The Goblin King (The Kings) Read online

  The three boys straightened a little. Their chins popped out in that chicken-like way boys’ chins did when they were trying to be tough. Their sneakers squeaked and scuffed on the debris and wet concrete as they moved around the trash cans and formed a wall in front of them. Their fists were clenched.

  She smelled something – like burned meat… and hot iron singed hair.

  A strange feeling came over Diana. It was strange, and unexpected, because it was utterly devoid of fear. It was a numb sort of sensation that made her bones feel like tree trunks and her blood like quicksilver. In that moment, it didn’t matter that the boys were probably feeling the same kind of feeling. It didn’t matter that she was outnumbered. Fight or flight had well and truly kicked in.

  And there would be no flight here. Not on her part.

  She was just too damned stressed out.

  She rushed them, all reason and logic flying out the window like loose pages on a rogue wind. A war cry emitted from her throat, loud and unfamiliar and just a touch insane.

  One of the boys stepped back again. But it was too late.

  Her mind flew away in that moment, and she could almost hear its wings fluttering wildly, bat-like and crazy. But her body was there, and it remembered.

  It dutifully, finally, recalled every single second of every single day of Tae Kwon Do training that she had religiously undergone over the last twenty-four years. Every competition she had ever won. Every hit, every strike, every punch, every kick, every ability to push the pain away and go at it again.

  And within slowed-down seconds of inordinate length, two of the boys lay on the ground nursing fresh wounds. The third had half limped, half run away.

  “Crazy bidth!” one of them lisped. Diana looked down at the kid, wide-eyed and furious, her blood roaring like Niagara Falls. She barely heard him, in fact.

  She waited, fists balled, stance wide.

  Someone said, “Get the hell out now before I finish the job,” and only vaguely did she realize that it was her.

  There was a scrambling, at first slow and uncertain, and then faster and desperate.

  Diana stood still in the alleyway and watched the boys round the corner and disappear from sight. She listened, making certain the sounds of their shoes on the ground grew fainter and further away.

  And then a new sound drew her attention.

  At once, she was back inside herself, fully aware – and she was shaking. Slowly, she turned.

  They’d singed off most of its hair, and fresh third-degree burns covered the left side of its body. Her body, Diana corrected herself. She’s a female.

  The cat blinked up at Diana, the depths of its eyes swimming with pain. But there was also knowledge there. She knew Diana would not hurt her. Either that, or she only hoped so. She was slipping away anyway.

  And she’s pregnant, she mentally added as tears welled up in her eyes and an ache claimed her chest, far outweighing the more insignificant pains of the sprained wrist and bruised ribs and toes that had occurred during the fight.

  “What the fuck is wrong with humanity?” she whispered as her shaking fingers found the cat’s head.

  She was a gray cat, with light ice-blue eyes. Or she had been. All but a few singed tufts of the fur was missing.

  Diana closed her own eyes and pushed her anger and hatred back down inside herself where it usually remained, simmering and festering. Once she’d done that, she reached for another and entirely different emotion. She imagined the cat whole, her unborn babies healthy and unharmed, and the world a better place.

  It was hard. It was always hard when she was healing someone or something that had been brutally and meaninglessly hurt by another. But somehow, as she always did, she managed.

  A light and warmth began to emanate from beneath her palm. Diana sent that warmth through the cat’s broken body. As she did, she imagined the skin mending, the hair growing back.

  Within seconds, she felt a gentle and comforting rumble come from beneath the touch of her palm. The cat was purring.

  Diana opened her eyes and looked down. The cat blinked up at her, bumping its head against her hand in thanks.

  She couldn’t help but smile then. She realized her lips were wet. Somewhere along the way, the tears in her eyes had broken loose and cascaded down her cheeks.

  She wiped the back of her hand against her face, and then knelt so that she would be on eye level with the cat. “So what’s your name, then, little one?” she asked gently.

  The cat continued to purr, it’s beautiful blue eyes gazing at her with love and trust.

  “Would you like to come home with me?” she asked next. She didn’t want to leave the animal out here, especially not after what had happened, and double especially not when she was pregnant. It just wasn’t safe.

  With all the gentleness she could muster, Diana scooped the cat up and held it to her chest. The feline continued to purr, trusting and docile.

  “We’re going to get along just fine,” Diana whispered as she left the alley and its messy wet ground and trash cans and bad memories.

  *****

  Unseen and still, two cats watched in the shadows as the woman who would be a queen and the guardian who would be her companion became friends and left together.

  The large ginger cat with eyes like the sun made a dingo-like half-pur, half meow and looked up toward the skies. A shooting star arced overhead, appearing from behind one roof and disappearing behind another.

  He lowered his head and sighed the way cats do. The fates had brought the human woman and her companion together that night. But the fates had much more in store.

  Dawn would not be coming for a very long time.

  Chapter Six

  “Well now we know,” she said.

  Lightning split the sky and its thunder bellowed into the world after it.

  Lalura released Lily’s hand. The blonde woman’s shoulders slumped as she leaned heavily over the table in front of her. Daniel Kane’s arms wrapped possessively around her from behind. Lalura heard him whisper something intimate and perfect in his wife’s ear, soothing the young woman.

  Lily and Lalura had just completed the complicated magic that had allowed them to unravel the web of deceit spun by the man who’d taken Roman D’Angelo’s queen. The things they’d learned were not only surprising, they were devastating.

  Lalura would not admit it to her young supernatural charges, but she was still recovering from her encounter with her own ka. Hence, this spell had drained her more than she liked. She was also not a seer, and had been forced to use magic that was not entirely natural for her. She did so from time to time, when necessary, but never to the best consequences.

  Lalura longed for the day that another seer as talented as Lily would be found. Lily Kane was a gem among their kind, just as was Lalura’s own adopted daughter, Dannai – the Healer. Each was precious… and rare. It was too much responsibility for their small shoulders to bear.

  At least they’d managed to get to the center of the evil surrounding Evelynne D’Angelo.

  “It’s a trap,” Roman said. His voice had that terrifyingly calm quality to it, so very at odds with the proof of his fury that flashed across the sky outside, felling ages-old redwoods and shaking the rafters of his safe house.

  “Yes, it is,” agreed Lalura. “So you’d best not go walking into it, Roman. I know the wounds go deep,” she said as she turned to face him and leaned heavily on her cane. Their eyes met, and she fiercely held his gaze.

  Lightning disrupted their universe, its loud companion temporarily deafening the room’s occupants. Lalura waited for it to pass, her expression becoming stern.

  “No matter how much you may desire it, this is not the time to feed the demons that exist between you and your brother,” she told the Vampire King. “Not now. Not this time. This rescue will have to be fast and simple.”

  Roman said nothing. His eyes were unchanging. The world outside continued to rage.

  But after s
everal long, painfully tense moments, the Vampire King nodded. Just once.

  Flashes and spells and blurred shapes sped through the room like a periphery of impossibilities as he and his companions transported out of the room. Lalura closed her eyes and let them go. She knew where she would meet them.

  White-hot electricity took the sky one last time overhead, and its thunder had the final word.

  *****

  Evie sat stiff as a board in the gold gilt and luxe velvet cushioned chair at the end of the long dining table. Foods of all sorts covered the table in silver platter piles, and at the other end sat Roman’s brother, the master vampire that had abducted her.

  Directly before Evie rested a crystal goblet filled with red wine. It was untouched.

  Evie knew that Roman’s brother hated him, though she did not know why. And as he’d said himself, there would be no better way to cause Roman pain than to take away the one he loved. It would be most painful of all if that person were taken away permanently.

  The food could be poisoned. Granted, not much in the way of poison could kill a vampire, but there was always new magic. There were always new tricks, new dangers, that no one yet knew of. Death waited around every corner.

  Evie glanced down at the goblet and then back up at her captor. Not for the first time that night, she wondered what his name was.

  “It’s Rafael,” he told her.

  Again, she wasn’t surprised he’d known what she was thinking. She’d already known that he could get past her mental defenses in order to read her thoughts.

  “Rafael D’Angelo,” she repeated aloud. “Or do you hate him so much that you’ve changed your last name?”

  Rafael smiled, showing her his deadly, deadly fangs. They were alone in the dining room, but Evie knew that no fewer than a dozen servants waited within ear shot. And Ophelia was somewhere nearby.

  Rafael’s teeth made Evie consider Ophelia now. She couldn’t help but think of how he had used them to kill Ophelia in the past. And how he most likely used them to punish her in the present.

  “Oh I’m sure you know the bite doesn’t have to hurt, my queen.”

  “I’m not your queen.”

  “No,” Rafael admitted softly. He lifted his own goblet and placed it to his lips. “Not yet,” he finished before he took a sip.

  Clearly he was using the same sort of illusory spell to make food edible and drink drinkable that Roman had used in their cavern cottage.

  Rafael replaced his goblet on the table top. “The name D’Angelo was my mother’s. Neither Roman nor I would ever be rid it. We both loved our mother very much.”

  Evie just stared at him. “Figures that you’d be a mama’s boy.”

  Rafael laughed at that, a genuine belly laugh that emitted the most beautiful, deep, melodious sound. Evie fought not to allow it to affect her, but it wrapped around her like silken vines anyway, reaching into places she didn’t want him anywhere near.

  After a few moments, Rafael’s laughter quieted, and he watched her with his dark, dark eyes.

  Evie fidgeted.

  “Many years ago, Roman and I were both happy. I was married. My wife, Iliandra, was a very beautiful woman.”

  Evie waited, going completely still as she listened. Every mannerism about Rafael changed, his voice and features both growing more soft. He was lost in his memories.

  “She was beautiful,” he repeated. Then he sighed. “But she was a free spirit.” He hesitated, and now there was an edge to his tone that was slightly harder. “Roman was always a man of high moral code. He had ideas of how the Offspring nation should be run, of what vampires should be allowed to do – and what they should not. I knew it was only a matter of time before he found a way to bring his vision of the perfect vampire nation to fruition.”

  He took a drink of his wine and replaced the goblet. “One night… he became king. And when he did, he outlawed many of the practices vampires had exercised for centuries.”

  He looked up at Evie now, and Evie caught the wave of malice that floated off him, perhaps unconsciously.

  “Unfortunately, Iliandra was not accustomed to being tethered. She was a wild bird, and not prepared to have her wings clipped. She continued to hunt as she always had…. Until Roman caught her in the act. She was given a warning.” Rafael’s look darkened. “As if she were some misbehaving child in a school yard.”

  He shook his head, disgusted. “She was a princess, Iliandra. She’d been born with royal blood to a royal family, the second of three daughters. I’d chosen her so very carefully. She was… perfect. She’d been born into beauty and stature, and was old enough to understand it. And now, as my wife, she was the sister-in-law of the Vampire King. You would have thought Roman to show a smidgeon of decorum. You’d have thought he would have shown some respect for class. But no.”

  Atop the table, the food platters began to rattle. A rogue wind blew through the massive cave, causing the candles in their candelabras and the torches along the walls to flicker.

  “When she refused to bow to his self-righteous royal decree… he destroyed her.”

  His voice drifted off, and Evie could almost hear the icicles dropping away from the edges of his words and shattering on the tabletop. She remained frozen where she was, afraid to even breathe.

  “He stripped her of her magical abilities and tied her to an altar for the sun to find.”

  Evie felt her throat go dry. Her arms and legs were trembling, despite the fact that she was seated. “No,” she muttered, unaware that she’d even spoken aloud.

  “Yes,” Rafael insisted with acidic softness. “She died a slow and horrid death. The sun burns unprotected vampires from the inside out.” The glass containers on the table began to hum. Evie could sense they were about to shatter. There was a thickness to the air, an overload of emotionally charged power.

  “Every living creature is composed of both light and dark. But for us, the cruel rays of the sun find the shadows of our souls and rip them away, tearing us irreparably in two. We bleed to death, and as each precious drop is spilled, it is seared to dust in the incessant heat of day until we are naught but empty, rattling husks.”

  Evie’s head was beginning to ache under the pressure of the built-up magic in the room. She had the sudden instinctive urge to duck.

  “Then this too crumbles,” he said. “And we are dust.”

  The glassware on the table contracted in that split millisecond of preparedness before it would explode. At the same exact time, Evie followed her instinct. But rather than duck, she sent up a magical shield, wrapping her body in protective, hard air. The crystal on the table erupted, spanning outward in brilliant, prismatic shards of all different sizes. The light from the torches formed rainbows in the air, and the sound was like the ringing of pixie wings and wind chimes.

  From within her shield, Evie was safe. Glass batted against it, bouncing off to end up skittering across the stone ground elsewhere. Evie dropped the shield. But the air had become suffocating in Rafael’s anger, even for a vampire like her.

  The master vampire stared at her, his black eyes now burning red flames the way Roman’s did when he was emotionally charged.

  “Your husband, young Evelynne Grace, brutally murdered my wife and the only woman I have ever loved.”

  Evie swallowed hard. She wanted to say something – anything – that might make her appear stronger and less stricken than she felt in that moment. But she couldn’t think of a single thing to say, and her throat had gone too dry for her to speak anyway.

  “That is what he is guilty of,” he told her, his words slithering like venomous snakes. “And that is why I hate him.”

  He pushed back from the table and stood, rising to his full, impressive height. Evie began to feel dizzy.

  “Roman has a debt to pay,” he said as he began to come around the table toward her. “And you will make it for him. The love he felt for Ophelia never had a chance to grow strong enough for its loss to hurt him the way he deserv
es. I realized my mistake, however. It was why I waited… with you.”

  Evie’s eyes widened. Waited? she thought. What does he mean?

  Rafael smiled a bitter, beautiful smile. “Oh yes, Evie. I’ve known about you all along. Right from the very beginning.”

  He stopped in front of her chair. “You have a choice to make, my queen. Join me willingly and break your lover’s heart, or die and break it anyway.”

  Evie looked up. She waited. She held her breath, feeling as though this was the end of her world. No one would know she was here; some sort of doppelganger had taken her place. There was no escape. She could fight – and fight she would – but in the end, she would lose. He would destroy her and her entire world anyway.

  An odd feeling came over her. It was as if the air had become so thin, she was now high. Her fingers and toes tingled. There was a new breeze moving through the cavern. For a split second, it appeared that Rafael’s gaze shifted. Something flashed in the depths of his burning eyes. But it was there one second and gone in the next.

  “Your answer!” he demanded, reaching down and grabbing her arm to lift her out of the chair.

  Evie choked on her voice, gagged, and tried again. This time, the words came out with some amount of force. She was numb now. She was going to die anyway. What did it matter?

  “Just kill me, Rafael. Spare us both a loveless marriage.”

  Rafael bared his fangs. But another voice drew him up short.

  “That’s my girl.”

  Evie’s eyes widened, her heart skipped and then hammered furiously, and Rafael was suddenly blurring into motion. His fingers bruised where he held her arm as he jerked her behind him and then turned to face the source of the one who had spoken.

  Evie was sure she’d fainted and was now experiencing semi-conscious hallucinations. For it was Roman who had spoken.

  And it was Roman who now stood on the other end of the cavern near the head of the table, flanked by all six members of his vampire court.

  Chapter Seven

  Damon felt agitated and frustrated. He also felt inordinately weary. His infamous, head-taking sword literally weighed heavy where it rested in its scabbard across his broad back.