. Only he wasn’t striking to disable her; he was merely trying to capture her. That meant he wasn’t bringing his A game. Worse, the skill he displayed was a big freaking turn-on. How her traitorous body could be reacting to him right that instant infuriated Skylar. Lust was the last thing she should be dealing with.

Frustration roiled inside her, causing her moves to turn more erratic, less precise. The more frustrated she got, the more he seemed to settle into a cold control.

After he tapped her cheek, as if to say he could put her down if he wanted, she let loose a low hiss. “If you’re going to hit me, then do it, asshole.”

Ladon grinned, a dark predator playing with his prey. “I don’t want to hit my future mate.”

That did it. Skylar went up in flames, her entire body alight with brilliant red-gold fire that lived and danced across her skin casting beguiling shadows over the walls. Ladon dropped his hands at the sight, his gaze traveling down her in a way that had her heart skipping a couple beats.

Focus.

She took advantage of his distraction and lunged, brought forth her fire in a flash of light, and shoved hard with both hands against his chest as she applied the only supernatural gift she’d appeared to inherit from her mother—teleportation. In a blink, he disappeared, leaving a hole of silence in the room.