King of Darkness (25 page)

“Thanks again, Siddoh. Really.” Alexia smiled sadly. He nodded to her once more as she eased the door closed. From the corner of her eye, she had spotted Lee stalking toward them but pretended she hadn’t.

“Hey, buddy,” Siddoh’s voice came to her through the door. “Thad ready to roll out?”

***

It was almost Christmas, not that that meant a whole hell of a lot.

For some shelter residents, it was clearly a time of near-suicidal depression. Anton found that concerning, but mostly he was concerned that he wasn’t as concerned as he probably ought to be. Others still found joy, albeit muted by their meager existence. What Anton experienced, as far as he could tell, was something akin to murderous rage. But damned if he knew who or what all that hot-blooded desire to kick ass was directed at, which pissed him off even more.

“Fuck.” He seemed to have a habit of punching his fist into his hand when he was frustrated. Unfortunately, his wrist, which they’d informed him at the hospital had been broken in three places, did not appreciate the gesture. He did it anyway, pounding away and muttering to himself like a crazy person as his overlarge, worn-out sneakers squeaked down the hall of the men’s wing.

It helped to take his mind off the swirling blackness in his gut. Something small and out of reach had been growing steadily and was now so prevalent within him that even the saliva in his mouth was bitter and vile. It was the worst kind of displacement: no home, no money, no identity, and Anton Smith was even a stranger to himself. He was afraid, he could admit, to be inside his own body.

But Tyra Morgan somehow blew it all away. She had said she would be on vacation but instead had been there serving dinner tonight, an unexpected beacon. Just standing near her sent the light of a thousand candles blasting through the dark to make him almost human again. If only for a little while.

Returning to his room, Anton Smith promptly got horizontal and sagged gratefully into the mattress of his bed, which was barely better than the floor. That dinner had sucked, but he wasn’t complaining. Any food was better than no food, for sure. Even if it was all tainted by the caustic flavor in his mouth.

Flipping off the light, he shifted uncomfortably, then tugged up his shirt, undid his jeans, and felt for the hard-on that was straining to defy the bounds of his zipper. God damn, that woman lit him up from the inside out. And dwelling on her was undeniably better for his meager sanity than anything else he could possibly choose to put his gray matter toward.

Anton Smith closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye, Tyra’s statuesque figure stretched up, head back, lips parted…
her
slender fingers were stroking him off, while his own hands slid over her naked stomach… all the way up to envelop one perfect breast and then the other with his hands.

Anton Smith’s breathing picked up even as the awful blackness inside began to recede…

Isabel thanked the overall-clad gas-station clerk and stepped out the door into the late-night chill. She opened the bag in her hand and greedily inhaled the mouthwatering aromas of cinnamon and pecans that she’d charmed her new buddy, Joe the clerk, into giving her.

Her acute sense of smell had picked up the scent of these bad boys while she was out walking the grounds of Thad’s estate, and she had never been able to say no to the delectable salty-sweetness of spiced nuts. Even though she had eaten not that long ago, her tummy rumbled as soon as she put the first one to her lips.

“Oh, man, that’s good,” she mumbled to herself as she chewed.

Cold air stung her nose while she made short work of the bag of pecans. Shivering, Isabel cursed herself for not thinking to grab a coat from somewhere before she left. Damn, she couldn’t wait to get another hot shower. Not that she’d had any major epiphanies while out communing with nature, but it was time to get back to the estate. Gun to her head, it would be a comfort to get back to Thad, as well.

Isabel kept to the shadows while she sidled around the convenience store, and once she was out of view of the main road, she took off at what she liked to call “warp speed.”

This wasn’t the bustling part of town, that was for sure. The massive bale of hay she’d just sped past told her that much. She wasn’t the world’s best judge of direction, but she’d passed a sign for Route 9 on her way to the convenience store, so if she kept along that road, everything should be fine.

Nearby, a rustle of grass and leaves got the hairs on the back of her neck standing at full attention. A full-on heart-stopping, breath-stealing, deer-in-the-headlights panic hit her like a ton of bricks.

God, she was
so
stupid. This wasn’t home. Here she was out traipsing around in a strange place where enemies could actually be lurking around any corner. She just hadn’t fucking thought about it. Back home in Orlando, the vampire population was small; everyone kept to themselves; and wizards were nowhere to be found.
Shit
.

Back home, she was the toughest thing roaming the streets at night. Not so, anymore. And how had it taken all this time for
that
little nugget to dawn on her? God, stupid didn’t even begin to cover it.

A blanket-covered horse whiffled and snorted from just beyond a nearby fence. It seemed to be asking her what she was up to, and at that very moment she wasn’t sure what her response would be. The frantic bang of Isabel’s heart slowed just barely. It was the horse she had heard. Had to be. Her body deflated like someone had removed a stopper from her chest, tension flowing out of her like water. Man, she really needed to get a grip. She had survived on her own for a lot of years before Thad had walked into her life, after all.

Isabel gave herself a somewhat comedic clunk on her head and leaned against another bale of hay. She and the horse sized each other up while the hay pricked at her through her clothing. Maybe this was further proof that she and Thad weren’t really meant for each other. She’d waltzed out into the night because she wasn’t used to considering that she couldn’t. And she would never be able stay sequestered in the mansion. That would make her loopy.

Clearly.

Right now, she had no idea where wizards might be or how to sense them. She’d heard tales of feeling an evil presence, but before at her apartment she hadn’t known anything was going on until it was too late. Better to just get out of Dodge while the getting was good.

She did miss Thad quite a bit. If she really thought she could trust herself with him, his warmth and strength—the utter comfort and safety that had come just from being near him—would be heaven to lean on. He wanted to take care of her, and a part of her really wanted to let him.

But when was the last time anyone had taken care of her? She had been alone since her parents died when she was fifteen.

Cripes. She was all over the place, and she hated it. For damn sure, she needed to get a move on, but her previous jolt of alarm hadn’t totally faded and her feet were inexplicably rooted to the spot.

Maybe it would be safer to borrow a vehicle so she could make it back to the mansion faster. Clandestine feeding from unsuspecting humans and recreational wine-drinking aside, she’d tried to lead a reasonably moral life. Her parents had taught her the importance of karma, and while her own personal moral code didn’t always necessarily follow the straight and narrow, she generally worked toward doing more good stuff than bad stuff.

She’d atone for what she was about to do later. Right now, as she listened to the nature sounds around her and watched large masses of clouds slink around the crescent moon overheard, Isabel’s desire to be honest was totally getting spanked by her desire not to get dead.

Every crackle, every scrape, every engine noise in the distance pulled her attention in a different direction. Every snort and snuffle of that damned horse. Didn’t those things sleep at night?

Isabel scanned the landscape in the darkness. She was shivering harder with each passing minute. Not to mention that her new realization about the potential danger of wizards going bump in the night had her quite squeamish about continuing to commune with nature.

Finally, her acute vision spotted the answer she’d been looking for. A large house not even half a mile away, with a bright and shiny silver SUV parked in the driveway.

“Bingo,” she whispered. It was so perfect that she could envision the giant red bow on top, just like in those rich-people car commercials.

Her heart racing with anticipation, Isabel took off again. To the casual bystander, if there was such a thing in a place like this, she was nothing more than a blur in the darkness as she sped toward the house.

Isabel clapped her hands silently at her good fortune when she crept up on the Lexus hybrid. Though she hadn’t done such a thing in some time, it wasn’t hard to use her mind to unlock the door and slide inside.

With the vehicle in neutral, Isabel released the brake and backed silently down the drive, checking the time as she went. She got as far as starting the ignition and pulling around the bend of what looked to be a service road when the damn thing died.

“Fuck,” Isabel muttered. Not that she knew anything about cars, but perhaps the whole hybrid thing meant having to do something wacky to keep it running. Stupid modern technology.

A quick look back toward the house didn’t reveal any noise or movement, so probably the residents were still none the wiser. She proceeded to chew her lip raw while she reviewed her options, studying the lights on the dash for clues to the problem. She flexed her mind to try and start the car again. Not a damn thing. It was like the power had died entirely.

She tapped her fingers nervously on the steering wheel. Made sure the doors were locked. More tapping, more lip chewing. Still more tapping. Shit, shit, shit. Okay. She made yet another attempt to start the stupid luxury paperweight before she was forced to acknowledge that she would have to ditch the thing and try something different.

The prime directive was to keep moving.

Resigned, Isabel opened the door and stepped out, inching around to the hood of the car, as if looking at that would tell her anything. A mechanic she most definitely was not. She groaned and leaned her hands on the vehicle for a moment before giving the tire a juvenile kick and turning away to look for another option. The breeze kicked up again as she stood there, and suddenly she was possessed by an inexplicable but overwhelming urge to get away immediately.

A twig snapped behind her and spurred Isabel like a cattle prod, but before she had made it even a few steps, a flare of bright light erupted from behind her. She knew with total certainty that whatever was happening was terribly bad and that she could do nothing to stop it. She had recognized the warning bell but too goddamn late.

Her body seized and pain flashed through her like a lighting strike. If she didn’t know better, Isabel would have thought she’d tripped over a live power line. She was falling but couldn’t move, couldn’t catch herself. Her brain and her limbs refused to get on the same damn page.

As her vision dimmed, she saw a dark figure looking down at her, laughing. The air around him crackled like it was heavy with static electricity. She could have sworn she saw the gleam of fangs in the moonlight, but that wouldn’t have made sense. After that, she didn’t know much of anything because the world went dark, her brain powering down like someone had clicked the shutdown sequence for a computer.

Just before Isabel lost consciousness completely, it occurred to her somehow that her heart had stopped beating.

Thad was beginning to believe that this would be the longest damn night of his life, and that included the one where his father had disappeared and his mother had killed herself. Christ.

“So what were you doing in Alexia’s room, man?” Lee and Siddoh were flanking Thad as they patrolled through the dismal countryside.

“What?” Siddoh turned his head, eyebrows raised. “Oh, yeah. Just interviewing her on the wizard thing, man.”

Lee bristled on Thad’s right. “Should’ve talked to me. If you had asked, you would have known that I already did that.”

Siddoh shrugged. “Well, no harm done. We can compare notes later. No big.”

“So what were you doing buttoning your shirt on the way out if it was just an interview, huh?”

Uh-oh. Thad didn’t know what this was about, didn’t wanna know, didn’t give a shit if it wasn’t about finding Isabel. But damn it all to hell and back, they did not have time for some kind of “interrogate the human” pissing contest.

Siddoh waved his hand dismissively. “That was nothing pertinent. What do you care, anyway?”

Lee clenched his fists. “You have a history of inappropriate behavior is why I care, Sid. That human—”

“Don’t call me Sid, motherfucker, you know that pisses me off—” Thad stopped short and threw both arms out wide, nearly clotheslining the two other males. Enough was enough.

This was where those new big-boy pants would come in handy.

Thad pivoted to face Siddoh and Lee with extreme impatience and a tiny desire to commit murder. That depended on how the evening unfolded.

“Okay, ladies.” He pegged each of them in the chest with a pointed middle finger. “You, and you”—he swept his gaze from Siddoh to Lee and then back again—“shut the fuck up right now. If it’s not about finding Isabel, I don’t want to hear about it. Save your little bitch fight for later.” He turned away and started walking again.