The Warlock King (The Kings) (25 page)

Further and further, he invaded, deeper and deeper – and Chloe knew what it meant to be taken by a king when he settled in all the way, opening her up like she had never been opened before.

Mine
, he told her again, deepening the kiss. He held her firmly down and pulled against her, easing out of her hot, tight, and wet warmth with wanton intent.

Chloe cried out
, the sound swallowed up by Jason’s forceful kiss as he drove back into her, slightly harder than before. His grip on her wrists tightened and he broke the kiss to nip at her neck as he did it again, pitilessly withdrawing and driving back into her with increased force.

Chloe’s pleasured scream filled the master’s chamber
. The fire in the hearth roared in tandem with their passion.

Jason rose above her, looked her in the eyes, and spread her arms wide, bracing himself. The look said it all.
He established an undeniable dominance in that moment. And he delivered a warning.

She was about to get burned.

He’d been gentle with her before now. He’d been just firm enough to remind her of what he was capable. But she knew. She’d known all along. There was a reason she was as attracted to him as she always had been.

It was not the gentleman in Jason that she wanted right now.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, Jason’s eyes flashed. He smiled – just enough.

Then he
pulled almost completely out of her before ramming his entire length back into her tightness with everything he had. His dark magic gripped her, pressing in on her clitoris to rip a kind of pain-filled bliss from her with exacting brutality.

Sta
rs exploded in Chloe’s vision. Her scream echoed off the walls. An instant of orgasm whipped through her, barbed and hard and aching and magnificent.

But he gave her no time to recover
from it or draw it out, instead pulling out of her and shoving back in with the same relentless strength and driving need as before. Another explosion dotted her vision, drawing a second scream from her throat.

My new favorite sound
, his deep telepathic voice taunted as he withdrew a third time and drove in with untamed ferocity. New pain rippled through her, coupled with new, impossible pleasure. She was drifting on a cloud above some Machiavellian, Elysian plane.

Jason took her harder – he took her faster. He placed both of her wrists in one strong grip and she felt him torturing her tender breast, squeezing hard enough to hurt, brushing just softly enough to tease, pinching enough to make her bite her lip.

His mouth crashed down upon hers again, once more demanding that she open to him another way, his tongue delving deep, his magic coaxing her to the point of oblivion.

Again and again, he thrust into her deepest depths…

A
nd then there it was, that moment when her feet were no longer on the precipice. She’d been shoved over and was falling. Wave after wave of cataclysmic climax fluxed through her system, setting off fireworks in her blood. The orgasm acted like a catalyst, and Chloe screamed at the tops of her lungs as her magic rose, rippled out of her, and poured out over her lover just as she came around him physically.

Jason threw back his head, his deep voice joining her
s as it reverberated off the walls. His black magic melded with hers, swirling around it, dancing with it like a lover, rising with it toward the ceiling in a column of perfect bonding.

The obsidian statue burst into a display of shimmering fragments that spanned outward, froze in place, and re-coalesced into a statue once more.
The fire in the hearth exploded outward, roaring like a mighty beast, and then curled in on itself in a rainbow of colors and light. Lightning shattered the sky outside, splitting it open in rivulets of sizzling electricity.

Chloe’s body pulsed. Her spirit soared.

The different magics of the Warlock King and Queen embraced one another – and then slowly retreated, sinking back into their respective bodies, filling them once more with the powers of night and starlight.

Chloe opened her eyes. Jason lowered his head. Their gazes held.

They said nothing to each other. There was no need.

Without a word, Jason released Chloe’s wrists and
lay down beside her, pulling her heated, glowing body against his.

With a tenderness no one would have thought possible of him, the king placed a single, loving
kiss to her forehead and wrapped his arms around her.

Chapter Thirty
-One

“They are called ‘ka,’” said Lalura.

She was breaking a shared silence in which she and Roman had been contemplating everything that had happened that night. Roman didn’t say anything, knowing she would elaborate.

“The copies,” she went on, “are the ‘ka.’
The
ka
is the darker part of the soul, you might say. The opposite of a conscience.”

“The doppelgangers you mean, then.”

Lalura nodded. “This is a bigger mess than we thought it was,” she admitted, lowering her teacup and wincing slightly. The wounds she’d sustained from her copy – or
ka’s
– spell casting still stung a little. They were healed, but Lalura was both old and powerful, which meant that the spells she’d cast on herself had been of the worst kind and also that her own ancient body would heal the least quickly.

Roman
was worried about her. He was worried about them all. He released a slow, deep breath. “I know. It might behoove us to enlist young Katherine Dare’s help in training our kings and queens in a more military form of combat,” he suggested. They’d done well all in all, mainly due to the queens’ assistance, and had even managed to destroy two of the ka. But every extra tool utilized to sharpen whatever edge they had would help.

“
I won’t argue that,” agreed Lalura. “And the question of Ramses Amon’s whereabouts is once more of priority,” she added.

Roman nodded.

“However… I don’t think Kamon succeeded in his task tonight,” said Lalura.

“What do you mean?”

“Something feels off, to be sure,” she said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but some grave wrong was committed. Just not where Chloe Septeran is concerned.”

“He drained her
power and left her nearly dead,” said Roman.

Lalura’s blue eyes twinkled. “Did he? Or did he drain
Jason’s
power from her?”

Roman considered that. “She is an Akyri. She would only ever possess a warlock’s power within her.”

Lalura shook her head, looking for all the world like Miss Marple as she was about to close out a case. “I beg to differ. In fact, I would wager that right about now, Chloe Septeran is looking and feeling more like herself than she has in a very, very long time.”

It took a few seconds for Roman to mull that one over. Finally, he said, “You mean to tell me that the astral plane restored her?
Fully
?”

Lalura’s eyes only twinkled at him over the rim of her
teacup as she took another sip.

Roman allowed himself a spear of hope at the thought. If Chloe’s magic was safe
from Kamon after all, that would put them further ahead of the enemy than they’d believed.

It’s something
, Roman thought.

Dannai’s twins were safe
as well. It occurred to him that if Kamon had wanted a bargaining chip, going after the little ones would have been ideal. But he hadn’t…
yet
. Either the protective medallions Ramses had placed upon them were doing their jobs – or Kamon felt something for the children.

They were family, after all. And blood was thick.

“Do you suppose Ramses Amon’ disappearance might have something to do with the twins?” he asked, brainstorming out loud.

“I consider
ed it,” said Lalura. “The protective medallions they wear are unlike anything I have ever felt. They are inordinately powerful.”

I
t was something else to think about.

After a few moments, Roman’s mind wandered back to his wife. As it always did.
“I never should have made Evie come to the meeting,” he said softly, splaying his hand across the table top between himself and Lalura.

She quietly waited for him to go on.

“She looked stricken after the fight,” he said. “Hollow, almost. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “She’s never taken a life.” He looked up, meeting Lalura’s incredibly blue gaze. “She may write about it every day, but it’s quite a different story when not read from the pages of a book.”

Roman thought of the way Evie had looked after the fight. The two of them had managed to hit Roman’s double from either side. They moved so fast, they blurred. Roman and his enemy were neck and neck.
And in an act of life or death self-preservation, Evie had reached around from behind the double and used her claws to open his throat.

A heartbeat later, Roman finished the job, taking the man’s head completely off. His burning gaze remained locked on his enemy’s fallen form as it transformed, turning into a pile of sand that eventually lifted away on some unfelt breeze.

Then he’d turned back to his bride. Her eyes had stopped glowing. Her fangs had receded. She seemed…
different
.

Lalura
was silent for a long moment. Then she took a deep breath and said, “One thing I have noticed about sensitive souls is that they appear to be fragile. They break down crying at the sight of a dead cat on the side of the road. They can’t stand the thought of killing spiders – and rightly so.” She sat back in her chair. “A sensitive soul steers clear of bad news, depressing movies, and books with sad endings because they feel the pain of the souls suffering these tragedies – they feel it as if it were their own.”

Roman frowned. When Lalura paused for several long seconds, he said, “I agree, but what does this have to do with the battle and Evie?”

Lalura smiled indulgently. “Anyone who is anyone knows that in order to get good at something, you must practice, Roman. Guitarists put in hours every day to learn their licks and runs. Dancers stay
en pointe
until their feet bleed. And Evie?” She leaned forward once more, placing her hands on the table. One was still red and healing. “Evie has been practicing for hardship since the day she was born. She’s practiced every time she’s sensed another being’s pain or anguish, every time she’s felt another’s loss or fear.”

She paused here and leaned back once more, sighing heavily
. “The bone that has been broken the most is the strongest.”

Roman digested this,
feeling bewildered. Lalura was not only the high witch due to her power. She was a very wise woman.

“And in the field of tragedy and trauma,”
Lalura finished, “young Evie D’Angelo is an expert.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Everything had happened so fast, Evie was still catching her breath when the vampires flanked her and the torches burst to life along the walls. She was dizzy from the transport, sickened by the destruction she had just taken part in, and terror was rippling through her like nausea on her nerve endings.

She swayed – just a bit – and one of the vampires steadied her with a hand on her arm.
She closed her eyes, trying to focus.

She had just been standing beside her husband. She had just killed
a man.

She had
watched him fall and was stepping back behind her husband, in need of his shielding form, when she’d suddenly been yanked viciously through time and space. She didn’t even have time to take a breath, much less scream. It was a transportation spell unlike any other, devoid of swirling dimensions, devoid of warning. It was instantaneous.

And now she was here. Again, she swayed. Her legs wouldn’t seem to work right. Again, the men beside her steadied her.

She put her hands over her face. It was hot against her cool fingers. She needed to regain control.
Breathe, Evie
, she told herself.
Just breathe. It’s no different from a panic attack,
she tried to convince herself, even though deep down she knew it was as different as two things could possibly be. A panic attack wouldn’t kill you.

But death pushed in on her from every side now.

Just breathe.

She did.

And then she did some more.

Then, w
ith a force of will she had never realized she’d possessed and had hoped she would never have need of, Evie managed to steady herself and open her eyes.

As
she did, she felt herself come into focus. She felt stronger and sharper. Maybe she was just high on adrenaline. Maybe it was the Vampire Queen in her.

Or maybe it was
Evie.

“Welcome,
Evelynne D’Angelo,” came a deep beautiful voice that was slightly familiar. Evie looked up toward the throne that sat atop a raised dais before her. A hooded figure sat upon the massive stone chair. Only his red eyes glowed from beneath the hood.