Lord King (The King)

CHAPTER ONE

As sloppy raindrops pelted my windshield, I watched my newest discovery emerge from her hotel and hurry down the wet sidewalk. She wore spiked heels and a skimpy black cocktail dress, far too sexy for eight o’clock in the morning and entirely the wrong outfit for this weather.

“What are you up to, my little treasure?” My grip tightened around the steering wheel. I suspected she was going to meet him, the man I would kill within a matter of days.

And sorry, King, but winner takes all. Soon, she would be mine, and I had big plans for my little treasure.

Fact was, her breed of power deserved to be wielded by someone with ambition, someone who was born to lead, a ruthless bastard through and through. Me.

He’ll never want you anyway, my little treasure. Not even her sexy black dress, displaying the sensual roundness of her large breasts, could entice a man such as King. The soulless. The cursed. The man who claimed he could find anything or anyone. For a price. But he would never find an appreciation for her as I would.

A Seer. A real-life fucking Seer. Just what I needed to complete my arsenal of weapons. Because like King, I was a treasure hunter. I’d dedicated almost two thousand years of my existence to seeking a way to end my tortured, hollow existence. Until one day, I found it, and for the first time since my mother cursed me, I had control.

That was the moment I began living. Truly living. Because I finally understood power was everything. Being on top was everything.

Now the pieces were falling into place. King had recently ended Ten Club. He’d murdered all but three of its members, me being one of them, and I couldn’t be happier.

Such a gift you’ve given me, King. He was clearing the way so I could build my own dream.

All I needed now was for King to finish off the other two members—a pair of depraved assholes who would give him a run for his money.

Pure entertainment. Fights like those, between individuals with supernatural arsenals that could destroy a small country, only came along once in a lifetime.

After that, King would come for me, but I wouldn’t lose.

I swiped my hand across the fogging windshield to watch the keystone of my future disappear down the steep San Francisco street. Jeni, you and I are going to change the world.

Jeni

Dripping wet, I ducked inside the postage-stamp-sized lobby of the old brick building that had been converted to loft spaces and then left vacant for decades by its owner: King. Now back from the dead. Again.

I wrung my long hair, attempting to dispel some of the rain. Wet weather wasn’t typical for San Francisco at this time of year, but what did I know? I was from Tallahassee, Florida, where we received most of our rain during hurricane season, which was how I met King.

Hurricane Mia had delivered him to the port where I was working on a cleanup crew after Tampa had been obliterated. We were some of the first people in, clearing debris and downed cranes so emergency supplies could get in by boat. When King washed ashore inside a steel box, everyone assumed he was dead, but they couldn’t have been more wrong.

King was incapable of dying.

I peeled the front of my wet dress from my chest. “What a mess.” I knew my makeup was a lost cause, as were my new black heels. King was well over six feet, and I barely reached his pecs. I thought the shoes might make him take another look at me.

I’m ridiculous. He could never want me. His heart belonged to his dead wife, Mia, and the only thing he cared about, besides her and his dead children, was to die and join them on the other side.

Okay. Fine. I supposed Ariadna, his daughter, wasn’t really dead. Like me, she was a Seer, and according to them, we could never truly die. Our souls migrated to Seer-land or wherever the fuck we went—some plane between this world and the next that sounded suspiciously like purgatory.

The only exception I knew of was King’s late wife, Mia, who gave up her Seer powers. Why? Not sure, but I did know she was beyond this realm and beyond his reach.

I made another swipe over my dress, using my hands as squeegees, but it was no use. I was soaked to the bone.

I walked over to the shiny elevator doors and pushed the up button on the wall. The wet racoon with stringy dark hair, staring back in the reflection, confirmed my ridiculous decision to not check the weather before I left this morning, along with my pathetic choice to dress like I was going to a nightclub at eight in the morning.

I could return to my hotel room for a change of clothes, but I was already late, and King waited for no man.