The Phantom King (The Kings)

by Heather Killough-Walden

  He was unduly impressed. He was also feeling more ardent, hot-tempered, restless, and hungry than he could ever remember feeling.

  He closed his eyes, calling out to the Anime of his realm. It was a very big realm. If she knew she was capable of it, the warlock could have transported anywhere within it. The Anime were his eyes and ears across the vast expanse of Purgatory. They had helped him to locate Roman D’Angelo’s enemy in the neighboring astral plane several months ago – and they would help him find his own queen now.

  *****

  She’d donned a shield of invisibility, and as she crouched behind Thane’s house, the only standing structure in what felt like a thousand miles, she couldn’t see her own arms or denim-covered legs. She leaned against the back door of the building in silence, wondering how much further she would have had to go to get to win this game. Where was this finish line he insisted she would know? She strongly suspected that he’d been referring to the edge of his realm. And she also suspected that only Thanatos could find such a thing.

  He’d set her up to lose.

  But she’d never been one to shy from a challenge, and she had put up quite a fight. Now she was without options it would seem. And as she felt a weakness steal over her, she realized that she was also out of magic. She had done everything from transform her motorcycle to transform the very ground several times. She’d turned herself invisible, formed a doppelganger in her image, and transported back to Thane’s home. She had never in her life used so much power all at once, and she still hadn’t recovered from the bit she’d cast at the Phantom King when they’d first met.

  She felt strange now, lighter even. As she considered the way she felt, she found herself lowering her forehead to her knees and closing her eyes. It wasn’t a bad feeling, just different. Considering the circumstances, it was also a bit alarming. She wondered whether she would turn out to be like a car battery. Some of them couldn’t be recharged when they were drained completely. That last bit of sucked-out juice signaled the end of their power for good.

  Was that going to happen to her? Would she ever get her magic back?

  Siobhan….

  Siobhan’s head snapped up. The night was empty in front of her. The desert ground and star-studded indigo sky stretched on to the horizon.

  Siobhan….

  She blinked, slowly coming to her feet. The name had been spoken so softly, she’d barely heard it the first time. Now it was a touch louder, but still a whisper.

  “Yes?” she asked hesitantly.

  The air rippled in front of her, taking on the familiar cast of an Anime. The thin, translucent image of a spirit appeared, a little girl of no more than ten years of age. Her clothes were of a different era, perhaps the 1920’s. She had blue eyes and blonde braids, and her worn leather boots faded into nothing where they hovered above the ground.

  He’s coming, said the Anime.

  Siobhan’s heart thudded once against her ribcage.

  The Anime laughed, the sound like a hollow echo of something that was once quite lovely. He wanted us to find you, but I would rather warn you. It’s a fun game!

  Siobhan gasped as the door behind her suddenly swung inward and she lost her balance. “I just bet it is,” came a deep, male voice from behind her. She squealed as she went falling backward and was caught in the firm grip of two very strong arms.

  A pair of lips lowered to her ear and she felt hot breath fan out across her neck. “Caught you,” Thane said, sending rivulets of pleasure coursing through Siobhan’s body.

  Thane raised his head then and addressed the Anime. “Nice try, Cassidy, but you led me right to her.”

  The Anime Cassidy seemed truly put out. She crossed her arms over her chest, scowled at the Phantom King, and then faded away into nothingness once more. Thane chuckled and returned his attention to the captive in his grasp.

  “I won.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Siobhan clutched to the arm he held around her in sudden uncertainty as the world wavered around them, the house disappeared, and the only solid thing in the universe was the tall, hard body pressed up against her back. Her breath caught in her throat when the night sky seemed to blur into hyperspace around her. It was like watching a laser light show, and it was dizzying enough that a part of her wanted to close her eyes.

  But the rest of her was fascinated, and Thane’s solid form gave her enough courage to keep watching as he literally moved space and time around them.

  When it began to slow down again, Siobhan could feel that they were somewhere else – somewhere very else, as in not in the same realm. The ground was still solid beneath her feet and still devoid of vegetation, but the night sky seemed closer, the planets larger.

  Thane slowly released Siobhan as she gazed up at it. Rings circled a planet that looked like Saturn, but was painted blue and pink and orange. The stars looked like big holes punched in a black velvet blanket, they were so bright. Smaller, closer lights zigged and zagged across the sky like comets, leaving trails of stardust in their wake. Everything seemed in motion, animated like a massive mobile above a child’s crib.

  Siobhan stared up at it in awe.

  “This is the astral plane,” Thane said as he slowly moved around her, drawing her attention inexorably back to him. “The cosmos are closer here, though it makes no physical sense. But then,” he added softly as he stepped in front and then turned to face her. “Magic rarely does.”

  He stood tall before her, a rock of a man in black, all rough and tumble and so much more. His tattoos had changed again, now vividly colorful and as vibrant as a lit up rainbow. Swirls of ocean and space painted his well-muscled arms and peeked out from the collar around his neck. His eyes were different now as well. There seemed to be motes of color swirling within their silver depths, as if to reflect the stars and planets above. They were mesmerizing, and as he reached up to cup the side of her face, Siobhan felt hypnotized.

  Her breath caught and held. Her heart danced. His touch was feather-soft and heart-wrenchingly tender, as if to defy the strength of the man touching her.

  I’m lost, she thought as he leaned in, the darkness and charisma of the Phantom King blocking out the rest of the magnificent multiverse. When his mouth touched hers, it was with the faintest brush, and tiny fireworks of feeling crackled across her lips. He lingered, for the slightest of moments, like a stallion waiting at the gates before charging.

  And then his hand slid to the back of her head and fisted in her hair. He deepened the kiss, moving in like an animal, hungry and desperate. Siobhan melted as he opened her up, pressing deep. His kiss bruised her lips and buckled her knees, but a second strong arm around her waist held her aloft, trapping her in a heated embrace.

  He probed her mouth, drinking it in as if he were possessed by an unquenchable thirst, and she felt the razor-sharp tips of his fangs prick her tongue. She gasped, the sensation both frightening and tantalizing. Instinct forced her to try to pull away, but his grip on her hair tightened and she lost her balance, falling.

  She gasped against his lips as he fell with her. With a soft cry of surprise that his kiss simply swallowed up, she landed upon something soft. He pulled away from her then, to gaze down at her through glowing, lust-filled eyes. “A deal is a deal,” he said, his deep voice rasping with harsh desire.

  Siobhan was puzzled. Her mind felt addled, her body on fire. In a daze, she glanced at what she’d landed on. It was a bed – the same bed that had been in his bedroom only hours ago. But now it was here in the middle of an empty astral plane beneath a brilliant Galileo sky.

  She had just enough time to process this and what it meant before the arm Thane had around her waist lifted her much smaller body up on the bed and slid her toward the middle. Once he had her where he wanted her, he rose up and ripped his black t-shirt over his head to toss it away with stark impatience.

  Siobhan watched the muscles of his strong body ripple as he did this, taking in the broad expanse of his smooth, tanned
chest and the narrow, perfect beauty of his waist where it disappeared into his jeans. Vibrant ink curled in intricate designs over his incredible shoulders and around the unbelievable peaks of his biceps. Something was written in another language across the taut skin of his abdomen, and she became lost in the design where it rose and fell over each and every well-developed ridge. She could have stared at him forever.

  But he gave her mere seconds before he was looming over her once more, his mouth capturing hers. With unwavering persistence, he pressed her into the bed beneath her, his heavier body easing over hers like a barely-controlled beast. The scent of masculine soap and leather wafted over Siobhan, making her feel drunk. She closed her eyes and failed to suppress a moan when she felt one of his hands gently encircle her throat in the ultimate show of tender domination. He was taking control. He would never hurt her, but the predatory threat was still there, flooding her system with aphrodisiac-like adrenaline.

  When he released her, she was almost sorry – until his hand slid quickly down the front of her shirt to its hem and grasped it firmly. Her eyes flew open when he rose, shoved his other arm under her again, and lifted her, simultaneously pulling her thin top right over her head. She lifted her arms to make it easier for him, and because she couldn’t even think clearly to deny him at all.

  He was right. A deal was a deal. And she was almost delirious with need as he unclasped her bra and slowly eased its straps down over her shoulders. The thin lace material dropped, now useless, into her lap. Thane picked it up, smiled a terribly evil full-fanged smile, and tucked the tiny thing into the back pocket of his jeans, all the while never taking his eyes off of hers.

  She felt like she should protest, and out of show, she took a breath to say something when his finger pressed to her lips and his eyes flashing in warning. Gently, but resolutely, he lowered her back down onto the bed and pinned her there for a moment before he sat back to look at her.

  His eyes burned a silver trail of lust across her flesh, scorching her as if he could brand her with his gaze. And that’s what she felt he was doing – branding her as his. The thought sent her heart into overdrive. She watched in helpless, hungry fascination as he lodged his knee firmly between her bent legs. The intimacy of the action sent blood rushing up her neck and a blush into her nipples, despite the jeans she still wore. A breeze kissed her flesh, cooling it a bit before his molten gaze warmed it again. He leaned over her close enough to once more whisper in her ear.

  “You have the body of a queen,” he told her, sending hot breath across her skin. She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip and closed her eyes, turning her head to the side so that he couldn’t see what he was doing to her. But then his lips were on her throat, kissing gently… suckling… nipping….

  She remembered just what kind of teeth he had and almost cried out when she felt them graze along the flesh above her pulsing vein.

  “Tell me something little warlock,” he said as he moved lower, trailing those dangerous teeth along her collarbone and sending more heat to every throbbing part of her body. “Are you wet?” he asked.

  Oh my God! she thought. There was no way she was going to answer that.

  A heartbeat later, those teeth scraped across the top of her taut nipple and painful pleasure arced across her body, sending more moisture into her already damp panties.

  “Yes!” she cried, unable to stop herself.

  “I believe you,” he said, amusement and triumph both lacing his dark tone. “But I think I’ll see for myself anyway.”

  With that, the jeans she was wearing one moment were gone in the next. Just gone. A warm breeze brushed her now naked legs and she jumped in surprise, trying at once to rise.

  His hand was at her throat again, this time to press her back down into the bed beneath her. His eyes locked with hers as he held her, a reminder that he was the one in control, that he had won the bet.

  And that he would be taking what was rightfully his.

  His knee was already between her legs, opening her up to him, and Siobhan had never felt more wantonly vulnerable in her life. Her hands came around his wrist where he held her, her nails curling into the strong muscle of his forearm.

  His other hand cupped her breast as he held her gaze, and his thumb slowly brushed across her flushed nipple. She sucked in a breath and arched her back as he did it again. Then he leaned in, hovering over her like a big, black cat and held the sensitive little bud between two fingers, squeezing gently.

  When the pressure increased, sending more pain-pleasure shooting down her body between her legs, Siobhan frowned, bit her lip hard, and tried to turn her head away.

  “You’re so beautiful,” the Phantom King rasped as his lips brushed her cheek, then her temple, and then the curve of her throat beneath her ear. He released her tender nipple to slide his hand down across her ribcage and the gentle swell of her belly before dipping into the dark red curls between her legs. Now Siobhan’s eyes flew open wide and, as if he knew she would begin struggling anew, his hand tightened around her throat, waylaying any thoughts of escape.

  She froze as his legs held her open and his hand relentlessly descended through her soft curls to the ever-so-moist cleft between her legs. The brush of his fingers across her slick opening made her buck in his grip. It was electric and fevered and as he delved deeper inside of her, completely undeterred, she soaked his fingers with her need.

  “And honest,” he whispered, the sound something between a guttural chuckle of pure evil and a pain-filled sound of unbelievable yearning.

  Suddenly, his hand was gone from her throat, and the fingers he’d plunged into her wetness were removed, and both hands were on her thighs, pressing them open as he reared up like a snake about to strike.

  Siobhan gazed up at him in wonder, shock, and absolute abandon. Her fingers curled into the sheets beneath her, clutching them tight as if the world would throw her off if she let go. The Phantom King was now completely unclothed, and the moon and stars shed a tempting glow across his incredible body. She could see all of him now. Everything.

  And when she felt the hard, hot brand of his member pressing against her opening, she rose to meet him, her delirious mind completely blank but for one all-encompassing desire. She wanted to feel him inside of her, his incredible size filling her up in a way she’d never imagined possible. She wanted it so badly, it was literally driving her insane.

  She’d wanted it since the moment he’d turned to face her in her doorway. Since he’d stepped into her house and shut the door behind him. Since he’d straddled the front wheel of her motorcycle. She’d wanted it forever.

  Thane lowered his hard body over hers, bracing a strong arm on the bed on each side of her, and Siobhan released the sheets to press her palms into the sculpted rock of his chest. Her nails dug deep, her body tensed, and her eyes were caught and held by his as he drove slowly into her, breaching the walls of her female defenses and claiming her as his.

  Animal need inflamed her, forcing her up off of the bed to thrust him deeper within her. He stretched her tight and filled her up, heating her from the inside like a furnace. Rivulets of lightning pleasure snaked up from her clitoris as his body pressed against it, stimulating it from both inside and out.

  The stars swayed above them, and comets streamed across the sky while he moved within her. It was a delicious almost-pain, a frenzied kind of pleasure that left her crying out and gasping for air as she gazed through half-closed lids at the topsy-turvy night.

  Siobhan screamed and arched against his chest, her breasts crushed beneath him as he began to thrust into her faster, driving deeper, inciting a rising need that dragged Siobhan closer and closer to that precipice.

  The Phantom King’s beast was unrestrained, the animal within him taking over, and she knew it would shove her right off of that cliff. She would go tumbling end over end into oblivion, crying out her thanks to the gods the whole way down.

  His lips were on hers again, bruising, biting, edging her o
n toward madness. He released her from the kiss, his lips trailing again to her jaw and then to her throat. Siobhan could barely register thought.

  He kissed the vein in her neck, then poised there, breathless, as he drove into her like a jackhammer. “I have to taste you,” he growled with the deep, lust-maddened voice of a demon. The gentleness was long gone.

  She could not think. There was no comprehension – and no disquiet. Whatever he wanted, he could have. “Take it,” she gasped, not even knowing what she was giving away. Take it all, she thought. It’s yours. My God, it’s all yours.

  She felt his hand firmly grasp her chin and turn her head to fully expose the throat he’d been kissing, but his cock was so hard and so deep, she was mindless.

  The first prick against her throat furrowed her brow – but then, as his wicked sharp fangs slowly began to sink their full length into her taut neck and the vein beneath, she understood.

  Her hands flew to his arms to find purchase. Fear thrummed through her. She waited for the pain, for the death that would surely come with someone opening up such a major artery.

  But he was relentless; he sank his teeth in to the hilt and went still, holding himself there within her. There was no pain. In the stillness, as his cock waited in subjugation inside of her and his teeth claimed her throat, Siobhan could hear the ragged course of her breathing. Her heart hammered, her body throbbed, and that precipice loomed ever nearer.

  He waited. Pressing in, sinking so deep.

  And waited.

  And when Siobhan thought she would rip out her own heart if she he didn’t allow her to climax soon, she felt him pull back from between her legs…. And then ram fully into her as he pulled against her throat, taking her life-giving blood and swallowing it down.

  The sensation was indescribable, and it buzzed through her, that electrifying little death that kicked her over the edge and sent her flying.