The Vampire King

by Heather Killough-Walden

Imani was beside her. “He might be right, Danny. You were pretty drained last time.”

  “Get the hell out of my way,” Danny demanded, her gaze narrowing. She could smell the girl’s blood and knew instinctively that there was too much of it. However the human had been harmed, an artery had been punctured. She needed to be healed.

  The enforcer shook his head.

  And Danny’s hormone-fueled anger reached a peak. She whispered a powerful arcane word and held up her hand, palm-out. A blast of something invisible rushed over the enforcer in front of her and he stumbled back, shaking his head. Without blinking, she spun and did the same to the second enforcer as he came up at her side. The two moved away, temporarily discombobulated.

  “Stunned,” Imani whispered, nodding sagely beside her. “A safe bet I guess. But I’ll ask you honestly, girl – you sure this is a good idea?”

  “Positive.” Danny brushed past her best friend and made her way to the girl on the ground. “Hang tight, sweetie,” she said softly. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”

  *****

  Several blocks away, Ramses watched the young pregnant woman through the clear crystal of the telescope one of the Hunters had supplied him with. Their attack had worked. And the recordings Ramses had watched earlier hadn’t lied.

  Dannai Caige possessed the ability to heal.

  What was more… she was an orphan who had been raised by a well-meaning witch. She had no idea who her parents were. Who her mother was.

  But Ramses did. Dannai was Amunet’s daughter.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Evie woke up, the smell of coffee was still strong in her nostrils, and a heavy sense of dread had settled in her gut. She came awake with a start and rose in the bed to find that she was back in the safe house room Roman had originally transported them to before taking her to his cavern. Roman wasn’t there, but she wasn’t alone.

  “Miss Farrow, you’re awake,” came a familiar voice. There were two men in the room; they were the two who had been at the hospital with her and Roman. There was also an old woman.

  The old woman sat on the edge of the bed and watched her through some of the bluest eyes Evie had ever seen. She said nothing, and Evie’s sense of confusion and doom deepened.

  The one called Jaxon came forward now and stood beside the bed while the other man immediately turned toward the door and exited the room through it. “He’ll be notifying Roman that you’re awake,” Jaxon told her.

  “There’s no need,” the old woman said finally, her voice so positively ancient, it sounded like dried leaves skittering across a deserted Autumn park. “He knows. He’s on his way.” She turned and reached for a tall glass of drinking water on the night stand beside the bed. “Here child, drink this,” she offered, holding it out for her.

  Evie cleared her throat and shook her head. She had no idea who the old woman was and she had barely been around the others long enough to keep her from hysterics about waking up amongst strangers, but at the moment, the only thing she wanted to do was speak to Roman before the images from her strange sleep disappeared and she lost them entirely. The dread that had glued itself to her in her dreams still clung menacingly, speeding up her heartrate and threatening her with panic. “No. No water,” she said, clearing her throat to continue. “I need to talk to Roman.”

  “Oh, he’s on his way my dear, I can assure you,” the woman repeated.

  “Oh God….” Evie’s fingers curled into fists. She needed to hang on to what she’d seen, but at the same time, she’d have given anything at that moment to be able to forget the images playing before her mind just then. “I know who killed that girl!” she cried, the trembling of her body causing her voice to quiver. She couldn’t hold it in any longer. She wasn’t sure the old woman would even know what she was talking about – but Jaxon would.

  She looked up at him. “The girl that was burned, the one in the morgue,” she repeated, her words speeding up and her voice rising with mounting hysterics. “I know who killed her! I saw the whole thing!”

  Jaxon frowned down at her, his vivid eyes blinking in confusion. “But miss, that’s impossible.”

  “Nonsense,” said the old woman, shaking her head in reprimand. “You of all people should know better, Jax. You’re a vampire for crying out loud. What the hell could be impossible compared to that?”

  The old woman turned back to Evie and cocked her head to one side thoughtfully. “I’m Lalura,” she said by way of introduction. “And you are Evie. Roman’s told me all about you.” She nodded once as if to close off the subject. “Now what is this about the killer?”

  Evie was baffled. But more than that, she was scared.

  She’d seen everything. She would never forget the killer’s face now. What he had done to the innocent girl in the morgue turned Evie’s stomach to lead and clouded her brain with an oncoming migraine. It was a waking nightmare. But worst of all – absolutely most terrifying of all – was the fact that the murderer was not a stranger. Not to her.

  She’d come close to him. Within mere feet. She’d even found him attractive.

  Evie swallowed hard now and closed her eyes. “He followed her home from the school,” she said, seeing it behind her closed lids as if it were a movie. “Light brown hair and blue eyes. His name….” It was there, floating around her subconscious like a bunch of jumbled, blurry letters that floated frustratingly close to being in the right order.

  “His name….” She froze, the letters came together, and she opened her eyes. “His name is Charles.”

  It was the man from the coffee shop, the one with the piercing blue eyes who had been watching her from across the store while she tried to tell her father how to download the Kindle app on his phone. Charles was the murderer. He was also a vampire.

  He’s a vampire.

  And it was more than that. Evie shook her head and felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. Her head began to pound. Her chest felt tight and her fingers tingled. A panic attack was coming on.

  There would be no avoiding it. Evie was absolutely petrified.

  The man from the coffee shop was a vampire and he’d drained an innocent girl of every last drop of blood for one horrifying reason. He’d done it because the girl looked just like Evie.

  “Breathe,” Lalura said. “In for five counts, hold for two, out for five counts, repeat.” She leaned forward, her voice stern, her blue eyes flashing. Evie automatically did as she was told. She would do anything to prevent the attack. She felt as if she were dying.

  She breathed in slowly, held it, and let it out just as slowly. A bit of the nausea passed, the throbbing in her head lessened, but the tingling fingers and the tight chest remained.

  “There now. You’re doing what you can. I’ll take care of the rest.” The old woman raised her right hand, held two fingers over Evie’s heart, and spoke a string of the most beautiful cryptic words Evie had ever heard.

  *****

  There were six where there should have been eight, and as the doors to the meeting chamber closed and Roman’s heady gaze landed on the second of the remaining empty seats, a number of puzzle pieces slid into place.

  David Cade was missing, but Roman knew where he was. He’d remained with Lalura to keep an eye on Evie.

  The other missing court member was Charles Ward. It was beginning to make sense now.

  The eight members of Roman’s court had been chosen for very good reason. Each warlock in existence possessed powers particular to them and them alone. For the most part, they all shared the ability to perform the same basic spells such as transportation and telekinesis. However, just as each individual human on the planet was special in some manner that was his or her own, be it incredible athletic prowess or great cooking skills, each member of the supernatural world was different from the others.

  Some alpha werewolves possessed the power to change into animals other than wolves, such as the infamous and late Gabriel Phelan had been capable of doing. Some could control hum
an minds to some extent, such as Malcolm Cole, the famous author and even more famous werewolf was capable of doing.

  Warlocks were no different. And because Offspring were the product of a warlock communion with an Akyri, vampires also tended to possess unique powers. Those with the most useful abilities were called in to Roman’s court.

  Samantha Chance was the youngest in his court, only pulled in a few short years ago. She was a technological genius in more ways than one. She possessed an inherent know-how when it came to nearly anything computer-related. And because she was also a technopath, what she could not coerce or finesse with this know-how and a college try, she simply manipulated with the powers of her mind.

  Saxon had been a member of the vampire court for more than a thousand years. His particular ability was one of great value when it came to protecting Offspring society from other supernatural factions. He was a trained warrior, and because he’d lived so long, he had become proficient in nearly every weapon on the planet. He was also immune to attacks from all of them. Bullets bounced off of him or simply missed altogether. Swords scraped along his skin as if it were made of metal. And when it came to magical attacks, Saxon’s abilities were perhaps most impressive, for he was able to absorb the attack and turn it back around on his opponent. With such abilities, Saxon had long ago earned the right to train and teach Roman’s “army,” a fairly sizeable group of Offspring warriors who luckily were needed less and less with each passing year.

  Philip Diego had joined the vampire court in 1451, a fellow countryman of the land of DaVinci, though much, much younger than Roman. The king asked him to join when he discovered that Diego possessed the ability to summon a being from anywhere on the planet to where he was at any given time. Transportation of one’s self was difficult enough. To be able to cast the spell on an unwitting individual was not only rare, it was valuable. Of course, Diego had to know where the person was in order for the spell to be successful. That was the one downside.

  Lizbeth Knight was a voice of reason and intuition among court members. She was a beautiful woman, inside and out, and one of her two special powers reflected as much. She had been born on a blue moon five hundred years ago, and so once a blue moon, she chose a certain mortal to become the recipient of her “gift.” This mortal, she fed from. As she did so, that mortal’s inner beauty took residence on the outside, in effect making them just as lovely on the surface as they were deep down.

  The fact that this gift brought Lizbeth such joy touched Roman’s heart, and he cared very deeply for the woman. They were as close to brother and sister as two people without blood siblings could become. They treated one another like siblings as well. In fact, true to a sister’s form, for the last several centuries, she’d been on him constantly about his lack of a meaningful love life…. She would probably have a blast with the news once she heard about Evie.

  Lizbeth was a close confidante. However, it was Lizbeth’s other power which had granted her a seat at the court’s table.

  Roses and orchids were Lizbeth’s favorite flowers. Her favorite animals were sea turtles. But it was every flower and every fauna that she possessed a psychic link to. Lizbeth was the world’s first and true druid, able to communicate and even control, up to a certain point, the aspects of non-human, mortal life. She’d set a swarm of bees on Roman once in a fit of pique. Fortunately for him, his magic was not weak either.

  Quinn Adams had been a court member for a decade short of three centuries. The Irish man’s unique Offspring ability allowed him to “merge” with another person, mortal or immortal, in order to combine, not only their bodies, but their abilities. The person he joined with had to be willing to merge, or the attempt would fail, but when it did work and the combination included another Offspring, the results were impressive, to say the least. The power had also saved Quinn’s life at one point. The town he’d grown up in found him out, turned on him, and were dead set on exposing him to the daylight. However, a mortal woman who had fallen in love with him allowed him to merge with her. In doing so, he successfully “hid” inside of her until the mob dispersed and he was able to escape into the night.

  David Cade was Roman’s oldest and dearest friend and had been a member of the vampire court since its inception. David’s ability was perhaps the most modest of them all, and undoubtedly the most useful. He possessed the ability to temporarily lend his power to another. In any given battle, Cade could focus his inherent magic onto Roman, or another member of the vampire court, so that their own powers were magnified or doubled.

  At the moment, however, despite all of these people and their combined talents, Roman felt like the butt of a joke. He’d sensed the wrongness rising, he’d had his doubts, and he’d ignored his intuition – and David’s – and he’d failed to apprehend Charles Ward when he’d had the chance.

  And Roman, it smells like black magic in here. Lalura had known as well.

  Ward’s absence from the meeting was as good as a confession. It was bad news on more than one level.

  Ward was a murderer who had broken Roman’s long-standing edict and destroyed an innocent mortal. What was worse was that the mortal woman had very closely physically resembled Evelynne Farrow.

  Worst of all, however, was that Charles Alexander Ward was a formidable adversary with an impressive amount of power of his own. It was the reason he sat on the vampire court. Roman had never trusted Ward. There was something about the man that rubbed Roman the wrong way. However, he knew that if he didn’t ask Ward to join the court, Ward would become suspicious. He was certainly powerful enough to have earned the position.

  There were only two living, breathing individuals that Roman knew of who possessed the special power Ward utilized, and Ward was still much more practiced in the art. It was another clue to the darkness about Charles that Roman had until now more or less ignored. Ward was an astral master, capable of pulling a person through to the astral plane as soon as they were asleep and dreaming.

  It had to be done through touch, however, which was why Roman had left David with Lalura and Evie. Once pulled into that other plane, nothing could pull an individual back out again but another astral traveler.

  Years ago, when Roman first considered this ability, he did what he felt was the intelligent thing to do and invited Ward to join the court. There was the added bonus that while Ward was seated at Roman’s table, the king could keep a close eye on him.

  However… little good it had done. And now Charles Ward was on the run and very, very dangerous.

  It made horrible, perfect sense. When Roman had killed Malachi Wraythe’s daughter, a barely noticeable change had come over Charles, and Roman’s suspicions about Ward’s alignment on the magic front had spiked. He’d heard rumor in the past that Ward and Wraythe were not strangers to one another. And in fact, Roman began to wonder whether they might be friends.

  Because of this, he made certain that Ward was nowhere around when Wraythe and the werewolf community went head to head over the Curse Breaker and her mate. A battle between the Hunters, Wraythe and his men, and the werewolves and their allied witches had ensued. In the end, and with a bit of unseen help from Roman, Wraythe was killed.

  The unsettled aura around Charles Ward had grown stronger after that.

  Now Roman had a feeling he knew why. The former Warlock King Malachi Wraythe and Charles Ward had indeed been close. Charles somehow knew about Roman’s otherwise secret involvement in Wraythe’s death. And now Charles was out for revenge. And because he’d somehow found out that Roman cared for her, he was no doubt planning on using Evie to get it.

  All of this had taken very little time for Roman to muse over, and now that everyone had gotten comfortable in their seats, Roman took a deep breath.

  “I want every Offspring on the look-out,” he began, his voice soft, his tone serious and low. The sound was ominous and beautiful; he’d always had the ability to take control of a room with his spoken words. “Charles Alexander Ward has broken my laws and d
estroyed an innocent human life.”

  He allowed this information to set in, his gaze combing the room as he did so. No one seemed surprised. The women looked down at the table, the men looked at one another, and all of them took deep breaths before their gazes once more returned to him.

  “He will not be alone, he will be on the offensive, and,” Roman paused, made certain that everyone present would understand the weight of what he was about to say next, and continued. “He has his sights set on Evelynne.”

  “The woman you are looking after?” Lizbeth inquired.

  “The one under your protection at the safe house?” Samantha asked next.

  Roman nodded.

  “She is of great interest to you,” Lizbeth inferred. He could almost hear the wheels in her head turning.

  Roman met her gaze. “She is more than that,” he told them all softly. “Evelynne Farrow is to have the protection of every vampire in my kingdom.”

  The members of his court digested the edict and nodded their assent. “Granted,” they said, one after another.

  “I’ll see that it’s done,” Saxon assured him.

  Lizbeth caught his eye. Her expression was a mixture of things that all made Roman uncomfortable. She looked inquisitive and hopeful. She also looked as though she wanted to crow. “You will have our full support of course,” she said softly, her green eyes twinkling. “But might I ask, your majesty, what it is about this young woman that makes her both the target of Ward’s aggression and the recipient of your protection?”

  He should have known she would put him on the spot. She waited in silence, already well aware of what he was going to say.

  “Evie is Ward’s target because I care for her,” he told them frankly. “And she is has my protection… and my love,” he continued, his voice dropping to an intimate near-whisper, “because she is my queen.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Roman sat still in the silence that stretched past his announcement. The air in the room was thick with un-voiced questions and a myriad of unexpressed emotions. He didn’t bother to read their minds; he almost never did unless it was necessary, but he could imagine what was going through their heads.