He drove forward, pulled back, and shoved into her again and again.
She screamed into the astral night, crying out as her body convulsed around his with every wave that coursed through her. She was drowning in pleasure, each flex and pull upon her body so hard, so blissfully severe, she saw stars on the insides of her lids.
There was no beginning and no end. Time became an infinite loop of velveteen rapture beneath Thane’s adept ministrations. He drank deeper, drove harder, moved faster, and Siobhan lost track of every lucid thing in the world. Somehow, through the haze of her seraphic delirium, she felt Thanatos pull his teeth from her throat, saw him rise above her, and watched through half-closed lids as the king threw back his head and roared into the night, the sheer beauty of him enough to hold her entranced.
The stars slowed… the planets stopped dancing, and the bed beneath Siobhan’s clutching fingers engulfed her in sated warmth. Above her, Thane lowered his head, and she was lanced by the melted metal of his eyes. He watched her for a breathless moment, a look of absolute wonder on his perfect features.
And then, ever so slowly and with the bewildered care that came when someone realized they had something truly precious, The Phantom King once more claimed her lips with his own.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“The process is reversing,” Roman stated. The dark holes that had formed during the portal explosion had only spread as far as the outer rooms of his mansion, and fortunately no one had been hurt. Now they were receding, growing smaller by the minute. It appeared that time and space didn’t like being fractured. The opposite of entropy, their OCD-like hold on reality maintained a strict code by which they existed. And they reverted to it now.
He and a few of the members of his vampire court stood in his study, which seemed to be the core of where the destruction had occurred from and spread. David Cade stood beside him, as did Samantha, the twenty-something technophile who was the youngest vampire to ever sit at his court. “Yes,” agreed Sam. “At an exponential rate, actually. We should be able to transport safely within the hour.”
“Good,” said Roman. “I want to find out what the hell happened and whether Thanatos and his queen were harmed.” His expression turned grim. “And then we have a war to wage.”
*****
“So that’s what the dark side of the moon looks like,” Siobhan said. She gazed up at the astral sky from where her head rested in the crook of Thane’s arm. Here, in this bizarrely beautiful realm, the night sky was an astronomer’s drug-induced dream. Everything was turned around and looked as though it was within arm’s reach. “It looks like a giant eye,” she said. “I can just imagine how different our cultures and beliefs would be if we’d been staring up at that all this time instead.”
Thane chuckled. “And it had been staring back at us?” He bent, placing a kiss on her crown. “You know, I’ve thought the same thing many times.”
They’d been lying in Thane’s bed for what must have been a few hours, speaking in hushed, sated tones. Siobhan had never felt so comfortable with another person. She’d never been the kind of person to lack self-confidence, but she had to admit that the fact that she possessed magical powers had set her apart from others while growing up. She’d kept her distance, and she had definitely felt fear – fear of being found out, and fear that what she could do meant she must be something bad.
But now, wrapped in the warm and firm embrace of the Phantom King, she felt none of that. She was confident, she was contented, and she was at peace.
Still, there was a lingering something that hovered in the air over them. It was miniscule at first, but became heavier with each passing minute. It felt like trying to remember whether you’d left the oven on.
And now, because she did feel so confident and comfortable in Thane’s arms, Siobhan allowed herself to say as much. “Thane, is there something you’re not telling me?”
The Phantom King went still beneath her. She noticed that he even stopped breathing. Slowly, she sat up, at once feeling the coolness of the air where his warmth had once been.
He watched her with those beautiful silver eyes for a few uncertain seconds, and then he ran his hands over his face and sat up with her. She watched his muscles cord and ripple and her mouth watered. But the look on his face quelled any mounting hunger, replacing it with concern.
“There is something,” he admitted softly.
“Oh God, what is it?” Siobhan asked. A hundred horrible things ran through her head. Had they destroyed the time-space continuum when Thane had cast magic in that portal? Had they inadvertently killed a bunch of people? Was this about Steven?
“Christ, Siobhan, you look like an Anime right now,” Thane said, cupping her face gently. “It’s nothing bad, okay? No need to go catatonic on me.”
Siobhan felt her heart calm down a bit and her head stop spinning. Nothing bad. Okay. She could live with that.
“There are thirteen supernatural kings who share the realms and rule over them,” he told her as his thumb brushed along her cheek bone. “For thousands of years, any attempt on our parts to share our kingdoms with a mate have failed in one form or another.” He hesitated and then added, “until recently.”
Siobhan didn’t understand, so she didn’t pretend to. Instead, she just frowned a little and waited for him to continue to explain.
“You met Roman D’Angelo.”
She nodded.
“He’s the Vampire King. A few months ago, he met his wife, Evelynne. And when he did, he started a chain-reaction that will eventually make its way through every sovereign of the supernatural realms.” His expression became earnest. “Starting with me.”
Siobhan blinked. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Thane.” She shook her head, stabbing in the dark. “Are you saying that you’re all going to find your queens now?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Siobhan.”
A horrible feeling coursed through her. “Are you saying that you have a queen somewhere and you didn’t tell me about her?” Even as she said it, she knew it couldn’t possibly be true. It just couldn’t.
Thane looked stricken. “No!” he said, becoming adamant. “There’s no one else, Siobhan. Listen,” he continued. “Among our people, we have witches known as seers. The most powerful of them recently had a vision of thirteen kings on a chess board – and thirteen queens.” He moved his hand from her cheek and held it out palm-up between them. “The same very powerful, very wise woman gave me this after I’d met you.”
The air above his open palm shimmered, there was a brief flash of white light, and when it was gone, a single red chess queen stood in Thane’s hand.
Siobhan looked down at it, noticing that it was the same color as her hair. Recognition thrummed through her, quickening her pulse. There was a buzzing in her ears, distant but there.
She knew what was coming next. She could have spoken the words herself.
“This is you, Siobhan,” Thane told her. She felt his eyes on her again, searching her face, maybe even searching her soul. Very softly, and with a finality that spoke of firm belief, he said, “You are my queen.”
Siobhan stared at the piece in his hand. It gleamed in the moonlight.
Slowly she reached out to touch it. As her fingers closed over the piece, a sense of completion stole over her. “I know,” she said, taking it from his hand and turning the piece over. “I think I knew the moment I first looked into your eyes.”
Thane was quiet beside her, so Siobhan looked up. He looked more shocked than she felt, and his throat was working as if he were swallowing tears he would not allow to his eyes. “You aren’t angry?” He asked it as if he could scarcely believe his fortune.
Siobhan thought about that. He hadn’t been honest with her from the beginning. How long had he known? How long ago had this witch woman given him the chess piece? That delay bothered her, especially since she’d trusted him enough to sleep with him.
But then… this was Thanatos.
And nothing could overshadow the way he made her feel, the way everything about him was even more magical than she was, from his realm to his tender-fierce touch. She knew she was meant to be with him. She knew it in some place so far down, so rooted in her core, it was practically primordial. And he probably did too.
She knew that he’d most likely been afraid that if he told her, she would deny it, claim it wasn’t true. And in the process, crush him. She could understand that kind of hesitation.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not angry.” She closed her hand over the chess piece with decision. It was a gesture that spoke volumes of acceptance. “But don’t ever keep anything from me again, Thane.”
Thane’s eyes widened even further, and he half laughed, half choked with emotion as he reached forward to cup her face in both hands. “Oh Siobhan….” He shook his head. “No. I swear I will never keep anything from you again.”
“Never is a long time,” Siobhan said, placing her hand over his.
“It’s not so long now.” He leaned in and kissed her, tender lips and a bit of scruff igniting the fire that had been smoldering in red embers inside of her. The moment he parted her lips and his tongue delved inside, all she could think about was the bed beneath her and how she wanted him to hold her down on it some more.
But he pulled away after a few delicious moments and breathlessly said, “I want you to marry me.”
Siobhan blinked, shuddered a bit, and tried to get her libido back under control. She hadn’t been expecting that. Marriage was a bit formal and a bit traditional for the crazy, magical world they were living in. “Ummm….”
His gaze intensified and his voice deepened. “Siobhan, please be my wife.” He reached down for her right hand, the one she had always felt a bit more magic run through, and ran his thumb over her ring finger. Tiny sparks sizzled across the base of her finger, tickling pleasantly. As they receded, an intertwining line of red and black wrapped around it like a knotted ring.
A ring tattoo. How very Phantom King.
Siobhan couldn’t help but laugh. The man could probably give her a diamond the size of a pickup truck, but he’d gone with this. It was something so much more him. The gesture touched her, and that touch felt wonderful.
She nodded. “Alright,” she said, still smiling broadly. She turned her hand over, admiring the gorgeous scrollwork. “I’ll marry you.”
As soon as she said it, there was something else, something that hadn’t been there a second ago. It was indescribable, like what the air felt like just before lightning struck. Like the sound of a held breath and the smell of possibility. It was something that had been Thane’s alone – and was now hers as well.
Thane lunged forward and captured her lips at once, bruising them with a palpable happiness that made her feel drunk. Light flashed around them, and when Siobhan managed to open her eyes for just a moment, it was to find the sky filled with shooting stars. Thousands of them.
But once again, a minute later, the king broke their kiss, and this time Siobhan had to fight not to fist her hand in his hair and yank him back in with everything she had.
When he pulled back, he looked as addled with lust as she felt. He swallowed hard and said in a gruff tone, “I have to return to the mortal realm.”
Siobhan ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “Okay… why?”
“With his actions, Marius has waged war on the other kings,” he told her. He let out a shaky breath, every muscle in his perfect body tensed as if he were fighting something off. “I’m one of those kings.”
She processed that, closed her eyes as a dread began to creep in, and then she made her way off of the bed. The planets continue to turn overhead, the stars to glimmer. Not again, she thought. Her desire slowly waned, leaving her body feeling chilled by the night air. He was about to leave her alone again. Only now she knew it was worse. Now she knew there was a possibility that Thane might not come back. And now she really, really cared.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m coming with you.”
She had no magic left; she could feel that she’d used it all up while trying to outrun the Phantom King, and she hadn’t yet slept or eaten, so none of it had returned – if it was ever going to return at all. Which was something she didn’t want to think about.
But she could fire a weapon; she could pull a trigger as well as the next person. She could lend moral support. She could do something. Couldn’t she?
Thane looked down at the bed, seemed to consider something, and then he rose from the mattress as well to stand beside it. He stared at her long and hard, an enigmatic expression on his gorgeous face. As he did, the bed disappeared – and clothes magically formed on both of their bodies.
Siobhan glanced down, recognizing her own belongings, and then looked back up. The Phantom King stood before her in his jeans and black leather, looking as indomitable as ever.
“No,” he said softly as he slowly closed the distance between them. “You’re the very thing that Marius is after. You go out there, and no matter what else happens and who else dies, you’ll be the one most at risk.” He stopped a foot away and shook his head. “And there’s no way I’m going to lose you now.”
“Thane,” she said, offering up her most pleading look. “Please don’t just leave me here.”
“It won’t be for long, and you won’t be alone,” he told her. “We’ve already discussed it and I’ll bring several of Roman’s people and a few werewolves into Purgatory to watch over you.”
Siobhan’s eyes widened. She blinked. “You’ve already discussed it?”
“With the other kings and with the werewolf council Overseer,” he said.
“I see,” she said, feeling a sharp spike of anger shoot up her spine. It had been hard enough for her to get past the fact that werewolves and dragons and fairies existed when he’d told her about them while they lay in bed together. Now they were deciding her fate for her. “When were you planning on telling me this?”
Thane looked as though he knew he’d done wrong but was unrepentant. It was a beautiful look on him. It made her want to rip his shirt off. It also made her want to then strangle him with the shredded material.
“I’m telling you now,” he said.
That spike of rage that had made its way up her body was sitting, crouched and ready in her brain now, flooding her system with adrenaline and cortisol.
“Absolutely not,” she said through clenched teeth. It was one thing to tell her she had to stay here; she could even come to accept it if she tried. It was true, after all. She would be no good to anyone in a fight. But the fact that he trusted her so little that he was going to have paranormal monsters babysit her was making her vision go red. He was just lucky she had no magic at that moment. “I will not stay here under guard, Thane.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, my queen,” he said, his expression turning just as dark and determined as her own. “You absolutely will.”
He reached out with lightning speed and grabbed her wrist, spinning her around so fast that she lost her balance. She gasped as she fell back against him and he wrapped his arms around her. The world tilted, melted, blurred, and she knew he was transporting them once more. Instinct always seemed to rule out during interdimensional travel, and she found herself clinging to his tightly wrapped arms out of sheer self-preservation. When the world solidified again, they were in Thane’s living room in his house in Purgatory.
Without loosening his grip on her, the Phantom King lowered his lips to her ear and a hard ripple of pleasure-wrath made its way relentlessly through her body.
“Be nice to them, Siobhan. If I hear you’ve misbehaved when I return, I’ll have to punish you.”
With that, he released her almost as quickly as he’d grabbed her. Siobhan stumbled, and by the time she got her feet steady under her once more – he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Six
There had been more than hunger and desire involved when Thane had decided to play “chase
” with the young warlock across the desert of his realm. A certain amount of strategy had gone into it as well.
He’d known she would use her magic to escape him. And in so doing, she would drain herself dry. Should Marius get his hands on her while she was in this state, he would not be able to glean any power off of her, not for a while anyway. He would need to allow her both sustenance and rest. And this would buy Thane time.
The down side was that it did leave Siobhan defenseless against anyone the Akyri King might employ to aid him in her capture. But the chances of him using anyone but Akyri were slim enough that the plan had been worth it.
Everything the Phantom King thought about now was fundamentally for Siobhan, including what he planned to do now. Despite having her safety at heart, it was certain to come back and bite him in the ass.
This isn’t the way to treat a newlywed bride, Thane.
On the inside, he was kicking himself up and down and sideways and backwards. His leave of her had admittedly been handled not at all well. But time hadn’t been on his side, and he couldn’t manipulate its length any more in such short order. It was tearing him up, but he’d had little choice.
And now he was feeling the grim weight of impending misfortune as he moved through the portal to leave the outer realms and return to Earth. He wouldn’t have tried if he hadn’t sensed that everything within the portals had returned to normal. The dark holes he’d inadvertently ripped into his realm had disappeared, and interdimensional travel was now safe again.
That was more than he could say for himself if he returned to Purgatory unprepared. She’s going to rip me to shreds, he thought. He’d sensed the swell in her power after he’d given her his mark, his ring, his promise. Once he’d drawn it and she had accepted it, she’d become his wife. She had officially become his queen.
Common knowledge about the queens on a chess board was that they were far more powerful than their kings. Thane knew Siobhan would grow stronger. In time, she would not only be able to cast magic as a warlock, but absorb it from others as he did. It could mean many things. She might become her own rechargeable battery, never running out of magic. The thought was staggering. She would become a force to be reckoned with.
The Phantom King (The Kings) Page 18
