The Warlock King (The Kings) (26 page)

“Emperor Palpatine,
at last we meet,” she quipped. Her voice didn’t even quiver.

Soft laughter answered
her, wrapping around her in a warm way that was also familiar. She recognized this kind of magic, this kind of sway. The man beneath the hood was a very powerful vampire. A
master
vampire, like Roman.

It helped explain the cavern; vampires liked caverns. Roman had one, after all. Caves helped soothe the vampire’s inner batling.

He tilted his head and regarded her with those inhuman eyes. “I must apologize for the swift transportation. It was obviously necessary to infiltrate the meeting room and extract you with great care and speed.”

“
You think no one will notice I’m missing?” she asked. She was all bravado, with a voice that didn’t quake and a gaze that was steady. But on the inside, she was wondering furiously what it was that he was going to do with her.

“Not for a while,” the man replied with easy calm.
“You see, you’ve been replaced with a decoy. Granted, it is a flimsy decoy, devoid of the substance that is
you
.” He smiled, flashing fangs that gleamed from the shadowy depths of his cowl. “We currently only possess the means to clone kings accurately, not their queens. So your double is not top quality, and it won’t last long.” He shrugged. “But long enough.”

Evie looked at him long and hard. Then she glanced at the men on either side of her. They stared straight ahead like soldiers.

She licked her lips and looked back up at the vampire on the throne. “Long enough for what?”

Another chuckle, deep and beautiful. “It seems that in life, everyone answers to a higher power, and I am no different. Just as my servants bow to me, I
too have a master.”

Evie waited.

“He was drained by the attack on the meeting of the 13 and their queens. It isn’t easy to infiltrate such a power. He is resting.” The vampire paused, and she felt his gaze trail down the length of her. She looked down, remembering that she was wearing the gown from the meeting of the 13 Kings. Briefly, she contemplated using her magic to change, but decided to save her strength.

The effect of his scrutiny
was almost as blatant as being physically undressed. She felt a breeze against her skin… could have sworn she felt his touch.

He was cold as ice and burned
like fire.

She blinked and shook herself.

“When he is strong enough, he will come to you and quite frankly drain you of every ounce of your essence,” he told her.

Evie’s knees felt weak
again.

“In the meantime,” he continued, speaking more softly now, more intimately. “I’ve been wanting to meet you, Evie. Very much so.”

Evie couldn’t help it. The focused attention he now cast upon her was so strong, she took a step back. Or at least she tried. The men beside her placed their hands at the small of her back, preventing further movement.

“You’
re very beautiful. You may have been made rather than born into our little family… but you make a lovely vampire and a fine queen.”

There was movement in the darkness to the right of the cloaked vampire, and it drew not only Evie’s attention – but
his as well. He turned in his seat, his red eyes flashing. “You are of a different opinion, my pet?” he asked, gazing at something Evie could not see.

A figure moved forward, stepping into the light.
“I think the
dress
is beautiful,” said the woman. “And the necklace.” Her words dripped with poison.

Evie recognized her at once. The sound of her voice was the same as it had been when she’d spoken in Evie’s
head at the mansion – before the mansion had been destroyed, along with everything inside it. Including Evie’s computer.

“
Ophelia
,” Evie hissed, every ounce of her anger returning to her with a vengeance.

The black-haired woman’s eyes widened
, just a little. She attempted to retreat, but it was too late. Evie had promised revenge, to herself more than anyone, and she intended to have it.

The magic she had acquired upon becoming the Vampire Queen shot out from her like a bolt of lightning, slamming into the other woman with vicious, monumental force. Ophelia cried out and went sailing backward, landing somewhere in the darkness with a terrible thud.

Evie raced after her, and for some reason, this time the vampire guards allowed her to do so. Further torches along the wall at the back of the cavernous chamber that had not been previously lit now exploded to fiery life. Firelight illuminated the entire chamber.

Ophelia lay crumpled against the back wall, gasping for breath as her blackened chest smoked and her nose bled.

Evie came to stand over her, readying a spell that would end it all – end Ophelia’s non-stop invasive threats and her devastating bombs and any residual hold the woman may think she still had over the Vampire King. Enough was enough.

But as Evie raised her arm to deal the final blow,
magic crackling and swirling in the palm of her hand, she found herself hesitating. She looked into Ophelia’s eyes.

What she saw there stunned her. She saw fear, plain as day. And s
he saw pain. She recognized these things in a personal way, as she always did when someone around her suffered.

In that hesitation came something she would never have expected. She
empathized
with the woman who had tried to kill her upon multiple occasions. She actually
felt
for her.

It was a highly unwelcome sensation. But it was there nonetheless.

“I knew that you would not be able to do it,” came the master vampire’s smooth voice from behind her. “Self defense is one thing. But vengeance is not in you. It is one of the things Roman loves so much about you.”

Evie turned around, lowering her hand.
Her magic fizzled out.

The vampire had stepped down from his throne and descended the steps from his dais. He came toward Evie with slow, even strides, his power rippling out from him like…
like Roman’s
, she thought. He reminded her of Roman. He was the same height, the same build. His voice was similar – even his magic had the same feel.

“It’s just as well that you can’t kill her,” he continued as he closed the distance between them. “If you had, I would be forced to find someone to take her place.” The warning in his words hung in the air, both obvious and terrifying. She knew d
amned well who that replacement would have been.

“
Why don’t you just kill me?” she asked defiantly. It was a stupid question, but she was at the end of her rope.

“The thought occurred to me,” he admitted easily, coming to a stop a mere
two feet away. Still, she could not see past the shadows of his cowl. “And then I brought you here.”

He shook his head. “And now I’ve met you, and I must tell you that I’m intrigued. You see,” he said as he raised his hands and grasped the hood of his cloak, slowly pulling it back to let it fall against his broad shoulders. “Brothers often share the same tastes in many things.”

Evie stared in stunned silence. His features were different from Roman’s, but the resemblance was definitely there. Just enough.

“Roman
and I have always been attracted to the same women.” He smiled a beautiful, deadly, white fanged smile, and stars began to swim in Evie’s vision. “Now is no exception.”

*****

The night outside the mansion windows revealed a vast, dark expanse and the occasional distant slash of lightning. Thunder rolled lazily overhead. The fire crackled comfortably, casting dancing light and shadow over the exposed skin of the entwined lovers.

Chloe gazed into the fire from where her head rested upon Jason’s chest, his hand slowly brushing through her long silken locks.

“I never would have pegged you for a Giants fan,” she said softly.

Jason’s hand stilled in her hair. Chloe closed her eyes, realizing she may have made a mistake. She’d just admitted that she’d found his secret office and had gone through his private things. But then she opened her eyes again, just as quickly realizing that she wanted no secrets between herself and her king. Not ever.

At length, his fingers resumed their gentle brushing. “I never would have pegged you for a dominatrix,” he replied.

Chloe smiled and turned her head to look up at him. “Liar,” she said.

Jason’s green eyes flashed with emotion. Then he laughed, the sound rumbling through his chest like the thunder that played outside. Chloe felt entranced gazing up at him, at the strong curve of his chin and the highlights in his hair. She would forever find herself lost in the impossible green of his beautiful eyes.

After a bit, she asked, “What’s going to happen now?”

Jason looked down at her, silent for a moment. Then he leaned over, placing a gentle kiss upon her plump, slightly bruised lips. “In general, I don’t know,” he said as he pulled away and then skillfully maneuvered them both so that he was on top of her once more.

Her breath caught, her body alighting with new, fresh desire.

It was mirrored in his eyes. “But at this very moment, I am going to enjoy my queen.”

Epilogue

It was never-ending, of course. It was what the Court had in mind when they’d exiled him to this realm to watch over these
creatures
. The trouble was never ending, and he never stopped working.

Damon
Chroi, King of the Goblins, pulled the sword from its scabbard at his back. The sound was ominously loud in the dark and quiet space of the woman’s bedroom.

The creature standing over the sleeping woman turned at the sound – and
then straightened, coming to his full 10-foot height. Glowing eyes peered through the darkness at the king, surprised at first, but then clearly sizing him up.

“Step away from her,”
Damon commanded calmly.

“Your majesty,” said the goblin. It smiled a terrible sharp-toothed smile, its red eyes pulsing with wicked magic. Its voice dripped with malignancy, with saccharin respect that barely disguised its underlying loathing. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I’ve no patience tonight, Lucretius. Return to our realm and leave the mortal be.”

“If you continue to stop us like this,
my lord
,” he tipped the last word over his long forked tongue as if it were a pithy spot in an otherwise good apple, “we will wither and die as a race.”

Damon
couldn’t help it. That made him laugh. He threw back his head, the sound echoing off the bedroom walls. Magic kept the woman on the bed in a deep sleep. “The day I allow you to pass on your tainted and befouled genes, Lucretius, will be the day I take up doily crochet as a hobby and begin enjoying the taste of eggplant. It isn’t going to happen.”

Lucretius Dagon was the worst kind of goblin. He was a bully of a beast, filled with more magic than he knew what to do with and rightfully should have
possessed. He was charismatic and mean and had a taste for beautiful, helpless women.

Like almost any creature, goblins needed to mate in order to produce children and continue their species. As their king,
Damon accepted this. But most goblins chose to mate with certain fae who accepted them, such as centaurs and orks. Others chose to be with very special mortals who also accepted them, such as Akyri or warlocks. Very rarely did they choose a human. Those humans had to demonstrate understanding and willingness to mate, and even then Damon was careful about which goblins he allowed such a privilege.

As long as
Damon lived, Luc would not be amongst the lucky bucks. With goblins, it was not only physical trait that was passed on to the next generation, it was also temperament. And Dagon’s was absolutely foul.

“Last warning, Luc. Get the hell out of this realm.”

This time, Damon allowed just a touch of the incredible power that had cursed him to this job to show. It sucked the air out of the room. It dropped the temperature, icing over the windows. A wind picked up outside. And Damon’s eyes went from green to red to a flickering, telltale orange like fire.

Lucretius Dagon hesitated. His doubt hiccupped through the room, almost a tangible thing. At last, he bowed low, his massive horns scraping the floor as was customary. “At once, your majesty.”

He rose again, and his form began to ripple. A moment later, it vanished, pulled back into the Goblin Kingdom by an ancient spring-rope kind of magic that kept all of the Goblin Kingdom’s inhabitants returning. They were trapped there.

Damon
sheathed his sword, took a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth, and tried to regain some semblance of peace with himself. It had been a long night. The kingdom had become restless. They could sense something changing, like a moving of summer into fall. Trouble was coming.

Animals could tell when danger was on the way, and no animal reflected trouble like a goblin.