The Phantom King (The Kings) (22 page)

Jason’
s hastily spoken spell began to fill
the room with a sucking sound. “
Just take her and go
!”
the Warlock King
bellowed, and Thane
acted without thinking,
spinning
Siobhan
around and shoving her
down
to the only glass-free space on the floor boards behind the couch.
He went after her, opening a portal beneath her.

He caught her cry of surprise floating up toward him as, instead of hitting the wood and catching herself as she’d intended, she continued to fall.

And fall.

Until his bed bounced beneath her, absorbing the impact and shocking h
er into silence. Thane
hit the bed beside her, one strong arm draped over her body, the other expertly braced to catch the majority of his weight.

White sheets wrapped
around
Siobhan’s legs as she pushed herself up on her arms, took in her surroundings throug
h wide brown
eyes, and then
flipped
over in the bed and tried to very quickly sit up.

Her shirt and bra strap had both slipped, exposing the long, creamy expanse of her throat and shoulder

Thane’s ins
tinct
reared its dragon-like head, urging him to
push her back down, t
o slide his body over hers and
do whatever it took to
keep her there.
It was a driving force, unexpected and strong, and it took an immense amount of strength to act against it.

He was no stranger to the one night stand, but h
e’
d never had a woman in his
actual
bed before. Not
his
bed
– not
this
bed
. Hell, he’d never brought a woman into his
realm
before. Now
, seeing Siobhan
with all of her glorious red messed-up hair
and hearing her
soft, quick breaths,
and feeling
the warmth and softness of
her only inches away from him on top of his sheets and pillows had a strange effect on Thane.

It was
a little bit
maddening.

Siobhan
stared up at him from where she sat up
a half a foot away. A lock of hair had fallen in front of her face and moved with each scared breath she took. “Where am I?” she asked, her voice quaking. “What the hell did you do?” She sat further up and tried to scramble away, but his sheets were doing a number on her legs. “Where am I?” she repeated, louder this time.

Thane hesitated a moment, desperately not wanting to leave the bed. He was a man, however, not a teenage boy, so he shoved his hormones back into place and took a deep, calming breath.

He thought of the Warlock King and Steven Lazarus – and Marius.
He could slow time here on his plane, but not indefinitely. H
e
was well aware that
he was going to have to return very soon. He doubted Marius could take Jason Alberich, and Lazarus was in no dange
r since he was an Akyri
and
clearly knew how to brawl
, b
ut he also knew that there would be a mess to clean up. And Roman D’Angelo would need to know what was going
down
. The entire council of
the 13 K
ings
would need to meet.

Well….
The entire council of
t
welve
.

Slowly, Thane
pushed h
imse
lf up and off of the bed. There
he gazed down at Siobhan
for a long time, taking in every detail
of the disheveled,
auburn-haired
, black
magicked
woman
and memorizing it for later
,
before he once more offered her his hand. “You’re in my bed,” he told her frankly.

When
it was
made patently
clear by her gold-sparking glare
and white gritted teeth
that that was
not
what she meant, he allowed himself to smile. “In Purgatory,”
he continued
. “Welcome to my world.”

Chapter
Fifteen

Purgatory
….

Siobhan looked up at him, at the room around her, and the bed beneath her, and tried with all of her might to make sense of the fantasy her life had become.

Not an hour ago, she’d been gardening outside in the sun, and now she was falling through the floor and onto the
soft, warm, after-shave scented
bed of some incredibly tall, dark and sexy
stranger who was apparently a
phantom and a
king
, and the bed was apparently in his
bedroom
in another plane
altogether and supposedly
that plane was
called Purgatory.

And she was fairly certain that a white rabbit had preceded her down this
hole.

With effort, she swallowed, and the diffi
cult action
was loud in the new stillness. She
stared at the hand he offered
and then looked back up at his eyes. Swirling silver gazed steadily, keenly, as always taking everything in.

“Am I dead?” she asked. Purgatory was where you went when you died, right? Hadn’t she heard something about that at some point? Wasn’t it something like hell but not quite as bad?

“No, Siobhan,” he said softly. Her name on his tongue sounded like a blessing. Like a curse. Like something she wanted to hear again. “You’re not dead,” he continued. “You’re safe here.”
He didn’t retract his hand, and in fact leaned in a little. “
C
ome with me and I’ll show you.”

She hesitated, her hand traveling nervously over the sheet that was tangled around her right leg.

He smiled, showing her his teeth.
The fangs had retreated again.

A
nd she was
shocked to find she was
almost disappointed.

“Siobhan,” he said, granting her secret wish that he would say it again. “Take my hand and let me help you out of my bed…
unless you’d rather
I join you there again
.
”

Siobhan’s eyes widened and her face flushed instantly hot. His expression was shameless, his smile a mile wide and hot as hell. Her hand slammed down onto his and
at once
his strong fingers curled over it, locking it in a firm grip.

“That’s a good girl,” he gently teased. With his other hand, he leaned over and pulled the sheets off of her legs, freeing her from their tangled embrace.

She stood quickly at first, and then slowly wobbled.
Her legs were unsteady
.

“Give it a few seconds,” he told her. “Traveling between r
ealms can be disorienting for mortals
.”

Siobhan felt her heart hiccup.
Mortals
, she thought. She’d never thought of herself as a “mortal” befor
e. It had always been more like
she was
just
different
. She was a magic user, someone with a dark gift. Someone
special
.
Now she was bumping elbows with seemingly immortal kings
and Akyri and who knew what else?
And she’d gone from being at the top of the
supernatural
hierarchy
to more or less being at the bottom.
That
was disorienting.

“I’m fine,” she said, pulling her hand from his. It took a bit of effort; he didn’t want to let her go. And she didn’t want him to. It was two fighting against one. But in the end, she was free, and she was running her palms over her jeans in the half-hearted attempt to straighten out the wrinkles.

“
Can I get you something to drink?” he asked suddenly. Siobhan looked up at him. He was watching her carefully, his expression concerned.

She shook her head. “No
,
thank you.” Then she asked, “How old are you, Thanatos?”

“Please,” he said, smiling a small smile. “Call me Thane. Thanatos is
what the other kings call me.” He looked away, seeming uncomfortable for a moment. “And the Ani
me
,” he finished, turning his gaze back to her.

“Okay,” she said. “Thane.” She swallowed, and then
she squared her courage and
asked, “
What
are you?
”

The room, which Siobhan hadn’t yet had a chance to fully take in, grew quiet. Thane’s gaze narrowed, the silver in them intensifying. “What do you mean?”

“
I mean,
” she started slowly, “
you say
that Steven is an Akyri. And I know I’m
a warlock.
You’re supposed to be the Phantom King. But what is that?”

“It isn’t a what,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a who. And I’m afraid I have nothing to compare it with because there’s only one of me.”

That told her absolutely nothing, and her expression must have said as much because Thane took a step back and gestured toward the bedroom door. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

The space he suddenly put between them afforded Siobhan room to breathe. When he was near, he was overwhelming, all-encompassing, and he acquired every ounce of her attention.
However, now
she was able to look around and take in her surroundings.

The room was quaint, the walls white-painted hardwood, the floorboards the same.
The floor was
scuffed from what looked like years of boots treading upon them, but they were spotless
ly clean
.
There were no
hanging decorations
, and only three pieces of furniture: a small side table with a tin bowl and a few other objects on top of it, a large wood and leather chest
, and the bed
covered in crisp white linens
. To her left was a single window. It was open, and a gentle breeze came in through white gauzy curtains.
A clear vase sat on the window sill; it held three perfect daisies and half a cup of water.