The Shifter King (The Kings Book 10)

by Heather Killough-Walden

  But he was feeling mean. “Oh?” he asked softly, letting the cold of his tone reach the ice-blue of his eye.

  But Walker wasn’t baited. He just kept talking. “You know it, and I know it, and it’s time everyone else did too. So either you come clean with the others or I will. As it is, most of them think I’m the traitor. They can tell I don’t belong. I feel like the square mixed in with the circles in that ‘One of these things doesn’t belong’ routine from Sesame Street. They just don’t know how I don’t belong.” Walker moved around Jack and glanced across the street at the small rectangular building with a single car in its parking lot. “She’s in there, isn’t she?”

  “One of the Hunters got ahold of her. Bullet wound. She’s sleeping now.”

  Walker turned back to face him again. “Exactly how long have you been out here listening in?”

  “Since the guardian brought her here.”

  “She has a guardian? Those stories are true?”

  Jack sighed. “It’s her best friend.” He shook his head. “No wonder her mind was so difficult to manipulate.”

  Now Walker crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “You fucked with the guardian’s mind. You really know how to dig yourself a hole, don’t you, Colt?”

  Jack’s temper was beginning to spike. He felt like shit. His narrow escape from the Entity had left him drained, his worry over Samantha had left his nerves pricked to the point of pain, and the bastard asshole son of a bitch who’d been in charge of the attack was still out there. Along with his pet warlock.

  Jack rolled up his left sleeve, exposing the tattoo he’d used earlier. “Not here,” he said curtly, referring to their current conversation and everything it meant. Like lightning, he reached out to grab Walker by his shirt front with that same arm. The Shifter didn’t have time to react before Jack touched the tattoo with his free hand. The marking began to glow and the world shifted around them.

  Within moments, the two were deposited abruptly in Jack’s apartment living room in downtown Chicago, where he none-too-gently released the Shifter King and went directly to the kitchen. “So how do you think I should handle this?” he asked over his shoulder as Walker caught his footing and Jack prayed there was beer in the fridge. “Should I take your place at the next meeting of the Thirteen and say, ‘Sorry about the last two decades of deception, but I’m really your king?’”

  “Something like that,” came a slightly strangled voice from the other room. “Except I told you they aren’t having meetings anymore. Not with us.”

  Walker was referring to the Vampire King’s decision to no longer hold meetings involving any of the Kings who hadn’t yet found their queens. It was a move of some desperation as the number of possible suspects dwindled.

  “But you gotta do it eventually, Colt. Tell D’Angelo. Now’s as good a time as any, if not better than most.”

  Jack searched the inside of the fridge. “When she’s mine, Walk. We’ve been over this.” Thank the gods, he thought as he spied half a six-pack remaining in the very back behind a Tupperware filled with leftover... something. He grabbed two of the bottles and slammed the fridge shut before making his way back to the living room. “You know my reasons.” He held one of the beers out for the other shifter.

  Walker looked from him to the beer, hesitated just a second or two, and then swiped the cold bottle from Jack’s outstretched hand. “Well you found her, didn’t you? She’s in your hometown, for Christ’s sake. So what are you waiting for? It’s like you’re dragging your feet or something.”

  Walker’s tone was one of distinct irritation, and Jack had a feeling it had more to do with the tensions running through the Thirteen Kings and Walker’s awkward place in the midst of it all than it did the rough handling Jack had just shown him.

  Walker popped the top off his beer with inhuman strength and downed half the bottle without stopping.

  “She hasn’t been ready,” said Jack. Until now, he thought as he recalled their exchanged looks while she flew high over the city and lightning creased the sky. There had been knowledge in those glowing eyes of hers. She knew damned well who she was. She knew damned well who he was. And in her heart of hearts, Jack knew she had to accept that they belonged together…

  Didn’t she?

  Jack’s chest ached suddenly, and he almost touched it with his fingers, but managed to refrain from doing so.

  Walker lowered his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes bored into Jack’s for a bit before he said, “Look. You originally gave up your seat at the Table because you knew that taking a place there would make you immortal. It does that to everyone. It’s a fringe benefit of ruling an entire species of creatures, and one I’m sure the Demon King, though born human, will soon become aware of. You told me you didn’t want to be such a young king, and you definitely didn’t want to be stuck as an adolescent forever while the magishifter continued to age.”

  True. It was all true. Twenty-five years ago, he’d become aware that he what he was, and one of the Thirteen Kings had come to him to ask him to take his place at the Table. That single king was aware that Jack Colton was the very special, very rare shifter that he was. The others at the Table were clueless. Unfortunately, that single king also happened to be one of the few remaining that were under suspicion as the traitor.

  Twenty-five years ago, Jack had been given a choice: Become king or go and search for the magishifter. Jack had been young and full of hormones, perhaps more than others because he’d been a shifter, and not just any shifter – the doppel. So he’d told the other king he wasn’t ready. He told him he would get someone else to take his place until he was. And that was what he did.

  Then he began looking for the magishifter with vigor. Five years and something like twenty moves into it, he finally found her. And he’d been trying to find her again for the last two torturous decades.

  He refused to take the throne without her by his side. He wanted them to grow up together, grow old together, rule forever together. Okay, not grow old maybe, because Walker was right. Once you took your place at the Table of the Thirteen, aging stopped. A king who died while inhabiting one of those sacred seats died of unnatural causes. Which did happen.

  It wasn’t an easy job.

  Aaaand that was probably why Darius Walker was now in Jack’s living room, begging him to take the job back. “Well you found her, Jack. And you and I both know in our guts that this is the end of the road. It’s here and it’s now or it’s never. So I’m done. It’s your turn.”

  Jack took a deep breath and let it out in a heavy, but resolute sigh. He closed his eyes. He considered his next words very, very carefully. Because Walker was right. It was time. In fact, he’d come to that decision before Walker had even shown up outside the ER in California. That was why he’d said, “She hasn’t been ready.” She hadn’t – until now. Now she was, whether she realized it or not.

  But he didn’t have a chance to say his words anyway.

  “Look, I get it,” said Walker suddenly. Jack opened his eyes. “You know,” he went on as he put down his now-empty bottle on Jack’s coffee table and stole the bottle out of Jack’s hand. “You’re unlike any guy out there, I swear.” He took a quick swig of Jack’s beer and shook his head. “For most adolescent males,” he said, “marriage is pretty much the last thing on their minds when it comes to girls. But with you, it was the first.” He took another drink, and this time it was several swallows before he finally lowered the bottle, licked his lips, and went on.

  “I don’t know… maybe it’s the doppel in you. I have no idea because you’re the first one I’ve ever dealt with. But maybe the legends are true. Maybe she really is your soulmate and maybe you’re….” He shook his head again and pursed his lips as he clearly tried to think of the right phrase. “Maybe you’re incomplete without her and have been from the beginning. So again, I get it. But also again, I’m done with this, Jack. There’s blood in the water and every man at that
Table is a goddamn shark. You’re more equipped to handle the shit that is going down than I am, and it’s high time they all learn the truth anyway. With the Entity sniffing at their door, they will need to know where they stand with the Shifter King.”

  “I agree.”

  “And they’ll need time to adjust to you being there –” Walker had started in on another reason why he felt Jack needed to take the crown of Shifter King from him, but he stopped mid-sentence when he realized Jack wasn’t arguing. “You what?”

  “I said I agree. And I would have said so earlier, but you clearly needed to blow off some steam.”

  Walker just stared at him, so Jack crossed his arms over his chest and explained. “It’s time to end this,” he said. “But the Entity is after Sam now. He attacked me on the shore of Lake Michigan and he’s going after her next.”

  Walker’s eyebrows hit the ceiling and his face paled.

  Jack went on. “There’s a Hunter warlock out there and his boss no doubt has his sights set on Sam as well, especially after that display downtown. The shit is hitting the fan, Walker. I’m going to need your help. And the boys’ too.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Raven’s aunt followed her out of the private patient room, closing the door behind them, and motioned for Raven to enter the break room, where Janet moved directly to the coffee pot. “You wanna tell me who the magi is running from?” she asked as she took the pot off the machine and reached for a mug from an overhead cupboard.

  Raven sighed. She was wondering when her aunt was going to ask that. Any kind of search on Samantha’s personal information would have pulled up the fact that she’d been missing for twenty years. “This guy….” Raven hedged. “He’s a shifter.”

  Her aunt’s brows raised. “Crazy?”

  Raven thought about that. There were a lot of words you could use to describe Jack Colton: driven, dangerous, drop-dead-sexy. Her own brows raised now, as that thought passed through her mind. Okay, she thought. I admit it. The man is gorgeous. But he’s after my best friend, so it doesn’t matter worth beans. But of all the terms one could come up with for Colton, “crazy” just wasn’t one of them.

  When a psychopath stalked a person, they didn’t care who they hurt to get to that person. Often, there was a trail in their wake, a trail of destruction. And in the case of stupid psychopaths, there was at least one of sloppiness. There was nothing like that with Colton. He created no pain, no tragedy. He simply… didn’t give up.

  “No, not crazy exactly,” Raven said slowly. “More like…” Like what? She couldn’t put her finger on it. It was as if the man had one goal in life, one empty space to fill, one basic, primal need. And that need was Samantha. If he’d wanted to hurt her, he had a thousand chances to do so. Especially now – they were in the same city and he knew where she lived. But there was no indication that he wanted to hurt her. None at all. In fact, if she’d had to make a guess, she could have sworn the man wanted the opposite.

  She had this feeling about him – a feeling like… if Sam was in danger and he could protect her, he would. He would.

  “I don’t know,” Raven finally admitted. “I really don’t.” She shrugged. “He’s the doppelshifter. And I wonder sometimes if he’s after her because of the legends. Because they’re true after all and he can’t help it. Sam thinks he wants revenge because she took his eye out twenty years ago, but I don’t think so. Aunt Jan, does the doppelshifter always go after the magi in every generation?” If anyone would know, a former guardian would.

  She had taken a seat at the table in the room and was pulling off her jacket when she realized that her aunt hadn’t answered her. In fact, Janet had stopped moving. There was no sound in the room. The entire world was standing still, and she felt as if it were looking at her too.

  “What?” Raven asked softly, her eyes wide.

  Janet was standing where she’d taken the cup down from the cupboard, only she hadn’t set it down. She seemed frozen, her eyes the size of Easter eggs, her face pale. “Did you say… he was the doppelshifter?” she asked quietly. Her voice had lowered to a few decibels above a whisper, and now that Raven was looking closely, she could see her aunt’s hand trembling slightly around the mug she was gripping.

  “Um, yeah? Why?” she asked, utterly baffled.

  Janet Ely blinked. Then she blinked several times, and straightened. She seemed to compose herself just enough to set down her mug, and then she said, “Raven, the doppelshifter isn’t real. What makes you say this man is… is him?” Her voice cracked at the end, and Raven sat up in her seat. She’d never felt more conspicuous, more on the spot, or more revelatory.

  “Well… he just is. He can become anything, any animal. And… ever since Sam started running from him, he’s done things. Like,” she shook her head, shrugging, “like controlled minds. He even got into mine,” she admitted shamefully. “Luckily, the talking white cat that appeared in my apartment and led me to Sam by pointing to her location on a map on my computer after the Hunters attacked her in a candy store made me aware of his influence and that seemed to break it.”

  Now it was Raven’s turn to blink. Because once she said all of that out loud, she realized how preposterous it sounded. Actually it sounded a little like an acid trip. Or a Simpson’s episode. And she wondered suddenly if her aunt was going to ask her for a urine sample.

  “Whoa…” whispered Janet. Raven tensed. But her aunt ran a hand through her short red hair and took a deep breath. “You’d best just start from the beginning, Raven. And don’t leave anything out.” She sat down in the chair opposite her at the round table.

  “Okaaay,” Raven said. “But… if the doppel isn’t actually real, then what’s with the legend that talks about him and the magishifter and how they’re two halves of the same soul?”

  Janet shook her head. “To be honest? If you’re right, and the guy is the genuine article, then I’m thinking maybe we’ve had it wrong all along.” She splayed her hands. “I’m thinking it isn’t a legend at all.” She took a moment and chewed her lip before she said in a voice filled with wonder, “I’m thinking it’s actually a prophecy.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  I have to get out of here.

  It was the same string of words that had been running distant and muted through her head for what felt like days. Probably it was just hours, but that was how time felt when insipid medications ran rampant through your blood stream, dragging you down through the veil-like floor of consciousness and into the darkness beneath. She’d been fighting it. She’d been telling herself over and over again that she needed to climb back out, grab hold of something stable, and rise above the muck of sleep. She needed to wake up.

  She needed to get out of there. She was a sitting duck in that ER room. Hunters were out there, and just when Sam was beginning to double think Jack Colton’s motives in hunting her all this time, what does she see? Colton – standing amidst the chaos of Hunters. What else could she believe now? He’d been right outside that candy shop. They were after her and he was in charge.

  It made no sense to her, deep in her heart, that this was the case. Hunters felt shifters were devils. They wanted them dead at any cost. If Colton were a Hunter, wouldn’t he have destroyed her years ago?

  For some reason, it just didn’t click. And all of her doubt and all of her confusion was disconcerting and slightly nauseating. Or perhaps that was the medication.

  Get… UP! Sam commanded herself, stern and out of patience. She wanted to scream and she vowed she would never, ever allow anyone to put drugs into her system again. She hated the feeling of being out of control. I need control.

  A blurry slit of vision sliced through the darkness and she knew she had one eye open. She pushed it further from the inside, using nothing but sheer will to force it open wider. Little by little, she made headway, and the room around her came into view. The claws of sleep reached up and grasped at her, but she gritted her teeth and rose above them until she was literally sitti
ng up in the hospital bed.

  She was alone in the room. She left me alone! she thought, perhaps unreasonably. But she was already mad at Raven. If she really had been her guardian all this time, wasn’t she at least supposed to guard Sam? Especially when Sam was helpless?

  Her anger helped fuel her, helped burn a bit of the poison from her blood. She moved her covers aside and yanked every last needle and wire out of her right arm. When she did so, she caught a glimpse of bandage half-way down her right bicep and she shoved her hospital gown up to get a look at her shoulder.

  White bandages had been wrapped neatly over her shoulder and under her arm, with a spot of red at their center where the bullet had entered. It was better than she’d thought it would be. She was healing quickly. Good, she thought. Good. At least there was that.

  With new determination, she threw off her obligatory blue hospital covers and slipped out of the bed, thanking her lucky stars that she hadn’t been hooked up to any kind of monitor. This emergency room was nicer than many; rather than stall-like spaces partitioned off with blue curtains, there were actual rooms for the patients, complete with doors. At least, she was in a room with a working door.

  She made her way to the door and placed her ear against it to listen. She closed her eyes, honing her senses. The noises from the other side clarified and separated, becoming the sounds of a coffee pot percolating, a machine beeping steadily, a front door chime ringing, and a few people discussing insurance cards and copays.

  A wave of dizziness struck her as if she’d actually been standing in the tide, and she closed her eyes to lean against the door. Breathe, she thought. Just breathe through it. Shift and it’ll get easier.

  All her life shifting into other forms had helped focus her thoughts, helped hone her senses and clear her mind. But doing so now might rip open the wound that had been stitched in her shoulder. Okay, don’t do that. She needed to get out as a human this time.

  She turned back to scan the opposite side of the room. There was one window, normal sized, but she was betting it wasn’t the kind you could open. On a chair beside the window however, were her clothes. She went to the chair and unfolded them, taking a look. They were still damp and they didn’t smell dryer fresh, but at first glance, they looked normal. First glance was good enough.