The Goblin King (The Kings) Read online

  Speaking of which, Damon thought as he gripped his sword readily and warily eyed his approaching double. Where the fuck are those two?

  It was alarming enough that he was now going to have to battle his equal. It was made thousands of times more so because Diana was there at the castle – where he’d sworn to her she would be safe.

  “So, which of us gets to use the Highlander quote?” the ka asked, smiling a charming smile that was slightly twisted by his scar. His forehead was also marred, but by the mark of Kamon: A black winged scarab.

  The double raised is right hand, and a second Atrox Ferrum appeared within it.

  “Why don’t we just flip for the top bunk and be friends?” Damon asked as he gauged the distance between himself and his opponent, the distance between them both to the nearest windows, and their distance to the hearth. His gaze shifted into darker hues and starker contrasts, and his eyes began to burn.

  “Oh come on, Damon,” said the ka. He chuckled, shaking his head as the two men began to circle one another. “You know there can be only one.”

  The attack came swiftly and simultaneously, both kings meeting at the center of the great room, their swords clashing like the very lightning that played outside. Sparks flew along the edges of the blades as they ground against one another.

  *****

  Diana came awake suddenly, drawn from the floating bliss of her peaceful dream by something she couldn’t identify. She sat up slowly, her eyes searching the empty corners of the giant master bedroom of Damon Chroi’s castle.

  Damon was not there. All was silent. She perked her ears, turning slightly, straining to hear what it might have been that had awakened her. Thunder rolled in the distance, evidence of a passing storm. A thin shaft of light pierced the stained glass of the windows across the room. But other than that, there was nothing.

  The fire in the hearth crackled and popped as if it had hit a pocket of air bubbles. She turned her attention to it – and blinked when she thought she saw a face in the flames.

  “Pssst!”

  Diana’s eyes widened.

  “Sorry to have to wake you, my lady, but I had no choice!” said the fireplace.

  Oh my god, Diana thought. That’s it. I’ve lost my marbles.

  “The king is in trouble!” the fire said, and now that she was watching it closely, she could see that it was a face, and the face’s little mouth was talking to her.

  The fire danced a bit, rising and falling like it was dancing on unseen, impatient feet. Diana just continued to stare.

  Finally, the hearth erupted with a miniature explosion, as if the fire were throwing a fit. The face bellowed, with a strange hissing kind of voice, “He’s in trouble! You have to help him now!”

  Diana’s skepticism stood up and took a back seat. She realized the king the fire was referring to was the Goblin King – Damon. And everything else, no matter how improbable or impossible, didn’t matter.

  She shoved her covers aside and leapt out of the bed, rushing to the double doors of the master’s chamber. She was wearing Damon’s t-shirt; he’d slipped it over her head before bringing her here.

  The master chamber was at the end of a long hall. She raced down this hall as fast as her long legs would carry her, but when she reached the end and came to a T-intersection, she had to stop and think. She’d only been through Damon’s appropriately labyrinthine castle once, and she hadn’t much been paying attention at the time. Instead, Damon had been carrying her, and she’d been smiling softly to herself, her head on his shoulder, just enjoying the feeling of him holding her so tight and so close.

  Now she had no idea which way to go. The corridor stretched almost endlessly in either direction.

  “It’s this way!” one of the torches along the wall suddenly spouted.

  Diana nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled around, hand on her heart, and tried to get her nerves under control. And then she ran, following the bursts of flame that erupted from one torch after another as the talking fire led her down the hall.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The ka’s eyes were burning now as well, and Damon was given an upfront view of what he looked like when his powers were taking him over.

  “So how was she?” the ka asked, his tone sinister and meaningful as he and Damon went spinning around once more to slam into another portion of the stone wall of the castle. They got caught on one of the tapestries this time. It pulled taut, and while Damon and his opponent struggled sword to sword, grip to grip, the material tore loose, jarred its casings, and rubble and shreds of tapestry tumbled to the floor.

  “Every bit as good as you can possibly imagine,” Damon replied, his teeth gritted with effort, “and will never know.”

  Sensing a moment with an opening, Damon pulled back, swung, and landed his fist in the ka’s throat, knocking him back several paces. It allowed him enough time to get his sword up again and prepare another attack, but that was all. The doppelganger recovered quickly, being as immortal and supernatural as Damon.

  “I beg to differ,” said the ka, who managed a punch to Damon’s kidney, temporarily taking him down. “In fact, I’m thinking of incapacitating you and having her right here on the great room floor while you watch and slowly die.”

  Damon faltered, stumbling to his feet slowly enough to catch the tip of the ka’s sword at the edge of a shoulder. He ignored the pain, trying desperately to focus. But the threat conjured up images… images that both terrified and infuriated him. Which was the point.

  If he allowed his enemy to see his weakness, he would be had.

  And so would Diana.

  So he kept the fires in his eyes to a minimum, choking on his own fury with silent rage. He countered another attack, sidestepped, and swung with controlled vengeance. “You’re welcome to try,” he said before he delivered another punch to his enemy, this time to the ka’s left cheek. The doppelganger’s head snapped viciously to the side. “I’ve always enjoyed a good post-coital work out.”

  The ka stumbled back a step.

  Damon lunged, using his legs to sweep his opponent off balance. The move took them both to the ground as the ka reached out and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

  They tumbled end over end. Damon wrapped his hand around his enemy’s sword wrist, and the ka did the same. Both hands were slammed roughly and repetitively into the stone floor and the swords went skittering across the ground. Damon got his feet under him first and reached out, instantly transporting his sword into his grip as he came up facing the doppelganger.

  But his double took another tactic, using telekinesis instead to lift his own sword from the floor and send it sailing like a spear through the air. Damon barely jumped to the side in time to avoid being skewered by the deadly weapon.

  Metal flashed menacingly as it sailed past him, slicing cleanly into his side and drawing a thin red line into his shirt. It then embedded itself in the thick, solid stone of the castle wall behind him.

  The stuck Atrox Ferrum shimmered in the wall and then vanished only to appear in the ka’s hand as he, too, rose to his feet.

  Neither opponent hesitated. The two met at the center of the great room, swords clashing noisily once more, sparks flying, the furious battle slowly destroying the main room of the castle. Damon could see this lasting forever….

  And then his sword pierced his enemy’s side, and for a moment the sight of blood upon the ka’s shirt gave him a small sense of hope. But that hope must have slowed him, must have made him overly confident and tripped him up, because he didn’t see the fallen torch behind him.

  For the first half of a second, he was lopsided. For the last half of that second, he was peering down at a sword blade that had been embedded in his abdomen. He could feel the other end exit his spine. It wouldn’t kill him. The Atrox was meant to do one deadly thing and one deadly thing only, and that’s what it would take to kill Damon. But it hurt.

  “Damon….”

  It was a whisper, no more, u
ttered in numbing shock. But both fae kings heard it.

  Damon’s hands wrapped around the sharp blade as he and his attacker both turned their heads to find Diana standing in the entryway to the great room in nothing but bare feet and Damon’s oversized shirt.

  “Our name sounds precious on her lips,” said the ka. “I bet it sounds even better when it’s screamed.”

  And something occurred to Damon in that moment – something that ripped his heart from behind his rib cage and squeezed it tight. He saw his would-be bride standing there, eyes wide, hair wild, a fae beauty in every sense of the word. He thought of his doppelganger and his threats. He thought of the sword protruding from his middle and the disadvantage his love would always give him in a battle against a man incapable of that love. He thought of his realm and how Diana was already so much better at taking care of it than he was.

  It didn’t take a king to rule a kingdom. A queen would do just as well.

  And with this acceptance, a physical ache much stronger than the one coming from his wound claimed his chest.

  My name, he thought, repeating the ka’s words.

  Names hold a good deal of power…. It was something all fae learned at a very young age, before they took these powerful names and hid them away from the rest of the fae world for all eternity.

  So Damon held his breath. The word he wanted swam up inside him, emerging from the deepest, darkest depths of his primordial soul, where it had been hiding for millennia. It had only ever been spoken aloud once – by the fae mother who had birthed him before she’d died with the word on her lips.

  It was a name. It was his name. His true name.

  Damon looked away from Diana and faced his doppelganger, peering into those eyes that mirrored his own. He parted his lips and inhaled. He saw the sudden comprehension in his ka’s gaze –

  And then he spoke the name.

  There was a brief space of time in which the universe stopped and attempted to comprehend what it had just heard. It lasted for the space of a eye blinking, the beat of a heart, a single pulse that everyone and everything felt.

  Then the magic took hold and the world changed.

  There was no pain for Damon. There was only a deeply disturbing sinking feeling and a sense of gradually fading. The lights all went out. The flames in the overhanging chandelier fizzled into smoke one after another. The fire in the hearth erupted and then died, throwing fireballs in all directions into the great room, which created smoke trails through the air. Then these too went out, and in the fresh darkness, every heavy cloud outside in the low-hanging sky erupted with lightning at once.

  Through the windows, Damon could see the oceans in the distance boiling and spewing steam into the already saturated sky.

  The ground bucked. Tapestries tumbled. Cracks emerged in the castle floors and walls, racing through stone and climbing up from the foundations like living beings.

  Then the universe exploded, expanding outward from its epicenter where Damon Chroi and his enemy stood.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  As far as brothers went, Avery and Caliban could not have been much more different. One was blonde while the other possessed hair black as night. One preferred to live ruggedly, spend time outdoors, used a motorcycle to get from point A in the human world to point B, and sometimes forgot to shave. The other preferred suits – always black – perpetually smelled faintly of the most expensive colognes and finest leathers, and preferred to be chauffeured in auspicious luxury vehicles while he gazed out the window and pondered the world he passed by.

  Perhaps it was fitting, then, that they were not technically brothers. They’d simply been considered as much since they were children. And now they ruled as brothers would, each the king of an equal half of a world both fantastic and terrible, powerful and beautiful, delicious and deadly.

  Though they were both very tall and both sported similar strong, broad-shouldered builds, it was their eyes that truly made them appear related.

  The Seelie King’s eyes were a vivid jade green decorated with shards of purple as if an amethyst had shattered and been embedded there. The Unseelie King’s eyes were just the opposite and yet so very the same. They were an unusual and stark purple studded through with shimmering shards of jade.

  Avery and Caliban were therefore related enough, and had always considered themselves as such.

  So when Avery pulled up on his Triumph, loud and rough and dressed in jeans and leather – and Caliban pulled up in the back of a gleaming black Rolls Royce and waited for his driver to open his door, neither thought anything of it.

  Avery simply kicked down his stand, Caliban straightened his tie, and the two nodded to one another.

  Caliban’s expensive wristwatch and shining black shoes reflected the afternoon sun as he made his way across the busy city street toward his brother. Once he was within earshot, he slipped his hands into his suit coat pockets and looked around. Avery knew he was taking in their surroundings, checking for interlopers and danger.

  “Did Chroi give you any indication of what it was he wanted to talk about?” Avery asked.

  Caliban shook his head and turned toward him. His deep purple eyes shifted indigo with wariness. Avery couldn’t agree more with the wariness. The Goblin King had never before asked them to enter the forbidden kingdom.

  But Avery was guessing it had something to do with what Roman D’Angelo had just told them.

  They’d met outside one of D’Angelo’s safe houses tucked away in the Redwood Forest. And there, amidst werewolves and other sovereigns, the Vampire King had told them that a group of Bookas and spell spiders had just attacked a human woman’s house. And according to D’Angelo, this human woman was the Goblin Queen.

  Not only had fae denizens crossed the borders between the fae and mortal worlds with neither Avery nor Caliban knowing about it, there was a new queen to shield from the grabby hands of Kamon and his minions. It was reason enough for any of the 13 Kings to gather together, to say nothing of the sidhe.

  The three fae Kings desperately needed to coordinate. Every queen was precious. Avery and Caliban would need Chroi’s help in protecting their own as much as he needed their help in protecting his.

  The two sidhe lords turned away from the crowd and traffic on the busy London street and made their way down a relatively deserted alley. A middle aged Asian man had just stepped out of a kitchen’s back door. The man glanced at them, took in their appearance, and paused a moment. Then – because it was London – he forgot about them at once, dumped his trash, and returned the way he’d come. Once the metal door closed and locked behind him, Avery and his brother were alone.

  Avery waved his palm toward the alley’s opening. An illusory wall wavered and set itself in place, making the alley appear empty to anyone who passed it by. Meanwhile, Caliban focused on the metal doors that led from back rooms, store rooms, and kitchens to the alley. With a thought, he locked and warded them all from the outside to prevent any further intrusion.

  The sidhe kings turned to the back wall. Together, they spoke ancient words that filled the alley with the fog and dust mote-like sparkles of primordial magic. The air became heavy with their power. Something was happening, indescribable but equal parts terrifying and exciting.

  The kings finished the spell and fell silent to wait with held breath as the magic they’d unleashed took over.

  Every realm had its doors.

  Some had stood for so long, they were unrecognizable. Humans mulled around them, brows furrowed, fingers on chins, and pondered. Perhaps the stones are sacred ritual sites, they suggested. The mounds were supposedly burial sites. The burrows were ancient cities covered in eons’ worth of blowing sands.

  But what they really were was doors.

  Most were no longer used. It was as if they were actual doors in a closed off corridor of some crumbling mansion, locked long ago with a skeleton key then lost. They were passages forgotten and rotting and all but disappeared. Should the unwary travele
r one day accidentally happen upon one, covered in ivy and moss and a thousand years’ worth of nature, may the fates protect them from knowing what it was they’d found.

  Others were different…. They were composed of more powerful material, timeless and functional, and were sealed only by the magic of those in charge of the borders between worlds.

  It was one such door that the sidhe kings opened now.

  As they watched, the bricks of the alley’s end began to change. The mortar outlines shifted, moving right or left to form the outline of a door some nine or ten feet tall and three feet wide.

  The red of the brick faded to the pockmarked gray of weathered stone. Carvings drawn long ago etched themselves into the rock, forming serpents and dragons and angels – or something like them. Vines crept from cracks around the edges of the door and crawled across its surface as if to choke and hide it.

  The last thing to appear was the knocker.

  It had been made of gold, but long ago, and a verdigris now painted itself across a once shining surface. Avery glanced at his companion, whose purple eyes glittered in the magic-filled air. Caliban nodded.

  Avery gripped the cold and heavy handle, and the world seemed to pause. He raised the creaking ring as high as it would go and lowered it with a firm hand. Gold met gold, the metal gong-like sound reverberating through Avery’s hand and then surrounding the two would-be travelers.

  Avery prepared himself as he released the knocker. The stone door trembled in its brick casing. Dust puffed from the cracks and pebbles knocked loose to skitter to the ground.

  The brothers stepped back. The door dislodged itself and slowly swung outward toward them, revealing a vine covered corridor of the same rutted stone beyond. The two remained standing still where they were and gave the threshold the respect that an open door to a fae kingdom deserved.

  Then Avery stepped through – and was thrown violently into the wall on the other side of the corridor as the world tilted beneath his feet. Thunder rumbled like an earthquake, magic so thick it made the air un-breathable warped the atmosphere, and Avery clutched at the stone to keep his balance.