The Unseelie King (The Kings Book 6) by Heather Killough-Walden Read Free Book Online Page B

for a living would come to recognize deadly situations when they occurred.
    Roman considered this man, who had so long been a close friend, and his gut clenched. Was it possible that Thane could have turned on them? That any of them could have?
    On one level, Roman, himself, couldn’t comprehend why this was so difficult for him to accept. They’d been betrayed by one of their own before, after all. Two, in fact. The former Warlock King had been a bad seed. As had the former Akyri King. Maybe it was something about the nature of warlock magic… and all who were borne or drawn from it.
    Like vampires? Roman suppressed an all-too-human shiver and continued to peruse the people at his table.
    To Thane’s left sat his queen, Siobhan. Speaking of warlocks, she was one such creature of immense capabilities. So immense that her power had drawn out the evil in the former Akyri King.
    To her left sat the newest member of their burgeoning court, and the latest addition to this ever-expanding table. Selene Trystaine looked nervous. She looked uncomfortable and uncertain. Roman couldn’t blame her. If he’d been seated in her chair, he would have been nervous and uncertain too.
    Selene’s sister was out there somewhere, in some unknown state and capacity, dealing with an immense amount of anger and power she could not control. She was with a man Selene did not know, but for the fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, her future brother-in-law. Family, in and of itself, did not make ties strong. Selene had no idea what was going to happen to her twin. And she was still reeling from her parents’ deaths, herself.
    There was a vast store of vengeful magic inside that girl; Roman could feel it from where he stood. He could only imagine what Caliban was dealing with at that time.
    To Selene’s left sat her king, the Seelie King, Avery. He looked nervous too. Again, Roman couldn’t blame him.
    Beside Avery sat Damon Chroi, the Goblin King. His queen was currently absent and “out of commission,” as their triplets were due to arrive any day. Also, there was the reality that Diana was admittedly better at running Chroi’s kingdom than he was; the goblins took a natural liking to her and had been steadfastly loyal and supportive since she’d taken her throne. A courtesy they had very much not shown their king.
    To Chroi’s left, then, was an empty chair.
    But on the other side of that chair sat Stephen Lazarus, the Akyri King. Lazarus had once been an exceedingly good police detective among mortals, but had taken the position of Akyri King, otherwise known as the Demon King, when he’d been murdered by the last sovereign of the Akyri nation and had shown up in Thanatos’s realm as something a bit more than a mortal ghost. It turned out he’d been a born Akyri all along, and when he killed the Akyri King, he rightfully took his place as lord of his kind.
    Akyri were an odd and special breed, borne of sheer magic. In fact, they fed upon magic for subsistence, and hence had over the years developed a symbiotic relationship with some of the most magical of the supernatural creatures, the warlocks. Warlock magic had to be freely given to an Akyri. In exchange, Akyri served warlocks as would employees. It was only that their paychecks consisted of power rather than money. Not that there was much difference in the mortal world.
    As their king, Lazarus was the sole Akyri capable of taking magic – without asking for it. Had he wanted to, he could have begun feeding upon warlock magic right then and there at that table. He had, after all, two of the biggest potential donors sitting at that table with him.
    Since he’d become king, Lazarus had brought the Akyri nation under long-awaited and stead-fast rule, tending to issues other kings had let slip, and bringing order to a species that had become as lost as sheep in the realms and rules of the supernatural.
    Lazarus had yet to locate his queen, so the seat to his left was