The Phantom King (The Kings) (40 page)

“But he’s afraid to leave his mate unprotected,” said Charlie, who drew her
fiancé’s
gaze at once. She gave him a meaningful look, and Cole straightened, a muscle in his jaw ticking.
He was no doubt remembering the fight he’d had against one Gabriel Phelan, the Hunter-werewolf who had been so obsessed with Charlie, he’d come back from the dead to obtain her.

“You’re right,”
Cole
said simply.
And left it at that.

“You’ll be accompanied by a few of Roman’s vampires,”
Thane told the women
. He wanted to send some of the men he knew personally, but Roman had suggested Siobhan would more readily identify with women
in this case
, hence the arrival of Charlie, Lily Kane, and Katherine Dare.
He would be sending two female vampires that Roman trusted as well.

He only hoped it was an unnecessary waste of man – or woman
– power. And that if it wasn’t,
it would at least be
enough
.

“
I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing for me,” Thane told them. He meant it.
“I owe you one.”

*****

Siobhan lifted her head from
where she had it in
her h
ands and blew out another
breath. She stood up from Thane’
s couch, walked across the living room, and turned and strode back again. Then she
ran her hands through her hair, fisted it
tight
, and growled in frustration
.

Not really knowing why, but just needing to move somewhere even if it was aimless, Siobhan stormed from the living room into the kitchen and then through the garage door. Rows and rows of shimmering, glimmering vehicles greeted her, the sheer glory o
f them bringing her to a
stop and temporarily causing her to forget her ire.

But it didn’t last long. Her
honey-colored
eyes skirted over
them, taking in their spotless paint jobs with the detached air of someone who had something else on her mind.

Just as she was about to b
egin vehemently cursing Thane
for the third time
that morning
, the air rippled with an impending sensation. She recognized it at once. It was the same
fluctuating resonance
that had been produced moments before each of the Anime had come through in the garage earlier.

Siobhan stilled, turni
ng her attention to a
rippling portion of the air that hovered above the nearest vehicles like
a will-o-wisp. The tattoo on her right ring finger tingled.

She glanced down, noticed it was glowing, and without thinking, she raised her right hand palm-out toward the airborne disturbance. The power that surged from her arm was foreign to her, and it surprised her enough that her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. But at the same time, it felt right. It felt no different coming from her than did her own magic. It was natural.

Because she was the Phantom Queen.

The rippling space expanded, brig
htened until it resembled a burgeoning portal, and then it opened up. The air split apart, and for a few seconds, Siobhan wasn’t certain anything was going to come through.

But then the Anime appeared, tentative and hunched, its arms wrapped tightly around its own body as if to protect itself. It was a woman. She was d
ressed in blue jeans and a blood stained top
.

The woman looked at Siobhan, her expression a harsh and horrible mixture of grief and terrible fear. “Are you Siobhan?” she asked, her
quivering
voice coming through loud and cl
ear
.

“Yes,” Siobhan replied. A thick and cold dread was beginning to creep up her body, enveloping her legs and the base of her spine. “I am.”

“You have to go to him,” the woman told her. “Please, I beg you. If you don’t, he’s going to kill
them both!
” She sobbed
hopelessly
, the sound hysterical and desperate.
It was a wretched sound, crushing and awful.
“
Please
,” she continued. “H
e said you would know what he meant. You
have to go now.” She held her hands out toward Siobhan, as if she could physically make her leave. “
He’s only giving you a few minutes!”
The woman lunged forward, her
blood-covered
hands clasping in front of h
er as if praying. She flickered
li
ke an electric light in a storm
and fell to h
er knees on some invisible floor in mid-air
. “He said
you had to transport to Pier 36
in San Francisco. It’s
condemned
.” She broke into another sob, and visibly tried to pull herself together.

Siobhan cou
ld only continue to listen while
she
watch
ed
through wide, bewildered eyes.

“He’s giving you five minutes,” the woman told her
firmly
. She looked up at Siobhan through a blurry, horrified gaze.
She gritted her teeth.
“If you don’t
get there on time
, he’s going to kill my husband and my six-year-old son.”

Chapter Twenty-
Seven

Thane sensed the quiet long before he stepped through the other end of his portal and out into his garage.
As
his boots touched down on the cement,
the reason for the quiet hit him like a Mac truck and
it felt as if Purgatory dropped out from under him
to leave him
drowning
in a vat of
fear
.

Five women stepped out behind him and looked around at all of the cars. One whistled low. “
Damn
,
”
someone remarked.

But when Thane turned to face them,
Lily Kane was frowning
.
She shook her head
and caught Thane’s
gaze
. Their eyes met and held. H
e knew what she was going to say before she said it. “She’s gone,” she whispered.

Thane
couldn’t reply; no oxygen would leave his lungs. None would enter.

But a reply wasn’t necessary. Lily was the seer
of the bunch. She
knew
things. And it was clear from the very feel of the air that S
iobhan was nowhere around. She had
transported out of the realm. And since she had been completely out of her own magic when he left her, Thane knew that it was
his
magic she had used to open a portal.

He’d known that marrying her and making her his queen would make such a thing a possibility. But his death in a battle against Marius had also been a possibility, and he’d only wanted to be wed to her, to be her husband and her king before he died. So he’d made a choice.

It had been the wrong one.

“There has to be some way to find out where she went,” Lily said, running her hands over her eyes as she clearly tried to fathom what to do next.

“I know someone who can help,” Thane said. His voice came to his own ears as if throu
gh water, garb
led and buffered by the buzzing of abject terror.
He was no longer in control of his body or his words; they acted of their own accord, going through the motions of the moments on autopilot.

His reaction to Siobhan’s disappearance
was having a visceral effect
on him. He could taste his fear; it was like metal in his mouth. He could
smell
i
t, like blood gone sour. His arms and legs were numb, and his chest felt hollow, as if it were literally devoid of organs, muscle or bone.

“Who?” Lily asked.

One man had been so closely tied in with Siobhan’s dark magic that he’d managed to avoid death and return to her side. He’d been subconsciously feeding off of her for months now
, in effect forming an Akyri/warlock bond
. He knew the scent and signature of her stardust power as
did
probably no on
e else
.

“
Steven Lazarus,
”
Than
e whispered
. Lazarus would be able to track her down. He’d found her without even trying when he’d returned to her as an almost-Anime.

The King in Thanatos went through the steps of strategy without any conscious effort. They would return to the field in the Redwood Forest where the Kings were scheduled to meet. The other eleven remaining sovereigns and the werewolf council Overseer would be informed of the new development. They would locate Steven Lazarus, wherever he had gone off to after their battle with Marius.

And then the former detective would fin
d Si
obhan. And with any luck, he
would also find Marius.

And
Thane could slo
wly pluck his arms from his god damned wife-stealing body
.

*****

She
lost control of the magic. She’d barely had a tentative grasp on it to begin with, and she’d been pressing her luck to actually make it to the location she wanted. But that was where her fortune ran dry, and as the last of her slippery grasp on her new husband’s magic
was
ripped from her hands, she was thrown forward
as if she’d taken a
running, springing jump off
a massive trampoline. The portal came to a thunderous close behind her and she was air-borne, sailing through the dank, fish-odor air of a decrepit pier scheduled for destruction.

The cross beams and
graffiti
around her went by in a
rush and a blur, and Siobhan realized a fractured combination of things at once. She wasn’t alone;
there were figures waiting on the sidelines
;
perhaps half a dozen people.
The air was unnaturally cold, even for San Francisco, which she knew could get quite chilly. And worst of all, she was
going t
o hit the ground really hard. She would possibly
break something. And because she’d used up all of her magic running from Thane, she would have nothing to
stop this from happening
.