The Phantom King (The Kings) (35 page)

Thane was right on her tail.
Fifty feet… thirty…

And then, just
as he thought he’d reached her,
she
and the Dodge Tomahawk she was riding vanished into thin air
.
Invisible
? He used his magic to sear through any unseen shield that would cloak her from sight. But there was none there.
She
wasn’t there.

It was a
n illusion
, he realized, eyes wide. Thane’s own motorcycle skidded to a
cacophonous
halt. He lowered a
boot to the cracked ground. The bike bucked and rumbled beneath him as his
quicksilver
gaze scanned the darkened landscape. Somewhere back the
re, without him noticing it, Siobhan ha
d switched hers
elf out for a
doppelganger
mirage.

He was unduly
impressed.
He was also feeling more
ardent, hot-tempered, restless, and
hungry
than he
could ever remember feeling.

He closed his eyes, calling out to the Anime of his realm. It was a very big realm. If she
knew she was capable of it, th
e warlock could have transported anywhere within it
. Th
e Anime were his eyes and ears across the vast expanse of Purgatory.
They
ha
d helped him to locate Roman D’Angelo’s enemy in the neighboring astr
al plane several months ago –
and they would help him find
his own queen now.

*****

She’d donned a
shield of invisibility, and
as she crouched behind Thane’s house, the only standing structure in what felt like a thousand miles, she couldn’t see her own arms or denim-covered legs.
She leaned against
the
back door
of the building in silence, wondering how much further she would have had to go to get to
win this game
.
Where was this finish line he insisted she would know?
She strongly suspected that he’d been referring to the edge of his realm. And she also suspected that only Thanatos could find such a thing.

He’d set her up to lose.

But she’d never been one to shy from a challenge
,
and she had put up quite a fig
ht. Now she was without options it would seem. And
as she felt a weakness steal over her, she realized that she was also out of magic. She had done everything from transform her motorcycle to transform the very ground several times. She’d turned herself invisible, formed a
doppelganger
in her image, and transported back to Thane’s home. She had never in her life used so much power all at once, and she still hadn’t recovered from the bit she’d cast at the Phant
om King when they’d first met
.

She felt strange now, lighter even.
As she considered the way she felt, she found herself lowering her forehead to her knees and closing her eyes.
It wasn’t a ba
d feeling, just different. C
onsidering the circumstances, it was
also
a bit alarming. She wondered whether she would turn out to be like a car battery. Some of them couldn’t be recharged when they were drained completely. That last
bit of sucked-out juice signal
ed the end of their
power
for good
.

Was that going to happen to her?
Would she ever get her magic back?

Siobhan….

Siobhan’s head snapped up. The night was empty in front of her. The desert ground and
star-studded
indigo sky stretched on to the horizon.

Siobhan….

She blinked, slow
ly coming to her feet. The name
had been spoken so softly
, she’d barely heard it the first time. Now it was a touch louder, but still a whisper.

“Yes?” she asked hesitantly.

The air rippled in front of he
r, taking on the
familiar cast
of an Anime
. The thin, translucent image
of a spirit
appeared, a little girl of no more than ten years of age. Her clothes were of a different era
,
perhaps
the
1920’s. She had blue eyes and blonde braids, and her worn leather boots
faded into nothing
where they hovered above the ground.

He’s coming
, said t
he Anime
.

Siobhan’s heart thudded once against her ribcage.

The Anime laughed, the sound like a hollow echo of something that was once quite lovely.
He wanted us to find you, but I would rather warn you. It’s a fun game!

Siobhan gasped as the door behind her suddenly swung inward and she lost her balance.
“I just bet it is,” came a deep
, male voice from behind her
. She squealed as
she went falling backward and was caught in the firm grip of two very strong arms.

A pair of lips lowered to her ear and she felt hot breath fan out across her neck. “Caught you,” Thane said, sending rivulets of pleasure coursing through Siobhan’s body.

Thane raised his head then and addressed the Anime. “Nice try, Cassidy, but you led me right to her.”

The Anime Cassidy seemed truly put out. She crossed her arms over her chest, scowled at the Phantom King, and then faded away into nothingness once more.
Thane chuckled and returned his attention to the captive in his grasp.

“I won
.
”

Chapter Twenty-
Four

Siobhan clutched to the arm he held around her
in sudden uncertainty
as the world wavered around them, the house disappeared, and the only solid thing in the universe was the tall, hard body pressed up against her back.
Her breath caught in her throat when the night sky seemed to blur into hyperspace around her. It was like watching a
laser
light show, and it was dizzying enough that a part of her wanted to close her eyes.

But the rest of h
er was fascinated, and Thane’s
solid form
gave her enough courage to keep watching as he literally moved space and time around them.

When it began to slow down again, Siobhan could feel that they were somewhere else – somewhere
very
else, as in not in the same realm.
The ground was still solid beneath her feet and still devoid of vegetation, but t
he night sky seemed closer, the planets larger.

Thane slowly released Siobhan as she gazed up at it.
Rings circled a planet that looked like Saturn, but was painted blue and pink and orange. The stars looked like
big
holes punched in a black velvet blanket, they were so bright. Smaller, closer lights zigged and zagged across the sky like comets
, leaving trails of stardust in their wake. Everything seemed in motion, animated like a massive mobile above a
child’s
crib.

Siobhan stared up at it in awe.

“This is the astral plane,” Thane said as he slowly moved
around her, drawing her attention inexorably back to him
.
“The cosmos are closer here, though it makes no physical sense. But then,” he added softly as he
stepped in front and then
turned to face her. “Magic rarely does.”

He sto
od tall before her, a rock of a
man in black, all rough and tumble and so much more. His tattoos had changed again, now vividly colorful and as vibrant as a lit up rainbow. Swirls of ocean and space painted his well-muscled arms and peeked out from the collar around his neck. His eyes were different now as well. There seemed to be motes of color swirling within their silver depths, as if to reflect the stars and planets above. They were mesmerizing, and as he reached up to cup the side of her face
, Siobhan felt
hypnotized.

Her breath caught and held. Her heart danced.
His touch was feather-soft and
heart-wrenchingly tender
,
as if to defy the strength of the man touching her.

I’m lost
, she thought a
s he leaned in, the darkness
and charisma of the Phantom King blocking out the rest of the
magnificent multiverse.
When his mouth touched hers, it was
with
the faintest brush, and tiny fireworks of feeling crackled across her lips
. He lingered, for the slightest of moments, like
a stallion waiting at the gates
before charging.

And then
his hand slid to the back of her head and fisted in her hair. He deepened the kiss, moving in like an animal, hungry and desperate. Siobhan melted as he opened her up, pressing deep. His kiss bruised her lips and buckled her knees, but a second
strong
arm around her waist held her al
oft,
trapping her in a heated embrace.

He probed her mo
uth, drinking it in as if he were
possessed by an unquenchable thirst, and she felt the razor-sharp tips of his fangs prick her tongue. She gasped, the sensation
both
frightening and
tantaliz
ing
. Instinct forced her to try to pull away, but his grip on her hair tightened and she lost her balance, falling.

She gasped against his lips as he fell with her. With a soft cry of surprise
that his kiss simply swallowed up
, she landed upon something soft. He pulled away from her then,
to gaze
down at her thr
ough glowing, lust-filled eyes
. “A deal is a deal,” he said
, his deep voice rasping with harsh desire
.

Siobhan was puzzled. Her mind felt addled, her body on fire. In a daze, s
he glanced at what she’d landed on. It was a bed – the same bed that had been in his bedroom only hours ago. But now it was here
in the middle of an empty astral
plane beneath a
brilliant
Galileo
sky.