King of Darkness (2 page)

In Lee’s personal opinion, Thad was putting too much weight on this prophecy business. Thad felt he couldn’t rule properly if he didn’t find his queen, but they were equally screwed if anyone found out that the newly ascended king was off on a wild-goose chase and technically nobody was at the helm just now.

They had taken all possible precautions to ensure a safe departure. They had even been teleported outside the zone of known wizard and vampire communities to avoid detection. Florida was far from home so the risk was minimal, but still the uncertainty bothered him. As he and Thad moved along a dark and narrow wrought-iron balcony—slowly, so as not to hip-check an unsuspecting party-girl right over the railing, Lee’s hands remained poised in case he needed a weapon. The bouncers at the door had been easy to manipulate into letting them pass without being searched.

“Last floor.” Thad’s words at Lee’s ear jarred him out of his thoughts. The balcony dead-ended at a steep roped-off stairway. Thad peered up into the murkiness and then stepped casually over the flimsy velvet-rope barrier. Lee followed suit.

“Good deal. And listen, man, if we turn up dry here, there are some restaurants and hotels on the block we can check out.”

Thad nodded solemnly as they tromped up the stairs past the meatheads guarding what looked to be some kind of VIP area. Another brief flex of Lee’s mind, and the guards didn’t as much as glance in their direction.

Holy…
mother
. This area was a different animal altogether. Softer music and no dance floor to speak of, but lots of dark alcoves, a selection of top-shelf liquors, and a display of human behavior that made the activity on the main floor look practically G-rated. All around them on couches, chairs, and stretches of carpet were humans in different states of depravity. To Lee’s left, a Goth girl was being trussed up on a pool table by a guy in shiny, black vinyl pants who obviously knew his way around the business end of a rope.

Sickos.

Only thing missing was a nervous pizza-delivery boy asking what he should do with his extra sausage. The only humans who were fully clothed were the bartender and the bouncers, all of whom seemed oblivious to the porn show going on around them.

Thad had stopped short. He made a slow 360 with his mouth agape. “This can’t be right. I don’t know, Lee. I’m beginning to wonder about this whole thing. I think I’m about ready to move on. Lee… Lee?”

Lee barely heard him. With his back to Thad, he stood in stunned silence, unable to move. His jaw worked back and forth while he tried to determine whether or not his eyes were playing tricks on him. Or if maybe the place was distributing psychedelics through the air vents.
Holy
cow…

“Lee… you okay, man?”

“I don’t think you’re going to want to leave just yet, Thad.” He gestured to a chair full of girl-on-girl action in a dark corner across the room. No question, the dark-haired female in the driver’s seat was into that blonde’s neck like it was feeding time and she was starving. Shit, they had finally struck gold. Lee let out a bark of laughter. He couldn’t help himself. “Okay, man. I know this isn’t supposed to be funny, but dude… of all places…”

Thad flicked his eyes in the direction Lee had indicated, clearly not getting it. “Kind of hot, I guess, but I don’t see the funny part.”

Lee sobered up and cleared his throat. “No. Seriously, man.
Look
.”

***

Thad swept his gaze over the scene that Lee had pointed to. Though he had gotten an instant soft-on from the muscleman by the bar wearing nothing but a leather thong and a dog collar, his dick woke up and took notice when his stare fixed on a pair of long, peaches-and-cream legs that disappeared under a plaid skirt that stopped
just
shy of broadcasting her preferred brand of underwear. Hands roamed, and the red-painted toes of the bottom female’s bare feet curled tightly. While the angel-faced blonde arched her back and parted her lips in ecstasy, the pigtailed brunette lapped at her neck. And… ah, he would be damned if she wasn’t feeding.

The realization kicked Thad’s pulse into high gear. How on earth had he missed that before? Granted, he wouldn’t have pegged her for a vampire at first. His own skin was a shade of dark tan, and contrary to the popular movies humans loved to scare themselves with, that pastel skin of hers was something of an anomaly. Thad stood rooted—mesmerized—while the blonde’s fingernails dug hard into the naughty schoolgirl’s skin, pushing up her cropped top, and suddenly there was no oxygen left in the room.

She
bore
the
mark
.

Nestled just above the schoolgirl’s waistband in the small of her back, surrounded by a swirl of tattoos, was a scar identical to the one on his forearm. No question—it was the same crudely depicted cross that Thad had been seeing etched on his own skin for nearly a century. The mark that was, at that very moment, throbbing like it had its own pulse.

“Holy
shit
, Lee.” Thad tried to lean against the nearest wall and wondered why the fucker was moving. No, wait… the entire room was moving. “Lee… this can’t be happening. All the time we’ve been searching… I’ve pictured this moment happening a thousand different ways…”

Lee cracked another grin, the bastard. “Not like this?”

“Not. Even. A
little
.”

“T, man, I’ve got to agree she’s not what I might’ve thought you’d find. And this sure as hell isn’t where I would have expected you to find her. So your Oracle didn’t bother to mention your destiny digs the ladies?”

Jackass
. Thad’s future was hanging in the balance here, and his friend was cracking jokes. “You know, once I’m done picking my jaw up off the floor, I’m going to kick your ass or die trying for that comment.”

“I’m sorry, buddy, but you’ve got to admit it’s pretty surreal. Seriously, though, what’s your next move?”

“I… I have no clue.” Thad scrubbed his face with his hands and blinked rapidly at the female whose scar was supposed to mark her as his
destined
life
mate, for God’s sake
, but the scene playing out didn’t change. None of the ways Thad figured on approaching this seemed to mesh with the scenario he’d been handed. He could only hope that her gate swung both ways. And how the hell should he approach this? “I mean… Shit, Lee… I have no fucking clue.”

Darkness surrounded Anton as he awaited his sentence. His father, the great and fricking mighty Master of wizards, had finally gotten tired of waiting for him to produce the late king’s half-human daughter. For that failure, at best, Anton was looking down the barrel at a death sentence. Because nobody failed the Master and lived to tell about it. And death would likely be preceded by torture if the Master suspected Anton to be the traitor that he was.

Suspected? Of course the Master would know.

Thing was, Anton had just plain drawn a shitty lot in life. Born into a clan of men whose only purpose was to wipe out a competing supernatural species, he had been expected to do his father’s bidding and be grateful—perhaps even enjoy it—as all the others had. He wasn’t like the others, though.

He never would be.

Oh, sure, he had tried. Who wouldn’t, in a kill-or-be-killed scenario? But he didn’t have the stomach for it. Could barely live with himself. And when he had been sent to capture Tyra Morgan, a creature so lovely and so good that just watching her from a distance made Anton want to be better somehow… well, his way had been clear. As he awaited his fate in his dank little box of a room, he was almost tempted to pray.

Not to save himself, of course. There was no doing that. The woman he had come to love would be dead, however, if he failed to convince the Master that she was of no use to him.

Anton straightened against the stone wall of his cell when he heard loud footfalls approaching. The door opened with a mighty groan, and light fell across the small space.

To add insult to injury, the Master had sent Anton’s own half brother to fetch him. Petros growled in a low voice, “He’s ready for you.”

Placing a modified report of his last mission in the forefront of his mind, Anton stepped with determination toward his jailer. “You wanna shackle me, Petros?”

The green-eyed wizard sneered. “Master says you’re gonna cooperate,” he said. “But rest assured, I’ve got ’em ready if I need ’em, Brother.” Funny that Petros referred to Anton as his brother but never referred to the Master as their father.

“I’m sure you do,
Brother
,” Anton sneered right back. It was so hard to believe they were of the same blood. Clearly, only one of them took after their father in the personality department. And the animosity radiating from Petros crackled in the air like live electricity. “Ready to go, Petros. Anytime.”

Petros stepped behind Anton, shoving him roughly between the shoulder blades. “All right, then. Let’s do this.”

***

“Can I, umm, help you two with something?”

Thad’s head snapped down to follow the voice that had broken into his cacophonous thoughts. Standing directly in front of him was a diminutive human female, all of five feet tall or so. Wearing angel wings and low-slung party pants, she was like every other girl flitting about the club, save for the look of knowing suspicion that peeked out from underneath her glitter-covered eyelids.

How the hell had she even noticed them? They weren’t invisible, technically speaking, but the average human wouldn’t spot a vampire hidden in the shadows.

Lee must have been thinking the same thing. He stepped into protector mode between Thad and the young woman, grabbing her wrist a little too roughly. How she could be a threat to either of them was beyond comprehension, but Lee was a machine and the move was automatic.

“Who are you?” Lee demanded in a low voice.

“Easy, big guy.” Her free hand came up in a gesture of surrender before dropping to her hip. “Look, I’m not here to give you trouble, but we don’t get a lot of your kind around here and you looked a little skeeved out so I thought that maybe I could help you.”

“Our kind?”

“Yeah, you know… ‘your kind.’” She emphasized the phrase with a pair of air quotes and an eye roll. “You don’t have to play dumb. I know what you are.” She crooked her fingers in Lee’s direction. When he hesitated, she reached up and grabbed the back of his neck, stretching onto her toes until she was able to speak into his ear. Boy, this girl was gutsy.

“See, I’ve seen this whole cloaked-in-shadows routine before, and if you haven’t noticed, this floor is private. The fact that you got past the guards over there and you’re clearly packing suggests to me that you probably pulled some kind of mental-manipulation voodoo.” She glanced around. “As does the fact that no one else seems to have noticed your presence, even though you guys could have your own ZIP codes.”

The girl gave Lee an appreciative once-over. “Plus you’re all ripped, and the only
human
guys I’ve seen who look like you wouldn’t be in a place like this cuz they live 24/7 at the gym. Now, I’m just trying to be helpful because you appear to be a little out of your element. You want to go it alone, I sure as hell can’t stop ya. Might want to work on your manners, though.”

After aiming another pointed look directly at Lee, the female twisted out of his now-slack grip and turned away. It was probably the first time Lee had ever been rendered speechless. Seconds later, she turned back.

“I’m Alexia, by the way. Nice to meet you… gentlemen.” A quick heel spin had them looking at the angel wings on her back again as she began to walk away. What
was
the deal with all the angel wings in this place?

“Wait.” Thad cleared his throat. Nodded to the opposite corner. “The uh, schoolgirl… I need to speak with her. You know her?”

Alexia took a step back and narrowed her eyes. “What do you want with Isabel?”

Thad blew out a hard breath.
Well
gosh, it’s simple! I’m here to tell her that the rest of her life was promised to me, an utter stranger, a hundred years ago by some nutty old bat. And oh, by the way, the future of our kind may very well hang on whether or not she chooses to come with me. So no pressure or anything.

Yeah. Perfect.

Thad cleared his throat. “I, uh, I just need to talk to her. It’s personal. Maybe you could tell her for me that I’m here—”

“Hey, mama, you got any Blow Pops in there, baby? I’m grinding the heck outta my fangs.” Behind Alexia was a six-foot-tall vampire male with long, dark, kinky-curly hair that cascaded over her shoulder as he bent low to nuzzle beneath her ear and rummage through her pockets. The male reeked of a cheap Cabernet blend, a telltale sign that he had been imbibing red wine. The inebriated male mumbled his thanks, popped a sour apple between his teeth, and flashed a mock salute at Thad and Lee. He walked away shaking his head like he needed to unstick something that was lodged inside. Throughout the entire transaction, the human’s only reaction had been to smile sweetly at the male and watch his departure.