The Phantom King (The Kings) (12 page)

It was hard for Ramses to look upon this woman while his queen was out there in this n
ew and strange world, her heart
beat so weak he could barely feel it. It was hard for so many reasons. Danna
i Caige had no idea who she was. She had no clue w
hat kind of blood ran through her veins.

Ramses would make cer
tain she knew in time. For now
however, she
had
more important things on her young mind. U
nder the May
sun and
moon, she
had given
birth to Amunet’s grandchildren.

He had to see them. He had to see
her
. He had to know…
who Dannai’s father
had been.
All it would take was a look, a touch, and he would have the answer he s
ought. It burned in his veins, this
question unanswered, a
rhythmic
threat that pulsed with every beat of his
ancient
heart. Someone had touched his mate, his bride.
His Amunet.

And
Ramses wanted his name
.

Dannai’s room was up ahead and to the left. Ramses released thin tendrils of his magic as he walked, clearing his way of any curious or questioning individuals. Nurses and attendants moved around him like currents in a stream around a stone, affording him room and leaving him alone.

Amunet’s daughter had sent most of her would-be protectors away for the night. Aside from her husband, she’d wanted to be alone with her newborn children
. That even the Warlock King had acquiesced to her stern wishes bore credence to the goddess soul she carried. She was her mother’s daughter through and through.

He felt proud. He was a
nxious, confused, and angry
; she
was
not even his child
. But
against reason,
he felt
proud
all the same
.

The door swung open on quiet, well-oiled hinges when he turned the knob, and he hesitated only slightly before moving forward into the darkness.
Dannai’s werewolf husband
lay sprawled on the large
chair beside the bed, his dark head thrown back over the chair’s rest.
Dannai slept on the hospital bed, her mass of ebon hair spilling over the pillow and sheets, her sleeping fingers clutched around the
bar of the bassinet beside her
even in slumber.

Ramses’ gaze cut to the husband, and knowing that he would have a
“
new father’s
”
fight on his hands if Caige awoke, Ramses used a good deal of his magic then and there to place a cloak of deeper unconsciousness over the dangerous man.

Then he turned his attention back to Amunet’s daughter – and the bassinet beside her. With
legs that felt like lead, the god of gods made his way to the bed.
Inside the bassinet rested two tiny,
perfect infants. One was wrapped in
pink, the other blue.
Atop the babies’ heads were soft knit caps to keep them warm. From beneath these caps, wisps of hair peeked. The boy’s hair was thick and blac
k. The girl’s was
lighter and finer.

Like Amunet’s.

Ramses could hear his mortal blood racing through his avatar veins as he reached out to touch the female child. It seemed to tak
e forever; time adopted a stretched quality, blurring
the
rest of the
world and tunneling his vision.

With the tender
ness of someone who was already aware of
the truth deep inside, Ramses placed his fingertips to the infant’s cheek. She opened her eyes. A kaleidoscope of color greeted him, utterly at odds with how a newborn’s eyes normally appear.

He looked
into those irises, focused on the pupils, and met the baby’s spirit half way. And he knew.
The girl’s name was Jazarah – princess. It was fitting. Because though it was impossible, though he hadn’t seen his bride in five thousand years, Dannai was his daughter. And
these twins were
not only Amunet’s grandchild
ren
.

They were
his as well.

*****

Dannai felt as if the entire world had strapped itself to her body and was pulling downward on it. And maybe it had, technically. After all, that was gravity in a nutshell. It was just that
the laws of physics were absolutely broken
that morning, and gravity had more of an effect on
her
, she was sure, than on any other living being on the planet.

She was exhausted. She had never known a person could
be
this exhausted. She’d faced real evils
in her life, but none had drained her more than the last twenty-four hours had.

With tremendous
effort, Danny pushed her eyelids into an open position and tried to focus on the hospital bassinet beside her bed. Inside, two tiny forms slept side by side like a yin-yang. Kavanagh’s dark hair was already thick on his head. Jazarah’s hair was finer, and had golden highlights. Where those had come from, Danny had no idea. Both she and Lucas had jet-black hair
, as did Lucas’
brother Byron
. Clearly
her parents must have
possessed traits that were now becoming evident in her children.

Very slowly, Danny sat up
in the bed. She’d healed immedia
tely
after the birthing process, and of course they’d been careful to insure that
their doctor was also a werewolf
, so the secret of her “miraculous” he
aling abilities as a female
wolf were never in jeopardy. However, she was sore and tired on a deeper level, and she also didn’t w
ant to make any sudden moves that would
awaken Lucas, who still slept soundly in the large chair against the wall.

Her babies were wrapped in blue and pink blankets, more to help the nurses and staff tell
them apart than anything. Danny
didn’t need the blankets, of course. They were as different as night and day to her already, and each as precious.

She watched them in silence, held immobile in the peace and wonderment that came with gazing into your newborn children’s faces. And as she did, their eyes opened. At the same time.

Danny
’s brows raised. She smiled. “Hungry?” she whispered, placing her forefinger within Kavanagh’s tiny grasp. He squeezed, and his lips parted, his small legs kicking once in a baby stretch.
“Okay,” Danny
told them, lifting Kavanagh lovingly
while bending to place a tender kiss on Jazarah’s forehead
. “One at a time, then.”

Her breasts had grown several
sizes over the last few days, and either through the help of Lalura’s various
teas or all on her own, she was
now producing enough milk for both of her children – and then some.
She was ever grateful for that now as she sat back on the raised bed and cradled her son in her arms.

And then she felt something hard beneath the blanket over his chest. Frowning, she pulled the edge of it loose and unfolded it from his tiny body.

A medallion had been placed arou
nd his neck. The chain was impossibly thin, and wrought of
gold. The symbol on the pendant winked up at her in intricate secrecy. Dannai gazed at it in shock and wonder. It looked familiar to her.

Without thinking, but working on autopilot, Danny reached over and pulled the blanket off of her daughter as well. Jazarah fussed a little as the cool hospital room air caressed her exposed skin.

A second medallion rested against her tiny chest, twin to the one her brother wore.

Chapter Seven

Roman D’Angelo remained in the doorway to his wife’s office and watched her in silence.
Her long sun-streaked brown hair cascaded over her back and shoulders like a silken waterfall. Her long lashes brushed her cheeks as she blinked, and her perfect skin seemed to glow from within. His chest felt tight as he looked upon her, and for the ten millionth time since she had agreed to marry him, he thanked whatever lucky star had blessed him.

She didn’t know he was there. It wasn’t that he was cloaking his presence, it was just that she was absorbed at the moment, her head bent, her
beautiful
gaze narrowed, her
long, slim
fingers clenched tight
ly
around wh
at appeared to be some kind of newsletter
.

An empty paper cup that had once contained coffee rested beside her hand on the desk. Coffee was one of the few things Evie still imbibed in since becoming a vampire. In fact, he wasn’t certain whether her veins carried more blood or caffeine at any given point in time.
When she badly wanted
one and was too busy writing to go after it herself, their butler, Jaxon, seemed to appear out of nowhere just in time with a fresh cup. That was what you got with a good butler.

At the moment,
Evie
was angry. That much was patently clear.

For a fraction of a beat, he considered reading her mind, before he remembered that such a t
hing was not possible with Evie
and hadn’t been since shortly after they’d met
around three months ago.
Besides, it wasn’t necessary.
It didn’t take a vampire to know she was thinking homicidal thoughts.

“
If you want a someone
killed,
as
my queen
you
have men
who will
do that for you,” he told her, pulling her attention from the paper. She looked up, her eyes glazed over with indignation and fury, and slowly her gaze re
-focused. “They called it crap
,’” she said, her voice nearly quaking. “They said that if this was what all of the
creator
’s work was like, she should reconsider her vocation.”

Roman went still, his vampire firing to life
. “They said that about you?”

Evie rolled up the paper and slammed it down on her desk hard enough to knock the candle off of the end. It fell toward the ceramic tiles below, but before it could connect, she waved an irritated hand, and it stopped in place and then jumped right back u
p onto the desk to settle into the
spot it had been knocked from. “No,” she said, scowling at the candle and at nothing in particular. “Not me.”