Chapter One
The cavern’s stone floor was divided into separate islands bedecked with redwoods or willow trees or gardens with vegetables and fruit. Wooden bridges spanned the rivers that acted as their dividers. The water was purified and crystal clear, always the perfect temperature to drink. A waterfall of massive proportions filled the cavern with the faintest fog and a distant static sound that acted like a solvent on the nerves. Evelynne, who went by Evie with her friends, had loved that about it most.
She was a sensitive soul, beautiful to her very core, and unsettled panic was the byproduct of caring as she did. The cave had been her salvation. Roman had never been more proud or relieved to share something with another person as he had been the night he’d brought her here.
This cave had been home to him and his wife for years. It had been theirs alone. No one else in the world – no one but Lalura Chantelle and Dahlia Kellen, that is – had known it existed until today. He’d originally brought Evie here to seduce her, and it felt like yesterday. He would never in a million years have guessed that he would have reason or compunction to bring anyone else into the private sanctuary it afforded.
But it was all that was left. Borders, wards, dimensional barriers and the like made it impossible for the lot of them to gather in any place but the mortal world for long. And the cave’s location far beneath the living, breathing mortal world made it the only place the twelve of them could collect without unwittingly slaughtering thousands.
Even here, in the relative seclusion of a cave a mile under the Earth, Roman could sense the destruction taking place above. The heavens were enraged. Their angels had been taken, and the realms were left in wide, open chaos.
He was partly to blame. He knew that some of that tempest was his doing. But it was also Thane’s and Jason’s and Caliban’s. It was a storm that belonged to Scaul and Pitch and Calidum. It bore the name of a dozen kings, and it turned and curled in on itself, and the world below its fury hunkered down and boarded up windows and braced for yet another hurricane in a season of hurricanes unlike any the historical world had ever seen.
Roman’s gaze had been lost on the same group of smoky gray crystals on the wall of his cave for an untold period of time. But he saw them as rubies. His vision had been tainted red for countless hours, sleepless weeks. He was not alone.
The Vampire King glanced over his broad shoulder to find the Goblin King standing on one of Roman’s wooden bridges, staring down at the small stream that trickled underneath. He knew Damon Chroi had closed up his castle in the Goblin Kingdom. He’d used powerful fae magic to place everyone and everything in a stasis until the lady of the castle could return. He was not the caregiver she was, and even if he had been, he could not tend to them now. Even his own children… slept.
Beyond Damon, on another of the stone “islands” formed by crisscrossing rivers in the underground cavern, stood the Seelie King. His strong hand was fisted in his blond hair, his eyes were closed, and two days’ worth of scruff darkened his strong chin. Not far from him stood his brother, the Unseelie King, looking a good deal more composed in all black, a freshly shaven face, and raven black hair that fell perfectly into place. It was his eyes that gave him away. The lot of them were basically immortal, having lived for thousands of years, and yet Roman couldn’t recall ever having seen them look the way they did right now. They weren’t simply glowing, they looked like tourmaline Tesla coils, literally zapping with Unseelie magic.
*****
The Unseelie King gazed into the water that moved beneath the bridge. He was not there, in that place and time, not really. In his mind and heart, he recalled another moment…
Caliban gritted his teeth until he felt they might crack. He squeezed his eyes shut so tight they hurt. But neither helped him focus. His wounded body was raging. He’d never had to wait this long for healing magic. If he ever ailed of so much as a splinter, ten women would hone in on him as if he were a beacon. He could take his pick.
His body was well aware of this. It was out of control, like a terribly spoiled child. It wanted what his mind knew it could not have.
He couldn’t stop imagining what it would feel like to press Minerva up against that wall and feel every inch of her furious body against his as he captured her lips and drank her in. She would probably fight him. She may be the most empathetic soul on the planet, but that also meant she was one of the strongest. She didn’t like injustice one bit. She no doubt rooted for the underdog. Likely, she stood up for the weaklings against bullies. She would consider his actions wrong, and she would probably use every physical defense she could muster to rally against him.
And they would all fail. And he would win anyway. Because that was who he was. And she was who he wanted.
I want her.
It was more than the healing her touch would give him. It was more than a hunger he felt for her strength and magic and power. Oh, it was so much more.
I need her!
It had been the moment Caliban realized he would forever belong to his new queen and no one else. It had been the moment that despite his pain, his injuries, and his unbearable need for the healing magic of Unseelie mating, he could not imagine touching another. He could not imagine wanting another. And from that moment on, he would eternally only turn to Minerva. That was the painful, desperate moment he’d realized he loved her.
Fate had brought them together. And now it seemed Fate would tear them apart.
*****
Roman watched the king worriedly. He was so quiet, too quiet. Hell, they all were. None of the kings had said a word in long minutes. It might have been hours. But their spirits spoke plenty in another place. They were putting people in danger up there, the lot of them. He had no right to tell the others to pull it together. He was as lost as anyone. The twelve of them were Pan’s boys, every one without his Wendy because she had been taken by Hook before he cast away on an endless, troubled sea.
Roman absently turned his attention to the ground beneath his feet and touched his cheek. Underneath, the skin of his gums had become sore from consistently throbbing for two weeks. He could no longer force his fangs to fully retreat. They were noticeably longer than his other teeth, and no amount of magic erased that aspect of his inner monster. It showed now, like it or not. He was what he was: A possessive and powerful vampire lord whose one true love had been kidnapped.
He was not alone, either. Thane’s teeth were out. Thanatos the Phantom King was lord of the wrongfully dead, overseer of a realm comprised of “Anime,” spirits left over when a being or even inanimate object had its life cut unnaturally short. His kingdom was vast and lonely, and its very foundations existed partly in death. Hence, life was more important to Thane than it was for most.
Nothing symbolized life in its very essence more appropriately than did blood.
The power of every King ran through that king’s veins. And the same went for every Queen.
Thane had clearly developed a taste for his missing wife’s since she’d joined him on his throne.