The Demon King Read Online Free PDF Page B

The smile was
slow and mean, and he knew it didn’t belong on his face by the way
D’Angelo focused on it. “Frankly, no,” Laz said in a manner just as
slow and careful as his smile. “You have to understand, D’Angelo,
my years are measured by human standards.” He raised his hands.
“I’m in my thirties.” His fake smile broadened. “Not exactly
feeling the weight of lonely centuries on my shoulders the way some
of you are... or were .”
    He let that sink in, just to be mean.
    “ So the fact that I haven’t
‘found my queen,’ as you say,” he continued, “is not as high on my
shit list as you and the others might assume it would
be.”
    The Vampire King seemed to take this in
stride. At least, he showed no outward reaction to Lazarus’s
statements. Instead, he cocked his head to one side and asked,
“Then what is?”
    More silence filled the room.
    The truth was, Laz didn’t
have an answer to that. He was definitely under some kind of pressure these days. It
was why he’d been getting more violent than strictly necessary with
the bad guys lately. There was a kind of anger burgeoning inside
him. For lack of a better description, it seemed the world was
tainting itself red. He’d heard the term, “fire in the blood”
before. Now he was fairly sure he knew what that meant. There was
definitely something crackling away inside him, and every day
stoked it in some new way.
    Like now.
    “ You’d best be heading back
to your hole in the ground, Roman,” he said, referring to the
Vampire King by his first name despite the fact that the two had
never really been close enough for a first name basis. He left the
king at the windows and moved to the opposite end of the room,
calling up his magic as he went. “And get the hell out of my
town.”
    Lazarus’s words echoed behind him like the
warning they were as he used his dark magic to transport from one
location in Boston, Massachusetts to another.

Chapter Four
    It might have been a natural nick-name,
being the shortened version of “Dahlia,” but nevertheless the
Vampire Queen was perhaps the only person alive Dahlia would have
allowed to call her “Doll.” She’d been doing it since they’d met,
and that helped a little. The respect they had for one another
helped too.
    Evelynne D’Angelo had come from a poor
family, so she knew what it meant to struggle. She was responsible,
level-headed, and kind. As a mortal, she’d rescued animals,
volunteered at charities, and supported her family with every
paycheck she’d earned. Those paychecks came from the sales of
eBooks that she’d begun posting after trying to become a print
published author for no less than ten hard years. The rumors were
that Evie kept more than three hundred rejection letters somewhere
in the back of her closet. She saved them so she would never forget
all she’d gone through, and so she’d be reminded of how important
it was to never give up.
    When she was made the
Vampire Queen, she suddenly became the ground-breaking,
glass-ceiling shattering woman who ushered in a new level of female
involvement in the supernatural realms. Because of Evie – the first
of the queens – it was widely accepted and understood that the
queens were not only as powerful as the kings and as necessary at the
Table of the Thirteen, they were more powerful. They were quite
literally like the queens on a chess board. They were in control,
and without them the game would be lost.
    Dahlia greatly respected her new found
vampire friend. That was why she’d turned to her in this hour of
need. When it came down to it, Evie was right. Dahlia needed to get
this off her chest.
    “ Watch your step when we
get out,” warned Evie softly. Then she smiled. “And tell me what
you think.”
    Dahlia looked down to make sure she wouldn’t
stumble when she stepped out of the portal that had transported
them from the vampire mansion in the Redwood forest to the
underground cavern she’d heard so much about. She