The creak of his study door had his instant attention. He stilled, and his pupils expanded as he watched the small space that had opened into the hall beyond. He’d heard no footsteps, and he hadn’t felt his queen draw near.
He waited, every instinct at the ready.
And then, as if it owned the floor it walked upon, in strolled a pure white cat.
Roman blinked his brows arching. It was snow white, bright as fresh paper, lean and graceful, and it held its head up high. Once it was fully in the room, the cat stopped at the edge of the Persian rug and turned its head. Stark blue eyes caught Roman’s gaze and held it.
Something uncanny moved through Roman. He felt glued to his seat, unable to look away.
The cat’s ear twitched. Then it made a slow, purposeful bee line for the table in front of Roman, and in a leap that displayed everything miraculous about cats, it jumped atop the table, landing beside the chess board.
This particular chess board was very old, carved of onyx and quartz crystal and etched with ancient symbols. Its pieces were dragons of various sizes and shapes, some with two wings, some with four. Some with two heads, others spewing marble fire. But every piece was recognizable as the part it played whether pawn, bishop, rook, or knight. The king and queen sat regal, two enormous dragons with their wings depictive of the space they ruled on the board. The king’s massive wings were folded. The king moved one space on a chess board. The queen’s wings were outstretched, spanning gloriously upward and out. The queen moved in every direction, as many spaces as she wished.
The cat seemed to study Roman from where it sat beside the board. Roman noticed the cat was female, and for some reason, that made him feel strange as well. A surrealism was washing over him. Surely this was simply one of Evelynne’s plethora of rescued animals? She was always coming home with a new one. She’d rescued animals in life, and she still did so now in her immortality.
So why did this feel so different? Almost… like a dream.
The cat’s ear twitched again, and she stood up, raising her left forepaw above the chess board. And then, just like that, she was stepping onto the beautiful antique set. As she moved around the board, she kicked pieces off of it. Some seemed to fall accidentally, brushed off by a wayward tail. Others, she appeared to bat off on purpose. Roman remained stunned, looking on as his ancient pieces went flying, possibly chipping as they hit the floor, possibly shattering altogether. He simply could not move. And most spectacular of all, he didn’t want to.
There was something imperative in this unreal moment. So he watched in statuesque silence, attentively amazed as the graceful cat made her dancing way about the chess board until every piece had been removed and lay scattered about the study. Every piece, that is – but one.
The king, alone remained. This single piece had come to rest at the center of the board, and the white cat now sat behind it, her tail curling around the base of the piece as if to say, “See this.”
Roman looked up, peering into the cat’s blue, blue eyes. Eyes like oceans of knowledge. Eyes he now realized – he recognized.
What do you see, Roman?
And what Roman saw sent a horrible chill down his spine. For he knew then, finally and all at once, what he had desired so greatly to know for so long.
The final chess piece remaining on the ancient dragon carved board, sitting alone and cut off from the others, was the king.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Roman glanced at the watch on his hand, and then at the line of trees to the west.
“It’s been a long time since you’ve had to rely on a wristwatch to protect yourself from the sun, hasn’t it?” asked Jack.
He and Sam and Roman were the only three in the clearing. Roman D’Angelo glanced at him and smiled a wry smile. “Indeed.”
But magic, in all of its comfortable ease and peace of mind, was prohibited at the moment. In the whole of the Kings’ battle against him, it was the one thing the Entity had relied upon each and every time to find his target: Magic.
In a magic world, it was to be expected. That it had taken D’Angelo this long to figure it out was obviously killing the Vampire King. Sam could see his shame in his eyes. But it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been busy with a very big job. He was the king of kings. He had a nation to run – and twelve others to check up on.
Whatever the reasons, Roman was making up for it now.
Sam and Jack spun as a twig snapped behind them.
“Sorry,” came a soft voice and a shy shrug. Evelynne D’Angelo, the Vampire Queen, smiled wryly. “I guess I grew out of the habit of watching for things like that.” When vampires moved with their magic, they made no sound.
Roman smiled broadly. Sam noticed that he hadn’t been surprised that it was her. Well of course not, she thought. He could probably smell her. Vampires had very keen senses, just like shifters. Possibly even better.
“Sorry I’m late. I had to finish up some things for my latest release.” Evelynne, or Evie as she preferred to be called, was an author. She had print publications but preferred to publish in eBook format because not being over-edited for content allowed her to maintain her creative edge.
Apparently she’d just released her latest book, a paranormal romance, that very morning.
“How is it doing so far?” Roman asked. Sam noticed the intent, slightly earnest expression on his face and realized it was the same expression that Jack gave her when she was talking to him. It meant he was actually listening. Because he actually cared.
She glanced at Jack to find he was watching her. He smiled. She blushed and turned back to the vampire couple.
“It’s doing great,” said Evie genuinely. “I’ve had one super hateful review so far.”
Sam blinked. “And… that’s a good thing?”
Evie turned her smile on Sam and nodded. “It doesn’t feel like it at first, believe me. People can be very hurtful, and when I was first getting started, I admit I cried. An author friend of mine actually committed suicide because of hateful reviews. So they can be horrid.” She shook her head, no doubt remembering…. “But once you get used to this kind of thing, it rolls off a little easier, and you realize that for a book to sell really well, it has to illicit strong emotion. Strong emotion materializes as either adoration or vehemence. It’s love or hate. No in-between. The worst reviews I ever got were on a book that has a lot of BDSM.”
Sam frowned. “I thought people liked that kind of thing.” If the current book and movie trend were any indication.
“Oh, believe me they do. But they’re afraid to admit it. And a lot of people who end up liking it are also ashamed that they do. They take that anger at themselves out on the author. But those who like it in secret go on to buy more. So - the next book I released hit the bestseller lists.”
“I see,” said Sam. She turned it over in her head as she glanced back at Raven. “Maybe I should switch up how I’m doing my photos,” she joked.
Raven rolled her eyes and shook her head. “The world isn’t ready for BDSM unicorns,” she said, chuckling.
The trees rustled again, and everyone turned. A couple moved toward the clearing, their arms folded together as they walked. The man, Sam recognized, though barely. He was one of the men who had been outside the candy shop when she’d escaped it as the Thunder Dragon. The woman with him was stunningly beautiful, and she had no idea who she was. But the fact that they were here meant they were probably king and queen.
“Sam, Raven, this is Chloe Septeran, the Warlock Queen, and her husband Jason Alberich, the Warlock King.”
Jason and Chloe nodded and smiled as they stopped beside the others. “We the first to arrive?” Chloe asked.
“So far,” said Evie. “But it won’t be long now.”
And she was right. One by one, the royal couples arrived. They had come by plane, train, and even boat. They’d come swiftly, but carefully, realizing that they could no longer smooth over any indelicacies of the criminal nature by wiping memories
or scrambling radars and video cameras.
Little by little, royal couples filled the clearing, until twenty-four beautiful, potentially magical people stood waiting and silent in a clearing in the Redwood Forest. Ten couples. Two bachelor kings. A magishifter guardian. And a high ranking member of the werewolf council.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Roman began with a glance at his queen. Evie nodded encouragingly before turning back to face the others in the crowd. Roman continued. “I trust you were all careful. No magic.”
No one said anything, but most of them shook their heads. So Sam assumed it had been well understood and they’d all followed instructions to the letter. They all were all counting on it.
“Cole, you’ve been called here with the rest of us because you represent the werewolf association in this situation. It does involve Hunters, so your kind has an active interest.”
Malcolm Cole was one of the werewolves Sam had met the night she’d escaped from the hospital. She remembered him, and she remembered what Raven had told her about him being a famous author. Sam supposed she really should read more, because it seemed a lot of the people around her were authors, and she’d never read any of their stuff.
Cole was very tall, as was every man in the clearing. His black hair brushed his shoulders, and his green eyes were intense with power. He’d recently been granted a position with the werewolf council, the hierarchical order of werewolf protectors and administrators that oversaw werewolf law and wellbeing. He’d been appointed by Jesse Graves, the werewolf Overseer, and given a high rank immediately. Jesse had then instructed him to come to this meeting.
His mate, a fiery redheaded woman by the name of Claire St. James, was not there this evening. She was apparently performing as a drummer with a band in Las Vegas.
Cole nodded at Roman, and Roman turned to his wife again to give her the signal to take over. She took a deep breath. “Very well, then,” she said, her crisp, beautiful voice ringing clearly through the crowd. “I’m afraid we may have upsetting news. We can’t take it at face value. We must test its mettle. But whether it turns out to be true or false, once it is relayed, this information must never leave this clearing. Leave the spoken words here in this forest to fall to a whisper and die. Take their meaning however, and hold it in your hearts and minds. We must act quickly and shrewdly. The future of our kingdoms – and perhaps of the very world itself, is at stake.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sam padded slowly, each of her four paws taking silent cat steps. But even in her feline silence, she felt like nothing but fear filled her. It was being pumped through her heart and fed to her extremities. Just cold, hard fear.
It had to look real. And that was a lucky thing, she guessed, because it sure as shit felt real. The apartment was dark around her. The alarm had been set. She knew there were two shifters out in the hall, and another two at the base of the elevator thirteen floors below. The windows were warded. Sam’s guardian was nowhere around, so there would be no escape using a waypiece. Jack appeared to have thought of everything. That was the point.
Once Sam had made it into the living room of Jack’s penthouse apartment, she stopped in the shadow of a recliner and crouched, listening. Her super human ears pricked. Down the hall, the elevator was climbing floors… someone lit a cigarette… in another apartment, an old man coughed. There were no nearing footsteps, no exchanged warnings or words.
So far, so good.
This next part had to be done fast and it had to be done right. The smell of her blood would draw attention, and it would be expected that Jack’s men would be on it like a homing beacon. If they gave her any extra time, it would look fishy. So she needed to get it right the first time; there was no room for error. She shifted into human form, once more using the shadows as a shield. Then she shoved up her sleeve and pulled the bandage off her left forearm, exposing the mark she’d carefully – and painfully – cut into it earlier that night.
She wasted no time, pressing the fingers of her right hand to the mark, which she’d drawn in grizzly fashion into her otherwise smooth skin. Then she stood up and moved very hastily to the stained glass windows that she loved so much.
This was her first time using this spell. In fact, this was her first time using any kind of magic that wasn’t her own inherent shifter magic. She wanted to get as close to the transport’s destination as humanly possible, in case proximity helped in any way. She concentrated on the ledge outside the window; it was a mini-veranda carved of stone and fenced with wrought iron, made more for the architectural and aesthetic value than for any real use. It might not even hold her weight. But she wasn’t planning on putting any weight on it. It was just a safety measure in case this went horribly awry.
The symbol on her arm began to glow. It hurt. She bit her lip and stifled any sound that threatened to come out of her mouth. It hurt to bite her lip too; Jack had done enough of that the night before, and her lips were swollen. She was sore all over, in fact. When she thought about it, acknowledged each ache, each small bruise and the meaning behind it – she blushed.
That blush was eaten up by the sudden flash of a portal opening around her. She braced herself, knowing this was it. The fit was about to hit the shan. Then she concentrated on her shift, picturing her destined animal in her head as the swirling colors and moving magic swallowed her up.
She shifted in the portal, taking on the form of a jet black Eurasian eagle owl. The animal was common enough, though probably not within Chicago’s city limits. But the fact that it was black was rare as hell. In fact, it didn’t happen. However, the coloring of her creatures was always of Sam’s choosing, and this allowed her to blend in better with the night. Of course her enemies would also expect her to take every possible precaution if she were truly attempting to escape Jack Colton and his men, so picking colors that blended with night was the wise choice if she wanted to appear to be escaping.
The plan was horribly simple.
They’d had two meetings, not one. The first was held to warn the Kings about the identity of the one who might very well be the traitor in their midst. They were instructed to be careful, as the information had come through the acts of, well, of a cat. It wasn’t the least dubious method of fact finding, but Roman felt he knew the cat somehow. He felt very strongly that the animal was an omen.
The second meeting the Kings held included that possible traitor. During that second meeting, they’d formulated a plan of action. Jason Alberich, the Warlock King, had finally managed to decipher the location of the Hunter leader’s headquarters. He’d done it by tracing the transport signatures of the single warlock they seemed to have in their employ. He’d also tracked down their current location, which was about two hours south of town as the crow flies.
It had been an incredibly difficult task, and one Alberich made it clear he did not wish to repeat. Apparently, he’d had to shed quite a bit of blood to get the information. Blood was often used in more difficult spells. Apparently it helped strengthen the magic.
Hesperos, the Nightmare King, was going to take his men to the headquarters and strike the Hunters from that side, thinning out their numbers as much as possible so that Sam and the others weren’t surprised by a Hunter attack later.
Sam, for her part, was supposed to appear to escape Jack Colton, possibly because she was afraid of him, but especially because she wanted to take on the Hunter leader by herself and end this. She was going to be fortunate enough to make it all the way to the Hunter leader’s current location without being caught by Colton. She was going to successfully sneak inside. She was going to find Darius Walker. Then, no doubt… she would be found too.
She was hoping they wouldn’t hurt her too much for her to concentrate on the rest of the tasks she had to carry out. She was going to charm or trick the Hunter’s warlock into giving her his name so that it would be easier for Jack to make him think they were friends when he worked his mind magic on him. And then, using the small necklace she n
ow wore around her neck as a homing beacon of sorts, Jack Colton, a number of his best shifters, Malcolm Cole and some of his best werewolves, Jason Alberich and handful of warlocks, and Arach the Dragon King, with a few carefully selected dragons, would move in on the scene. Arach had concerns that Sam’s transformation into the Thunder Dragon had brought Hunter attention down upon the dragon kingdom. Hence, he very much had an interest in this situation as well.
Everyone affected by Hunter acts was now prepared to strike. And if not every King involved did as he was instructed – there was a back up plan for that too. That was the plan they’d discussed in the first meeting. Just in case.
The necklace she wore was composed of black diamond and fashioned by Jason Alberich, who had been a busy animal these last few days indeed. It was created out of one half of a single stone. Jack had the other half. According to Alberich, when one half was given to person A, person B would be able to use the other half to bypass wards and transport directly to person A’s location.
That was the plan anyway. But if Sam knew anything about plans, she knew they could go terribly wrong. She could think of a hundred things that could go awry before she even got to her destination, to say nothing of what might happen once she’d arrived. She only hoped she could think as fast now, when she needed it most, as she had when she was a teen, pulling small scams for pocket change.
The portal worked, and it re-opened in a flash outside the apartment, bypassing wards to get there. Sam had heard that bypassing wards with a portal was usually impossible, that wards were inherently magical, so they blocked magical things. But Sam had managed it. In truth, the ward hadn’t been that strong, obviously. But also… Sam was. She was strong.
And she was getting stronger.
She could feel her own magic growing inside her. It was the strangest sensation, but not uncomfortable and not unwelcome. It was as if a light were filling her, warming her, slightly buzzing and at the ready. She wondered at her power’s sudden growth as she flapped her silent wings and glided on their six foot wingspan between the tall buildings of downtown Chicago.