The Goblin King (The Kings)

by Heather Killough-Walden

  It made her less than willing to feel much sympathy toward the women for any trouble they might encounter along their benighted journeys.

  But something about Rafael D’Angelo sinking his fangs into one more person – any person – made Ophelia feel nauseated. He was not gentle.

  He was never gentle.

  “If you kill Lily Kane,” she interjected now, turning their conversation back to its previous topic, “you will have the entire werewolf nation to contend with.”

  He shrugged, slipping his hands casually into his suit pant pockets. “We have as much already.”

  Ophelia shook her head, taking another unconscious step back. “No. You have wolves sniffing at your door and standing beside the supernatural factions that have supported them in the past. You have not yet won them as direct enemies. But this would do it. Lily Kane not only has the affection of her husband and the werewolf nation in general due to her Seer abilities, she has a powerful guardian. And a kind of bond with Malcolm Cole.”

  Rafael frowned. “The author?”

  “Yes. He is one of the most dangerous men known to the supernatural world. And Lily Kane’s best friends are all very powerful werewolves in their own rights. One of them is the Curse Breaker. Another is the former Overseer’s granddaughter.”

  This seemed to give Rafael a small amount of pause. At least it appeared he was now more carefully considering his plans.

  Good, she thought as she simultaneously hoped he wasn’t privately reading her mind. She doubted it. He was incredibly preoccupied by this latest disaster, no matter how well he hid it. Perfect.

  Just stay on that side of the room.

  And then something occurred to Ophelia. It blossomed inside, its unfurling leaves coming into the light like an un-shrinking violet. She saw the idea shimmering in the possibilities of her subconscious, and she kept it there, hoping that it was safely hidden from the prying mental fingers of her cruel master.

  “I wouldn’t worry, Pet” said Rafael calmly as he again shrugged and started once more toward her. The sound of his leather-soled shoes on the cavern floor sent a cold chill through Ophelia. The fact that she was forced to wear so little in his private company did not help. She would have thought vampires immune to cold. But Rafael’s attentions felt like being stripped naked and tossed into an arctic sea.

  “Werewolves are only glorified dogs.” He smiled again. His fangs gleamed in the torch light. She watched him draw nearer and found herself distractedly thinking of his endless tailor-cut suits and the way he was so much like his brother in so many ways. Just not in any of the ways that counted.

  “And I suppose that’s why we bothered to bring the Hunters into our fold, isn’t it?” he asked, posing the question in such a manner that it was clear he wasn’t expecting an answer. “Let them deal the K-9 rabble.”

  Rafael D’Angelo wasn’t even thinking of the wolves any longer, Ophelia knew. Or of Lily Kane or the Overseer or even the Hunters.

  He was thinking of lunch.

  Ophelia braced herself and dared not wonder what she would endure this time. It was best not to dwell on it.

  *****

  Diana was painfully aware of the man’s presence beside her. The smell of rain and leather and a barely-there faintness of wood smoke teased and taunted her senses. Even that scar that ran down one cheek and into his upper lip had some sort of devastatingly masculine effect upon his charisma.

  He was confusing her.

  He kept pace very closely. So close, she would have brushed against him if she’d changed her gait just a tiny bit.

  He was magic. She was coming to grips with that. She was actually quite proud of how effectively she was digesting it. But he was not only magic, he was a king. His eyes burned with fire. He carried a sword – when he wasn’t casting it magically away somewhere. He ruled over monsters. And he was… well, he was perfect.

  She couldn’t imagine a man capable of holding a candle to Damon Chroi’s magnetism. She could so easily believe he was a king. He had presence in spades. He smelled good, looked better, and his deep voice was subtly, beautifully accented.

  She glanced at him and then quickly looked away. He could not have been any older than she was. There were no wrinkles. He had only the slightest laugh lines at the corners of his intense eyes.

  God, those eyes, she waywardly thought. She shook herself mentally.

  Men the same age as she was tended to want to date women younger than her. And she was certainly no younger than him. If anything, she might have been a year or two older.

  So what was the deal? Why was he walking her home? Why did he care? Because of her magical ability? That had to be it.

  It was a thought that immediately took the wind out of Diana’s sails. And she hadn’t even known she’d left the port.

  No, she told herself firmly. Don’t start feeling sorry for yourself. It’s a good thing that he’s not interested in you for YOU. You don’t have time for men.

  Anyone she got serious about would have to be let in on her secret. And that was dangerous. The more people there were who knew what she was capable of, the more careful they would all have to be.

  And yet… she spent the first five minutes of their walk back to her block hoping that he wouldn’t ask her how old she was or notice her thinning hair.

  “So tell me,” Diana began, partly wanting to fill the silence, and also genuinely wanting to know. “Was it my imagination, or were your eyes on fire back there in the alley?”

  “It wasn’t your imagination,” he replied, sounding somewhat tired. “And I’m sorry. If I had any control over it, believe me, that wouldn’t have been the face I put on the first time I met the woman I’m going to –”

  He cut off suddenly, as if realizing he was about to say something he shouldn’t.

  And she couldn’t help but try to fill in the rest of the sentence. But the only word she could think of that would best end that sentence was one that both baffled and embarrassed her. She quickly put it out of her mind.

  A muscle ticked in his strong jaw.

  “Why do they do that, then?” she asked, steering the subject back on course.

  “It’s… complicated,” he replied. Then he pinned her with a meaningful sidelong glance. “Probably about as complicated as this ‘scuffle’ you got into earlier tonight that you refuse to talk about.”

  Diana rolled her eyes. “It was nothing. A bunch of boys – ” Now she found herself breaking off as well. The gray cat was still with her. She looked down at her now. The female feline had waited for Diana outside the coffee shop, and now she walked alongside her and Damon as if she had been trained to heel for years.

  “Let me guess,” Damon interjected. “You confronted a bunch of boys who had been torturing that cat at your feet. They put up a fight, and you kicked their asses, or at least gave them enough trouble that they figured it wasn’t worth it and left.”

  Diana stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face him. How the hell did he know that? “How the hell do you know that?” she demanded. Had he been watching her earlier? Was he some sort of weird, supernatural stalker? “Were you watching me or something?” She stepped back, wondering just how much more strength she had left in her tired body. Certainly, it wouldn’t be enough to do any real harm to the incredible specimen of man standing in front of her.

  But he held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “Whoa,” he said, shaking his handsome head. “It was simple deduction, I promise.” He looked down at the cat. “The injuries are brand new, so I figured they’d happened earlier tonight, and few people go walking with a cat. Plus, you haven’t spoken to this one personally all night long – never called it by name, which means you only just met the animal. Yet it’s stuck by your side as if you saved its life. Given that you were willing to risk life and limb to help the xenobe, I figured you’d done exactly the same with the cat.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. But what he said made sense.

  “Okay?” he
asked.

  “Fine,” she agreed. “Hercule Poirot, king of the goblins,” she muttered under her breath. She wasn’t going to tell him that she was actually quite impressed.

  Instead, she sighed and started walking again. “I’m guessing I should give her a name after all.” She looked down at her little gray furry companion. “She does seem to want to stick by me.”

  “Maybe you won’t have to name her. Perhaps she’ll tell you her name when the time is right,” Damon said.

  Diana glanced up at him, but he was watching the cat, so she was spared the stomach-warming laser beams of his eyes.

  What he’d said struck her as particularly open-minded. So many men would either scoff at owning a rescue cat altogether, or would insist on calling it something like Tiberius or Pussy Galore or Captain Whiskers. Not that she had anything against those names… mostly. But they were given names, not names the cat would choose for him or herself... mostly.

  “Where are you from, anyway?” she asked. “You’ve got an accent I can’t place.”

  He smiled broadly, showing her perfect, white teeth. “Lots of different places.”

  Diana immediately smiled as well. “Highlander,” she said. “One of my favorite movies.”

  He turned to look at her for a long time then, slowing down so much that he nearly came to a stop. She wondered what it was she’d said. His expression was a mixture of emotions, partly surprised, partly impressed – partly something she couldn’t identify.

  Or was afraid to.

  They rounded a final corner and started down her street. Her house was the third one on the right.

  A sudden hissing sound from her feet drew her attention. The cat’s gray-furred back was highly arched and her hair stood on end, spiking all along her spine. Her long slim tail had gone completely fat with poofed-out fur.

  Diana’s senses went on high alert. She looked back up at her house to see that her inside lights were on; the windows were lit up behind her curtains and blinds. Selene’s vehicle was parked out front at the curb. Selene had an extra set of Diana’s house keys just in case, but she’d already been over earlier that night.

  Diana’s brow furrowed as she wondered what could have happened to make her come back.

  The sound of metal being unsheathed drew Diana’s attention to Damon. He had somehow, no doubt magically, obtained his long sword once more. Its sheath was again strapped to his back. His gaze searched the shadows between the houses, his stance ready for trouble.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He placed his finger to his lips. She couldn’t see the muscles under his jacket, but the front of his shirt was stretched taut against a well-honed, corded, and tensed body. As she watched, the sparkling emeralds of his eyes gave way to the crackling orange-red inferno that sent his ruggedly beautiful face into stark and frightening contrast.

  She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone dry.

  Damon leaned toward her. “Step back,” he whispered.

  She did so immediately, melting into the shadows under the awning of the nearest house. He followed her, his footsteps suddenly not making a sound.

  “They’ve surrounded that house.” He gestured with his chin toward her own home. “One or two Offspring… and a few nasties I haven’t seen in a very long time.”

  “That’s my house,” she told him, her whispering voice quaking. She saw his eyes move from the house to the car parked out front.

  “Who is that inside, then?”

  “That’s Selene, my best friend.”

  His expression was grim. “I hope she’s as accepting of magic and monsters as you are,” he whispered. “Because she’s about to come face to face with them.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The first thing he did upon sensing the vampires’ presence was throw a powerful shield over Diana and himself. An Offspring was dangerous in so very many ways, not the least of which was its ability to reach out with its own mind and detect others. Damon was just fortunate that these vampires seemed to be preoccupied with whoever was in the house and probably hadn’t bothered to check the streets for anyone coming up behind them before Damon got the shield in place.

  The others he’d sensed earlier were instantly recognizable to him because they were of the fae realm. That set off warning bells in Damon’s head. It had been centuries since any of the fae other than goblins had entered the mortal world. The gateways to the fae realm were plentiful, but time had imprinted its passage upon most of them and only a few remained well enough intact to bring the fae safely from their world to this one.

  Most of those gates were in Europe – not here. The few that led to the United States were connected solely to the goblin kingdom, which was why the xenobes and Duqar and other nasty goblins could sometimes come through. But the fae around Diana’s house were not goblins. Someone powerful had to have had a hand in getting them there.

  Damon was tempted to transport Diana away to his castle then and there. It would take no more than a thought for him. The magic was already surging haphazardly through his veins, begging to be used. She would be safer there.

  But then she would arrive alone and frightened in a massive structure lit and warmed only by fire with nothing but lightning and thunder to greet her beyond the windows – and he would have a hell of a lot of explaining to do once he joined her there.

  If he joined her there.

  And that was the thought that really kept him from doing it. He had no idea what he was facing, but the magical stench of it was overwhelming. The cat had the right idea with her hissing. There was always the possibility that Damon wouldn’t survive the encounter. And if he didn’t survive and Diana was left alone and unknowing in his castle in the Goblin Kingdom….

  Well, that would be a mess indeed.

  So he let her remain. And instead, he placed a boat load of defensive magic in the shield he’d erected around her. He also reached out, grabbed her arm, and pulled her in close behind him. She stumbled a bit, but caught herself with a good deal of agility. He wasn’t disappointed when she had to reach out and brace her palms against his chest to do so.

  “What the hell-”

  “Stay close, stay down, and stay quiet,” he instructed.

  To her credit, Diana did what he said even though he knew she wanted to pummel him with questions.

  “I thought that was you,” came a familiar, deep voice from Damon’s left. He turned to find Roman D’Angelo stepping from the shadows.

  “Your majesty,” Damon quipped quietly.

  “That’s an impressive shield you’ve put up,” Roman said. And then his eyes shifted from Damon to Diana.

  “And now I see why,” he added with a gleam in his dark eyes and a slight smile to his lips.

  Damon met his gaze. An unspoken understanding passed between them. But there was something troubled in D’Angelo’s gaze. Something that said he would rather be somewhere else just then.

  Damon glanced back. Diana was looking from one of them to the other, appearing a little like a frightened deer in headlights. She looked like she wanted to run, but the fact that her best friend was in her house and apparently in danger probably kept her right there at his side.

  “And who are you?” she asked, her voice shaking only a little. “King of the harpies or unicorns or something?”

  Damon suddenly felt like smiling.

  As did Roman, after his brow arched. “Or something,” he said. And that was when he allowed her to see his fangs.

  To Diana’s credit, she only stood there and blanched.

  “You’re lucky she didn’t scream,” Damon scolded.

  “I knew she wouldn’t. I can tell she’s made of tougher stuff.” She’s a queen after all, he added mentally. “And I’m in a mood.” Roman turned away from them then and faced the house, his expression melting from one of amusement to stark worry. “These are vampires. I’ve left my queen behind in order to tend to their mess. It is the promise I made as king long ago.” But I’ve
never felt more like breaking a promise, he added mentally. And speaking of queens, it would appear they’ve now come for yours as well.

  Damon considered that. He’d already guessed that they were after Diana. But something Roman said troubled him. As well? he asked mentally. Had they gone after Roman’s queen? Someone else’s?

  Roman only turned and looked back at him. The look on his face was confirmation and explanation enough.

  They’d gone after Evelynne.

  She is safe now, Roman told him simply.

  Damon considered that. He could just imagine how many Offspring and werewolves and the gods-only-knew-what were now surrounding the Vampire Queen on all sides in order to keep her safe. They were going to drive her batty.

  “But it would seem these Offspring are mine no longer,” the vampire suddenly said aloud. His tone carried a note of regret. He was gazing at Diana’s house and the moving shadows around it. “Kamon and his architects have designed this particular travail. These vampires now belong to my brother, Rafael.”

  Damon’s insides went cold. He hadn’t known that Roman had a brother.

  Another vampire master out there who was possibly as old and powerful as Roman but on the wrong side? It was a thoroughly chilling thought.

  But everything made sense now, too. Rafael D’Angelo was controlling the Offspring. And there was a fae lord who was controlling the others. It was most likely a doppelganger, or ka, of either the Seelie or the Unseelie King. From the dark nature of the fae attacking, Damon was betting on the latter. “We’ve only managed to kill two of our doppelgangers,” he said aloud. “The three fae king kas still exist. One or more of them must be bringing help over from the other side.”

  “Are those what I think they are?” Roman asked, his expression perplexed. He was still looking toward the house.

  “They are.”