The Phantom King (The Kings) (26 page)

The tall dark-haired man nodded and said, “Consider it done. And I’m assuming you’d like to add another reason why the thirteen need to meet.”

Thane had nodded, just once, further adding to Siobhan’s general confusion. Then he released Siobhan’s wrist, and she ran a shaking hand over her face. She felt flushed and something in her brain buzzed.

“Jaxon, please help miss Ashdown to a seat and see that she consumes something.” Siobhan lowered her hand and looked up at the black-eyed man. His voice was stunning in its unnatural command. And how had he known her name?

The butler came forward, took her gently by the upper arms, and steered her toward the nearest leather-backed chair. “I must insist that you have some tea, miss Ashdown,” Jaxon
the butler
told her.
His
voice was calm and soothing, and when he told her she needed to have some tea, she had to admit that it sounded like a really great idea. So she nodded, and he tucked one of those uber-soft throws around her and disappeared.

“We’ll speak further in here,” the black-eyed man said, gesturing toward a second door that led from the study. Thane glanced at Siobhan. As he did, two shadows filled the doorway. Siobhan turned to find two more men standing on either side of the open entrance.

She looked back at Thane and he seemed to come to a decision. He followed the other man to the door and throu
gh it. They closed it behind them
. And she was alone with two strangers.

Jaxon the butler re
turned a few seconds after that carrying a tray covered
with a steaming tea pot, milk, cream, sugar, honey, three different kinds of tea, and at least five different kinds of cookies. He set the tray down on a coffee table in front of her, told her to help herself and ask one of the guards should she need anything further, and then he left once more.

As he disappeared through the door, he was replaced by two more “guards.”

And that was how she’d ended up here, under the watch of fo
ur highly intimidating men.

She was edgy; her magic didn’t like the fact that she was under lock and key. It was the
stubborn part of her, the head
strong part. She looked at the men – and
her magic begged her to poke holes in
them
.

The clock on the wall told her she’d only been there for twenty minutes, but she was sure it was wrong. She was sure it had been days. She felt displaced, without a home, without a purpose or even a general understanding of what was going on in life any longer.

She’d eaten the entire plate of two dozen cookies. It was a sure sign that she had reached some kind of breaking point. Her fingertips itched, as if they were being very gently shocked. Her head felt light.

Finally, s
he looked
back over
at the two men standing
on either side of the closed door
and found herself wondering whic
h one it would be best to attack
first.

*****

It took all of five seconds for Thane to
relay the situation
to the Vampire King.
Just as he’d
known would be the case, no words were needed.
Roman D’Angel
o had taken one look at Thane
upon his appearance
with Siobhan in his study
and
he’d delved straight into the Phantom King’s
mind to take the information he needed.
There was a
supernatural
battle going down in Salem
that involved Marius, Jason Alberich, and the new and oddly powerful Akyri Steven Lazarus,
and Thane
was asking for Roman’s help.

For Siobhan’s sake, Thane had spoken a few very basic things aloud:
She
was a warlock and
she needed protection.

Roman
had already gathered as much though, no doubt
.
With the outward calm and grace of a 3,000 year old king,
D’Angelo
had
gone to the trouble of trying his best to put Siobhan at ease
by having Jaxon tend to her. At the same time, he’d mentally called his guards to watch over her.
A
nd then he’d led Thanatos through a normal, every-day door and into a
separate
room from which they could transport away.

As they stepped through the portal that would take them from the Vampire King’s
safe house to the streets of Salem
, Thane could sense that there was more at work than
even
he was aware of. When he’d appeared in the study with Siobhan, he had been instantly hit with the impression that Roman D’Angelo was already troubled. There was an aura about the room, and t
he mansion in general, that was
wrong
.

Now
thane could see that
the power was building up around Roman at a nearly frightening pace. He was agitated. He’d been able to mask his internal rage back at the mansion – but the monster inside was rearing its head now.

On one hand, if the Vampire King let loose with all he had stored up, Salem would crumble beneath a disaster of earthquake-like proportions. On the other hand, Thane’s mere proximity to the man was allowing him
to absorb a bit of that magic, a
nd that was probably a good thing.
In fact,
knowing Roman, that might have been the Vampire King’s plan.

They stepped out together, two men wrapped in darkness who seemed to bring the very night with them. The portal clo
sed behind them withou
t a detectable sound
because a storm brewed around them, its lightning splitting the sky, its thunder drowning out all other noises.

Wind w
hipped through Thane’s hair and his eyes flashed to white. His fangs extended behind lips drawn back in a ready snarl. Magic
permeated
the air, dark and twisted
, grazing his skin and making the hairs on his arms stand on end
. Beside him, Roman transformed as well, the monster within him
allowed
to shift his eyes
to
a
glowing red and
expose
the fangs he normally kept hidden.

Up ahead of them lay the
c
ul-de-sac
of Siobhan’s street.
Not a full minute had elapsed since Thane had transported Sio
bhan and himself to Purgatory. H
e could sense the change in time
; nearly none had passed
. He’d never held
it for that long before. Was he growing stronger?
It was a question to be answered later.

Thane and Roman broke into a run toward the house in the
cul-de-sac
, drawn to it by the color spray of magic that could be seen through the billowing curtains that rustled and danced through the mansion’s shattered windows. The sky fractured with a bolt of electricity t
hat struck the roof of the
house directly, the force so pow
erful, it cascaded over the tiles, across
the lawn, and out into the street to bring Thane and his companion to a halt.

The two crouched beneath the wave’s electric, b
lack magic-filled
onslaught
as it rushed across the
asphalt
, a visible ripple in reality.
Thane
lowered his head,
braced himself, and took the opportunity to absorb every ounce of magic that tidal waved over his
strong
body.
There was so much there, it almost hurt to take in. But he managed.

And then he and Roman both raised their heads to train their gazes on the house once more. Thane’s vision was tinted red. Something crashed inside the house, glass exploding and tinkling across a great distance. Someone grunted in pain – and then cried out in agony.

Roman headed toward one of the windows and
Thane
was crashing through the front door before he realized what he was doing. He had no idea where the Vampire King
ended up
and almost didn’t care.

The scene in front of him was one of chaos and struggle. Jason Alberich stood at the center of the room where Thane and Siobhan had last seen him only seconds earlier.
He was in hand-to-hand co
mbat with Marius
. The two had each other in firm grips and so much magic surrounded them, their figures were blurred and indistinct in the miasmic cloud.

Alberich had just finished casting the
spell
he’d begun as Thane took Siobhan out of the house. Now that it was finished, he recognized its signature. That particular spell
was meant to
absorb
magic instead of
attack with it
. The Warlock King was intelligent enough not to use magic directly against Marius since the
notorious Akyri
would only absorb it and use it ag
ainst him if he did. Instead, Alberich had
turned the tables and used a spell
meant
to draw as much of Marius’ power out of him as possible.

The clash of wills had to have been immense for it to have created the mess in this living room. Every surface was scorched, though Alberich
and Marius themselves
seemed completely untouched by the damage
. No doubt the lightning bolt that had brought Thane and Roman to a halt outside had been the result of their two powers battling it out – Marius struggling furiously to keep what he had
to himself
and Jason
struggling just as hard
to take it away from him.

They were not alone in the room. Rogue Akyri everywhere struggled in fist-to-cuffs with Jason’s warlocks and
personal Akyri servants. As the Warlock King, Jason had
amassed
an immense amount of power, and that power drew Akyri to him like moths to a flame. He chose the strongest and the most loyal as a kind of guard. These men now struggled alongside him.

Also in the fray was the f
ormer detective Steven Lazarus, who much to Thane’s inordinate shock, was slamming one of Marius’ Akyri up against the scorched wall behind him even as Thane watched.

He had fractions of a second to take all of this in. That was all.

In the next moment, he was hit from the side by something hard and fast and strong, and two bodies went sailing across the living room to connect with the dining room table, smashing it to splinters beneath them as they continued to the floor.