The Vampire King

by Heather Killough-Walden

  Chapter Ten

  Evie hugged the steaming cup between her hands and watched the vapor rise from the hot tea inside. The fire in the small fire place crackled merrily. The air was just as perfect in here as it had been outside in the cavern, but it was scented like cinnamon and cloves and fresh baked bread.

  She felt calm.

  It made very little sense. She knew she should have been crying hysterically or maybe jabbering like a hyena and rocking back and forth on the ground. She’d fallen down a freaking rabbit hole. The cavern outside was literal proof.

  But despite conventional psychology, the truth was, after Roman had brought her to the cave and showed her that what he claimed was actually fact… Evie’s heart rate began to slow. She felt her lungs opening up a little more. Her mind stopped spinning.

  For lack of a better description, it felt like something inside of Evie began to slide into place. And now as she sat at the small polished wooden dining table and Roman served her hot tea and bread with butter, she was hearing it click.

  It felt almost like a high. It was similar to the way it felt when you’d suffered a vast amount of pain and suddenly the pain killers kicked in and the pain was gone and you were tired and thankful and filled with peace.

  That was how she felt, despite everything he’d told her over the last hour or so. He’d told her that he’d been dreaming about her, that a very old and respectable witch had foretold her existence, and that there was something… different about Evie. He couldn’t tell her exactly what that different thing was, but it set her as apart from other humans as his own “difference” did him.

  Evie was dubious about that. Roman D’Angelo was a freaking vampire. How much more different could you get?

  “Evie,” Roman said softly. Just as it had every time he’d spoken, his incredible voice gave her an almost physical feeling of sexual pleasure.

  She steeled herself, turned slightly on the wooden bench, and looked up at him. Christ, she thought witlessly. It didn’t get any better the more times she looked at him. Roman was quite literally the most handsome man she had ever seen. That gaze, she thought. It’s Michael Fassbender plus Richard Armitage times a bazillion. He’d taken off his sports jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white button-up shirt. The effect was mind-blowing.

  “May I join you?” he asked. Evie hesitated. It was the same thing he’d asked her at the coffee shop… where the Hunters had attacked.

  The Hunters, she thought, her brow furrowing. The memory of the shots fired and the windows shattering was enough to take her mind temporarily off of Roman’s incredible good looks.

  Temporarily.

  “I might not be reading your mind,” Roman told her, “but I’ve lived a long time.” He smiled a damnably beautiful smile and Evie melted there on the bench. “I can tell what you’re thinking all the same.” He paused, allowing the double entendre to simmer – not that it had to. “There is much we need to discuss, not the least of which is the Hunters.”

  Evie swallowed, cleared her throat, and said “It’s your house.” She nodded toward the bench opposite her own.

  Roman sat down. She watched him over the rim of her mug while trying her best to hide her blush behind it. It didn’t work, of course, and the effort of trying to digest the current mind-boggling situation, not go whacko, and play it somewhat cool around the first member of the undead she’d ever met was giving Evie the beginnings of a migraine.

  “Your head hurts.”

  Evie blinked. “You are reading my mind.”

  He laughed, the sound so fucking delicious, she almost put down her mug to enjoy it. But somehow she managed to remain absolutely still.

  “I promise I’m not,” he insisted softly. “I told you that I couldn’t. It’s one of the reasons I know you are different, Evie.” He paused, looked down at the table, and placed his hands atop it to casually lace his fingers together. He leaned in, causing his forearms to bulge with powerful muscle, and Evie’s throat went dry. He was so much bigger than her.

  He was still looking down when we went on. “You’re an author, so I know that you spend a lot of time noticing things.” He looked up then, pinning her with a look that speared her to the core. “And I know it must have occurred to you that you notice more now than you did when you were twenty. Or when you were ten.” He paused then and must have suddenly experienced something akin to nervousness, because he looked back down at the table top, and Evie saw his fingers flex where they held each other. “Imagine how much more you would notice after a hundred years. Or five hundred.”

  He stopped again, the air grew thick with words waiting to be born, and Evie absolutely knew what he was going to say next.

  “Or a thousand,” he said, proving her right.

  Even though she’d been expecting it, the admission took the wind from her sails. She froze there on the bench, unable to speak and not knowing what she would say if she could.

  “So I can tell when you have a headache, Evie,” he said, looking up at her once again. Amusement touched the corners of his eyes, causing the stars in their depths to sparkle.

  God, he’s beautiful.

  “And if you’d like, I can take it away from you.”

  It was a while before Evie could form words. When she finally did, she had to clear her throat twice. “I’m… I'm fine. It’s not that bad, really.”

  Roman watched her carefully, his eyes burning through her as if she had past lives and he wanted to read each and every one of them. Finally, he cocked his head slightly to one side and took a deep breath, smiling a little. “Then let’s talk about the Hunters.”

  *****

  Roman would have given just about anything in that moment to be able to read Evie’s mind again. He felt like a fish out of water, completely unable to head off her fears or concerns, unable to get a head start on their communication. It was brand new territory for him and exceedingly uncomfortable. Despite all of the restraint he’d practiced and learned over the centuries, it was making him edgy.

  In filling her in on their situation, he’d started from the beginning, not only for her sake but for the relative ease that chronology afforded his explanation. It was just simpler to begin at the start. He’d told her that as far as people were concerned, the world consisted of both humans and non-humans, but as she’d plainly observed for the majority of her life, the non-humans remained hidden.

  He explained why, more or less sticking to the same notion authors and screenwriters had always put forth – that humans weren’t given the truth because, quite frankly, they couldn’t handle it. The color in Evie’s cheeks had darkened as he’d admitted this, and he knew she was thinking of the way she herself had reacted when confronted with the truth. A human would feel it was natural to react this way. And that was the problem. No mortal in their right mind could really, truly fathom that there were more things in the world than what they were already aware of. It was like a fish trying to imagine a bird.

  Still, he had to admit that she was handling it better than most people would. She seemed to have accepted the proof he’d presented to her so far and was now re-ordering things inside her mind. He was impressed with how she’d gradually steadied her nerves, forced herself to calm down, and was willing to hear him out. He wouldn’t deny that some humans possessed the ability to see reason this way, but he did have a feeling that in this case, it was at least in part due to the fact that she was different.

  Roman had gone on to tell her about the werewolves, their curse, and the Hunters. And this was where her anxiety clearly ratcheted up a notch. He didn’t have to be able to read her mind to know that much. But it couldn’t be helped. In fact, if anything, fear was the right reaction when dealing with Hunters.

  “They’ve gone after werewolves all this time,” Evie said, staring down at the table and its half-empty dishes of cookies and fruit. “Why did they go after you at the coffee shop?”

  “A lot is changing suddenly,” Roman reasoned. He’d been wond
ering the same thing, of course. It was something he would have every intelligent, immortal mind under his sovereignty working on by the end of the night. But for now, Evie was his primary concern.

  “Whatever their reasons, Evie,” he said, allowing the gravity of his next words to be carried by the weight of his tone. “They will no doubt associate you with me now. I’m afraid I’ve put you in very great danger.”

  Evie was so still and so quiet, Roman could hear his own heart beating. His fingernails dug into his knuckles where they were laced over the table. She was so beautiful in repose, so regal and silent, like a painting or a princess. Her long lashes brushed the tops of her cheeks as she stared at the table, her thoughts having taken her prisoner.

  “Roman,” she said, lassoing every ounce of his attention with a single word, “you said that I was… not human.” She looked up at him now, her honey colored eyes wide and earnest, and Roman had to rather brutally force himself not to move over the table, grab hold of her, and kiss her then and there. “What did you mean by that?”

  Roman swore internally. He’d known she would eventually want an explanation. He’d felt it coming. But he had no idea what to tell her. He could sense that she was different, that there was something incredibly special about her, but for the life of him, he could not figure out what it was. He couldn’t control her mind or take care of her fear or discomfort unless she actively let him in, he couldn’t read her thoughts, and he couldn’t make her forget. Her spirit literally felt as ancient as his own, but she was a mere thirty years old. Three decades.

  He’d lived one hundred times that long. And he’d never met anyone like her. The closest he had ever come to feeling as suddenly and furiously obsessed with a being as he was with Evie was when he’d become enamored with Ophelia in 1798. And comparing the two was like comparing a candle’s flame with a bonfire.

  Or the sun.

  “The truth is, Evie, I don’t –”

  He cut off in mid-sentence as a warning vibration thrummed through him hard, fast, and sudden. At once, he was opening his mind, sending a whiplash-like wave of his power out into the waking world above. His men were communicating with him, reaching out to him. He found Jaxon’s mind, Cade’s mind, and the others and he dove in without hesitation.

  A body had been found.

  A woman in her early twenties, brown hair, brown eyes… drained of blood and half-burned. It had only been a few hours, and already, alarms were being raised.

  “Evie, I’m so sorry,” he said softly as he stood from the table and moved around it. “But I have to go.”

  Evie blinked, her eyes went wide, and she was immediately standing as well. “What? What do you mean? Go where?”

  He looked down at her and couldn’t help but take her in, from the heavy combat boots she wore on her small feet to the thick pink-peach sweater she wore that so perfectly touched on the slight blush to her cheeks and lips. He’d transported all of her belongings into the cottage, he’d filled the cabinets with food, and the cottage was warm, inviting, and safe.

  “I want you to stay here.”

  “What?”

  “There’s been a murder and I’m afraid….” He trailed off suddenly, realizing at once that his fear that the killer was a vampire was the very last thing on Earth he wanted to share with Evie Farrow. He didn’t want her thinking of his kind as killers. It was true that Offspring had not always been under his command, and had not always been as careful as they were now. But he had worked very hard to maintain a sovereignty that was nothing like the twenty-four-seven blood bath portrayed in some Hollywood vampire fiction. And he didn’t want Evie thinking otherwise.

  “What? How do you know this?” she asked.

  “Several of my men discovered it.”

  “And you’re communicating with them or something?” she asked. She was clearly still trying to figure things out. This was an alien world for her, but she was giving it hell.

  “In a manner of speaking,” he replied.

  “Who was killed?” she asked, suddenly turning the conversation back to the very thing he didn’t wish to share with her.

  Roman shook his head. “Evie, please stay here, if only for a few hours. I’ll be back –”

  “Was it a woman?” she asked next, as if she could read his mind.

  Roman swore internally. Again. “Yes.”

  “Was it the Hunters who did it?” And then recognition flickered in her beautiful eyes and she straightened, her expression darkening. “It was a vampire, wasn’t it?”

  Now Roman swore out loud, but softly. “We’re not certain,” he admitted.

  “You never did tell me how you feed,” she said. Her tone had lowered, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. “I mean… do you have to feed? Drink blood? And if you do,” she swallowed hard and went on, “do you kill your victims?”

  A current of desperation abraded Roman, and his skin felt prickly. This was a discussion he had both known was coming and had tried very hard to avoid. Now he was faced with the worst of it when he had the least amount of time. He had never been more tempted to use magic on an unsuspecting human as he was just then. He might not have been able to control her with his inherent Offspring powers, but a simple magic spell and she would be in dream land.

  But he held himself in check. Somehow, he knew that such a path was the wrong one to go down with Evie Farrow.

  “I promise that I will answer all of your questions in short order, Evie,” he told her. “But at the moment, I’m desperately needed elsewhere.” He lifted his chin and asked, “Will you please stay here?”

  “No.”

  Roman stilled. He blinked. He hadn’t been expecting her defiance, though he wasn’t sure why. Given the fact that he no longer had mental control over her, and given what he’d learned of her spirit over the last few days, it would have been logical to expect it.

  But this cavern…. It was almost everything he loved about life and was quite literally magical. Wouldn’t anyone want to stay here? Especially in comparison to where he had to go just then?

  “What?” he asked, feeling completely out of his element.

  Evie lowered her head and narrowed her gaze, piercing him with a look so severe, Roman was hit with the instant impression of strength. She was so small – but so tough – and he was witnessing evidence to that effect right now.

  “You will not leave me here, D’Angelo,” she said softly, her voice so strict, so no-nonsense, it was as if she were speaking to a misbehaving child. “Over the last few hours, you have kidnapped me, used magic on me, and shown me that everything I thought I knew was real isn’t.” She paused, took a deep breath, and continued. “If I’m not actually in a hospital bed imagining this entire ordeal, then the fact is, I’m feeling unsteady right now.” She stopped, looked him up and down as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to say the next bit, and her coloring paled. “And… I don’t want to be a prisoner,” she told him. She shook her head, gestured to the house and cave around them, and added, “No matter how gold-gilded the cage might be.”

  Roman gazed down at the woman who had turned his world upside down in the course of a single day and thought about her words. Not being able to read her mind was throwing him off of his game. Why hadn’t he been able to tell that she would see things like that? He wasn’t used to being in the position he found himself in now. He felt, for lack of a better word, mortal.

  Evie’s refusal to stay alone left him with very few choices. He could knock her out with a spell, in which case she would hate him upon awakening. He could leave her here kicking and screaming, in which case she would again hate him. Or… he could take her with him.

  Roman felt a heaviness settle in his gut. Again, he swore internally, the ancient words offering little comfort.

  He closed his eyes and sighed. “Take my hand,” he told her as he held it out for her. “I will transport us again.”

  Evie looked down at his offered hand for a moment, glanced back up at him, and then
straightened, sliding her small hand into his.

  The sensation was startling. Her touch was altogether distracting, warm and soft and almost literally electric. He stared down at their joined hands and allowed his fingers to close over hers. It was the most gratifying thing he had done in a very long time. He wanted to squeeze tight, use his grip to pull her into his arms, and never let her go.

  With effort, Roman martialed his thoughts. He looked back up at Evie. “Please accept my apologies in advance,” he told her. “The city morgue is quite literally the last place I dreamed of taking you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  It was like being pushed through a balloon. That was the immediate and strong impression Evie got as Roman “transported” them from the fantastical cavern. It was uncomfortable, but not overly so. The feeling of being stretched and pulled and pushed intensified, however. Just when she thought she might say something, they were coming out of whatever space-time bubble they’d been in, and Evie felt Roman steady her with a strong grip as the world became solid beneath her feet.

  At once, she noticed the mass of milling bodies. All around her, doctors, nurses, and a few police officers, some in uniform and some in plain clothes, froze in place. Some of them dropped the files or folders they were carrying. One released a coffee mug so that it shattered on the polished, disinfected floor, and one or two stumbled while coming to a sudden stop.

  In the wake of the new stillness and silence, Evie exhaled a shaky breath and looked around. She recognized her surroundings at once. They were in a hospital, most likely below ground. The medical uniforms, lack of windows, and the over-bright halogens above gave her that impression.

  There were roughly two dozen people in the crowded hall. There was a pair of elevators off to one side, a door leading to a stairwell, and at the end of the long corridor were a set of swinging metal doors.

  Aside from the doctors and other officials, there were two other men in the room – they stood beside Roman, nearly as tall, almost as handsome. Maybe it was another delusion and maybe she really was dreaming, but it seemed that Evie instantly recognized that these men were more than human. She experienced another quick pang of resentment; for thirty years, the supernatural world had hidden itself from her no matter how hard she had railed against reality, and then in the course of one night, they’d appeared in force.