They’d settled on an “aura.” As a mortal’s aura changed with intent and emotion, so would the aura in the room. It was the best they could do.
Now Roman gazed rather dejectedly at only the vaguest proof that deception sat among them. The opposing magics of everyone in the room also caused the spell to lag, so that it could not be pinned to any one king’s arrival or entrance, further complicating the situation. It took a few minutes for the darkness to arrive, and he had no indication of who was causing it.
But the fact that it had come to fruition at all was devastating enough. Roman’s heart sank to know that the worst scenario they could encounter had actually come to pass. There was a traitor among them. One of the Thirteen was not on their side.
The men and women at the table watched him in a strange sort of silence, as if they could sense that something enormous was occurring and was about to be revealed. His gaze trailed over each and every one of them. To his left sat his queen, Evelynne. At the moment, she watched him with knowing apprehension; she’d been with them since Lalura had arrived, and was well aware of what was happening. She also knew him well by now, and could read the expression on his face. She knew he’d learned the worst.
Her brown, gold-flecked eyes were large in her beautiful face, their gold highlights made more intense with her vampirism. He gazed upon her, feeling the warmth in his chest that he always felt when he realized that she was his – that he had turned her. That she’d wanted him to. No man’s luck would ever be greater than his.
He tried to give her a reassuring look, wanted to put her quick, comprehending mind at ease. But for the first time in a very long while, he simply did not have it in him. There was too much that was wrong.
So instead, he looked away.
To Evie's left sat the Phantom King, Thanatos, dressed in the black leather jacket and jeans that signified he’d come directly from his “job” the moment he’d received Roman’s message. Thane was good at knowing when things were serious. A man who worked with wrongful deaths for a living would come to recognize deadly situations when they occurred.
Roman considered this man, who had so long been a close friend, and his gut clenched. Was it possible that Thane could have turned on them? That any of them could have?
On one level, Roman, himself, couldn’t comprehend why this was so difficult for him to accept. They’d been betrayed by one of their own before, after all. Two, in fact. The former Warlock King had been a bad seed. As had the former Akyri King. Maybe it was something about the nature of warlock magic… and all who were borne or drawn from it.
Like vampires? Roman suppressed an all-too-human shiver and continued to peruse the people at his table.
To Thane’s left sat his queen, Siobhan. Speaking of warlocks, she was one such creature of immense capabilities. So immense that her power had drawn out the evil in the former Akyri King.
To her left sat the newest member of their burgeoning court, and the latest addition to this ever-expanding table. Selene Trystaine looked nervous. She looked uncomfortable and uncertain. Roman couldn’t blame her. If he’d been seated in her chair, he would have been nervous and uncertain too.
Selene’s sister was out there somewhere, in some unknown state and capacity, dealing with an immense amount of anger and power she could not control. She was with a man Selene did not know, but for the fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, her future brother-in-law. Family, in and of itself, did not make ties strong. Selene had no idea what was going to happen to her twin. And she was still reeling from her parents’ deaths, herself.
There was a vast store of vengeful magic inside that girl; Roman could feel it from where he stood. He could only imagine what Caliban was dealing with at that time.
To Selene’s left sat her king, the Seelie King, Avery. He looked nervous too. Again, Roman couldn’t blame him.
Beside Avery sat Damon Chroi, the Goblin King. His queen was currently absent and “out of commission,” as their triplets were due to arrive any day. Also, there was the reality that Diana was admittedly better at running Chroi’s kingdom than he was; the goblins took a natural liking to her and had been steadfastly loyal and supportive since she’d taken her throne. A courtesy they had very much not shown their king.
To Chroi’s left, then, was an empty chair.
But on the other side of that chair sat Stephen Lazarus, the Akyri King. Lazarus had once been an exceedingly good police detective among mortals, but had taken the position of Akyri King, otherwise known as the Demon King, when he’d been murdered by the last sovereign of the Akyri nation and had shown up in Thanatos’s realm as something a bit more than a mortal ghost. It turned out he’d been a born Akyri all along, and when he killed the Akyri King, he rightfully took his place as lord of his kind.
Akyri were an odd and special breed, borne of sheer magic. In fact, they fed upon magic for subsistence, and hence had over the years developed a symbiotic relationship with some of the most magical of the supernatural creatures, the warlocks. Warlock magic had to be freely given to an Akyri. In exchange, Akyri served warlocks as would employees. It was only that their paychecks consisted of power rather than money. Not that there was much difference in the mortal world.
As their king, Lazarus was the sole Akyri capable of taking magic – without asking for it. Had he wanted to, he could have begun feeding upon warlock magic right then and there at that table. He had, after all, two of the biggest potential donors sitting at that table with him.
Since he’d become king, Lazarus had brought the Akyri nation under long-awaited and stead-fast rule, tending to issues other kings had let slip, and bringing order to a species that had become as lost as sheep in the realms and rules of the supernatural.
Lazarus had yet to locate his queen, so the seat to his left was occupied by the next king on the list, Kristopher Scaule. The Winter King.
Roman watched the air frost in front of Kristopher with every one of the king’s breaths. The man’s eyes were the color of ice, and his hair ranged from dark blond in the early Spring to the blue-tipped white of icebergs in the dead of Winter. At the moment, it was simply blond. If it were longer, he would very much have resembled a well-dressed and groomed Viking from one of the northlands he so often frequented.
If Kristopher wanted, he could have dropped the temperature in the room by a hundred degrees in a matter of split seconds. With a cold glance at the window, he could have forced a blizzard to overtake Chicago. The glass would have shattered, and rime would have coated every inch of their meeting room in sheer heartbeats.
A short time later, most life in Chicago would either be dead or hanging by a thread. And it would take very little for that winter to spread. Kristopher was an un-tapped potential for enormous destruction. But in that way, he was like the A-bomb. It was too much destruction, with too many innocents in its path. In essence, it was largely un-usable.
The Winter King also had yet to locate his foretold queen. Therefore, beside him were two empty seats, which had been reserved for the Unseelie King and his future queen – should everything turn out in their favor.
Across the highly polished table from these empty chairs were seated the two most enigmatic men to occupy places amongst the Thirteen. The first was the Shadow King, who went by the name Keeran Pitch.
Rather, it was Mr. Pitch to any one of his thousands of employees. Pitch was a very, very wealthy man. It seemed that working “in the shadows” and over vast reaches of time was not only beneficial for vampires – but for anyone who could pull it off with some degree fortitude and intelligence.
Pitch normally wore a suit to the meeting of the Thirteen, but there were times, when punctuality was necessary, that he was pulled directly from his realm and into this one without having a chance to “change.” Unlike the majority of the other sovereigns at the table, Pitch was unable to use most types of magic. Simply snapping his fingers or waving his hand or speaking a few cryptic words would not outfit him in the fine
st, tailor-cut clothing.
Nor would it transport him from one location to the next. He needed the shadows for that. That was where his power lie. There, in that darkened realm of indistinct lines and endless possibilities was where his power became vast indeed.
At the moment, the Shadow King was draped in the protective shade of a simple, though most likely exceedingly expensive and designer black hoodie, which he’d pulled up and over his head. From beneath its modern-aged cowl, his eyes glowed iridescent and strange. In his native darkness, the Shade Lord’s eyes were akin to the reflective eyes of an animal’s in moonlight. But glimpsed during the day and in direct light, they were as black as his hair except where they were graced with thin, cold gray rings around their pupils.
His coloring was fair enough that those eyes were stark in his handsome face, giving him the kind of “hungry” appearance that would have made the average passer-by on the street believe he was some sort of model, or perhaps a rock star, incognito.
The Shadow King had yet to locate his queen either, and hence beside Keeran sat the other of the two most mysterious men at Roman’s table: The Time King.
William Balthazar Solan. This was not his actual name; the Time King had no actual name, but had gone by Solan between friends for millennia. He’d added the other two names over the years, as fads directed.
Of the lot of them, the Time King had once unarguably been the most powerful. But ironically, that was long ago. In the eons since then, the quietest among them, referred to as the Lone King in closed quarters, had not manipulated the laws of physics in any supernatural capacity whatsoever. Not even once.
Years and experiences chased the king’s heels, dogged and relentless. Stoically, he remembered, and sat in silence amidst the swarms of ghosts that made up the moments of his very long, long, past. No one had lived longer.
In essence, the Time King sat at the table for two reasons. One, it always helped to have history on your side. That way, mistakes were never repeated. And two, there was always the possibility that he would one day wield that power again. If he did, he would hold heaven and earth in his grasp.
Arach, the Dragon King sat beside the Time King, his green eyes burning with green flame, the scar on his cheek more pronounced than ever. He was agitated; these were sure signs. No doubt he, too, could sense the odd foreboding in the room.
Beside Arach, who also had yet to find his queen, sat the Gargoyle King.
The Gargoyle King had been a difficult one to get ahold of lately. He’d been very busy in his own right, ruling over a species of beings that were divided amongst themselves. As was usual for the Thirteen, Mason Rushmore was one of the oldest gargoyles to walk upon the earth. Whether he was the very oldest or not would always remain an unanswerable question. Stone was simply ancient.
Gargoyles were formed when enough inherent magic soaked the stone beneath sites where such magic was cast. Eventually, that moment of magical inception became impossible to date.
Not all gargoyles had last names. They could choose to adopt them or not, but if they did choose to do so, they always used the name of the location from which their stone originated.
Hence: Rushmore. Which was a mountain-side site apparently used for magic long, long before it had been “defaced” with the faces of human heroes.
Mason had created the Gargoyle Dynasty eons ago, putting into place a court of rulers and an army of Montem Warriors to protect his people. The Montem were fashioned from the stone of mountains, their blood made of pure liquid will, otherwise known among gargoyles as mercury.
Males and females were equal amongst the gargoyle nation, as there was no difference in the toughness of rock between the sexes. However, ages ago, a rogue faction of gargoyles broke away from the Dynasty, bent on seeing gargoyles to an era of strong males and slave females.
During their coup breakaway, nearly two thousand male gargoyles had escaped into the intricate underground passages of the planet, and they’d kidnapped a large number of Dynasty females to secret away with them. Mason had been searching for these lost souls ever since. But tracking stone was worse than difficult. One need only imagine searching for signs of cement on a sidewalk to comprehend such difficulty.
Recently, there had been a lucky break in their hunt for the rogue gargoyles. A stranger had brought them news, and the last Roman heard, the information had been dead-on, giving Mason and his men a leg-up they’d never before had. Hence, having the Gargoyle King there at the table that night was fortuitous indeed. The man most definitely had other places to be.
The next two seats at the table were empty, reserved for Caliban and the queen everyone at the table desperately hoped he managed to win. Everyone, that was, but the one amongst them who wanted exactly the opposite. Whoever that was.
On the other side of these empty, reserved chairs sat the Shifter King, Darius Walker. Walker was another of their number whose services were rarely called upon, for various reasons, but who might one day prove an extremely powerful ally.
To say shifters were dwindling in numbers was to understate the matter to a grotesque degree. Human hunting and the encroachment upon shifter land had shaved their kind nearly completely off the planet. Their straits were even more dire than those of the werewolves, who had for years been tracked down and destroyed by a fanatical faction of mortals known, quite literally, as the “Hunters.”
There were not many of Walker’s people left to turn to, and they were spread far and thin across the globe. But if push came to shove and there was no longer any choice in the matter, Roman knew he could count on the Shifter King to pull them all together for one final battle.
At least… he hoped he knew this.
The spell that hung over the room like a miasma was forcing him to doubt everything. He didn’t like it.
Beside Walker sat Chloe Septeran, the Warlock Queen. She was an Akyri, one of the first ever created, and one composed of a special kind of magic – star dust. Her symbiotic relationship was a little more personal than most Akyri’s, as she absorbed her power and life essence from the man seated to her left, her husband and king, Jason Alberich.
Roman met the Warlock King’s glowing emerald gaze and knew that Alberich was well aware of the spell Roman had cast on the room. No doubt he’d sensed it the moment he’d stepped in. It was warlock magic, after all.
The curve of Alberich’s lips told Roman that the warlock was just a touch amused at the spell. But the depth to his gaze told Roman he was also concerned.
These messages went unspoken between them, before Roman straightened where he stood at the head of the table, and cleared his throat.
Lalura Chantelle sat at the opposite end, stoically watching him in that silent, cat-like manner to which she showed such proficiency. But he could feel her hold her breath. He could feel everyone do so.
“I called you all here today as the bearer of unfortunate news.”
In any other company, at any other table, the listeners would have taken that opportunity to fuss in their seats and murmur amongst themselves. But the kings and their queens remained silent and still. Waiting.
“Not everyone at this table is what he appears or claims to be,” Roman continued softly. There was no need for him to raise his voice. “I’m afraid our meetings are no longer secure.”
The table yet remained still, even under this news. So Roman finished with a deep breath and a sense of bewildering loss. “There is a traitor among us.”
Chapter Six
Now the kings and queens did move a little, their heads turning slightly, their gazes sliding from Roman to the other members at the table. The silence became pregnant with a number of baffling and nasty sentiments, unspoken questions and accusations, and most of all, the same loss that filled Roman with empty uncertainty.
This went on for some time, and Roman wondered what they were all thinking. If he’d been capable of reading any of their minds the way he could a mortal’s, their problem might have been solved then an
d there.
At last, one of them broke the silence. “I think it’s Alberich. You can never trust a warlock.” It was Siobhan Ashdown, Thane’s queen, who’d spoken, and she’d done so with a wry smile. She was perhaps the single person at the table capable of making such an accusation lightly – seeing as how she, herself, was a very powerful warlock.
“Right back at ya,” said Alberich with a smile. “But if you ask me, it’s Lazarus,” he continued, his tone laced with only the slightest hint that he might be teasing. He turned, and his gaze narrowed on the Akyri King. “You can never trust a cop.” His green eyes glittered like gemstones.
Lazarus’s head cocked slightly to the side, and he smiled. He laced his fingers together on the table, leaning slightly forward. “Don’t make me eat you, Alberich.”
Someone at the table was unable to muffle their laughter, and because Roman knew him so well, he recognized the chuckle as having come from the Phantom King, Thanatos. He shot Thane a hard look, and Thane cleared his throat and sucked in his lips.
Clearly, the men had decided to make this terrible news a laughing matter. Roman could empathize with the sentiment. Sometimes, you either laughed or you cried, or in the case of the kings – killed someone. They’d obviously chosen the former.
Roman decided to bring the “meeting,” such as it was, to a close. “From here out, play your cards close to your chests, gentlemen. We are attempting to pin-point the leak.” He wouldn’t tell them who was busy casting spell after spell, trying to find the source of betrayal amongst them. That would be as good as signing the spell casters’ death warrants. Simply letting them all know that it was being dealt with was good enough for now. “In the meantime, watch your backs. And trust no one. I’m sorry,” he added, because he felt it was needed. “You’re dismissed.”
They all looked at him then, and some of them smiled wryly. Trusting no one, of course, meant they shouldn’t trust him either.
The Unseelie King (The Kings Book 6) Page 5
