Hesperos entrusted two words of power with the two men at the Table he’d known for millennia: Thanatos, the Phantom King and Lord of the Dead, and Damon Chroi, the King of the Goblin Realm. Kristopher was chosen as the third recipient quite simply because he was a close friend to Hesperos, despite the fact that the son-of-a-bitch Nightmare King had once slept with Kristopher’s sister and Kris had locked him in a block of ice for it.
Hess had taken it in good stride. According to the grinning bastard, it was worth it.
The words entrusted to them could not be read from a person’s mind or plumbed from the depths of their thoughts by means of magic. They were words of power. Ancient, protected, armored by the oaths of time: They were Hesperos’s original names.
There is a lot of power in a name. Enough to see a king to a throne forever.
It was agreed that upon Hesperos’s incidental destruction, the Nightmare King would exchange these words with them, proving his identity and reclaiming his position at the Table of the Thirteen.
When they’d found his lifeless body on the table in their last meeting place, Roman and the others had instantly known that this moment was coming. The fact that the one weapon capable of killing the Nightmare King, the Sleeper, had been chosen for the deed either meant the Traitor had access to more than previously thought, or the Nightmare King had somehow and for some reason taken his own life.
But the “why” had to take a back seat to the fact that the Traitor was still clearly among them.
The shock of the attack rode them for seven months as the three chosen Kings, their mates, and D’Angelo gathered together and waited. For a moment just like this.
“I see,” said Roman into the phone. Not for the first time, Kris wished he had some of the powers his cohorts had, such as incredible hearing or the ability to read minds.
The Vampire King looked up at Kris, then at the other two Kings. He looked torn between smiling and worrying.
Well, that pretty much says it all, thought Kris. He knew that look.
Hesperos had found his queen.
“Got it,” said Roman, looking down at the floor now as he clearly concentrated on the conversation. “Can you transport? Then head to your realm and regroup, then meet us at the cemetery.”
The Cemetery. It had been a long time since Kristopher’d heard those particular words issued in that particular manner. When Roman referred to “The Cemetery” as a meeting place, he was talking about one specific, fairly special place. Decades had passed since Kristopher’s last visit.
Sad Hill Cemetery was the extremely famous end-scene cemetery from the film, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Contrary to appearances, it did not exist in the southwest United States. And it also wasn’t a cemetery. As a matter of fact, it had been created by extras, film workers, and volunteers solely for the filming of the movie more than half a century ago. Over the years, it had fallen into complete disrepair, overgrown and invisible beneath the greenery of time. Its grave markers had been filched or destroyed, its stones buried under grass and weeds.
For the fiftieth anniversary of the film, volunteers restored the “cemetery,” bringing it back to its circular, surreal, and Romanesque glory right down to the fitted stones at its center. But long before this restoration, the location had been chosen as an occasional meeting place amongst Roman and his companions.
Roman was by blood European. So for centuries, he’d used private settings in and around Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Spain, and France to conduct meetings of vital importance. When he saw one of these meeting places “made up” into an end scene in an extremely famous movie, he could only smile – and Sad Hill Cemetery, henceforth known simply as “The Cemetery” to the Kings – became a more popular meeting place than others.
Plus the truth was, Roman was a fan of westerns. Who’d have thought? Kristopher had once asked him why, and Roman replied with a chuckle, “It’s always high noon.”
Roman hung up with Hesperos and re-pocketed his phone. Damon Chroi was the first to speak. “That was Hesperos, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.”
“But I bet he isn’t going by Hesperos any longer,” said Poppy, the Winter Queen and Kristopher’s sole reason for existence. He smiled. He’d forgotten that Hess would have a different name this time. Leave it to Poppy to guess as much.
“No,” replied Roman with a smile.
“What is he going by now?” asked Evie.
“Nicholas Wargrave,” Roman said, and now he grinned.
“No shit,” said Thanatos disbelievingly. He sat forward, taking his motorcycle boots off Roman’s coffee table. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“He’s found his queen, hasn’t he?” asked Poppy.
Roman nodded. “He didn’t say it in so many words, no doubt because he was actually in her presence and, well….”
“We tend to be skittish to the subject at first?” asked Siobhan teasingly. She glanced at her husband, Thanatos, who went by Thane in close company.
“More like downright impossible,” Thane muttered. He was very relaxed in jeans, a rather worn concert tee from the sixties, a leather jacket, and likely non-removable oil stains.
“Right,” said Roman with his own small smile. “But of course, it isn’t that simple either.”
“It never is,” said Diana, the Goblin Queen. She blew a stray strand of hair out of her beautiful face.
No joke, Kris thought, observing her. Diana Chroi was in charge of an entire realm of trouble makers, her husband included. But then she was a full-time veterinarian in the mortal world, she had a house filled with rescues of all species, and she’d recently given birth to triplets. Who were now toddler triplets. The thought made him cringe. “It isn’t that simple” was an understatement for her.
“Apparently the new queen needs to keep a low profile,” Roman explained as he went to a cabinet in the library, opened it, and pulled out a few essentials for the trip. “And he needs our help smoothing over some fairly big wrinkles.”
“Is she a criminal?” Evie asked, almost hopefully.
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Roman asked, giving her a side-long glance.
“It’s the author in her,” said Thane. “Looking for material.” He grinned.
She grinned back, flashing fangs.
Roman closed the cabinet and turned to his constituents. “I’ll explain everything on the way. We’re headed to Spain.”
Chapter Fourteen
Addie watched the stranger warily. There was something monumental about him, not just in his appearance but in his very existence, something that she just knew was going to change the course of her life. For better or for worse, though? That was what she didn’t know.
“We’ll only have a few seconds,” he told her as he placed his phone back in his suit coat pocket and moved toward her. “You’re going to have to once again trust me. Find the dog, grab him, and step back into the portal. I’ll run interference.”
“You’re going to change the portal’s course while it’s still open,” said the woman in the room. Addie had no idea who these people were, but they were the same couple who’d been with the stranger in the elevator earlier.
The stranger nodded his beautiful head. “We don’t have time to close and re-open.”
The woman blew out a quick sigh. “Okay. I’ll open it and Andros can hold it open, then. You need to save what strength you can until it’s fully returned. You can direct the portal since you know where we’re going.”
Portal? thought Addie. The universe was laughing at her.
“If you want to save Hastings, we need to go now,” the stranger told her, offering her his hand. His gaze deepened, singling her out. “Come closer.”
“Um….”
“Addie,” he said, this time using her nickname. “Now.”
The word was powerful. It got into her head and repeated there, sinking into her brain, her neurons, and her blood, and before she knew it, her leg
s were moving. When she was close enough, the stranger reached behind her, placing his hand to the small of her back.
“Nicholas, get ready,” said the woman.
Nicholas is his name.
Nicholas let his arm slide around her waist, sending goose bumps up her spine, then drew her tight against his side. He was like a tall rock beside her, hard, unyielding, and warm. Hot, even. She felt dizzy. Her stomach was heating up, her legs getting weak.
“Go,” he said, nodding at the woman.
She raised her hands and lowered her head, speaking something in a language Adelaide didn’t recognize. Suddenly, Addie had a lightning-brief vision of swirling lights, a long, endless tunnel of light and iridescence, and a rather rough landing.
And then everything she’d just seen in her split-second premonition was happening.
The air around them lightened to glow white, giving Adelaide the impression that she was losing consciousness. When the white light faded, Addie found herself in that exact tunnel she’d just imagined. They seemed to stand still as the tunnel sped past them, like they were human starships moving at warp speed. In a few seconds, the space at the end of the tunnel parted like the mouth of a worm. The hole grew wider, and she could make out the aspects of a room beyond. There was furniture, four walls, and a dog.
“Hastings!” she cried.
But the dog wasn’t alone. In fact, the puppy was being held by a man in a dark suit. There were three other suits with him. One was knelt before the chest of drawers in the main room, opening the empty drawers – because Addie’s luggage was God knew where. Another was in the bathroom, apparently taking samples of her hair from her hair brush. And a third was standing beside the windows, looking out. In his right hand was a radio.
All four of them turned and looked up when the portal opened up in the middle of the room, directly atop the queen-sized bed. They gawked in surprise. Hastings gave an excited bark and wagged his tail.
The woman going through the empty chest of drawers was the first to straighten and go for her gun, tucking her hand quickly beneath her suit coat. Red hot fear speared through Addie. This kind of thing went on in movies all the time. It happened in books, it happened in video games. But when you were standing in front of a person who was literally drawing a deadly weapon on you with full intent to shoot, it was different. It was so very different.
She’d felt it before, though. The first time it happened, she’d been paralyzed, wrapped in a cold and hard reality that momentarily froze her in place. She was lucky to have survived.
But this time, she moved. Practice, instinct, and something stronger than both of those forced her to lunge forward head first. She dove on the bed and rolled toward the son-of-a-bitch who had her dog.
Nicholas moved too. He rushed from the portal like a blurred hurricane. When Addie came to a stop and looked up from the bed, the woman in the suit hit the opposite wall. Nicholas raised his hand palm-out, and the gun the woman held went flying from her grip into his as if he’d used the Force.
Out of self preservation, Addie prioritized. This was all frankly impossible, and she was going to need either heavy explanations or heavy medications or she would go insane, but right now she shoved that way back on a mental backburner and looked up at the man holding her dog. “Give him to me!” she demanded with a warning gaze. The man, who’d been stunned by what was happening around him, simply dropped Hastings. Adelaide knew he would do it, and she caught the dog easily.
“Get back into the portal!” Nicholas commanded. He turned around, his other arm raised toward the suit coming out of the bathroom. The agent’s gun was already drawn, but Nicholas made quick work of that one too. The gun went flying from the woman’s grip to go sailing across the room and through the window on the opposite end, shattering the glass like a crystalline firework.
The explosion was an incredible distraction. Addie used it to hug Hastings tight to her chest, get to her feet on the bed, and sprint clumsily toward the portal. Nicholas’s two friends waited inside the swirling, bright tunnel. When she was almost there, the man stepped out, grabbed her by the backs of her arms, and yanked her toward him, pulling her the rest of the way in.
Addie stumbled a little, but he steadied her. “Thank you!” she said as she turned in place to watch what was still happening in the room. It was like watching a scene from a movie: The avenging angel stood at the center of a handful of “bad guys” whose only real job was to be shut down by the larger-than-life “good guy” with magical powers.
Nicholas only had to raise his hand. A flick of his wrist, a glance in someone’s direction, and that person went flying. Or the object they were holding melted. Or it blew up. Or it was sent hurling across the room to smash into a thousand bits against the opposite wall. As he worked this calm and easy magic, his silver eyes glowed. There was a presence around him, an aura of such unimaginable power, it was like watching the formation of a black hole. It sucked light into it, and a darkness around him swirled, moved, and breathed. That darkness was as much a living, breathing thing as he was.
Beautiful men, swirling transportation portals, strangers who knew her name, magic powers… Adelaide had no idea what she’d stumbled into. She had no idea what she was dealing with. But she had zero doubt that whatever it was, it was hell and gone from human.
Nicholas stepped back into the portal, his back to Addie. His eyes were trained on the unmoving bodies around the room. They were unconscious and probably concussed, but from what she could tell, they were alive. For some reason, that impressed her. It was important.
“Close it,” he commanded. The portal closed in front of him. Nicholas lowered his head. The colors of the portal changed, there was a shift in the magnetic aura around them that felt like batteries pulling against Addie, and she somehow knew they were headed somewhere new.
“Where are we going?” she asked, clutching Hastings tight like Dorothy with Toto.
Nicholas turned around. His flashing silver eyes locked on to hers, and Addie felt a wave of something wash over her. It’s magic, she thought. She could have drowned in it. Hell, she almost wanted to. It was like invisible pleasure, thick and warm.
He smiled at her. “To my realm,” he said in his sexy, accented voice.
“Our realm,” the woman beside Addie corrected softly. Addie would have turned toward her, but she couldn’t look away. Nick’s eyes were magnetic in and of themselves. “Typical male ego,” the woman chuckled.
“But Nicholas is our king,” the other man said. “So it’s no surprise he calls it his.”
“I’ll explain everything on the way,” Nicholas said softly, as if speaking only to her.
Okay, she thought. That would be good.
Chapter Fifteen
Well, everything he’d told her was bat shit. But… if Addie had learned anything over the last twenty years, it was that life was bat shit. It was so much worse than people thought, and so much better than they dreamed. And there was more to it, more in every sense, than limited minds imagined. She was psychic, after all.
When Addie was nine years old, she’d been on a school field trip going somewhere that she couldn’t even remember. What she did remember was that they’d passed by a field of grazing horses on their way to that unmemorable place. Addie had gazed out at the horses in wonder of their beauty. One of them was obviously a new mother. Just behind her and underneath, a bright white foal was nursing from her.
Addie couldn’t see the foal in its entirety; its head was hidden behind the mom. But as the bus passed the field and Addie’s perspective shifted, the foal stopped nursing. It stepped out from behind its mother and into the sunlight.
And Adelaide saw its horn.
It was a baby unicorn. The realization of what she was seeing left her stunned and immobile for far too long. When she could finally move, when she’d at last convinced herself she wasn’t imagining it, she turned to her friend sitting beside her. “Do you see that?” she asked.
Bu
t by then, the bus was heading under an overpass, and the field was out of view. Her friend had been writing something on her hand and hadn’t even seen the field, much less the horses in it. Across the bus aisle, two other students were playing a paper fortune teller game. No one said anything about any horses, much less any unicorns.
But she knew what she’d seen.
She would never forget that moment. Not even death could take the memory from her. She knew from experience – because when she was fourteen years old, that was exactly what she’d done. Died. For seven minutes and thirteen seconds.
Adelaide Lane had been through a lot in the thirty-some years of her existence. She’d seen unicorns. She’d seen people with pointed ears trying to hide them beneath hoodies. She’d seen the ends of alleyways that seemed to warp and wave before settling down into a solid again. She knew Santa Claus was real. She knew there were leprechauns. She knew what was waiting beyond the veil of life. And she knew that psychics existed.
So, being introduced to a world that contained “Nightmares,” while a lot to swallow at first, was not as straight-jacket inducing as it could have been. She was handling it. Either that, or she’d crossed the line and was full-on delusional now.
The problem was, they still hadn’t told her how and why they knew her.
A shadow fell over her, and Addie looked up. The foyer of Nicholas Wargrave’s castle was like a scene from a Dungeons and Dragons adventure, tall, dark, and topped with crippling architecture that could stave off an army or ten. The hallways were labyrinthine, twisting off into countless unknown destinations. Staircases carried travelers to equally countless stories above. Most impressive of all, swirling dark purple portals waited here and there for easy transport throughout the castle. Andros explained that only Nightmares could use them; they were a defensive precaution, which made Addie wonder if they did indeed ever have to fight off armies.