by Bella Klaus
“The Mage King,” I snarled.
“You are a fascinating young creature.” The older man walked into the room, cast a dismissive glance at the battling kings, and continued toward us with a faint smile.
I swallowed hard. He couldn’t be that strong if he had to attack me from behind the door. Roman and Leman were powerful light mages who could combine their magic with fire, and Jonathan was a psychopath with black flames. If the four of us worked together to defeat the Mage King, we could run into the hallway, grab the others, and leave. Once Valentine worked out I was safe, he could transform into mist and fly out through the air vents.
“How did you come into being?” The Mage King stood four feet away from us with his fingers steepled over his chest.
My gaze darted to a huge smear of blood against the far wall, where Valentine had smashed the demons’ bodies. “The usual way,” I said, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice. “When a man really likes a woman, he—”
“Do not mock me,” he snarled, and the edges of his cloak spread across the floor like a puddle of ink. “How does a witch from a mediocre coven produce a being that has been extinct for millennia?”
“You’re the ones who keep implying I’m something special.”
He smirked. “We analyzed the bracelet Captain Zella confiscated from you in the cell.”
“I told you I bought it—”
“From a human peddler in London.” The Mage King tilted his head up and drove a tendril of shadow along the barrier of light, seeming to look for an opening. “We tested the bracelet on another unremarkable Neutral to see if it would transform her into a phoenix. Do you know what we discovered?”
My throat dried. I already knew the answer because I had filled the firestone bracelet with my magic. My power had been so copious that it had overloaded the firestone Valentine and Aunt Arianna had sent and helped me break out of my cell.
The shadows leaching out from the Mage King’s cloak fell away to create a clone of the man, who drew back his fist. I held my breath, hoping the barrier of light would hold, but the shadow clone’s arms reached through the light, grabbed me around the waist, and yanked me across the room.
Before I could take an inward breath, a sphere of shadows snapped closed around my body, encasing me in the dark. I opened my mouth to scream, but my voice echoed across the curved walls. Bloody hell. That creepy guy had probably been pretending to be cautious so he could get close enough to trap me.
I kicked out at the wall with my boot, and my foot bounced off a spongy surface, making me stagger backward and hit the opposite wall. Sweat poured down my brow, and my breath became shallow. If I didn’t find a way out…
A pale, middle-aged face emerged through the darkness, followed by the rest of the Mage King, now clad a slim-fitting white suit that seemed to provide its own illumination. Up close, the man stood about six-foot-six with limbs as spindly as a daddy longlegs.
“At last.” He stared down at me with a broad grin of crooked teeth. “An opportunity for us to become better acquainted.”
I backed into the wall, my hackles rising like a frightened cat. “What do you want?”
“Please remove your cloak, so we may better converse.” He offered me his arm the way a butler might offer to take a guest’s outer garments into the cloakroom.
Ignoring him, I placed a flaming hand on the wall, trying to burn my way to freedom. If he thought he could trick me into removing my only means of protection, he was as deranged as he looked.
“It would seem that my demonic colleague was correct,” muttered the Mage King. “You are the source of the phoenix flames.”
Several heavy fists pounded against the sphere of shadows. I pounded back, hoping we could shatter it with our combined strength. The Mage King continued to stand behind me with his hands on his hips, not seeming to make a move. I focussed every ounce of power into the right fist, urging the granules of firestone in my blood to empty themselves out and give me the magic I needed to get out.
“What a perfectly preserved specimen of a vampire heart,” the man behind me drawled.
I whirled around to find his shadows wrapped around the jar that had been in my pocket, and the Mage King extracting Valentine’s heart from its jar with his long, pale fingers.
Every ounce of blood drained from my face. “What are you doing? That’s mine.”
He tossed the jar aside and bounced the organ in his hand, disrupting the magic flowing in and out of its ventricles. “You did a splendid job with resurrecting my erstwhile colleague as a preternatural, but the enslavement part was lacking in execution.”
“But I didn’t—”
“To make an obedient preternatural, you need to continue to supply it with your blood and magic.” He squeezed the heart between his fingers, making all the magic ooze out. “Now, with the preservation charms gone, this vampire’s heart is ripe to accept the magic of its new master.”
I lurched forward. “Give that back.”
The Mage King raised the heart above my head. “Do you wish to save the vampire you killed?”
“Yes,” I said through clenched teeth. “Give me back Valentine’s heart.”
“Take off your cloak,” he whispered.
“First, return his heart.” I held out my palm.
The Mage King squeezed Valentine’s heart, making my own heart lurch. “I can keep you confined within my shadows and deprive you of food, water, and light until you go mad from deprivation. It’s entirely your choice. Either way, I will have that cloak.”
My nostrils flared. If Valentine managed to acquire the cloak of a reaper, so could he. The Mage King just wanted me defenseless.
“Put Valentine’s heart back in its jar and restore its magic,” I said.
His thin lips curved into a smile. “Very well.”
The jar rose off the ground, as did its transparent base, and the Mage King dropped it in the container with a plop that made my stomach churn. He shook off imaginary sludge from his fingers, and turned to me with his brows raised. “Your turn.”
“Alright.” I placed a hand on the hem of my hood.
The Mage King leaned forward, his eyes wide.
“What do you want from me?” I whispered.
“I wish to take control of you both,” he said, his voice breathy with excitement. The Mage King’s tongue ran along his bottom lip, leaving a trail of moisture glistening in the reflected light of his white suit. “You, I will harvest for your precious flames, and for the various... bodily fluids.”
A shudder ran through my insides. At least the Demon King just wanted to tear out my phoenix soul and keep me as some sort of pet.
“And Valentine?” My fingers closed around the mini scythe.
“With my magic running through his heart, I will rule the wealthiest kingdom within Logris.”
“You’re going to resurrect him with my flames?” I asked.
He shook his head. “A well-fed preternatural vampire is indistinguishable from a supernatural. All I’ll do is fake his resurrection, and everything Valentine owns and holds dominion over will be mine.”
The Mage King wrapped his shadows around my cloak, and they tried to pull the garment off my back but the fabric wouldn’t budge. He bared his teeth and snarled. “I’m a patient man. Even if it takes ninety days of confinement within this sphere to wear down your resolve, I will prevail.”
“Alright then.” I pulled off the hood and shook out my hair. “If you want it, come and get me.”
He paused for several moments, seeming like he couldn’t believe his luck. When I didn’t flinch or pull the hood back up, the Mage King stepped forward, stretching out his hands which trembled with excitement. The way he panted and the way his tongue flickered back and forth against his wretched lips made me think I really did have the soul of a phoenix.
The Mage King’s long hand brushed a strand of hair off my face, sending ripples of disgust down my spine. “You made a wise choice to submit to me, g
irl.”
“Come closer.” I gripped the knife tighter.
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Have you achieved your first burning yet?”
“I have no idea what that is.” I stared into his dark eyes and forced my lips into what I hoped was an innocent smile.
“Sweet, beautiful phoenix,” the Mage King crooned, his minty breath fanning against my face. “I will be your teacher, your mentor, your master.”
My hand shot out, and I stabbed him square in the crotch. “That’s for messing with Valentine’s heart.”
The Mage King dropped to the ground and howled.
“And that’s for thinking you could ever own me.” I drew back my foot, gave him a hard kick in the balls, and plucked the jar from his shadows. This time, I stuffed it inside my cloak, rather than use the insecure external pockets.
Before the Mage King could stumble to his feet, I replaced the hood of my cloak, encasing myself in its protective vacuum. Wrapping my arms around the jar, I tilted my head to the side. “What do you have to say to me now?”
“You will pay for this!”
A shadow wrapped around my middle, raised me off the floor, and threw me against the side of the sphere. I bounced off the wall and fell onto my side, but the reaper’s cloak cushioned most of the impact.
“When I have finished with your body, you’ll beg me for death.” He drove his foot into my gut, but I barely felt the pressure.
Valentine’s roar reverberated through the sphere, making the floor tremble. With an almighty thud, the sphere shattered into several pieces, and bright light stung my eyes. I blinked, trying to focus, and a cold hand grabbed me by the arm and helped me to my feet.
As my vision cleared, I caught sight of the Demon King’s body impaled against the wall by a metal grill, secured by two huge shards of light.
Valentine gripped my head with both hands on the hood of my cloak, and stared at me through milky eyes. His lips parted, but all he could do was croak.
A rush of emotion thickened my throat. He was so devoid of blood that he had lost the ability to speak.
“You failed,” the Demon King roared.
I shot the furious king a nervous glance. Something about the lack of pain in his expression told me he could yank the metal from his gut any time he wanted.
“Not quite.” The Mage King stumbled to his feet with his shadows gathering over his blood-soaked crotch and over his battered white suit. “Valentine, bring me the girl.”
Valentine’s brows drew together, and the hands holding my head tightened until I could feel the pressure of his fingers through my cloak.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Vampire,” the Mage King snapped. “Obey your master and bring me the girl.”
A heartbeat later, Valentine marched me to the middle of the room, where the Mage King stood with his arm outstretched.
My stomach dropped. He’d really taken control of Valentine?
The older man stared down at me with a smug grin. “While I plucked the vampire’s heart from the jar, I took the liberty of replacing its preservation charms with my magic. The preternatural formerly known as Valentine is now my creature. Mine to command, mine to study, and mine to plunder.”
“You can’t just take command of another person,” I snarled.
His lips curled into a cold smile, and he clicked his fingers, indicating for Valentine to hand me over. “I would explain the mechanics of how I achieved it, but with your grades, such an effort would be futile.”
Cold sweat trickled down my back. I tried pulling my arm out of Valentine’s hand as he dragged me toward the Mage King, but his grip was as hard as death. This couldn’t be happening. The Mage King couldn’t control Valentine—he wasn’t even a fire wielder. How could he order Valentine around by sticking his shadows in his heart?
Footsteps charged toward us from behind, and a male scream filled my ears. A baton of black flames sliced straight through Valentine’s forearm, leaving his disembodied hand still clenched around my wrist.
Shock barreled through my insides, making me inhale a noisy gasp. The stench of burned flesh stung my sinuses, and tears filled my eyes. I doubled over and gagged, just as Jonathan wrapped his arms around my middle and tackled me to the ground.
“Now,” he shouted.
The twins leaped on top of us, and flames spread across our bodies.
“No!” The Demon King’s bellow made my ears ring.
“Bring them back,” shouted the Mage King.
My pulse boomed in my ears, muffling the shouts and scuffles. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t even twist around. Everything around me shimmered and the brightly lit office morphed into what felt like a humid cave.
“Bloody hell,” Jonathan muttered from beneath where I lay.
“We did it,” one of the twins said from on top of me through rapid breaths.
“When you boys have finished manhandling my daughter, I would very much like to inspect her magic,” drawled a voice that sounded like Aunt Arianna’s but with a hard edge.
One twin lifted himself off my back, followed by the other, and the pressure around my chest loosened. Jonathan held me in place for a moment before releasing my waist with a sigh. Still clutching the glass jar with my left arm, I balanced on my hand and knees, trying to make sense of what just happened.
Valentine tagged along with us to rescue Aunt Arianna and the other members of our coven, only for it to be a trap set by the Demon King. But the Demon King was only stalling so that the Mage King could take control of Valentine’s heart. I pulled the jar from the depths of my cloak. The heart lay on the transparent base with shadows writhing through its arteries.
“Hemera?” asked a female voice.
I turned to find Gail standing between Coral and Racon, with Clarence at Racon’s side, all four of them staring down at us with varying expressions of relief. Without Valentine in their room stirring up enough wind to extinguish their flames, they must have banded together and escaped long before us.
We were in a cave the size of my apartment, with flaming torches illuminating walls that looked like they’d been carved from the rock using pickaxes. The faint scent of brimstone hung in the air, making me wonder if we were halfway to Hell.
Jonathan wrapped a hand around my arm and helped me to my feet.
A red-haired woman stepped out from behind Clarence and Racon. She wore denim jeans with a white turtleneck, looking like Aunt Arianna in a foul mood. She folded her arms over her chest and pursed her lips.
My jaw dropped. “Mother?”
END OF BOOK TWO
READ BOOK THREE
Also by Bella Klaus
Abducted: A Hades and Persephone Dark Romance
I had a one-night stand with the devil. Now he thinks I’m his wife.
I snuck into a masquerade ball and did something reckless with a man dressed as Hades. How was I supposed to know it wasn’t a costume?
When I ran off, I thought that was the end of it. But he’s abducted me to a beautiful palace in hell…
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Night of the Vampire King
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READ BOOK TWO
Night of the Vampire King
Join Bella’s mailing list for a free copy of Night of the Vampire King, a Blood Fire Saga story featuring more of Mera and Valentine!
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READ BOOK TWO
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