“Do… you think he was the Traitor?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Jack sighed. “I know so little about the Kings in general.”
The only one he really seemed to know was the former Shifter King, Darius Walker. Speaking of Walker… “How is Walker doing?” she asked.
“They brought in a healer to help him this time around. His injuries were too devastating. No one should have to suffer that for any length of time. So now, he’s absolutely fine. Pissed. But fine. No permanent damage whatsoever.”
Sam exhaled. That was at least a relief.
Then something occurred to her. “What about the Time King?” She stopped and turned toward him, taking his left wrist gently in her fingers. She pushed up his sleeve to expose his tattoo. “You do know him,” she said.
Jack looked at the tattoo and thought for a moment in silence. Then he said, “Yes. I do.”
“How?”
“When my parents and sister were killed by the Hunters, William Balthazar Solan took me in. He told me I was destined for great things. And I guess he was right. I became king, after all. But I was four years old, Sam. Practically an infant.”
Sam felt shock move through her. She’d had no idea he’d been so young when he was orphaned.
“He helped place me in a shifter home. He funded my upbringing, though he needn’t have. My adoptive parents loved me as their own. But Will visited often and helped me develop skills other shifters didn’t possess.”
“Like this,” she said, gently running her thumb over his marking.
“Yes.”
She looked back up at him. “If the other Kings believe Arach was innocent, then suspicion will fall on William, won’t it?”
“I would imagine William has been under that suspicion for some time,” he said. There was a tightness to his voice that told her the subject was uncomfortable for him. “I, for one, can not imagine William Solan betraying anyone. But… that is the very essence of betrayal.”
Sam stared up at him for a long, quiet time. She saw oceans of emotion in his one blue eye. And she thought of all he had been through in his life. She thought of everything all of the Shifters had been through in their lives. Each of them had to hide what they were, live in the closet so to speak. Cat or bird or horse or wolf, they kept their true selves tucked away from the prying eyes of an intolerable public and pretended to be human.
Meanwhile, those very humans they pretended to be continued to hunt them down for their fur or tusks or fins. Genocidal maniacs created evil poisons and magic spells that forced pain or disease upon them. And now their dwindling numbers faced the Stayme.
The Kings had put a dent in the forces of the Hunters with this last battle, but the fight was far from over. Hunters existed across the globe.
Sam felt a fury toward them. It was so strong, it was righteous.
She recalled the way she’d felt toward the shifters in the arena. She’d wanted to shelter them. She’d wanted to save Darius Walker. She remembered it felt almost as if… they were her brethren. Her tribe. And even – her children.
Jack smiled gently and cupped her cheek with his hand. His thumb brushed over the fading bruise the Entity had left behind when he’d backhanded her. His touch on the injury had a healing quality to it, almost like a salve. She closed her eyes.
“We should probably get going” he said, and she opened her eyes. “It might be easier on us to get there first.” He smiled a little sheepishly, and it was adorable to her. There was a human side, a softer side to him, that she couldn’t wait to get to know better. Not that she minded the harder side.
Not at all.
She nodded, smiled back, and they turned around to make their way back to Roman’s mansion. “Jack, you never told me what it is you do for a living.”
“No, I didn’t,” he said mercurially. He gave her a side-long look with a dark smile. “But a little mystery is good for a relationship.”
Sam shook her head. She’d find out eventually. They walked in silence until a full minute had passed. Then Samantha said, “Yes.”
Jack must not have understood right away what she meant, because he only glanced at her and kept walking. “Yes, what?” But then he froze, halting dead in his tracks. Her arm slipped out of his, and she kept walking, maybe just to tease him.
After a few steps, she finally stopped as well and turned to face him. She was grinning. “Yes, Jack,” she said. “I’m ready now.”
Jack stared at her for what felt like forever. And then he moved toward her, each step deliberate, each long stride slow and purposeful. When he stood before her, he gently took her head in his hands, and with an expression of wonder on his handsome face, he asked, “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure about anything. The question is – are you ready to be my king?”
Jack Colton laughed. It was a beautiful, hopeful, sexy laugh. “Firebird,” he said before he kissed her gently, and tendrils of heat snaked down her body from the contact. “I was born to be your king.”
Epilogue
The location of the latest meeting of the Thirteen Kings had been carefully chosen. They always were. But this time, Roman had made certain the Kings were meeting far from humanity and any chance that a battle or strange supernatural event would bring any further unwanted attention upon the supernatural communities.
This time, they were meeting on a yacht. It had been docked in a remote location in the Pacific.
Roman took a deep breath, straightened his tie, and glanced at his wife. Evie smiled at him, but it was a sad smile. This was not a happy meeting. One of their kind was dead – again. They had already lost the Gargoyle King to the evil of the Entity. Now Arach was dead.
What was next?
But there was a new King among them, and a new Queen. This was a necessary joining of the leaders of the nations. And… there was a funeral to plan. And perhaps a lost queen to find.
Much needed discussing.
Roman glanced at the clock on the wall. He and Evie were usually the first to arrive, but they were late this time around.
“Let’s go, babe,” said Evie as she laced her arm in his. He placed his hand lovingly over hers and nodded. She was his strength. He didn’t know what he would do without her. What had he ever done without her? He could scarcely remember. It was as if there had been no life before she’d come into it.
The portal opened around them, and they stepped inside. But it had not taken them half way to their destination before Roman’s senses began to tingle. Evie pulled out of his grip and turned to look up at him. Her brow was furrowed, and her beautiful eyes reflected great concern.
“Something’s wrong,” she said.
Behind her, the exit to the portal swirled open. Roman looked over Evie’s shoulder to the room beyond. It revealed a single table, long enough to seat more than twenty people. But no one was sitting. Half a dozen people stood at the opposite end of the room, staring wide-eyed at the table. Because lying on top of the table was a man.
His green eyes were open, but they stared unseeing at the ceiling above. There was no life left in them. That life had been taken – by the large ornately carved dagger protruding from the man’s chest.
Blood coated the table top and had trickled from its surface to soak the carpet beneath it.
Evie slowly turned to see what Roman was staring at. She froze in front of him. He saw her cover her mouth with a trembling hand. Through her fingers came a series of softly spoken words, ripe with shock and disbelief.
“No,” her voice shook. “It’s Hesperos.”
“The Nightmare King,” he finished for her. He felt numb. This couldn’t be real. What was next? he’d just had to ask. Now it looked as though he had his answer. “He’s dead.”
The Traitor, it would seem, was still very much among them.
The End.
A word from the author:
Hi everyone! Heather, here. I wanted to thank you for joining me for what happens to
be my thirty-fifth publication. This one was a little special to me. Why? Because I forgot to celebrate my thirtieth, and because you never know how long you’re going to live, so I might not even be around for my fortieth. Hence, celebration time!
You might have noticed that there are a few names in this book that sound familiar. Yes, I did this on purpose. (smile) The heroine of the story’s name is Samantha O’Neill. Stargate SG1 is one of my very favorite television series, along with Frasier, Monk, Psych, Star Trek TNG, Ruby Gloom, and Gravity Falls. I’d always wanted to see Samantha Carter get together with Jack O’Neill. So in the end, that’s what I did. I put them together: Samantha O’Neill.
Her guardian, Raven, is a nod to the Dungeons and Dragons character I played for more twenty years, Raven Winter. You might be familiar with her from my Chosen Soul series. If not, I suggest you get busy!
Jack Colton is a nod to several of my favorites, not the least of which is Jack Thane from my novel, Hell Bent. Then there’s the aforementioned Jack O’Neill. And of course Jack Colton is the name of the hero in Romancing the Stone, which was one of the first movies I saw at the theater when I was a kid. I was feeling nostalgic.
There may be a few more; maybe you can spot them. I definitely had fun.
And I sincerely hope you did too. XOXO
A little something extra from the author…
“Wings in the Attic,”
a Big Bad World Valentine’s story
by Heather Killough-Walden
February 14th, not too long ago….
Lalura stopped in the open attic doorway, her small bent frame and surrounding dust motes outlined by the hall light behind her. She stood still for several long moments and gazed into the darkness. The stark blue of her eyes was hidden in shadow, just as were the remnants that waited in the corners and piles of the rickety shelter. It smelled of cedar and memories up here.
Cedar and dust and memories.
“Hmph.”
Lalura’s intelligent gaze narrowed on the darkness of the neglected room. It seemed a challenge, almost. There were whispers inside, from old friends and enemies; they pushed at one another for a chance at her ear. There were flashes of things she’d tried a thousand times to forget, like bits of torn movie reel flung before a projector light. There were old songs in there, and even now she could make out their faint notes, piano keys and violin strokes from long, long ago.
Lalura lifted her chin. She took a slow breath, filling her ancient lungs with both dust and courage before releasing her breath into the past once more. Then she spoke a harsh, magic word, and extended an arm.
An old-fashioned gas lantern appeared in her gnarled grip. Its yellow, flickering flame cast dancing shapes across the long floor boards in front of her. She stood there in the under-used doorway for several more long moments, and then took the first step past the threshold that she’d taken in seventy years.
At once, the atmosphere of the room changed. The dust lifted away, the darkness turned to light, and the past greeted her with the jubilance of an old friend. She moved through the attic, leaving behind her a trail of dancing couples and bridesmaids in a line and little girls learning to ride their bicycles. Winters, springs, summers and falls blossomed to life, froze to silence, and fell by the wayside with every one of the witch’s slow, steady steps.
She moved with resolution, her blue eyes trained on the end of the attic, where a man stood at the windows that looked out over a snow-covered world. She didn’t see him, though. She saw past him, she saw through him, her far-away gaze trained on yesteryears and bygones, her heart trapped in what might have been.
But he saw her. His handsome face was clean shaven, his tall form was draped in uniform, and in his hands he held the hat of an air force colonel. His blue eyes matched the blue of his station; he was tall and regal, and the very air about him spoke of good deeds done. He was a hero. He was her hero.
Once upon a time.
Lalura smiled now as she remembered.
You’re a fool, she’d told him. Such a romantic. A proposal on Valentine’s Day of all days. Only you would brave the crowds, Conrad. Only you.
Is that a yes?
She could hear the nervous tremor in his deep voice. She’d held her breath and tried not to giggle. It wasn’t like a witch of her growing stature to fall to giggling. But her heart had grown wings – wings like the ones on his chest.
“Yes,” she whispered now, echoing her response of long ago.
Beneath the dusty window with its cobwebs and peeling paint sat a music box. Lalura made her way to it as the echoes died down and the memories settled and the world became still once more.
He watched her in his ghostly silence as she stopped before it and reached for its latch with gnarled, weathered fingers. It slid back and away as if it had not been seven decades since she had opened it last. A spell kept it safe. Dusty, but safe.
“I love you, Lana,” he told her now, his long-dead voice reaching into the empty spaces of the attic to grace them with remnants of another time.
Lalura closed her eyes as if she’d heard him – this ghost of the man she’d once promised herself to.
A moment later, she opened her eyes once more, and then opened the box. She gazed down at the small collection on the single velvet pouch that sat within it. The music of the box began to play, its crisp, lilting notes filling the air with bitter sweet harmony.
On the pillow sat a pair of wedding rings, as shining and smooth as the day she’d slipped them inside. Neither of them had ever been worn.
Beside the empty rings rested a set of metal dog tags and a single sterling silver pin. Lalura picked up the pin with trembling fingers and gazed longingly, rememberingly, at the small propeller and set of angel-like wings. “I love you too, Conrad,” she whispered. Snow swirled and curled outside. The wind rustled the branches of a nearby tree and brushed the wind chimes hanging from the porch rafters. Somewhere, violins joined the music box notes, and a symphony soothed Lalura’s tired soul.
The handsome soldier looked on. He always had and always would.
Lalura, or Lana as her fiancé had once called her, closed her eyes and held the pin to her heart. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Lalura Chantelle is a crotchety and much beloved character in Heather Killough-Walden’s Big Bad Wolf spinoff series, The Kings.
Look for book eleven in The Kings series, coming 2017.
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Heather Killough-Walden Reading List
The Lost Angels series:
Always Angel (eBook-only introductory novella)
Avenger's Angel
Messenger's Angel
Death's Angel
Warrior's Angel
Samael
The October Trilogy:
Sam I Am
Secretly Sam
Suddenly Sam
Neverland Series:
Forever Neverland
Beyond Neverland
The Big Bad Wolf series:
The Heat
The Strip
The Spell
The Hunt
The Big Bad Wolf Romance Compilation (all four books together, in proper chronological order)
The Kings - A Big Bad Wolf spinoff series:
(in proper order so far)
The Vampire King
The Phantom King
The Warlock King
The Goblin King
The Seelie King
The Unseelie King
The Shadow King
The Winter King
The Demon King
The Shifter King
(future The Kings books TBA; 13 total)
The Chosen Soul Trilogy:
The Chosen Soul
Drake of Tanith
Queen of Abaddon
Redeemer (stand-alone)
Hell Bent (stand-alone)
Vampire, Vampire (stand-alone)
A Sinister Game (stand-alone)
The Third Kiss: Dorian's Dream (stand-alone)
Note: The Lost Angels series (not including Always Angel, Warrior’s Angel and Samael) and the Big Bad Wolf series are available in print and eBook format. All other HKW books are currently eBook-only.
Heather Killough-Walden, The Shifter King (The Kings Book 10)
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