The Dragon King

by Heather Killough-Walden

  He gazed steadily at her, unable to look away, unwilling to look away. She was agonizing, stunning, standing there in complete surrender to her own natural beauty. Her snow white hair had been disheveled in their power play, and it flowed around her like a shimmering, frozen water fall. Her lips and cheeks were flushed with anger, her large eyes shining like the clearest, deepest purple amethysts. He’d had an effect on her, so strong she couldn’t deny it. She thought he’d cast a spell? Did she not know? Could she not see that it was so much more basic than that? How could she deny this?

  He wanted to wrap his hands around her throat, gently tilt her back, rip the clothes from her body, and….

  May the gods help him.

  The gums around his fangs pricked and ached along with the rest of him. He touched the teeth with his tongue and willed himself to keep his mouth shut. He couldn’t bear to make Eva any more afraid of him than she already was. He knew he must have appeared frightening.

  He felt like fucking and then killing.

  He ran a stiff hand through his pitch black hair and tried to ignore the way she was shaking. She wanted to be so very strong, but her world was being turned upside down.

  “Tell me!” she demanded, using her words to mask her weakness. “Tell me what you’ve done to me, you son of a bitch.”

  “Absolutely nothing,” the Dragon King said, his eyes still very much on fire. He could feel them in his head, burning from the inside out. Fury was joining the need in his veins, quickly matching it in measure, and the latter was just as difficult to bear as the former. “But your mind is clearly made up, Eva. And at the moment I’ve no further desire to argue with you.”

  Screw your brains out, yes. Argue, no.

  He turned away from her and strode to the kitchen again. Once there, he opened the refrigerator door, pulled out a bottle of beer, and twisted the non-twist cap off with his bare hand. Then he proceeded to down the entire thing, willing the liquid inside to numb the worst of his pain, the worst of the burning that was destroying his will and resolve.

  He slammed the empty bottle down on the marble counter top just hard enough that it didn’t break, then pulled out a second one. He was half way through this second beer when he heard her speak up again behind him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He stopped mid-gulp and his eyes flew open. Slowly he lowered the beer, swallowed what remained in his mouth, and turned to face her.

  She was as tiny as ever, wrapped in her own arms, her brow furrowed, her lips trembling. She nervously looked down, a muscle in her face twitched, and she looked back up again. “I’m… I’m sorry that Arach is after me. And I’m sorry for accusing you,” she told him. Her voice shook with so much awkward emotion, it was adorable.

  He was stunned. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been stunned before. This was new to him, and Calidum found it caught him way off guard.

  “I just don’t know what to think,” she said helplessly, softly, and with a voice on the verge of a breakdown. It ripped at him as sure as claws would have, far more powerful than a bellow, more disabling than a physical attack.

  Then and there, quite unexpectedly and in the face of this new power, all Calidum wanted to do was hold her. He wanted to lay her head gently on his chest, feel her silken strands of hair through his fingers as he caressed her to comfort, and whisper to her that it was going to be okay.

  Everything is going to be okay.

  But he wasn’t sure it was going to be okay. And she would have pulled away from him anyway. There were too many walls between them, built brick by brick by the passage of years and on a foundation of inescapable trauma.

  So he swallowed with difficulty past the massive lump that had formed in his throat and thought very hard, very fast. He said, “I need to speak with Roman D’Angelo. He needs to know about Arach and Amunet.” His voice was tight, strained. His body still ached. “I was going to suggest that you stay here….”

  It was the safest place for her, perhaps the one location Arach couldn’t breach. “But I think it might be better if you accompany me.” He put down the half-empty second beer and swallowed again. “We’ll talk to him together.”

  You’re insane, you daft bastard, his mind reprimanded. He’ll come for her for sure. What man wouldn’t? But he couldn’t keep her a prisoner in his home in his absence. And she shouldn’t be alone, not now. But more importantly, and decidedly, he needed to be near her. Leaving her alone just then was literally the very last thing in the world that Calidum wanted to do.

  “But…” she hesitated, and he could read her thoughts. They were one word: Arach.

  His right fist clenched. He was going to rip that fucker’s lungs out and use them as balloons at his next birthday party. But she was right.

  He thought some more, and with the same speed. Finally he realized what he had to do. He needed to bring one or all of the other twelve kings here.

  Impossible, his mind scoffed. It drained you enough just getting the two of you here. It takes the strength of a Legendary to breach these barriers. Or something even stronger.

  He studied Eva carefully, thoroughly, noting the way her eyelashes made shadows on her cheeks they were so long. The way her pelvic bone could be seen peeking just above the waistband of her jeans, beyond tempting. The way her ash-white hair was so long it brushed her waist, even touching that exposed bit of flesh –

  Shit, he suddenly thought. Her hair.

  He realized he’d forgotten something very important, and it was her white hair that reminded him. Because what Eva didn’t know was that her hair wasn’t supposed to be white. Her mother had changed it before she was born. She’d had her reasons. Her mother was powerful enough to do it. Her mother was powerful enough, even, to perhaps help him get twelve monumentous kings across several dimensional barriers.

  Once safe from the trio of bad guys they were facing, they could plan, practice, and prepare to end the hell they’d unleashed before it destroyed the planet altogether. It would buy them time. And time was what they very much needed right now.

  “I don’t want to leave you alone,” he told Eva. You have no idea, he thought. “But you’re right. You can’t afford to abandon the safety of this dimension.” He strode toward her, but stopped a good two feet away, giving her space. He was still uncertain. Not so much of her reaction – but of his will.

  She looked up at him with luminous lavender eyes, and his chest literally ached. He wondered which heart it was that was breaking just then. “I’m going to head back for a very short while,” he told her, “to find someone.”

  He started to turn away when her voice stopped him cold. “Calidum,” she said, using the name he had grown accustomed to. He met her gaze. Unintentionally, he read her thoughts.

  Don’t let him leave, she told herself. Not yet. She still needed to know – about her father. For Eva, nothing had changed. The drop of confusing information he’d given her had only served to further muddy the waters of her past, and he knew it.

  At the moment they were safe from Arach – or so Calidum hoped. There might not be another time; she may not have another chance, and this particular nightmare had haunted her for the entirety of her life. In truth, he could have easily read these thoughts across her face. There was no need to enter her mind.

  So he waited for her to ask him the question he’d known was coming since he’d seen her in the mall in San Francisco, and he willed himself the strength to answer it.

  “If you didn’t kill my father,” she said quietly, “then who did?”

  Calidum closed his eyes and licked his lips. The information fought with him, wanted to stay buried. This was going to be harder than he’d thought.

  “Please,” she continued. “For the love of the gods,” she added, her words speeding up, her tone becoming anxious. “After all this time, you must have some idea of how badly I need to know.” She obviously tried to steady herself, but urgency still pushed each word past her teeth. He could hear them chattering. “So
just tell me. If you have nothing to hide, then… why can’t you just tell me?”

  Cal opened his eyes. When he did, he felt the red in them. Their fire had gone from grayscale to the hue of blood, like the fire of a failing star, filled with radiant emotion. If his chest had ached before, it was positively mutilating itself now. The air around them was once more charged, but this time not with danger. It was simply emotion. Hard and strong. And he couldn’t tell which of them was doing it more.

  Across the room, he saw her throat work. She swallowed, no doubt wondering if she was prepared for what she must know was coming.

  “I didn’t kill your father, Eva,” he said slowly, softly, and with solemn gravity. “Because your father is still alive.”

  A beat of space, of pure emptiness that nature meant to cushion a traumatic blow, passed between them all too quickly. And then Calidum’s words slammed into her like a Mac Truck; she literally took a stumbling step backward.

  But her breathtaking eyes remained locked on the Dragon King.

  “What did you say?” she whispered.

  Calidum again steeled himself. Then he repeated, “I said your father is still alive, Eva.”

  She slowly shook her head. He could tell she was going numb. “I… saw him die.”

  “No you didn’t. You saw the Great White die,” he told her. “And I didn’t kill him either.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Eva moved through the endless halls of the mansion as if she were moving through a palace instead. A lost princess, wandering slowly. Or a ghost of a lost princess, maybe. Yes, she thought. That more accurately suited her current frame of mind.

  She turned the knob of a room she hadn’t yet entered, and opened it to find herself staring into what could only have been the master suite. A four-poster king-sized bed complete with draperies and a canopy rested at the center of one wall of the room. Wardrobes, dressers, vanities, and plush seating lay about the room in strategic organization, all beautifully appointed. The ceiling here, as in the rest of the mansion, was very high, and it had been painted and decorated with a scene of the night sky.

  Eva stepped past the threshold. At once, an inviting hearth at one end of the room burst to life with warm, welcoming flames. The crackling was comforting. But there was a wall of turmoil around her mind and her heart that no amount of pleasant ambience could penetrate.

  She moved further into the room and caught sight of her reflection passing in a beautiful gold-framed mirror. She turned and approached the mirror. “You look like hell, Eva,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse. There was a darkness under her eyes that she’d never seen before. She looked haunted.

  “Wait until I’ve had my fun with you.”

  A shadow passed over her reflection, making it appear as if the real world and the world beyond the mirror were separate, and night was falling in the latter one. Eva stepped back. She recognized the voice at once.

  She’d had tons of food, most of it loaded with sugar. She had gobs of power waiting to be used. She could have used some sleep, yes. She absolutely could have used some peace of mind. But she was more than capable of putting up a fight if she needed to.

  And it looked like she did.

  The shadows in the mirror grew longer and darker, until they blotted out the scenery entirely, and Eva found herself staring into a pool of inky black. She moved further back – and further. Until she was standing across the room, her hands were aching with readied magic, and there was a glow around her of stored power waiting to be released like a bomb.

  She waited, her heart hammering so hard it literally hurt, her head flushing with the swish-swish of blood moving through her eardrums. Finally, a boot appeared, then a leg, followed by an entire tall, strong body.

  Arach stepped from the mirror into the room as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He wore all black and a fanged smile, his emerald eyes glittering with something Eva would akin to madness, though his composure was utterly and terrifyingly calm.

  Don’t bother asking how, she told herself firmly. Just be strong.

  “I’m in no mood, Arach,” Eva quipped shortly. And it was true. Right now, she felt like she could take the top off the planet, scoop out the magma inside, and drink it. She felt just numb enough that it might not hurt. And just numb enough that she didn’t really care either way.

  Arach stopped once he was in the room, and looked around. “Trite,” he said simply. “I would have expected something more original from Calidum.” Then he turned back to Eva and fixed her with a knowing gaze. “Or should I say Korridum?”

  “I don’t care what the fuck you call him, Arach. As long as you do it from another dimension. This one’s taken.” Her hands literally sparked, filling the room with the sound of zapping electricity. But the sparks were purple-black, like ultraviolet lightbulbs on the verge of exploding.

  Arach’s smile turned lecherous. “Taken…” he said softly as he began to pace toward her. “Now, that is a beautiful word, isn’t it?”

  Eva didn’t wait any longer. What was the point? She’d always hated those scenes in movies where the good guy tried to apprehend the bad guy rather than just blowing his brains out when he had the chance. So that was what she tried to do now.

  With all of her intent and every amount of focus she could muster, she used her loathing and general bad mood as a bow string to sling-shot her power out of her body. It released with tremendous force. At once, the fire in the hearth exploded into purple flame and roared out of the fire place as if someone had poured water on a grease fire. It climbed so high, it looked like an upside-down waterfall of flames and reached the ceiling twenty feet above their heads. The draperies on the four-poster bed caught fire. The rug caught fire.

  The mirror shattered.

  Dark, swirling, and glittering magic formed between Eva and the Traitor, spinning majestically into a conical beam of deadly energy that arrowed its way across the room, directly aimed for Arach’s broad chest.

  *****

  You actually breached a dimensional barrier?

  The question was coming from Damon Chroi, the Goblin King, and it was coming through a fuzzy, static-radio-like mental communication that was being forced across invisible walls the likes of which the living world had yet to even ponder. As the “banished” of the Tuath Fae due to his immense power, Calidum figured Chroi was perhaps the one king amongst the Thirteen who might actually receive the message Calidum was sending. He was right.

  It wasn’t a perfect communication, but it would suffice.

  Yes, Calidum responded. He then gave Chroi quick, succinct instructions, followed by the vital reminder that William Balthazar Solan was not the Traitor. Anything more convoluted would not only complicated matters, it would interrupt Calidum’s concentration, and right now he needed to focus. Crossing the dark, anti-matter void that existed between universes was not an easy feat. Few could accomplish it. He was barely one of them.

  Damon Chroi seemed to intrinsically understand this, because he didn’t argue or question what Calidum was telling him. He simply said “Understood, and by the way Mimi’s doing fine. The triplets have taken a liking to her.” He then disconnected their communication.

  Cal was relieved to hear Mimi was taking things in stride. But he was nearing the end of his dark, strange voyage and preparing to open a second portal into the more familiar dimension when the exit spell was cut off with a wave of evil. It washed over him like an actual tidal wave, but as bad as a tidal wave is, this wave wasn’t nearly as pleasant.

  The sensation of evil is difficult to describe. He’d once heard it described as “dipping your body in a vat of mold and vomit, cold and clammy, that stunk of someone else’s mistakes.” It was about the closest Calidum had ever heard to someone putting it in accurate terms. Those had been Mimi’s words. She was an astute little dragon.

  And that was what Cal felt right now. It was a succinctly nasty sensation, sticky and wrong, and it coated his spirit to the point that
just for just a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

  There was movement behind him. He could sense it just as easily as he sensed the evil. He spun, releasing a bolt of magic without thinking. There was no time to think. If there had been, he might not have done so, since using magic other than what it took to travel while in the void portal was risky.

  But it didn’t matter. There was nothing there. The bolt of his magic was dark and smoky, and to any human looking on, it would have appeared that something suddenly exploded, coughing forth a cloud of death amidst a shower of shrapnel that they would have no idea consisted of pure, hardened magic. Even that fizzled and vanished in record time, leaving him once more alone in the dark portal.

  Laughter, low and horrifying echoed through the air and rattled off the invisible walls of the tunnel that transported him through space that didn’t really exist. Suddenly, he felt he was losing his mind.

  Eva.

  He realized it like a kick in the nuts. Oh gods, he thought. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

  At once, he was turning around in the portal and attempting to re-direct it. It was like trying to stop and re-direct a train. It wasn’t just the engine you had to stop, but the forward momentum of every attached car behind it. It was impossible in the real world. But this was magic. And he was strong.

  And something had happened to Eva.

  Calidum had just managed to gather the strength he would need to bring the directional force of the void portal to a halt and turn it around when, of all things, his phone chimed to let him know he’d received a text.

  He blinked, surprised. Well and truly surprised. For one thing, there was no way in the nine hells he could get cell phone reception between dimensions. For another, he’d forgotten he even had the damn thing in the inside pocket of his leather jacket.

  For some reason – for some insane, nonsensical, and asinine reason – he reached into his pocket and took out the phone. There was a message from “unknown.” It was a picture that needed to download.

  The Dragon King stood in the dark void of the dimensional portal pulsing around him, ready to be turned around, and clicked on the download tab. It raced through the download process with lightning speed, and an image appeared on the screen.