The Phantom King (The Kings) (10 page)

He
had
needed to turn around. That was all.

That was all.

But sleep was slow to come that night. She saw her pursuer
’
s
steely
eyes in the darkness and heard the motor of his bike in the stillness. And no matter what she told herself as she tossed and turned in her bed, her heart refused to stop pounding.

Chapter Five

That was definitely the car. The fact that its owner thought to attempt to hide it with a shielding spell was only further proof that it was the one he’d been looking for.

Tha
t’s not what you’re looking for
Thane,
he corrected
himself. He was l
ooking for a ghost, not a Mustang-driving,
rubber-burning magic user.
Snap out of it.

But he couldn’t. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get the car and its mysterious driver out of his head. It didn’t help matters that the ghost was nowhere to be found. He drove his bike through the streets of Salem all night, sending out his feelers for any sign of the
rogue
Anime, only to come up empty handed
and exhausted
by the time the sun began to creep up over the horizon.

He’d never stayed out of his own realm this long before, and as he pulled his bike up to an empty space in the parking lot of a drive-in motel and shut it down, he realized that he couldn’t put off a return any longer. The bodies had piled up, the newly-dead wronged were waiting in veritable throngs for some sense of peace and belonging, and he had a job to do.
Pinning down the escapee would have to
be put on hold.

Thane leaned back in the seat on his bike and
peeled off his gloves. His expression was grim as he thought of the black car and the magic user living in the
cul-de-sac
mansion. The vibration in the air around that house had been rather intense.

And now that he allowed himself the peace and time to think on it, he realized that it had also felt familiar. He frowned, going still.
It felt like sparkling stars
, he thought.
Like space. Like dark magic… that wasn’t
so dark
.

“Holy fuck,” he muttered under his breath. The realization knocked the breath from him. The sensation he’d received when turning around in that
cul-de-sac
and looking up at that three-story house
had been the same that had accosted him when the escaped Akyri had reached for him in his garage. The same damn thing. The same magic.

“Christ.” With that
hard
thought
and harsh utterance
, he looked left and right to make sure no one was watching in the early morning twilight. When he was sure it was clear, he waved his hand, opening a portal to Purgatory. Then he started his bike back up and drove on through.

He would catch up on the dead, stretching time
on his end
as much as was possible. And then he would head back here and make his way straight to that mansion’s door. If he hurried, he wouldn’t be too late. It wasn’t good to leave a pissed off Anime to its own devices for too long.

The spirits only knew what could happen.

*****

Dannai Caige knew full well that only about fifteen percent of pregnancies culminated with the mother’s water breaking. But she was special; she was carrying very special children, and of course she should have expected nothing less than what actually happened to her.

At just after one o’clock in the morning, her water broke, drenching the bed sheets beneath her and sending her gasping into full awareness. “Lucas!”

The werewolf beside her was
awake
and out of bed before she’d even told him what was happening. No doubt he knew. He always knew.
Before even donning a shirt, h
e moved around the bed with incredible speed, grabbing jackets, blankets, and cell phones before he was back beside her with a
beautiful yearning and
determination
in his dark eyes.
The muscles of his tall, strong body rippled in the pale light coming through the curtained windows, and Danny experienced a selfish, needful emotion. She couldn’t wait until she was sturdy and strong enough that he could
hold her up against the wa
ll and ravage her the way he had
before he’d knocked her up
.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he said,
helping her out of the bed
and then lovingly draping her sweater and jacket over her
.
It wasn’t exactly cold outside, but May in Trinidad, California wasn’t exactly warm either, and Lucas wasn’t known for taking chances when it came to his wife.

Oh God
, she thought, as her swollen arms barely made it through the sleeves of the jacket.
She was enormous. Every move she made ached a little, and
the scale had been her worst enemy for weeks, but
she’d been lee
ry
about using magic to ease the pain
and
discomfort
.
Lalura had been by her side for the majority of the pregnancy, and she never failed to help with her tea and tinctures, but when it came down to it, becoming a mothe
r was a messy, painful process
no matter how you rolled the dice.

To make matters worse, t
here was a vast
and hellish
difference between carrying one child and carrying two. The twins had turned her into a beached whale within the course of three short months. She wasn’t at all surprised that she was going into labor a month early.
If she didn’t get these babies out of her soon, her skin would split open.

“
I can’t wait until this is over,” she said, grimacing as a contraction hit out of nowhere, forcing her to a stop in
her dripping tracks and bring
her teeth gnashing
forcefully
together. “Son of a bitch,” she growled.

The contraction rolled through her like a tsunami, drowning all conscious thought in the red pulse that was pain. Lucas held her as she closed her eyes against it, and she used his hand as a squeeze-toy. She was a werewolf, so his bones consequently cracked under the pressure. But he was a werewolf too, so he said nothing, did nothing, and simply let her hold him as she rode it out.

When the contraction passed, she opened her eyes and tried to breathe normally. “Okay, kiddos, it’s show time,” she said as she released her husband’s hand and pressed her palm gently to her swollen belly.
Lucas moved her quickly through the house and toward the
door that led to the garage
.

They’d thought long and hard about the names they were going to give their children. The boy, they’d decided to call Kavanagh, in honor of the
late werewolf council Overseer
who had also been the grandfather and last remaining family of Danny’s close friend, Claire St. James. Danny had no doubts that the name would be shortened to Kevin by everyone close to her son, but she didn’t mind. Kevin meant “handsome one,” and she was certain
that
he would be.

The girl, she’d called Jazarah. It was an Ethiopian name that meant “beloved princess,” and she’d heard the name in a dream several months ago. It fit. She loved it. And if it was shortened to Jessie by those closest to her daughter, then again so be it. After all, it would then honor Jesse, the
current
werewolf council Overseer, and another close friend of the family.

A few seconds later, Lucas had them both safely sequestered in the car he’d purchased immediately after finding out that
Danny
was pregnant.
It was one of those economical vehicles that got great gas mileage and fairly emasculated almost any man who got behind the wheel. But it was a family vehicle, and there was no length that Lucas wouldn’t go to when it came to seeing to his family’s needs. Plus, he was
an alpha werewolf and definitely
not
almost any man. Not a thing in the world would ever succeed in emasculating him.

Danny tried to
adjust
the front seat as she waited for the garage door to raise. She tried to relax. But she could sense another contraction coming, like an impending lightning strike through her nervous system, and it sandpapered away the last of her patience. With a flick of her wrist and a spark of magic at her fingertips, the garage door ramrodded up into its casings, shaking the foundations of the entire house.

A man stood on the driveway, a tall, solitary form draped in the vestments of night.

Jason Alberich.

“Jason,” she breathed, torn as she always was when she set eyes on the man. He was her oldest and, in a way, closest friend. He was also a former pursuer, a man who had hunted her down, abducted her, and terrified her. He was also the man who saved the life of her sister-in-law, the Curse Breaker. Without him and his power and his unselfishness in using it, she would have lost her brother-in-law, and with his loss would have come the inevitable loss of her husband. They had a lot to be thankful for when it came to Jason.

But that wasn’t why she loved him.
There were shades of gray to Jason Alberich. There were so many layers, he practically existed in four dimensions. He was complicated - and there was a power to him that she sensed growing stronger. He was destined for something big, she could feel it in her bones.

Jason was also
her protector, her guardian.
He’d been made
P
atra
to her unborn children because she trusted him almost as she trusted no other.
Despite the chaos of their history, Dannai could honestly say that Jason had
never hurt her. And h
e’d always been there for her.
Always
.

Just as he was now.

“The son of a bitch always knows when it comes to you, doesn’t he?” Lucas said under his breath. He put his car into gear and waited as the Warlock King made his way to Danny’s window.
She was about to roll it down with magic, not wanting to even move as the second contraction drummed over her. But Jason beat h
er to the punch, using his own magic to roll
it down, and then reaching in to place his hand to her stomach.

At once, she was both alarmed and relieved.
It was always best to keep any
unnecessary
spell casting to a minimum while carrying a baby. But i
n her heart, she knew that no magic she
would
have cast to help with her
pain
would
cause
harm to her children. It was just that
as far as pain relief was concerned,
she was afraid… not of any danger, but of what people might think of her. Women had been going through pregnancies without the aid of magic for thousands of years. What kind of woman did it make her if she couldn’t do the same? Her doubts and sense of social responsibility had kept her from doing what needed to be done.