The Phantom King (The Kings) (14 page)

She stood a
nd made her way into the house,
passing by the drive way, which no longer sported a
shiny
black Mustang. She’d used magic last night to expand the garage and the car was now resting safely inside.

Siobhan pulled the milk from the fridge and poured some into a bowl for the cat. Then she filled a glass with ice water for herself.
She was heading back toward the front door
when she heard the motorcycle.

She froze mid-step, and a touch of milk sloshed out of her bowl to
splash onto the hardwood floor
below. She glanced
down
at it in irritation, but the bulk of her attention was pinned on that
sound
. It was a deep rumble, not the higher pitched whine of the motorbike that had followed her down Highway 107. But
strangely enough, it was familiar anyway
.
It filled her with a sense of foreboding, drying her throat and turning her stomach to lead.

“What’s wrong?” Steven asked, suddenly beside her and more solid than ever.

Siobhan shook her head. “I don’t know.” She turned, put the bowl and glass down on the shelves agains
t
the wall, and looked up at him. “What did the demon look like?”

It was the only time she’d asked him to describe his attacker.
He’d told her once right after he’d come back as a ghost, but she’d been in so much shock, she hadn’t really digested the information. Not properly.

“Did he have black hair?”
she asked.

Steven shook his head, frowning. “
No, he was b
londe. Why?”
His blue eyes narrowed
.

It had occurred to Siobhan that this senseless fear she’d been feeling toward the  motorcyclist might have something to do with Steven’s attacker. It had been too long since the attack; she had no idea why she’d been left alone. Why hadn’t the
demon kept good on his promise to
come back for her?

Well, maybe he
had
.
Maybe her moving
to a new house
had
temporarily thrown him off
her trail
and now he’d found her again. A
nd this was him. Always on a motorcycle.

But t
he rider’s hair had been the color of midnight, not blonde.

“Siobhan, what is going on? Talk to me.”
Steven
reached out, perhaps instinctively, as if to take her by the upper
arms in an earnest grip. He’d done it before, several times since
coming back as a ghost. However
unlike
before
,
this time
his hands did not glide right
through Siobhan’s body. Instead, they slowed
at the threshold of her flesh
before finally slipping through with a thick, sluggish slowness.

The effect was painful.
It was wrong in a fundamental way
, and
Siobhan found herself backped
aling until his grip was gone. B
ut even as she moved out of his reach, it seemed to take too long for his fingers to come free of her body. The passage was frigid and
foreign, leaving Siobhan with the feeling that a part of her that never should have
been
cold had ju
st iced over
.

“Steven,” she said as a violent shiver took her and she hugged herself over the invisible ice marks he’d made on her arms. “What the hell?”

Steven blinked and looked down at his hands. Siobhan watched as he turned them over. She couldn’t see through them any longer. Not really.

Outside,
the sound of the motorcycle became louder. The bike drew near, and Siobhan chanced a glance over her shoulder toward the living
room door.
“It’s him,” she muttered without realizing it.

“Who?” Steven asked. It was
more of a demand than a
question.

Siobhan hesitated. And then she exhaled. “The man who followed me on the highway. He kept up with me no matter what I did.” She shook her head. “I know that’s him.”

Steven straightened, his tall form eyeing the door. Siobhan watched him as a kaleidoscope of emotions played through her. Steven’s body was nearly so
lid. She knew it in her heart; j
ust another day, and he would be whole again. He’d barely made it through her own body without getting… stuck or something. She shivered as she thought of it. And
now his
eyes were so bright they were nearly glowing. He seemed amplified somehow. Different.

Powerful
.

But the expression on his face changed as she looked on.
At first he wore anger, self-righteous and fierce. But as the motorcycle outside pulled up into her now empty driveway and shut down, the
look
slid into one of uncertainty. Then doubt. And then outright fear.

“Don’t let him in, Siobhan,”
Steven
whispered. “Whatever you do, don’t let him in.”

With that, he disappeared. T
he detective
was
there one moment and no more than a puff of
wispy
white
that
quickly
evaporated
into nothingness the next.

A wave of cold washed over Siobhan as she stood there, eyes wide, fingers clutching her upper arms.

There was a knock a the door, firm and clear.

Siobhan remained motionless, her heart pounding, her breath caught. Seconds passed and the knock came again, this time a touch louder.

Siobhan slowly turned. On legs that were going numb and feet that t
ingled, she made her way to the door then
leaned over, placin
g her eye against the peep hole. The man outside was turned away, his attention on something near the porch steps. Just before he bent, she was able to take in the broadness of his back, encased in black leather, and the way his thick black hair curled over the collar, outlining the strong curves of his neck and chin. And then he was out of view
and
all she could see was the pink-orange color of the sky as the sun began to set
.

Siobhan straightened, closed her eyes,
swallowed hard
,
and undid the latch.
She swung the door open. “Can I help you?” she asked, surprised at the amount of strength she was able to inject into her voice.

The stranger
was crouched on legs
that looked well-muscled and strong where they pressed against his jeans. He was
scratching the same ginger cat who had
vied for her attention earlier. W
ithout turning or standing, he
said, “That was some impressiv
e driving you managed the night before last
.
”

Siobhan felt the blood drain from her face. His voice was deep and filled with all kinds of forbidden knowledge.

“I’m assuming you’ve hidden the Mustang in the garage,” he added. “Which wasn’
t big enough for it the day before yesterday
.”

He stood then, placed his hands on his hips, and turned to face her.
His hands dropped from to his sides and he
froze, his e
ntire tall, strong body going
still as a statue
’s
. The pupils of his light mercurial eyes
dilated
, and
his lips pa
rted
slightly
.

Siobhan’s
breath caught. A
buzzing erupted in her ears.

He was the most
beautiful man she had ever seen.

Chapter
Nine

It
took
forever for either of them to speak, much less move. They seemed frozen there in time on either side of the threshold, separated by a boundary neither of them could see but both could feel.

The stranger’s wavy dark
hair brushed the collar of his black leather jacket and a stray lock or two scraped along the scruff that graced his strong chin. His eyes seemed to be throwing off sparks in the handsome frame of his face, so light they looked like electricity. She was going to fry in the heat of their dangerous depths, but she couldn’t look away.

He was
broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, and his form filled
the doorway like a
shadowy wall. A
s she stood there and gaped out at him, she caught a whiff of soap and leather. Her mouth watered, the effect
Pavlovian
and instant.

There was a weakness settling into the bones of her legs when the stranger finally raised his arms, ever so slowly, and braced them on either side of the door in order to lean in. It was predatory, and Siobhan would have stepped back but
for the fact that she felt nailed
to the spot.

“It’s you,” he said, his voice cascading over her like a waterfall of magic. “You
’re the one I’ve been-”
He swallowed and seemed to stop himself short, to catch his next words before they had a chance to be born into the world. He hesitated, his eyes boring into her
s
, his incredible charisma acting like a magnet on her blood.

Finally, he
said, “You
were the one I sensed on the Anime. It’s your power keeping him here, isn’t it?” His tone never rose,
but the inflection was so personal, the words so starkly unnatural, it was as if he’d speared her with them.

Her breath stilled in her lungs and her eyes grew even wider in her face.

He smiled, his lips slowly spreading to reveal straight, white teeth… and incisors
a fair deal
longer than the
y should have been. “You’re a witch,
”
he said.

“Leave,” she replied
. And then she blinked. It was as if she’d spoken without no instruction from her brain whatsoever. The word had simply slipped out – defensive, protective,
and
frightened.