Miliani blinked. She straightened a bit, turned her gaze out to sea, and took a deep breath. “Well,” she said slowly. “Then I guess you’re right and this isn’t good. But why do you think he’s really here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Uh-huh,” Miliani grunted in frank disbelief.
Chloe fell into a chagrined silence. Mili was right. Chloe was pretty sure she knew why he was there after all. She’d read the thoughts the intense green of his eyes.
Jason had come for his queen.
*****
Jason Alberich turned away from the sea and stepped down off the top of the cliff from which he’d been gazing. As he did, he turned Chloe’s words over in his mind.
His magic crackled around him like a thick, miasmic cloak, unseen but unaccountably powerful. He’d heard everything the Akyri had both said and thought, even from this distance. He’d become that powerful.
From the first moment Jason had laid eyes on Chloe in New York, he’d understood who she was – and who she was meant to be. She obliterated him; he was torn apart inside and taped back together by sheer will every time he pictured her face. Every time he looked into those eyes; the windows to her vast, cosmic soul.
What he felt for Dannai Caige, he understood now too. Dannai, or as he called her, “Danny,” was his charge, his best friend, and for all intents and purposes his “little sister.” He’d been her unspoken protector throughout their childhoods. She’d been the first soul in the world he had ever cared for. This depth of emotion had reached into his warlock heart and squeezed with fearful strength, warping his thoughts and even his mind.
In this confusion, Jason had done things he wondered whether he would ever stop regretting.
But now Danny was married to an alpha wolf, Jason had been all but forgiven for his trespasses, and they all had two new infant twins to look after, to protect, and to care for. Jason was their godfather, or their Patronum. Patra for short.
The curtain had been pulled back, and the true depth of the universe had been revealed to Jason. Any obsession he’d thought he’d ever felt for Danny stepped to the side and bowed down. His desire was changed now. It had grown, relocated, and refocused on another with a new and devastatingly sharp intensity.
Chloe Septeran was an Akyri unlike any other. She was Jason’s destined queen – that made her special enough. But she was also one of the original 28. She was the last member of a dying breed. She was incomparable. She was unique.
Jason stopped at the base of the small hill and waited as the air around him shimmered, warped, and four Akyri servants zapped into existence. At once, the men in black knelt on one knee and lowered their heads.
“Rise,” Jason spoke, his tone soft and deep.
The Akyri obeyed. As they rose, Jason considered who and what they really were, where they’d originally come from. Chloe’s origin revelations swirled through him like stardust.
Stardust. That’s what she was.
“There is an Akyri on the beach a half mile away. I’m needed elsewhere right now. In my absence, I want you to watch over and protect her as if your lives depend on it.” Because they do was the phrase that hung unspoken in the air. It was understood without being given voice.
“Yes, my lord,” said one of the Akyri, the one who acted as the leader of the four.
Jason raised his hand and released a strong, powerful pulse of magic into the gathering. The Akyri closed their eyes and absorbed the magic, sucking it up like vacuums until they glowed from the inside out. When they opened their eyes again, shimmering, glowing orbs of red and amber like fire stared back at Jason with both thanks and appreciation.
And with respect.
Jason wasted no further time. He was cutting it close as it was.
He had no need of words to activate his transportation magic. He was the Warlock King; his power had long surpassed that of other warlocks. With no more than a whim, he dematerialized and moved through a bent envelope of space and time.
Chapter Two
Evelynne D’Angelo sighed and moved her hands away from the keyboard. The motor spun, the fan whirred, and Evie took a sip of her coffee as the buffer once more tried to catch up with her.
It was an old computer. Roman had tried a thousand times to buy her a new one, but she’d written every single one of her novels on this one. It had sentimental value.
There was an old Native American belief that all things in the world animate or otherwise, possessed a spirit – an energy. If that were true, then at this point this little laptop had seen the energy of a dozen different universes, more than two-dozen heroines, at least twenty powerful vampires and werewolves, a host of ghosts and goblins, and a boatload of sex.
It was special. It had a soul.
Even so, the laptop had been slow when she was mortal. She’d had it almost seven years. She’d dropped it once or twice. And all of the letters had been rubbed off the keys long ago. Now that she was a vampire? Her fingers literally blurred across the keyboard, and the processor simply could not keep up.
“You have to be the most stubborn woman I have ever met,” came a deep voice behind her.
Evie almost choked on the mouth-full of coffee she’d just taken in, but somehow managed to get it down before she turned in her chair and looked up at her husband.
He’d succeeded in sneaking up on her again. She might be a vampire, and the queen of the vampires at that, but she wasn’t surprised. He was the Vampire King, and he’d been as much for longer than her relatively young mind could honestly comprehend.
He smiled down at her, his deep black eyes fathomless and hypnotic. “You need a faster system.”
“So you’ve said.” She stood up, tilting her head to one side and giving him a coy look. “Is that all you came in here for?” she asked.
Roman’s eyes lingered on hers, the power in them pulsing like black holes, pulling her in. The world receded as they locked her in place, stripping her bare before him, shocking her to the core with the magic he held over her even now.
Evie swallowed hard, unable to move and barely able to breathe as he slowly rolled her chair to the side and took the final step that closed the distance between them. She felt the desk behind her press into her bottom as Roman loomed over her, beautiful and deadly.
His gaze flashed red, a spark of fire that lit up like a will-of-the-wisp in the depths of his swarthy pupils and lingered there, mesmerizing her. “Evelynne Grace D’Angelo,” he said, allowing his voice to wrap around her like a vice, silken and velvet and stronger than steel. “If you only knew what I came in here for.”
Evie grasped the edges of the desk and gasped when his hungry eyes settled on the pulse in her throat and his arm wrapped around to pull the hair from her neck.
She stifled a moan and bit her lip, forgetting for just a moment that she was a vampire too. Her fangs pierced the flesh of her bottom lip, drawing instant blood.
Roman’s red sparks erupted into full-blown flames that enveloped the darkness in his eyes and turned it to ruby fire. His hand fisted in her hair and pulled, exposing her completely to the fangs that now erupted in his mouth like the delicious and deadly weapons they were.
Evie braced herself as a rush of heat pooled in her abdomen and sank lower.
Does it feel oh so good, little queenie?
Roman froze over her.
The room buzzed. The world stopped spinning.
Evie blinked. Had she heard that correctly? Had she just heard… a woman’s voice in her head?
You heard right, home wrecker.
Evie’s eyes widened. Someone was speaking to her telepathically.
She stared up at her husband and felt terror inch through her, her only solace the fact that from the look on his face, it was clear Roman had heard the woman too.
Oh, not much gets past my Roman, the woman said. She laughed, and the sound actually hurt Evie. It moved through her like dry ice, scraping and burning her from the inside.
I’
m sorry, sweet. Am I making you uncomfortable?
“Evie, get out of here now.” Roman commanded.
Evie felt his grip on her arm, squeezing enough to bring her into focus. She looked over at the door when she felt a new presence there. Two of Roman’s personal guards and Roman’s vampire butler, Jaxon, had almost instantly appeared just inside the office. They hadn’t been there seconds ago. Roman and his staff moved fast in the face of danger.
Oh please, Roman. If my master wanted to take your little queen from you right now, you don’t really think she would get far, do you? The woman’s voice asked.
Roman turned toward the windows across the room, shielding Evie with his back as he did so. But the world beyond the glass was dark, and even with her improved night vision, Evie couldn’t see anyone outside.
Who, Ophelia? Who wouldn’t let her get far? Roman asked.
Ophelia! thought Evie. So that’s who she is! Of course!
She knew all about Ophelia, Roman’s last big love and the one he’d almost made his queen. Ophelia was supposed to have died in a carriage accident. But apparently, the accident – and a lot more about Ophelia – had been a farce.
Oh, wouldn’t you like to know, my love? returned Ophelia.
I would, said Roman softly. Very much. So why don’t you tell me?
Evie could hear both of their voices in her head as if they were idly conversing and had forgotten that she was there to listen.
As far as Roman was concerned, Evie knew why he was doing it. He was a very smart man who was incredibly good at negotiating. He wanted answers, and he knew that by appealing to his old love in a personal manner, he would probably get them. Ophelia’s desire for Roman had not faded. That much was patently obvious; the venom-laced jealousy in Ophelia’s mental communication said as much. Roman was using that desire to his advantage.
There was a pause of silence while Ophelia no doubt considered spilling the beans.
But something prevented her from doing so.
You’ll know soon enough. But now is not the time. Right now, if I were you… I would run.
A pulse of tense silence beat out through the office. The communication had been severed. They were alone. It was quiet. A single second passed.
And then Roman was spinning, his guards and his butler were blurring forward, and magic words were leaving everyone’s mouths in powerful shouts.
The world warped as time and space shifted and Roman’s arms came around Evie in a fierce embrace. She could sense time slipping. She felt the hiccup in reality, and realized that they almost hadn’t made it. A heat spread through the transportation spell, licking at Evie’s skin. A far-off sound rippled toward them like a rock in a pond.
Something had exploded.
She was jolted to the side, ripped from the spell, and her fanged teeth slammed together painfully as she and Roman rolled across the dirt and underbrush of a dark, damp forest. His body protected her from most of the impact, but it was still jarring.
They came to a stop, and Evie looked up as Roman stood, pulling her to her feet. All of Roman’s guards were there. There were more than half a dozen now. Jaxon was the closest. They surrounded their king and queen, their red gazes searching the tall Sequoias and shadows around them.
The scent of the forest was thick in the air. It had just stormed. Drops of leftover rain dripped from the tips of leaves to thud into the ground far below. The land was quiet but for these drips and the hushed shuffling of small creatures here and there.
But the scent of smoke and destruction lingered around the vampire group. It clung to them like a cloak. They’d brought it with them.
Evie turned to Roman, her heart both hammering and sinking.
“They blew it up, didn’t they?” she asked quietly. Her throat felt tight. She knew absolutely and beyond a doubt that Ophelia and whatever gang of minions were working for her had bombed Roman’s safe house to smithereens. Evie, Roman, and his guards had barely escaped in time.
Roman stood above her, close and protective, his brow furrowed, his eyes burning red, and his touch tender as he cupped her face. He didn’t need to say anything. His expression confirmed her suspicions.
And all Evie could think about was the old wonderful and faithful laptop she’d left sitting on her desk in her office. It had been destroyed along with everything else.
Little was more important to a writer than her words. Ophelia had just taken those from Evie.
Evie’s gaze narrowed. She felt heat build behind her irises, turning the world into contrasts of red and black. Fangs exploded in her mouth. “Bitch,” she hissed in her awakening thirst for blood, “is so going to die.”
Chapter Three
Jason had always believed whole heartedly that man bore a much greater potential for pure evil than did any “mythological” creature he could possibly dream up. Even had he not dealt personally with werewolves, vampires, warlocks, witches, dragons, goblins, the fae, and other supposedly non-existent beings his entire life, Jason would have surmised as much by simply existing among humans.
From “India’s Child” to massacred students in a grade school to the four-hundred-plus rape/murders that went unsolved every year in border cities in Mexico, to say nothing of genocide, the inquisitions, and war in general, the evidence of mortal malignancy had become obscenely orthodox. It was everywhere, all the time, and inescapable.
So as Jason again set off to do his duty as king, it was with less than zero surprise that Jason transported onto the scene of the warlock kingdom’s latest tribulation to find that a human was involved. In this case, it was several humans.
One warlock.
Somehow, a fire had already started. Someone was quickly losing a few front hedges to its hungry flames. In the distance, sirens wailed. And in the front yard of an otherwise quiet neighborhood home in a small town in Texas, seven people stood facing one another wearing expressions of un-adultered hatred.
The warlock was easy for Jason to distinguish from the others. Not only did he give off the aural signature of a warlock, Jason knew the man on a somewhat personal level. They’d met once or twice and had even watched a Giants game together. Donovan Savvant was a professor of astronomy at the local community college, a quiet man in general, and a rarity for warlocks because he more or less kept to himself and avoided giving in to the darker pull of his magic.
Disappointment clutched at Jason’s gut. The scene unfolding in front of him might prove that to no longer be the case.
Almost at once after Jason stepped out of the portal and into the shadows of the field beyond the streetlamp’s reach, Donovan’s gaze swiveled to the darkness, seeking him out. His green-speckled brown eyes were wide, his jaw was set, and electricity that was invisible to mortals but clearly visible for warlocks crackled from the fingertips at his sides. His shoulder-length wavy brown hair appeared darker than normal; it happened to some warlocks as their magic began to leak out. He looked angry.
He also looked scared.
What happened? Jason demanded, striding forward and cloaking himself in invisibility to prevent any further potentially unalterable damage.
They killed Plato, Donovan replied, keeping the words in his head rather than speaking them aloud. But it did little good, as his eyes were locked on Jason’s, and the men who stood opposite him were beginning to wonder what the hell he was staring at.
They were all dressed more or less the same, in jeans with leather belts, tucked-in polo’s or t-shirts, and windbreakers. Every one of them was at least somewhat overweight. All had short hair. A few wore expensive-looking watches. “What the fuck are you lookin’ at, shit bag?” one of them hissed. He had a very strong accent.
They killed him because I don’t go to their church, and they don’t want an atheist living on their street, Donovan went on. His inner voice hissed the words with undisguised malice. That and their wives find me attractive. No surprise, given what they normally have to look at. One or two of the previously invisible
sparks of warlock magic at Donovan’s fingertips slipped through their veil and crackled menacingly for all to see.
A few of the men blinked, unsure of what they’d just witnessed.
Control yourself, Jason warned. His own magic swirled through him like a caged dragon. What did you do to them? he asked next. He knew enough about warlocks to know good and well that this would not be one-sided victim case.
There was a brief silence in which Donovan’s shadowed expression reflected the tiniest amount of guilt. I destroyed their satellite dishes.
Jason digested that. Warlock-wise, it was innocent enough. No one had been hurt. And the fire?
They started that too, Donovan’s telepathic words hissed.
Come to think of it, Jason could now detect the faint scent of lighter fluid on the smoking breeze. Black fumes were beginning to choke the air around the house.
The streetlight in front of the yard suddenly popped and went out, casting them into further darkness.
The men on the lawn jumped and turned in place, their agitation growing exponentially.
Donovan was losing control. The situation had escalated to a breaking point.
Plato had been Donovan’s cat. The warlock had adopted him from the pound as a seven-week-old kitten when the feline was brought in around Halloween to protect it from being murdered by psychotic, ignorant people who had far too many superstitious excuses for hating black cats.
That was ten years ago.
Jason knew that as far as Donovan was concerned, these men had murdered his closest friend and family member, and he could understand the loss of control. However he did wonder how it had actually happened. Had the cat been run over? Or skinned and left hanging from Donovan’s front porch? There was quite a bit of difference between the two. One could be misconstrued as having been done on purpose. The other obviously was.
Jason quickly scanned the faces of the men present. His ultimate, experienced impression was that there was a wealth of distrust amongst them due to religious differences, and there probably always had been. Perhaps the catalyst that brought them to this confrontation had been an honest accident, but that dogmatic distrust had turned it into a crime and things had spun out of control. It was a common mistake on this planet.