The Phantom King (The Kings) (37 page)

He kissed the vein in her neck, then p
oised there, breathless,
as he drove
into her like a
jackhammer
.
“I have to taste you,”
he growled with
the deep,
lust-maddened voice of a demon. T
he gentleness
was
long gone.

She could not think
. There was no comprehension – and no
disquiet. Whatever he wanted, he could have. “Take it,” she gasped,
not even knowing what she was giving away
.
Take it all
, she thought.
It’s yours.
My God, it’s all yours
.

She felt his hand
firmly grasp her chin and turn her head to fully expose the throat he’d been kissing, but his cock was so hard and so deep, she was mindless.

The first prick against her throat furrowed her brow – but then, as his wicked sharp fangs slowly began to sink their full length into her taut neck and the vein beneath, she understood.

Her hands flew to his arms to find purchase. Fear thrummed through her. She waited for the pain, for the death that would surely come with someone opening up such a major artery.

But
he was relentless; he sank his teeth in to the hilt and
went still, ho
ld
ing
himself there within her.
There
was no pain.
In t
he stillness, as his cock waited
in subjugation inside of her and his teeth claimed her throat, Siobhan could hear the ragged course of her breathing. Her heart hammered
, her body throbbed, and that precipice loomed ever nearer.

He waited. Pressing in, sinking so deep.

And waited.

And when Siobhan thought
she would rip
out her own heart
if she he didn’t allow her t
o climax soon, she felt him pull back from between her legs…. A
nd then ram
fully
into her as he pulled against her throat, taking her life-giving blood and swallowing it down.

The sensation was indescribable, and it buzzed through her, that electrifying little death that kicked her over the edge and sent her flying.

He drove forward, pulled back, and shoved into her again and again.

She screamed into the astral ni
ght, crying out
as her body convulsed around his with every wave that coursed through her. She was drowning in pleasure, each flex and pull upon her body so hard, so blissfully severe, she saw stars on the insides of her lids.

There was no beginning and no end. Time became an infini
te loop of velveteen rapture beneath Thane’
s adept ministrations. He drank deeper, drove harder
, moved faster, and Siobhan lost track of every lucid thing in the world. Somehow, through the haze of her seraphic delirium, she felt Thanatos pull his teeth from her throat, saw him rise above her, and watched through half-closed lids as the ki
ng threw back his head and roared
into the night, the sheer beauty of him enough to hold her entranced.

The stars slowed… the planets stopped dancing, and the bed beneath Siobhan’s clutching fingers engulfed her in sated warmth. Above her, Thane lowered his head, a
nd she was lanced by the melted
metal of
his eyes
. He watched her for a breathless moment, a look of
absolute
wonder on his perfect features.

And then, ever so slowly and with the
bewildered care
that came when
some
one realized they had
something truly precious, The Phantom King
once more
claimed her lips with his own.

Chapter Twen
ty-
Five

“The process is
reversing,” Roman stated. The dark holes that had formed during the portal explosion had only spread as far as the outer rooms of his mansion, and fortunately no one had been hurt. Now they were recedin
g, growing smaller by the minute
. It appeared
that
time and space didn’t like being fractured. The opposite of entropy, their OCD-like
hold on reality maintained a strict code by which
they existed. And they reverted
to it now.

He and a few of the members of his vampire
court stood in his study, which seemed to be the core of where the destruction had occurred from and spread. David Cade stood beside him, as did
Samantha, the twenty-something technophile who was the youngest
vampire to ever sit at his court
.
“
Yes,” agreed Sam. “At an exponential rate, actually.
We should be a
ble to
transport
safely within the hour.”

“Good,” said Roman. “I want to find out what the hell happ
ened and whether Thanatos and his queen were harmed.
” His expression turned grim. “And
then we have a war to wage
.”

*****

“So that’s what the dark side of the moon looks like,”
Siobhan said. She gazed
up at the astral sky from where her head rested in th
e crook of Thane’s
arm. Here, in this bizarrely beautiful realm, the night sky was an astronomer’s drug-induced dream. Everything was turned around and looked as though it was within arm’s reach. “It looks like a giant eye,” she said. “I can just imagine how different our cultures and beliefs would be if
we’d been staring up at that
all this time instead.”

Thane
chuckled. “
And it had been st
aring back at us?” He bent
, placing a kiss on her crown. “
You know, I’ve thought the same thing many times.”

They’d been lying in
Thane’s bed for wha
t must have been a few hours,
speaking in hushed, sated tones.
Siobhan had never felt so comfortable with another person. She’d never been the kind of person to lack
self-
confidence, but she had t
o admit that the fact that she
possessed magical powers had set her apart from others while growing up. She’d kept her distance, and she had definitely felt fear – fear of
being
found out,
and
fear that what she could
do meant she must be something
bad
.

But now, wrapped in the warm and firm embrace of the Phantom King, she felt none of that. She wa
s confident, she was contented, and
she was at peace.

Still, there was a lingering
something
that hovered in the air over them. It was miniscule at first, but became heavier with each passing minute. It felt like trying to remember whether you’d left the oven on.

And now, because she
did
feel so confident and comfortable in Thane’s arms, Siobhan a
llowed herself to say as much
. “Thane, is there something you’re not telling me?”

The Phantom King went
still beneath her. She noticed that he even stopped breathing.
Slowly, she sat up, at once feeling the coolness of the air where his warmth had once been.

He watched her with those beautiful silver eyes for a few uncertain seconds, and then he ran his hands over his face and sat up with her.
She watched his muscles cord and ripple and her mouth watered. But the look on his face quelled any mounting hunger, replacing it with concern.

“There is something,” he admitted softly.

“Oh G
od, what is it?” Siobhan asked. A hundred horrible things ran through her head. Had they destroyed the time-space continuum when Thane had cast magic in that portal? Had they inadvertently killed a bunch of people? Was this about Steven?

“Christ, Siobhan, you look like an Anime right now,” Thane said, cupping her face gently. “It’s nothing bad, okay? No need to go catatonic on me.”

Siobhan felt her heart calm down a bit and her head stop spinning.
Nothing bad. Okay.
She could live with that.

“There are thirteen supernatural kings who share the realms and rule over them,” he told her as his thumb brushed along her cheek bone.
“For thousands of years, any attempt on our parts to share our kingdoms with a mate have failed in one form or another.” He hesitated and then added, “until recently.”

Siobhan didn’t understand, so she didn’t pretend to. Instead, she just frowned a little and waited for him to continue to explain.

“You met Roman D’Angelo.”

She nodded.

“He’s the Vampire King. A few months ago, he met his wife, Evelynne. And when he did, he started a chain-reaction that will eventually make its way through every sovereign of the supernatural realms.” His expression became earnest. “Starting with me.”

Siobhan blinked. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Thane.” She shook her head, stabbing in the dark. “Are you saying that you’re all going to find your queens now?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Siobhan.
”

A horrible feeling coursed through her. “Are you saying that you have a queen somewhere and you didn’t tell me about her?” Even as she said it, she knew it couldn’t possibly be true. It just couldn’t.

Thane looked stricken. “No!” he said, becoming adamant. “There’s no one else, Siobhan. Listen,” he continued. “
Among our people, we have witches known as seers. The most powerful of them recently had a vision of thirteen kings on a
c
hess board – and thirteen queens.” He
moved his hand from her cheek
and held it out palm-up between them. “The same
very powerful, very wise
woman gave me this after I’d met you.”

The air above his open palm shimmered, there was a brief flash of white light, and when it was gon
e, a single red c
hess queen stood
in Thane’s
hand.

Siobhan looked down at it, noticing that it was the same color as her hair. Recognition thrummed
through
her, quickening her pulse. T
here was a buzzing in her ears,
distant but there.