Lord King (The King)

“I assure you I am ready,” he muttered. “Now, if you do not mind, I must gather my strength. Victor will not go down easily.”

I was about to ask what King planned to do to Victor but stopped myself. King wasn’t going to waste his breath explaining details.

“And you would be right, Jeni.” He cracked open a pale gray eye. “Get some rest. Your light is flickering.”

“My light?” I questioned.

He ignored me. Of course. King wasn’t going to waste his breath explaining the Seer world to me either. Not when he hated them so much. They’d killed his wife and babies. They stood between him and the peace his soul yearned for.

CHAPTER FIVE

Just before ten p.m., King and I were in a car, traveling toward the Royal Palms Marina and Yacht Club, where the rich docked their aquatic mansions and enjoyed twenty-four-hour concierge service plus a five-star restaurant.

From what I’d found on the internet, the slips here cost more money per month than some people made in a year, and I couldn’t tell if I was jealous because my dad and I always struggled financially, or if I was hating on the place because Victor lived here. Must be evil if they’d have him as a member, right?

“Here we are,” King said, pulling up to the curb across the street.

“How are we getting in?” I noted the tall iron fence gating the parking lot. There were also security cameras and a guard by the entrance.

“We are not. You are staying in the car.”

I didn’t know whose white SUV this was. It had been parked at the private airstrip where we landed, but unless King had rented it from some Arab prince, and it came equipped with bulletproof glass and impenetrable steel doors, I was not staying in it alone. If anything went wrong with King’s plan, I’d be a sitting duck out here all by myself. I assumed he and that deadly soul of his would be busy.

“I am sorry to tell you,” King said, “that it is an ordinary vehicle; however, you will be much safer here than inside with me and Victor.” King got out of the car, opened the back hatch, and dug something from his duffel bag.

I twisted my body and leaned between the seats. “That isn’t the deal. I get to watch him die.”

“You can see his body after I kill him.”

I watched King remove his dress shirt, and my throat went dry. Underneath his clothes were the endless ropes of hard muscles I remembered. His stomach was rock solid with deep grooves defining each section of his abs. So beautiful. When I looked at King, I forgot all about who and what he was. I just got lost in him.

“What was that?” He pulled a black T-shirt over his head.

I snapped out of my distraction. “I was about to say you’re out of your mind if you think seeing his body is good enough.”

“You are in no position to negotiate, Seer.”

“Jeni. My fucking name is Jeni. And we’re talking about the man who took everything from me.”

He shut the back of the SUV and came around to my window. I lowered it.

King spoke with a forced calm. “He did not take everything. Your father still lives and is healthy. Be grateful for what you have, Jeni.”

King was right, but once again, I couldn’t help how I felt. There was a rage inside me, and it had been building my entire life. Victor was the source of that rage. All those years, he enjoyed his life, a free man, while we suffered.

“And since we are on the subject of your father,” King added, “he must remove the ring I gave him so he will age normally. He is not meant to live forever, and I am certain the Seers will eventually punish you for keeping someone alive past their expiration date.”

Ah yes, the ring. King never told me where he got it, but when worn, it paused aging, and it could bring a person back to life after a fatal event.

I never would’ve believed in that kind of hocus-pocus if I hadn’t personally witnessed the ring in action. My dad had been in a terrible car accident about six months ago and was put back together with so much metal that his X-rays looked like the hardware aisle at Home Depot. The worst part was his pain and the fact I had to put grad school on the back burner to support him. That was how I ended up working in Tampa after the hurricane. No, I didn’t mind getting a full-time job, but it didn’t help with Dad’s healing process. He was not the sort of man who wanted his daughter supporting him.

Then King came along and, as a sort of bribe to me, gave my father the ring along with one hell of a King-mindfuck. In other words, King brainwashed Dad to forget how sick he’d been and how King had smothered him with a pillow so the ring would do its job. All Dad knew was he woke up feeling great. New body, so yeah.