“The more he continued to strive to hunt and kill, the more I realized he’d become the very monster he was bent on destroying. He had to be stopped. I don’t believe any shadow in history has ever thought this of their mortal. The bond is too strong, stronger than anything. But as I said… by this point, I had changed. There was nothing natural about our connection any longer. We’d become a new entity.”
Violet found herself leaning forward, held rapt by the deep, resonant sound of the Shadow King’s voice, caught on the edge of her seat by the story he was telling her, sharing with her.
“One night, I separated from Lovelace to flee the confines of his insanity and seek repast in the Shadow Realm. It was something I hadn’t done since before the wolves were killed. However, this time, as I parted the mortal I’d existed beside since birth, I took on instant solid form.” He shook his head with the wonder of it. Violet shared that wonder. Becoming solid was not something a shadow did. Ever.
“I became real. Not in the Shadow Realm, but in his realm, the mortal realm.” He looked up at her. “Here.”
When she could think of nothing to say to that, he ran a hand through his dark-as-night hair. “I took on solid form. No other shadow had ever done so. None has done so since. And none ever shall.”
“Because you’re the Shadow King.”
He smiled a small smile, and his eyes sparkled. “That was something that took me a while to learn, much less understand, and much, much less accept.” He looked at the floor for a moment, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. Violet had the sudden sensation he wanted to tell her something else, but was holding back on that one for some reason.
And then he said, “I, the shadow that had once been attached to Wolfram Lovelace, changed my name yet again, taking on a persona fitting for my station.”
“Keeran means ‘dark one’,” she said.
He looked up. Then he blinked, clearly a little surprised. “Yes,” he said. His expression became one of admiration. “I should have realized you would know that.”
“You really do think I’m some kind of book worm, don’t you?”
“No, I know you are.”
She laughed, and it felt good to break the tension. “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.” But she still had that niggling feeling that he was keeping something from her again. Maybe it’s just that he’s still afraid to tell me I’m his queen. Especially after everything else he just shared.
She hoped it was that. Because if it wasn’t, then she was frankly scared. For if he was willing to tell her about Lovelace and his murders… what could he possibly be hiding that he felt was worse?
Keeran didn’t give her much more time to ponder before he said, “The Shadow Realm had possessed no king before me. It was disjointed and archaic, ruled by marshal law and anarchy. There were certainly areas of the realm that had straightened themselves out, more or less, but at the cost of many shadow lives. And lost shadow lives are lost mortal lives in the end.”
She knew that. A mortal without its shadow was a sinumbra. Sinumbras, or Abandoned, as they were often referred to, were pathetic creatures indeed. Humans who seemed to have lost their drive, their purpose, even their sanity. They didn’t last long.
“As a shadow, I’d always had ideas of how the Shadow People could be brought together. I’d always wondered if things were ever going to be better for the realm.” He laughed. “I suddenly knew what I needed to do, but had no idea how to do it. I was overwhelmed to say the least. But… help arrived. Lalura helped me, in fact. She approached me in the mortal realm and told me I’d been born as something different and unique because I was meant to do something different and unique.”
Violet frowned. “Lalura? You don’t mean Lalura Chantelle?”
He nodded, and his smile broadened.
“My god, how old is that woman?” she spurted.
Keeran laughed. The sound was so deep and so amazing, it could have stilled a crowd. “Well, she looked a little different in those days.”
“Like what?”
“Lalura has had many forms over the years.”
“She… has?” Violet thought of the way the old woman leaned more heavily on her cane these days, and the scratchier quality to her aging voice. In truth, it had been worrying her. Hell, put plainly, she was frankly afraid Lalura was going to die.
But now she also thought of the immense amount of power that radiated from the woman’s bent, ancient form. And she realized that she’d had always had her suspicions about her magic teacher. She had found herself wondering whether she was some sort of fae, at the very least, that had simply taken human form. But could there be even more? Was it even more complicated than that?
“Indeed. I wouldn’t be divulging this to you, however, if she hadn’t given me implicit permission to do so.”
Violet met his gaze.
His smile froze right after he’d spoken the words, as if he suddenly realized how revealing what he’d said actually was. There could be only one reason Lalura Chantelle would assume he would want to share secrets like this with Violet. It’s because I’m your queen.
She almost laughed at his sudden terrified expression. It was kind of cute.
But instead, she had mercy on him, and asked, “And then the entire kingdom was basically thrown in your lap.” She nodded. “While you were becoming king and trying to figure out how to save the Shadow Realm, what happened to Lovelace?”
“When a shadow doesn’t return to its mortal form, the mortal form loses substance. In its disconnection, it becomes ill, both physically and mentally. The pain can be overwhelming. No one who hasn’t experienced it can possibly understand what it feels like. Some humans have decided to label it ‘depression.’ But again, it’s something no one can understand without feeling it themselves.” Keeran swallowed hard and looked away, perhaps unwilling to meet her gaze while the truth of this particular memory had him. “After a fortnight, Lovelace took his own life.”
Violet looked down at the cup of tea in her hands. Her chest ached. It ached for a stranger who’d lived thousands of years ago and who had killed countless people in his hunger for power. And yet, his final horrible moments filled her with an empathy so strong, her heart literally hurt for him.
She raised her eyes to the king, who’d turned his face away from her to gaze somewhere into the past. Shadows played across his strong features, and her heart twinged again. He’d done it on purpose. He’d stayed away from Lovelace so that the warlock would die. He’d known it would happen, and he’d said the man needed to be stopped.
He really had killed him.
Violet touched her eyes gently. There was so much pain in the world…. She understood now why Keeran had been so reluctant to tell her she was his queen. His past was a horror story. No doubt, he didn’t think any woman could live with this kind of knowledge. To have to rule over a world of shadow beside someone she felt was a cold blooded killer?
Violet swallowed hard to hold back tears she felt gathering – tears for him, for Lovelace, for the people he’d killed, for the pack he’d lost, and for the gargoyles – and her hands began to shake around her tea cup.
He must have known she was in pain, because Keeran lowered himself to one knee in front of the sofa and placed his hands gently over hers. “Violet, look at me.”
She did, and she found herself peering into depths she hadn’t before imagined.
He cupped her cheek gently. “Please don’t hurt for me.”
“How?” How could he expect her not to feel this pain?
“What is done is done. My past is in the past, and I want it to stay there. Please don’t pull it kicking and screaming into my study.” He smiled. It was a gentle smile, teasing in nature. But his eyes were pleading.
Violet forced herself to nod. “Okay,” she said.
Keeran took a deep breath. “I know this is a lot to take in. But there is something else I need to tell you.” He looked so pained just then, so hesitant.
/> But whatever it was he was finally going to divulge would have to wait. Because the blue fireplace crackled noisily, and a small orange flame appeared at its center.
“Owwwww!” the flame howled. “Oh ash heaps! What in blazes is this stuff?!”
“Pi!” Keeran stood quickly and reached his right hand up toward a candelabra that sat on a side table across the room. It leapt to life with fresh, red-orange flames at every candle tip, and Pi instantly disappeared from the blue-fired hearth.
Violet stood and held her breath.
A moment or two later, he reappeared in the top-most flame of the candelabra, hopping restlessly. “Gods of Ignis, that hurt!”
“Pi, are you okay?” Violet asked as she hurried toward him. Keeran followed after.
The fire elemental seemed unsteady, and his orange was shifting like a wave between yellow and red. “I-I think so,” he said. “I’ve just never fire-portalled into something that was hotter than me before.”
Violet’s brow furrowed. She made a face. “Hotter than you?” She looked over her shoulder at the blue flames in the hearth across the room. While it was true that blue was the hottest color for fire, she’d done a lot of reading about the Shadow Realm. Things didn’t tend toward the hotter side of the spectrum here, and she hadn’t felt any heat coming from the hearth. She had assumed the flames were cold.
“I apologize, Pi,” said Keeran. “That particular hearth is normally warded against fire transport for exactly that reason. Those flames are quite hot, indeed. They’re contained within the confines of the hearth, and their heat is dispersed as I see fit. I’m afraid you were momentarily trapped inside.” His expression was dark. He looked worried.
Violet blinked in confusion. “Why is it so hot?”
“It supplies the heat for my entire realm,” he told her. “If the Darkfire fire goes out, the Shadow Realm will freeze.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The wards on the hearth should not have failed. Not in thousands of years had they done that. With a quick reach of his power, he could feel that they were back up again, but what was happening? He wasn’t a fool. He’d dealt in both the magical world and the budding technological world since their inceptions. And he’d learned that magic was much like technology in at least one way: when something small went wrong, it was normally an indication of a much larger, much more fundamental problem.
It’s me, he thought. It was that last secret he harbored. It was finally getting the better of him, and he was losing his grip on the kingdom he’d ruled over for millennia. That was why the Entity had been able to make it past all his wards and into the Dark with a kidnapped victim in the first place. It was his fault.
It wasn’t just coincidence that this loss of control was happening now, either. Violet’s appearance had not only given him hope that he would finally be able to deal with that final secret problem, it had made his need to deal with it soon that much more imperative.
Keeran felt thwarted on so many levels, it was becoming a challenge to keep his cool. His gums ached, his eyes were heated, and his skin felt prickly. If he’d felt this way millennia ago, he would have gone hunting. To that end, he would probably do the same now and lead the Nimbus on an outing, if it weren’t for the fact that the entire world seemed to want a piece of him just then.
“Why are you here, Pi?” he asked. There was a tightness to his voice that belied that cold, outer calm.
“A new king has been chosen,” the fire elemental said hurriedly. He could probably sense Keeran’s agitation and didn’t want to increase it. “Everyone needs to bear witness.”
That was fast, thought Keeran. He knew that having an empty seat at the table meant doom for all of them. The prophecies that had given them hope of late spoke of thirteen queens, not twelve. However, he’d thought the Overseer of the werewolves had made it abundantly clear that he would not be joining them. Keeran very much doubted Jesse would change his mind and drag the werewolf nation right back into the fray with the Entity. They had enough of their own problems to deal with.
So, who, then?
His curiosity was piqued just enough to dull his irritation just then. He nodded at Pi, who rapidly vanished for good.
“Is he going to be okay?” Violet asked, still staring into the candle flame.
He studied her profile. Concern etched her beautiful features. She had a genuinely kind heart; it was one of the many things he’d sensed in her upon meeting her in the Underground. “Yes. He’s just a little singed,” he assured her.
She looked up at him.
Gods. He needed to deal with this once and for all. He steeled himself. “Violet, would you accompany me to a meeting of the Thirteen?”
“Of course,” she said, with a pleasant laugh. “A king and his queen are supposed to rule side by side, aren’t they?”
She beamed up at him as surprise rolled through him. This particular surprise, however, was laced for once with pleasure and happiness rather than dread or fear. Relief washed over him.
“You know.”
“Duh,” she said. “I would have had to be dead not to figure this one out.”
*****
Violet knew he’d been a werewolf, she knew he’d been Wolfram Lovelace’s shadow, and she now knew she was his queen. Three secrets down, one to go, Keeran thought as they traversed shadow portals once again for yet another meeting of the Thirteen Kings, and this time, their queens. It was becoming common place these days for the lot of them to get together in the midst of some crisis. Keeran suspected D’Angelo was getting as tired of it as the rest of them no doubt were. But there was no better way for them to very quickly share important information amongst them.
Thoughts of important information made Keeran think of the traitor amongst them. He wondered if they would be fortunate enough that the traitor had been Mason. Not a chance, he thought. Why would the Entity kill one of his own? They were down one king and still sitting with a rotten egg in the nest.
He still had one very big issue to deal with where his new queen was concerned. He glanced over at her as they moved like mist through the appearing and disappearing shades of the realms. She was handling all of this with incredible finesse.
Like a queen.
He couldn’t be a luckier man. With all he’d done, with what was swimming inside him right now, and with the threatening desires that were rearing their heads like an army of beasts within his spirit, the truth was he didn’t deserve Violet Kellen. Not even close. She was perfection.
The portals came to one final exit before them. He guided Violet through it and into the latest Kings meeting room. D’Angelo was fond of holding the meetings up high, on the top floors of high rises or penthouses of inner-city hotels. It was perhaps a vampire thing, Keeran mused, something having to do with bats and hanging from cave tops or rafters or whatever, where they could easily see all that transpired below.
However with magic users, travel happened not just on the ground or in stairwells, but through transports and shadows and things of that nature. D’Angelo knew that well, and he moved their meeting location every single time they met, never drawing the kings together in the same place twice.
This particular location appeared to be underground.
“It’s under water, actually,” D’Angelo told him as Keeran stepped further into the room and began looking around.
Keeran met his gaze, and the vampire smiled. He obviously hadn’t been reading his mind; to read the mind of a shadow was a very dangerous thing. It was said to drive those who tried mad. The Vampire King was simply intuitive.
“It’s approximately four hundred feet beneath Lake Superior. Took years of magic to carve out and I obviously never finished it as I would have preferred.”
That was why it had a bunker-like feel to it. There were no windows, which made sense, but the walls were bare rock except for the sconces that had been placed upon them. There were no decorations, no tapestries befitting of a king, no paintings. The floor was a
lso bare, and a single table had been placed at the center of the room.
The table was rich mahogany, as usual, and the chairs placed around it were upholstered in dark leather soft enough to have been harvested from babies. Of course, it was simply harvested from magic, nothing more. One of the benefits of being an Offspring, especially one of D’Angelo’s age and stature.
As of yet, he and D’Angelo were the only two kings present in the meeting room.
“I’m early, I see.”
“No, you’re just on time.” D’Angelo came around the table and approached them. Violet must have known who he was; she worked with Lalura, and the fae were normally pretty up-to-speed on current events. Plus, she was a Tuath. Secrets didn’t last long with them.
Something to keep in mind, Pitch, he told himself.
But rather than be frightened of the Vampire King or even extremely nervous, Violet stood her ground, lifting her chin.
“Violet Kellen,” he said warmly as he drew near. “I’m afraid I must admit that I called the two of you here before the others because I very much wanted to meet you and welcome you to the family.”
“D’Angelo, she’s not joining the mob.”
The Vampire King chuckled. “You so sure about that, Pitch?”
“I can handle a little mob.” Violet’s big, bright smile drew both of their attentions. At once, Keeran could see the admiration in the Vampire King’s features.
The ache in his gums grew more insistent.
“It’s nice to formally meet you, Mr. D’Angelo,” she said softly, holding out her hand. She was positively radiant. It took the Vampire King a half-second to recover.
“Likewise,” he said smoothly, as he shook that hand.
He released her hand about two seconds before Keeran would have ripped his arm off. The Vampire King turned to him, a knowing look in his eyes. “You’re a lucky bastard, Pitch.” Then he leaned in, and in a voice only Keeran could hear, “You don’t deserve her.”
Chapter Twenty-Six