The Demon King (16 page)

Had
he
done that? Just now?

“
Get the fuck off me!” she
hissed, fangs glistening. Her green eyes began to glow, shifting
from emerald to yellow, then nearly orange. He could sense the heat
behind them, and he wondered what they felt like from her
side.

The fact that she could yell at him meant
she wasn’t suffocating. Though, he was doubting she actually even
needed air to survive. As far as what she was, he was thinking more
along the lines of vampire now. Still, he’d never met a vampire
like her. There was another layer to her. Maybe several.

One thing was for sure. Whatever she was,
she was not happy. If she was a vampire, then she was most likely
hungry, and that was probably why his men had basically been
hypnotized. Vampires radiated that kind of shit when they were
peckish.

He leaned in until his face
was inches from hers, which felt both dangerous and tempting. He
annunciated carefully, wanting to be sure she understood him
implicitly. “You are going to stop fighting me,” he told her
frankly. “And when you do, we will leave this warehouse.
Together
.”

“
Like
hell
,” she hissed.

“
It can be,” he said. “If
you want. But I’m guessing you’re feeling pretty bad right now. If
you want to feel better, then stop fighting me.”

“
You don’t know anything
about me,” she told him. But the glow in her eyes dropped back from
orange into yellow. She was either weakening, agreeing with him, or
realizing she had no choice in the matter. Or she could be playing
him. He was hoping it wasn’t that.

“
No, I don’t,” he admitted
freely. “But I know you stumbled onto something bad and that you
tried to do something about it.” He was guessing there, but his gut
was telling him it was a good guess. “That makes you a good guy,”
he continued. He paused, then went on clearly. “
I’m
a good guy. We can work
together, and I can
help
you.”

She looked right at him
then, as if she were looking through him. Her entire body relaxed
as she began to laugh. It wasn’t the
cruelest
laugh he’d ever heard, but
it was damn close. It was the kind of laugh that told you loud and
clear the laugher knew something you didn’t. “I very much doubt
that,” she said through the laughter. “Now let me go and get off me
before I get
really
angry.”

From just behind him, near his left ear,
Lazarus heard a familiar and highly irritating sound. The dog was
back, having been protected from the blasts and bullets by the
woman’s magic. It was once more standing near him and once more
threatening him with bared teeth.

“
Okay, that’s
it.”

He stood up in one fluid movement, grabbing
the woman by the arms to take her along with him. She cried out in
surprise, but gained her footing. He maintained his grip on her,
spinning her around so that her back slammed up against his chest
before he wrapped his arms firmly around her. He’d moved so fast,
she had no time to react.

The dog had time, however. It lunged for
Laz’s leg again, but this time it seemed to smack up against the
magical shield the woman had placed over it, like a peanut rattling
up against its shell. The shield crackled into visibility,
purple-black with power. The dog froze, stunned for a moment as the
magic slipped out of the protective casing around it and skated
over its fur. A split second later, a purple-white flash lit the
dog’s eyes.

The woman in Laz’s arms froze. “Bowie?” she
asked softly, her tone now completely changed and laced with
genuine concern.

A second later, the purple-white light to
the dog’s eyes was gone, and the animal yelped in general surprise.
It sat down hard on its back haunches. Then stood back up. And then
it shook itself heartily as if shaking off water. It stared up at
the two of them and tilted its head to the side in curiosity.

Across the room, his men were stirring to
life again, as were the robed figures on the floor – all but one of
them. The unmoving figure was laying face-up on his back and looked
decidedly more pale than the others. Laz wondered if the woman in
his arms had anything to do with that. He desperately needed to get
to the bottom of what had transpired in that warehouse, especially
since it was still pulsing with latent Akyri magic. But he had his
priorities, and at the moment, getting her out of there and alone
was at the very top of his to-do list.

Like an angel appearing just when you needed
him most, a dark figure outlined itself in the shadows on one side
of the warehouse. Red eyes gazed out at Lazarus, followed by the
sound of a leather-soled shoe on pavement. Roman D’Angelo stepped
out of the shadows, enshrouded in silent purpose. The vampire
glanced at Laz, at the men on the floor, at the cops, and then back
at Laz – and the woman in his arms. Recognition and understanding
flashed in his eyes. He nodded.

Laz nodded back.

“
Hold on tight,” he told
the woman. “We’re leaving now.”

With that, he spoke the words to call up a
portal and willed it to move fast. The woman in his arms redoubled
her efforts to escape, and he tightened his grip. The portal
swirled to life, and with more strength than it should have taken,
he pulled them both into it.

Blessedly, the portal closed behind him,
shutting the two of them off temporarily from the rest of the
world. One step down. Ten thousand to go.

Chapter Nineteen

She seriously couldn’t
believe this was what was going down in her life right now. Or
maybe she could. Her existence was shit-eating crazy, after all,
wasn’t it? Going from Tuathan to traitor to vampire – to this? Was
this really so odd? Wasn’t it actually par for the course? Come to
think of it, when had she ever had even a semblance of control over
her life?
Ever
?

Never. That’s when.

So why the hell was she
surprised to turn around in the warehouse full of magic users and
cops and Akyri and demon beasts and find herself face to face with
one of the Thirteen Kings?
Which
one of the kings he was, she had no idea. She’d
yet to meet most of them. But
oh
, she knew he was a king. They all
had an aura about them that was unmistakable. It separated them
from everything and anything around them like chocolate to water.
It was potent as hell.

And so was he.

Every ounce of her wanted
him on sight. She wanted to hold him and be held by him, she wanted
to kiss him and be kissed by him, she wanted to goddamned eat him –
sink her teeth right in and suck hard. Hell, she wanted
him
to want
her
. Just like the song
said.

And that was probably what pissed her off
the most. The stag in the path to her cottage had been right on
schedule. Fate had once more taken the reigns of her stage coach
and told it where to go, and now she wanted to do the same thing to
fate, frankly – tell it where the hell to go. And then she wanted
to tell it what it could do when it got there.

So she’d fought the king in
her weakened state, consequences be damned. And when that had
failed, she’d tried to flee. But fate was such a domineering son of
a bitch, it allowed the king to use his magic to pull her right
back into her bones and lock her there. She couldn’t believe it!
What the hell was
that
all about? How in the many realms did he have enough power to
do that to her? She was a vampire Tuath warlock!

What… did this mean for her? What kind of
changing tide was this? Where was she bound from here?

She had no idea. She
honestly couldn’t see a light at the end of her tunnel just then.
She was doomed. At that moment, she was literally a few quarts low,
she was stuck in a portal heading to an unknown destination with a
stranger –
never go with a predator to a
second location
– and that “stranger” was
none other than one of the Thirteen Kings. And he was
her
king.

The queens were supposed to be stronger.
That’s what they all said. But right now Dahlia was beginning to
have her doubts. Maybe they got it wrong and she was cursed. Maybe
she would never get to feed again, and that would be okay. Because
at least then she would have regained some control over something,
even if it was only control over her own death.

The portal swirled around them, and the king
behind her had both of her wrists in a firm grip. Her arms were
twisted into a position that wasn’t painful now, but would be if
she pulled too hard or tried to go anywhere. A strange and utterly
unwelcome feeling was moving through her, beginning at their point
of contact. It was warm to the point of being hot, and her gums
ached furiously.

“
I promise I’ll release you
as soon as we’re a safe distance from the warehouse,” the king told
her.

She laughed derisively.
“You’ll release me, huh?” she said, more than a hint of sarcasm
lacing her words.
I highly doubt
that
.

He was quiet. As if he’d been thinking the
same thing.

So she went for broke. “Which one are
you?”

More silence met her
question, but it didn’t last long. “Which one
what
?”

“
Which
king
, genius. Which of the thirteen
goddamn
kings
are
you?”

A familiar animal sound drew Dahlia’s
attention from her “conversation” to the area by her right leg. She
looked down to find herself staring into the eyes of the dog she
seemed to have inadvertently adopted. She blinked. “Bowie?” That’s
what she’d decided on as a name, she guessed. But how the heck did
the dog get into the portal?

“
How the hell did the dog
get in here?” muttered the king, repeating her thoughts.

Dahlia frowned. Other than the craziness of
her entire situation, two things were bothering her at that moment.
One, the portal seemed to go on forever. Portals weren’t supposed
to last that long unless they were going to a realm that was cut
off somehow from the other realms, and usually for good reason. And
two, the dog looked weird to her. There was a stark purple ring
around the irises of her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“
Please let me go. I
promise I won’t run,” she said, meaning every word. She was
immediately concerned for the animal.

The king behind her
hesitated. And then, miraculously he let go of her wrists, though
his grip
slowly
lessened as if he were having a very hard time doing so. She
turned with deliberate casualness so as not to “make any sudden
moves,” and bent down in front of Bowie. “You okay, girl?” she
asked softly, placing her hand under the dog’s chin to rub
affectionately.

The dog’s tail began to
wag. She panted happily. She
seemed
okay. It was just those eyes….

“
Something happened to her
when she hit your shield,” said the king.

Dahlia looked up at him in surprise. Again,
she was struck with the beauty of the man. Drop-dead sex appeal was
more like it, from the devil-may-care hair to that five-o’-clock
shadow on his strong chin to those piercing Caribbean blue
eyes.

Wait. She’d seen eyes like that before….

She thought for a moment,
picturing the warlock –
no, he wasn’t a
warlock
– the
man
in the warehouse who had
withstood her spell. But then she shook herself from the reverie
and returned her attention to Bowie. Everything else could wait.
For some reason, she really needed to know the dog would be okay.
“Like what?” she asked. “What could my magic do to her? It was
meant to protect her.”

The king knelt down beside her, again
surprising her. His movement was inherently strong and graceful,
and a scented wave of aftershave, leather and raw power washed over
Dahlia. She tried to steady her breathing, but it was shaking now.
She didn’t dare speak for fear of giving herself away.

“
Well,” he said
thoughtfully, looking from her to the dog, “maybe it
is
protecting
her.”

Dahlia rubbed Bowie’s head, and when the dog
sat down, she rubbed the animal’s chest. “How?”

The king shrugged his broad shoulders.
“Maybe… it’s inside her now. She seems well enough.” He regarded
the dog with his blue, blue eyes. “And she did make it into the
portal.” He looked at Dahlia now. “No one should have been able to
do that.”

Dahlia thought about that. But mention of
the portal brought her to the first thing that was foremost
bothering her at that moment. “Speaking of portals,” she said,
“this one has lasted a little longer than usual.”

The king seemed to freeze. He stared at her
a second, then stood. She watched him rise – he was very tall. “Get
up,” he said.

Dahlia might have bristled
at the command if her instincts hadn’t suddenly pricked to
attention. Something
was
wrong. What had been bothering her had been doing
so for a
reason
.

She stood up. “What’s going on?”

“
Someone has locked us in
the portal,” he told her.