The Warlock King (The Kings) (9 page)

“You don’t fight fire with fire,” said Jason. “And you don’t always fight magic with magic.”

“You want us to protect her when she gets to LA. With strength and might, not magic,” said Dannai.

Jason looked down at her – and that tender smile he saved only for her curled his lips. “It couldn’t hurt. The force we’re up against is sure to have realized that the queen to the
Warlock King
will most certainly be surrounded with an abundance of magic. He’s sure to take measures to counteract this.”

“You’re right,” said Lily. “It stands to reason. And everything we can do to help the 13 Kings protect their queens will ultimately help us as well.” She looked at the others. “Like Lalura told us.”

Dannai considered this. Lalura Chantelle and Jesse Graves had called a meeting with the entire werewolf council and all of the more powerful members of the werewolf community several days earlier. There, she’d filled them in on what was happening with the 13 Kings, their fated queens, and the “force” of unseen and unknown darkness that was determined to claim them himself. This mystery force seemed to be pulling everyone’s strings as if they were puppets in an unscripted play. No one knew what his plan was; no one knew his design.

Dannai had a feeling Lalura knew something she wasn’t letting on. But then Dannai
always
had this feeling about Lalura Chantelle.

It was imperative that the kings find and “claim” their queens before this dark force did. The wellbeing of the entire supernatural world rested in the balance.

“You don’t have to convince us,” said Katherine, cutting to the chase in the no-nonsense way that was so like her. “I’ll go personally.”

Byron placed his hand atop hers on the table. “We both will.”

“Cole is in LA,” said Lily. “We’ll contact him and Charlie. I’m sure they would be willing to help as well.”

“Why don’t you just kidnap her and tie her to your bed?” Lucas suddenly asked. Dannai’s stomach clenched. Her husband’s dark eyes were burning with memories. The table had gone quiet. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost your romantic touch, Alberich.”

Dannai prepared for a fight deep down in her soul. She was pretty sure everyone else at the table was doing the same.

But Jason wasn’t the man he used to be. In a move that surprised them all, he neither rose to Lucas’s saber rattling nor even paid it all that much heed.

Instead, he slowly stood. “Thank you for your offer of help. In the meantime, if something should happen to me, I would like for you to give Chloe this.”

He extended his arm, opened his hand, and a black diamond the size of an apple appeared in his palm.

Dannai’s jaw fell open. The werewolves around the table stilled. Black diamonds that size were not supposed to exist. What’s more, everyone there, Dannai in particular, was well acquainted with what they signified in the warlock world. Jason had once given a black diamond to
her
, in fact. In another, less friendly time.

“You’ll have to trust me in this,” Jason said, looking down at Dannai as he spoke. Their eyes met. It was like he was talking to her alone. “I promise it’s a good thing. If I can’t be there in the end, please be sure she gets it.”

Dannai almost didn’t want to touch the black diamond. As inanimate objects went, their potential for darkness was unsurpassed. At the same time, she very much
did
want to touch it.

But Lucas spared her from having to make the decision. Before she could take it, her husband reached out, grabbed it, and snatched it from Jason’s han
d. He stared up at Jason with frank distrust.

Jason’s expression was unreadable.
“It’s a house key,” he said. “Whatever happens to me, Chloe Septeran was destined to be queen. She should have a fitting home.”

Dannai felt a stunning sensation rip through her. Jason had just given them a very deep secret. He’d given them the means to find his hidden mansion.
Everyone knew he had one. No one had ever seen it.

Jason
was
trusting
them. Implicitly.

Dannai reached out and stole the diamond from her husband’s hand. He blinked, surprised. And then he
sighed and sat back against the bench cushion, admitting defeat.

Dannai looked back up at the
Patra
to her twins, her closest friend, the mysterious and multi-dimensional Warlock King. “I’ll make sure she gets it.”

Jason lowered his hand and turned to her. “Thank you,” he said – just before transporting away in the blink of an eye.

Chapter Nine

Chl
oe was fairly sure that the biggest and most significant difference between first class and coach on an airplane was that the flight attendants went out of their ways to treat coach travelers with disdain just so one could more readily tell the difference in the fore-section of the plane.

That was where she sat now, and before she’d even fully finished packing her bag in the overhead bin and settling into her seat to buckle her belt, the flight attendants had zeroed in on her and offered her a “complimentary” Mai Tai. She’d declined it and they’d instead offered her bottled water and a glass of ice.

Meanwhile, the people in the back went thirsty.

This disparity, this subtle form of grave mistreatment, was disturbing to Chloe, especially since as far as she was concerned it was the less fortunate who probably needed the drink more. In fact, she could
feel
that they plainly did.

Now she huddled under a complimentary blanket she didn’t strictly need but that offered comfort in the way of a barrier between
her and the rest of the world. The first class seat beside her was empty, as were many of the seats in that section. A complimentary pillow cushioned her head, and her oversized, plush leather chair was reclined at a comfortable 45-degree angle.

As she started to drift off to sleep, she imagined that somewhere in the back, a child shivered under the cold air of the plane’s interior, and a mot
her tried to hug her closer. Chloe’s eyes flew open. Her teeth set.

Just as she was rising to take her pillow and blanket to the back and donate them, a shadow fell over her.

“What will you do when one blanket isn’t enough?”

Chloe looked up.

The rest of the plane receded a bit, and all that remained was the infamous warlock that stood at the exit to her row, blocking the way out.

It seemed that the world should have noticed him there – the way he looked, the magic oozing from his pores, the fact that he’d appeared out of nowhere. His voice. His presence…. It seemed as though the plane’s engines should have stopped running, and everyone should have stood up and stared in awe. But if anything, everyone else in the first class section of the plane was asleep.

Chloe quickly took account of her situation. Apprehension threatened to overwhelm her. She was stuck on an airplane. If she’d had a store of magic taken from a host warlock, she could have transported off the flight. Hell, she wouldn’t be on the flight to begin with.

But even if she
could
do that, it was a bad idea to disappear from a US flight these days. Things like that were noticed, and she would end up on a
No Fly
list and under intense government scrutiny that was too close for comfort.

There was nowhere for her to go and nothing for her to do.

“One blanket is a start,” she told him, allowing a note of defiance to enter her tone.

“Help one person and others will expect it,” Jason told her, his green eyes glittering with some kind of amusement or knowledge or both. “Are you going to find blankets for all of them?”

“
You
could conjure them up.”

“Could I?” Now he was definitely amused. “Perhaps I could. But then,” he looked over his shoulder at the sleeping bodies of the other passengers. “I’m not you.”

Chloe sat back down. She’d been crouched under the bulkhead, preparing to exit her short, otherwise empty row, and she was getting sore standing there like that. Whether this was a dream or the Warlock King really was hemming her in, she was stuck.

“Then like I said,” she retorted, “one blanket is better than none.”

“And when someone else wants one and you can’t provide it, are you going to let the flight attendants scramble to explain their lack of supplies to the entire flight roster?”

“Why are you asking me
all of this?” Chloe demanded, irritation joining her apprehension.

Jason smiled the kind of smile that said he had just been
waiting
for her to ask that. “Think of what you could do with the magic I would give you, Chloe.”

A chill went through her as he leaned forward, braced his hands on two of the seats, and pinned her with those magnetic, magnificent eyes.

“You would never
want
,” he told her. “Not ever.” He shook his head slowly. His tone had lowered, intimate and promising. He gestured lightly to the plane around them, but his eyes remained locked on hers. “You want to make the world a better place. You can’t stand the suffering that runs through its veins like blood. So, consider for a moment what I’m offering you. I don’t care what you do with it. You want to give warmth to the cold? You want to feed the hungry? Then do it.” His gaze slipped down her body. “But you can’t do it alone. As beautiful a vessel it is, your body is empty, Chloe.” His gaze returned to hers. “You have nothing left to give.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Jason grinned. Then he straightened, lowering his hands from the leather seats he’d been leaning against.

And Chloe screamed.

The plane was gone. The passengers were gone. Open sky stretched out on either side of her, cold and silent. Chloe stumbled and crouched, her fingers grasping like claws at the air around her. She was absolutely positive that she was going to plummet to her death unless she found something to hold on to.

But she
didn’t
plummet. She didn’t fall. After a few heart-pounding moments, Chloe realized that she was literally standing on a cloud as if it were thick Tempurpedic cotton. It was impossible, of course. It was that fantastic thing children always dreamed of doing when they stared out the window of a jet plane.

Jason Alberich stood across from her, an indomitable form in solid black, stark against the backdrop of blue and white. They were alone, defying the laws of physics, and she’d been taken from her flight after all.

“How…” and
why
was the second thing she would have asked. But she didn’t even finish her first question. She knew it was pointless. This was the Warlock King she was addressing. He could probably do
anything
.

“This is
one
thing
,
Chloe,” he told her, his hands clasped easily behind his back as he began to pace toward her across the top of the cloud. “It’s one tiny, miniscule, utterly unimportant and ridiculously easy piece of magic.” He stopped a foot and a half away from her, and Chloe swallowed so hard, it felt as if her thyroid got stuck in her windpipe. “Especially for someone like you, Stardust, someone composed of the Cosmos. But you
can’t
do this, can you love? Not on your own. And so, you’re right. I
would
be surprised.”

Chloe stared at him as a stray breeze brushed a lock of her hair against her cheek. Wisps of cloud floated around her legs like fog. Behind her, the sun was setting; she could see its reflection in Jason’s eyes. It turned them to multicolored jade, radiant and fascinating.

She felt empty in that moment. A little like a husk, light and without substance. Maybe that was why she wasn’t falling. She weighed nothing.

And she realized he was right.

“What do you want from me, Jason Alberich?” she whispered. But he heard. He would have heard it if she’d never even given the question voice.

“Figure it out, Chloe,” he told her softly, intimately. He closed the final distance between them, and she watched the sunset flash a brilliant and rare green in the mirror of his eyes. “And when you’re ready to give it to me, I’ll be there.”

Chloe inhaled sharply and sat up in her seat in the first class section of the airplane. The engines droned around her. The air was stale and fresh at the same time, cold and impersonal and devoid of pleasant smells. Goosebumps were raised across her exposed flesh. She felt disoriented. Exhausted.

A man a few seats away on the opposite side of the aisle gave her a side-ways glance before returning to reading his newspaper. An orange light filtered through the drawn shade beside him. But he was sitting on the East side.

Which meant that the sun had set long ago, the night had already passed, and the sun was rising. It was morning.

The flight attendant made an announcement, informing them that they would soon be landing. Chloe’s body felt stiff – light and empty still – but stiff.

She wondered if it had all been a dream. 

And then she noticed the neatly fold
ed, tightly compacted pile of at least two dozen blue airplane blankets in the seat beside her. And she knew it was no dream after all.