The Goblin King (6 page)

Lightning disrupted the
ir universe, its loud companion temporarily deafening the room’s occupants. Lalura waited for it to pass, her expression becoming stern.

“No matter how much
you may desire it, this is not the time to feed the demons that exist between you and your brother,” she told the Vampire King. “Not now. Not this time.
This
rescue will have to be fast and simple.”

Roman said nothing. His eyes were unchanging. The world outside continued to rage.

But after several long, painfully tense moments, the Vampire King nodded. Just once.

Flashes and spells and blurred shapes sped
through the room like a periphery of impossibilities as he and his companions transported out of the room. Lalura closed her eyes and let them go. She knew where she would meet them.

White-hot electricity took
the sky one last time overhead, and its thunder had the final word.

*****

Evie sat stiff as a board in the gold gilt and luxe velvet cushioned chair at the end of the long dining table. Food
s of all sorts covered the table in silver platter piles, and at the other end sat Roman’s brother, the master vampire that had abducted her.

Directly before Evie rested a crystal goblet filled with red wine. It was untouched.

Evie knew that Roman’s brother hated him, though she did not know why. And as he’d said himself, there would be no better way to cause Roman pain than to take away the one he loved. It would be most painful of all if that person were taken away permanently.

The food could be poisoned. Granted, not much in the way of poison could kill a vampire, but there was always new magic.
There were always new tricks, new dangers, that no one yet knew of. Death waited around every corner.

Evie glanced down at the goblet and then back up at her captor. Not for the first time that night, she wondered what his name was.

“It’s Rafael,” he told her.

Again, she wasn’t surprised
he’d known what she was thinking. She’d already known that he could get past her mental defenses in order to read her thoughts.

“Rafael D’Angelo,” sh
e repeated aloud. “Or do you hate him so much that you’ve changed your last name?”

Rafael smiled, showing her his deadly, deadly fangs. They were alone in the dining room, but Evie knew that no fewer than a dozen servants waited within ear shot. And Ophelia was somewhere nearby.

Rafael’s teeth made Evie consider Ophelia now. She couldn’t help but think of how he had used them to kill Ophelia in the past. And how he most likely used them to punish her in the present.

“Oh I’m sure you
know the bite doesn’t have to hurt, my queen.”

“I’m not your queen.”

“No,” Rafael admitted softly. He lifted his own goblet and placed it to his lips. “Not yet,” he finished before he took a sip.

Clearly he was using the same sort of illusory spell to make food edible and drink drinkable that Roman had used in their cavern cottage.

Rafael replaced his goblet on the table top. “The name D’Angelo was my mother’s. Neither Roman nor I would ever be rid it. We both loved our mother very much.”

Evie just stared at him. “Figures that you’d be a mama’s boy.”

Rafael laughed at that, a genuine belly laugh that emitted the most beautiful, deep, melodious sound. Evie fought not to allow it to affect her, but it wrapped around her like silken vines anyway, reaching into places she didn’t want him anywhere near.

After a few moments, Rafael’s laughter quieted, and he watched her with his dark, dark eyes.

Evie fidgeted.

“Many years ago, Roman and I were both happy. I was married. My wife, Iliandra, was a very beautiful woman.”

Evie waited, going completely still as she listened. Every mannerism about Rafael changed, his voice and features both growing more soft. He was lost in his memories.

“She was beautiful,” he repeated. Then he sighed. “But she was a free spirit.” He hesitated, and now there was an edge to his tone that was slightly harder. “Roman was always a man of high moral code. He had ideas of how the Offspring nation should be run, of what vampires should be allowed to do – and what they should not. I knew it was only a matter of time before he found a way to bring his vision of the perfect vampire nation to fruition.”

He took a drink of his wine and replaced the goblet. “One night… he became king. And when he did, he outlawed many of the practices vampires had exercised for centuries.”

He looked up at Evie now, and Evie caught the wa
ve of malice that floated off him, perhaps unconsciously.

“Unfortunately, Iliandra was not accustom
ed to being tethered. She was a wild bird, and not prepared to have her wings clipped. She continued to hunt as she always had…. Until Roman caught her in the act. She was given a warning.” Rafael’s look darkened. “As if she were some misbehaving child in a school yard.”

He shook his head, disgusted. “She was a princess, Iliandra
. She’d been born with royal blood to a royal family, the second of three daughters. I’d chosen her so very carefully. She was… perfect. She’d been born into beauty and stature, and was old enough to understand it. And now, as my wife, she was the sister-in-law of the Vampire King. You would have thought Roman to show a smidgeon of decorum. You’d have thought he would have shown some respect for class. But no.”

Atop the table, the
food platters began to rattle. A rogue wind blew through the massive cave, causing the candles in their candelabras and the torches along the walls to flicker.

“When
she refused to bow to his self-righteous royal decree… he destroyed her.”

His voice drifted off, and Evie could almost hear the icicles dropping away from the edges of his words and shattering on the
tabletop. She remained frozen where she was, afraid to even breathe.

“He stripped her of her magical abili
ties and tied her to an altar for the sun to find.”

Evie felt her throat go dry. Her arms and legs were trembling, despite the fact that she was seated. “No,” she muttered, unaware that she’
d even spoken aloud.

“
Yes
,” Rafael insisted with acidic softness. “She died a slow and horrid death. The sun burns unprotected vampires from the inside out.” The glass containers on the table began to hum. Evie could sense they were about to shatter. There was a thickness to the air, an overload of emotionally charged power.

“
Every living creature is composed of both light and dark. But for us, the cruel rays of the sun find the shadows of our souls and rip them away, tearing us irreparably in two. We bleed to death, and as each precious drop is spilled, it is seared to dust in the incessant heat of day until we are naught but empty, rattling husks.”

Evie’s head was beginning to ache under the pressure of the built-up magic in the room. She had the sudden instinctive urge to duck.

“Then this too crumbles,” he said. “And we are dust.”

T
he glassware on the table contracted in that split millisecond of preparedness before it would explode. At the same exact time, Evie followed her instinct. But rather than duck, she sent up a magical shield, wrapping her body in protective, hard air. The crystal on the table erupted, spanning outward in brilliant, prismatic shards of all different sizes. The light from the torches formed rainbows in the air, and the sound was like the ringing of pixie wings and wind chimes.

From within her shield
, Evie was safe. Glass batted against it, bouncing off to end up skittering across the stone ground elsewhere. Evie dropped the shield. But the air had become suffocating in Rafael’s anger, even for a vampire like her.

The master vampire stared at her, his black eyes now burning red flames
the way Roman’s did when he was emotionally charged.

“
Your husband, young Evelynne Grace, brutally murdered my wife and the only woman I have ever loved.”

Evie swallowed hard.
She wanted to say something –
anything
– that might make her appear stronger and less stricken than she felt in that moment. But she couldn’t think of a single thing to say, and her throat had gone too dry for her to speak anyway.

“That is w
hat he is guilty of,” he told her, his words slithering like venomous snakes. “And that is why I hate him.”

He pushed back from the table and stood, rising to his full, impressive height. Evie began to feel dizzy.

“Roman has a debt to pay,” he said as he began to come around the table toward her. “And you will make it for him. The love he felt for Ophelia never had a chance to grow strong enough for its loss to hurt him the way he deserves. I realized my mistake, however. It was why I waited… with you.”

Evie’s eyes widened.
Waited?
she thought.
What does he mean?

Rafael smiled a bitter, beautiful smile. “Oh yes, Evie. I’ve known about you all along. Right from the very beginning.”

He stopped in front of her chair. “You have a choice to make, my queen. Join me willingly and break your lover’s heart, or die and break it anyway.”

Evie looked up. She waited. She held her breath, feeling as though this was the end of her world. No one would know she was here; some sort of doppelganger had taken her place. There was no escape. She could fight – and fight she would – but in the end, she would lose. He would destroy her and her entire world anyway.

An odd feeling came over her. It was as if the air had become so thin, she was now high. Her fingers and toes tingled. There was a new breeze moving through the cavern. For a split second, it appeared that Rafael’s gaze shifted. Something flashed in the depths of his burning eyes. But it was there one second and gone in the next.

“Your answer!” he demanded, reaching down and grabbing her arm to lift her out of the chair.

Evie choked on her voice, gagged, and tried again. This time, the words came out with some amount of force. She was numb now. She was going to die anyway. What did it matter?

“Just kill me, Rafael. Spare us both a
loveless marriage.”

Rafael bared his fangs.
But another voice drew him up short.

“That’s my girl.”

Evie’s eyes widened, her heart skipped and then hammered furiously, and Rafael was suddenly blurring into motion. His fingers bruised where he held her arm as he jerked her behind him and then turned to face the source of the one who had spoken.

Evie was sure she’d fainted and was now experiencing semi-conscious hallucinations. For it was Roman who had spoken.

And it was Roman who now stood on the other end of the cavern near the head of the table, flanked by all six members of his vampire court.

Chapter Seven

Damon felt agitated and frustrated. He also felt inordinately weary. His infamous, head-taking sword literally weighed heavy where it rested in its scabbard across his broad back.

It had already drawn blood once this night. He’d had to use force against the Duqar and their
trouble making. He’d had no choice.

But it was the last thing he’d wanted to do. How could he be a good king if he was always killing off his own subjects?
At that thought, he released a bitter laugh
. I don’t know why you care,
his mind told him
. It isn’t as if you asked for this job
.

The night was quiet around him. The sound of his leather boots against the damp pavement was like a hollow warning. A street light buzzed overhead. In the distance, sirens wailed and traffic hummed.

He’d been just finishing with the Duqar – just wiping the unfortunately spilled blood from his blade and issuing the last of his orders – when he’d felt the need to come
here
.

Over the course of the last few months, h
e’d talked about this kind of sudden feeling with Jason Alberich, the Warlock King. The two kings shared something in common. They both ruled over a magically unruly bunch. Warlocks and goblins were not all that different in many respects. Both were terribly powerful, and both tended to become warped by the influences of that power.

Amongst the
similarities he and Alberich shared was the innate knowledge of the current location of any of their subjects who might be in trouble. It allowed Alberich to prevent his warlocks from casting damaging spells on stupid and often deserving mortals. And it allowed Damon to save those same mortals from certain death at the hands of a monster none of them could truly fathom.

No sovereign sitting at the table of the 13 Kings
wanted their realm to be responsible for a human blood bath. More importantly, none wanted to face the repercussions of a mortal world that had become all too aware of their immortal counterparts. Mortals did not understand such things, and they feared what they did not understand.

And a scared human
being was perhaps the deadliest monster of them all. There were cobweb-imbued torture chambers all around the world full of the grisly echoes of victims that could attest to that.