“No,” she squeaked.
The elevator slowed rapidly and the doors dinged once more. Someone had called it to the fifth floor. I’m getting off here, she thought. I’ll take the stairs the rest of the way up. She had to get away from the man at her back. His presence felt hard and hot, like a blacksmith’s forge. She was playing with fire.
Open faster! she mentally screamed as she watched the space between the doors open at a snail’s pace. Time had literally slowed down. She was sure of it.
She looked up, her gaze refocusing on the hallway beyond the doors. And just as suddenly as they’d begun to open, she wanted them to close again. Three men and one woman, all dressed in what looked like the same dark blue, almost-black suit were moving down the hallway toward her. A fifth suit was standing beside the doors, his finger on the elevator button.
She knew instantly who and what they were. They found me, she thought.
That was fast.
“Close the doors!” she cried.
But her gorgeous companion was already moving, stepping around her like a shadow. He placed his hands on the sides of the elevator doors and pressed them inward, pulling them impossibly against their mechanisms. The doors made a grinding sound. There was a cranking and a whine, and the man out in the hall with his finger on the button suddenly snapped into action.
“Stop!” he demanded, but of course no one ever would.
Don’t stop, Addie thought crazily as instinct forced her to step back and retreat to the far corner of the elevator. Don’t stop!
The handsome stranger’s strength was unnatural. When the doors were nearly shut, the agent in the hall pulled a gun from a shoulder holster beneath his suit jacket and shoved it hastily through the remaining opening. The stranger released the doors, moving like rapid fire. He grabbed the man’s hand with one tight grip, and yanked the agent forward so hard and fast that the man’s face hit the metal, and his head snapped back. The stranger released the agent’s wrist and took the weapon from his fingers as the man fell unconscious to the floor.
Her companion stepped back as the elevator doors closed.
“Are you still certain there’s nothing I can do to help you?” the stranger calmly asked without even glancing at her. He held the gun down at his side and used his other hand to run his room card through the card reader, pressing the button for the top floor of the hotel. It was the floor with the presidential suite.
Addie put her face in her hands and tried to think. Her life was a 5,000 piece puzzle that someone had just knocked off the table. The picture was broken now, scattered and chaotic. She’d be lucky to find all the pieces, much less put herself back together.
“I don’t know!” she shouted through her hands. It came out muffled, but she couldn’t have cared less. It was all happening too fast. It was too much.
She couldn’t think!
“Right,” came his simple, still calm reply. She peeked through a gap in her fingers to see him pull a cell phone from a pocket in his tailored suit. He did it gracefully, like a man taking charge.
You’re an idiot, her brain told her.
But her cheeks grew warm, and her belly hot, and longing snaked through her fast and unexpected, and she internally swore.
I’m losing my marbles.
“Andros, we’ve got unwanted guests. Get in touch with D’Angelo and let him know we’re coming in hot,” he spoke into the phone. He looked up with those silver eyes at the numbers flashing slowly across the floor monitor. Silver! His eyes were no longer gray, but melted mercury silver! She’d never seen anything so stunning!
“So you saw them too,” he said into the phone. “They’re here for her. We have more of a mess to clean than we thought.”
Say what? her brain chirped.
His eyes remained trained on the slowly changing floor numbers. “We aren’t moving fast enough,” he muttered next, not really speaking into the phone, but thinking out loud. Addie watched him in silent fascination. What else was she supposed to do? At the moment, she was as useful as a slightly low IQ toddler fresh from a nap.
At the thought of toddlers, Addie pictured babies. Then she pictured kittens. And then she pictured puppies – and that made her think of Hastings, who was still alone, helpless, and injured in her suite on the seventh floor.
Oh no!
She looked at the floor display and noticed they passed floor seven and kept on rising. And the feds are probably on that floor already anyway, she thought hopelessly. Hell, they were probably already in her room. Did they have Hastings?
No, she thought. She couldn’t handle that. For some reason, despite the asinine insanity of the situation and the fact that her life had just been flushed down the proverbial toilet, it was the thought of Hastings in someone else’s less-than-caring hands that was going to do her in.
As panic started to set in and her heart rate went into overdrive and her breathing became too rapid and her fingers and toes began to go numb, the stranger’s eyes turned on her.
And those eyes… Jesus, she thought. They were hard. Hard and sharp. They reminded her of the folded sword blade just after the blacksmith pulled it from the flames and drove it into his bucket of water. They were the memory of hellfire and the power of a swift killing blade.
Then they began to glow.
“Sit down,” he commanded.
Addie fell back on her rump.
“Bend your knees and breathe.”
But Addie was already doing so. And even as she drew in deep air and slowly blew it out, she couldn’t look away. Those glowing silver eyes held her gaze as if with chains.
I’m seeing things. Maybe I’m going to faint. Maybe I’m dying.
As if in sharp contrast to the illumination of his eyes, his entire form seemed to darken there in that elevator. The light faded and the shadows lengthened. The stranger seemed to grow taller. He appeared to get bigger. And there were edges to him now, like thorns, scales, fangs and claws.
Her thoughts gave a helpless and surrendering sigh.
Addie’s will gave out and she let her head drop to her knees. The world was turning upside down as above her, the stranger reached out one dark hand and touched the elevator wall. The huge metal box suddenly shot upward with tremendous force. Addie was glad she was already on the floor, because she was absolutely certain they would break through the ceiling and eject into the stratosphere like Willie Wonka’s Great Glass Elevator.
Chapter Twelve
Nicholas watched his queen with keen care. He could sense everything about her, nearly hear her thoughts. They were written across her sweet face: fear, confusion, panic, worry for someone she loved. He could even sense that. And ridiculously, it made him jealous.
He was already on the edge and knew he would need to utilize what magic he’d thus far gained, but that envy forced his instincts and his eyes heated up. He looked inward to find the magic that was now returning to him at a faster-than-usual rate. The power was there, buried deep, dark and ancient. He melded with it as usual, then pulled it into the material world, forcing the elevator into hyper-drive. He had a general plan, but they needed to move very quickly. There was an entire nation to deal with in this case.
He could feel Adelaide’s fear around him, fueling him like oxygen to a fire. She was on the edge, and he couldn’t blame her one bit. He ordered her to sit down, not only because she needed to, but because he knew the elevator was about to shoot upward. He ordered her to breathe, and this command he laced with power, because breathing during a panic attack was a hell of a lot harder to do than to say.
Breathe, he whispered into her mind as he spoke the word aloud. Slow and deep, in and out. She had a mind like a steel safe, but she did as he said, so somehow his request sank in. Either that, or she was simply smart enough to do it on her own. She rested on the floor of the elevator, bracing herself against its rapid ascent, and slowly inhaled and exhaled.
Nick’s head spun with the weight of the situation. If he’d ever been i
n a position where he had a lot of explaining to do to a lot of people, this was it. Hell was sure to freeze over before he was finished talking.
The elevator hit the top floor, and Nicholas slowed its descent just enough before it stopped. He then shoved the doors wide open with the same magic.
Adelaide looked up at them as they each hit their encasements and sparks went flying. Just as rapidly, Nicholas allowed the Nightmare in him to recede, returning fully to his human form. Silence stretched beyond the doors, punctuated by Adelaide’s ragged breaths.
Nick stepped toward her. The absolute bewilderment on her beautiful face was painful for him to behold. “Come with me,” he told her softly, though he could feel time pressing in, and that pressure did lace the edges of his words. He slowly knelt before her and took a chance, curling his finger beneath her chin to turn her face toward him.
She was soft, firm, un-giving, yet yielding.
“I know this seems insane, believe me I do,” he told her. It was the truth. He could feel her confusion like it was his own. A few seconds. That was all it had been, and already he was connected to her.
There was a split personality sensation within him now: One, he was filled with hope and joy – here she was, so close, and so linked. Two, he was furious – there were people looking for her, people who would most likely do terrible things to her if they got their hands on her. Three, he was jealous – the Challenger had already played his cards for her. And four, he was terrified – she was only human.
She was human. Not a fae, not a vampire, not an Akyri, not a Wisher, but a human. Every once in a long while, a human came along who was like a diamond. Stronger than any metal or stone, as brilliant as the center of a sun, beautiful beyond compare. But they were still human, so strike just right, and that person would shatter beyond repair. Precious yet fragile.
Adelaide’s acorn brown eyes fixed on his, and Nick felt a churning in his gut. He wanted to say her name, but she hadn’t given it to him, and that would only add to her confusion. “Listen,” he said, cupping her cheek with his hand. She was so soft, and a heat passed from her and into him at the contact. He repressed the urge to run his thumb over her flushed, full lips… it was hard for him to focus. “You have to trust me,” he told her, reining in the monster that wanted free again already. “I only want to help you, I swear it.” The monster in him raised a disbelieving eyebrow. He ignored it.
I don’t even know you, Adelaide’s eyes told his. And this can’t be real anyway.
Time ticked more loudly, the hands of the universal clock bringing danger closer with every second. The world was pressing on them. This moment here was so sacred, so special, and he was being robbed of it. For that reason, he wanted to destroy the world and everyone else in it. But that was the Nightmare in him, throwing its weight around.
He made a command decision. “Okay. I understand,” he said, letting his hand slide from her face to drop to his side as he slowly rose to his feet once more. “But try to look at it this way. What choice do you really have at the moment?” There was no cruelty in his tone. He was simply being honest. She had no choice but to trust him. If she didn’t, he was going to pick her up, carry her out of there, and tie her up until all of this was over.
“Please come with me. I can help you get out of this mess.” He offered her his hand – and waited, watching her face carefully as she clearly weighed her options. He knew full well she wasn’t entirely immersed in the belief that any of what was happening was real. She half expected herself to be asleep or crazy or dead. But shit kept happening. The dream wasn’t coming to an end, and she wasn’t fading into the ghosts of Thanatos’s realm. Whether she was crazy or not, she was stuck in an elevator with a strange man and the government of her country was out to get her.
She must have come to the same conclusions, because she closed her eyes, swallowed hard, and raised her hand, placing it gently in his.
Once more, his Nightmare lifted its head. The feel of her hand in his was empowering. There were a hundred things he could think of doing with her in that moment, and not a single one of them was what he actually needed to do. So he told the Nightmare to settle the fuck down and led Addie out of the elevator into the lobby of the presidential suite.
Andros and Minnaea were already there. No doubt, when he’d called them, they’d immediately gone somewhere unoccupied and opened a portal directly into the hotel room.
They looked at him, and then looked at her, and he could tell they didn’t know exactly what to say about it.
“Where are we headed, boss?” Andros asked, switching out “Your Majesty” for “boss” probably for Adelaide’s benefit.
Nick pulled his phone from his pocket again. The first thing they needed to do was contact D’Angelo and fill him and the other Kings in. But they also needed to move to some place safer. “Back to the realm. I don’t think there’s anywhere on the planet Adelaide can go at the moment without being followed or found.”
Minnaea’s eyes grew wide. She looked from Nicholas to Adelaide, and the color drained a little from her face. Andros became very silent. Nick looked down at Adelaide just as she was pulling her hand from his.
Crap, he thought. I messed up.
She stepped back from him. “How do you know my name?” she asked, her voice shaking but strong. Then it raised an octave. “And what realm? What are you?”
Nicholas felt the floor drop out a little from beneath his feet.
Adelaide looked from him to his Preceptors. “Who the hell are you people?”
“Adelaide Lane,” said Minnaea, in her most reasonable tone, “the truth is we know quite a bit about you, but there is a very good and non-threatening reason for this.” She took a step toward Addie, and Adelaide’s diamond strength showed through when she didn’t step back but maintained her ground.
Minnaea went on. “We truly are here to help you,” she said calmly and matter-of-factly. “You’re in trouble and nothing makes sense to you right now. But we can fix all of that.” She cocked her head a little to one side and added, “You’re psychic. Surely you can sense we mean you no harm.”
What Nick sensed was that every word Minnaea said was laced with power. She was trying to pull the same trick on Addie that he had in the elevator. But no doubt, she was also coming up against the same road block of impenetrableness that he had. Because time continued to knock off its seconds, stringing them together into precious minutes.
What seemed like an eternity later, Adelaide stood a little straighter, rolled her shoulders back, and lifted her chin, narrowing her striking gaze. “Okay,” she started, licking her lips tentatively. “There is more in heaven and earth….”
“Than is dreamt of in your philosophy,” said all three of the Nightmares in the room. They spoke in perfect tandem, and Nicholas couldn’t help but smile.
Adelaide blinked, her brow furrowed, and then, miraculously, she seemed to relax a little – just a little. “If you mean what you say and you want to help me, then do this for me,” she said.
Every fiber of Nicholas’s body and mind were focused on Addie to the point of pain. Anything, he thought desperately. He would do anything for her. And that she would give him the chance to prove as much was frankly glorious.
“What is it?” he asked.
Addie curled her hands into fists and then extended her fingers again as if summoning up nerve. “Help me get my dog out of my suite downstairs. He’s in room 713. He’s injured and he’s been through too much.” She swallowed and licked her lips once more. “Help me get him out safely and….”
All three Nightmares watched her intently, like devils waiting for Faust to tell them what they wanted to hear.
“And I’ll go with you,” she said finally. Then, with tentative resignation, she added, “wherever it is you’re planning to go.”
Feeling like the wolf who’d just successfully cornered his prey, Nicholas lifted his phone to his ear, all the while watching his future queen like a hawk. She w
atched him right back. Clearly she’d decided he was the most dangerous one in the room. And there was more brave in her than anything else.
The phone rang once and picked up. “Roman, it’s me…. Get Kris and the others together. We need to meet right away. And… I’m bringing someone with me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Roman D’Angelo pulled his phone from his inner suit pocket with record speed. Kristopher’s gaze narrowed on the Vampire King. He watched his expression, and when Roman’s eyes focused back on him, Kris knew who was on the other end of the line.
He’d been waiting seven months for this call – they all had. “It’s about time,” D’Angelo muttered as he glanced sidelong at his bride, Evie. Her eyes widened, and her expression became hopeful. She glanced at Kris and the others.
The room grew quiet to allow the Vampire King to hear, though that was probably unnecessary. He could hear a mouse squeak in a house next door.
There were three other couples in the room with D’Angelo and his wife. Kristopher and his Queen, Poppy, the Phantom King and Queen, and the Goblin King and Queen were nestled in different areas around the library of Roman’s mansion, watching D’Angelo silently. They, specifically, were here for good reason. All three kings had awoken that day with a feeling. Well, okay, they’d all awoken from exceptionally erotic dreams. And that had Hesperos written all over it.
Though the Nightmare King had not always been one of the Thirteen at the Table, he had indeed always been a king. Always. He was created for the role, wired for it so to speak. As long as there had been men and women of any race, fae or human, there had been the “monsters” who’d fed upon their sexuality. These were the Incubi, known to their peers as Nightmares.
These Nightmares had a single king. That king would be reborn again and again upon destruction, and his reign would continue. When Hesperos became one of the Thirteen, it was decided that with the mess involving the Traitor, an extra precaution would be wise. Just in case.
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