Chains of Frost: The Bellum Sisters 1 (4 page)

“Commander Tyrian, I bring news.”
Rayn dropped briefly to one knee before standing again. His shorter hair,
Tyrian noted, was a disheveled mess like a child had gotten into it and tried
to make a bird’s nest out of it. Something long ago forgotten fluttered in his
chest. He pushed it back with cold fingers.

“Speak.” Tyrian pulled his arms
behind his back and loosely clasped his hands.

“I’m sorry for the delay, but we
had…complications.” Tyrian’s brow almost furrowed. How could one female be
trouble? Rayn had slaughtered a den of rogue demons by himself in less than ten
minutes. His prowess in battle was why he was one of his closest, most trusted
guards. That and his ability to teleport anywhere at any time.

“Tell me everything.”

The story that Rayn went on to
tell was completely unbelievable, very ridiculous, and absolutely absurd, yet
he said it in the same no-nonsense voice he used in battle. What he spoke was
truth, he knew, because he wouldn’t dare lie to him. Men had died before for
daring such. Knowing all of that though did not make his story any easier to
absorb.

Six hours ago, Rayn, Henry, and Draven
teleported to Frank Bellum’s winter home in Colorado. Finding it vacant, they
then checked his other homes in Maine and Florida. They, too, were deserted,
not even a light on in the houses. Rayn insisted that the female was not hiding
or else Draven would have scented her. Though at the house in Colorado they
caught a lingering feminine scent. “Like hazelnut or honey, something sweet,”
he said. Tyrian merely raised an eyebrow and waited for the rest of the story.

“We tracked her via credit card
to London. She bought three tickets, one for herself and each of her sisters.
And this is where things got weird.”

“How so?” Tyrian felt a dull
throbbing pain slam against his right temple. Was there no way to tell this
story faster? The dull pain was a crack in his control. He quieted his mind and
stilled the pain like an iron fist over the throb. It stopped like a heartbeat.

“First we stopped at the airport
to pick up her scent again, then we followed it to a cemetery where we found a
hole in the earth.”

Tyrian cocked his head. “What do
you mean, a hole in the earth?”

Rayn shook his head and stalked
over to a side table where he poured a shot of dark amber liquid and gulped it
down with a sigh. “Exactly what I said. There was a massive black hole in the
ground. Looked like some kind of pit. It was deep, too.”

“Deeper than a grave?”

“Much.”

“What does this have to do with
the female?”

“She and the sister’s scents were
all over the place. Whatever happened, and none of us has a clue, it was big
and bad. We caught a scent of something else there. Demon.”

Even shocked as he was, Tyrian
managed to look calmly at the warrior. “Impossible. The demonic rift isn’t
anywhere near London.”

“I know. We said the same thing.
But that’s only the beginning of it. This
thing
, whatever it was, didn’t
smell like the demon’s we fight. It was similar, but reeked of death, age,
power. As I said before…weird.”

“Are the women witches?”

“I doubt it. Succubi have some
magical ability, maybe enough to levitate off the ground or push a person into
the wall with enough concentration, but not this. Of course, I’m not even sure
what it was or what happened; neither does Draven or Henry.”

Tyrian contemplated that. “But
you’ve got the woman.” A simple statement. His men would not return without the
mission completed unless they were dead.

Rayn shook his head as if he
couldn’t believe something, then tossed back another shot. “This is where
things get complicated.”

Just then, the warrior Draven
stormed into the study with a grin on his face. He stopped before Tyrian and
dropped to a knee. “Commander Tyrian.”

Frustration threatened to creep
in like hot pokers to Tyrian’s brain. “Unless you wish to finish the story,
then I suggest you leave.”

The warrior smiled like he just
said something funny. “I’ll let Rayn finish the story; I just wanted to let you
know that King Henry’s bringing her in. I think even you may like this one,
Commander.”

Tyrian scowled at the warrior
then looked at Rayn expectantly. He quickly wiped the smirk off his face and
continued his story.

“We tracked the women’s scents to
a small hostel, but before we could go inside to find her, we met a friend.”

“From beyond the grave,” Draven
added in an ominous voice.

Rayn cut him a hard,
half-laughing look. “Whatever the demon was we smelled at the cemetery was
there. We tracked it to the side of the building. We saw it. This thing was
huge, much bigger than your typical demon. It was dead. Not dead as in not
living. I mean, its flesh was peeling off its body, dropping all over the
ground.”

“That thing really needs some
cologne. Stunk to high heaven.”

“Enough, Draven,” Tyrian
commanded with ice covering his words.

“It was after her,” Rayn was
saying. “Standing outside her window. It attacked us and that damn thing nearly
killed Henry. It was powerful, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Didn’t
look anything like the
idummi
demons we usually fight. Henry took a
nasty blow to the stomach, sent him flying a hundred feet into traffic where a
car nearly ran him over. So, like I said, complicated. This demon was not quiet
either. It was loud as a mother—it was loud, Commander.”

“What he’s trying to say is that
by then half the hostel was awake because the demon would not stop roaring and
finesse was no longer our strong suit. We saw the woman through the window. It
was just her and another. We don’t know where the third sister is. They put up
a hell of a fight, even managed a few good blows,” Draven said, rubbing his
reddened cheek thoughtfully. “But we knocked her out, got her here ASAP.”

“How did you transport her?” It
was not concern he had over the female, simply an interest in the facts.

“We knocked her out with a tranq
and ported her straight here,” Rayn said. The sound of heavy footsteps brought
everyone’s attention to the open doorway.

“You guys are dicks.” Both Rayn
and Draven broke into grins.

Tyrian’s scowl deepened as he
took in the English warrior carrying a loose-limbed female. He both smelled and
saw the sight of Henry’s bloodied stomach.

“How bad is the wound and why
isn’t one of you carrying her instead?”

Henry came forward, not even
breaking a sweat. “Because, as I said, Commander Tyrian, they are dicks. Where
do you want her?” Tyrian had the urge to step back from the unconscious female,
but he fought it and instead took one forward and pointed to the rug in front
of the hearth. Henry nodded and deposited her softly on the fur rug. Tyrian
wasn’t surprised at Henry’s gentleness; the warrior always did have a weakness
for women.

When he stood though, his grimace
of pain was not faked. As if forgetting something, he sighed and dropped to one
knee. “Commander Tyrian.” He rose with another grimace then sent withering
glares to Rayn and Draven as he stalked to a chair.

“Go see Nanu about your wounds.”

There was a tightening around the
warrior’s eyes. “The wound isn’t worth troubling her about. It should heal by
morning.”

“You will see her now. End of
discussion.” Henry gave a clipped nod then spun out of the room on hard steps.

“Which sister is missing?”

Draven shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Tyrian cut a look to the bundled
heap of woman asleep on his rug. He couldn’t see her face since her back was
toward him. All he did see was a massive pile of shiny hair the color of
polished wood. For some reason his eyes drew over her body, taking in her
shape, and it was then that his eyes narrowed.

“What is she wearing?” When
silence ensued, he glared at both of his warriors. He had never experienced
such lack of response in all his years with them. He made a mental note to add
in extra training time for them—a lot of it.

“It’s a bath towel,” Draven said
with a predatory grin that Tyrian hated. In his mind, he saw himself swinging
his fist out and connecting it with Draven’s jaw. He shook his head to rid
himself of the image. What was wrong with him?

“Was she bathing when you found
her?” Why he asked that question, he had no idea. His mind quickly went through
all the possibilities of how learning this information could be relevant, but
could think of none.

“No, she was asleep, naked. With
the demon outside kicking Henry’s ass, we didn’t exactly have a lot of time to
dress her properly and all that. Plus, she was feisty when we woke her up.”

“Feisty? She nearly took your
head off and that sister of hers was like a demon-possessed woman. I gotta say,
I’m glad this assignment is over. Give me murder and mayhem any day, but a
couple of angry females, you have to be extra careful not to hurt while a giant
demon outside is roaring mad—no thanks.”

The female on the floor moaned
softly and drew all gazes to her. Tyrian tightened his hands into fists behind
his back. Even without seeing her face, he saw that she was too feminine, too
soft looking to be here with him, in this castle of death. She made another
soft noise then fidgeted on the rug. The action sent the towel slipping
precariously down so that one breast was in danger of flashing everyone.

“Get out,” Tyrian said. His
guards looked at him in shock then immediately stood, bowed to the waist, and
ducked out of the room. The door shut softly behind them.

Tyrian rubbed a hand over his
face and immediately regretted the action. Control. Already he felt himself
weakening. The second he started to lose it, he’d be downhill from there. The
female would be a problem. When was a woman not?

He closed his eyes and steeled
his thoughts, his emotions, his body. He owed Frank Bellum a great debt and was
finally ready to make good on it, after a thousand years.

But never once in the thousand
years did he guess that this would be his payment. A woman. His daughter. A
treasured and loved woman now in his tainted, bloodied grasp. What was Frank
thinking leaving her to him? And he’d put it in his will a year before he even
died. He’d planned it.

Tyrian stalked to the window and
looked out at the moonlight. The moon was a thin sliver in the sky. Soon the
sky would darken with the sight of the new moon. He looked down at the woman on
the floor. He saw only a portion of her face, the rest of it covered in a sweep
of hair. His attention drew to her lips, soft looking and thin. He yearned to
tear his gaze away but that would be a breach in his control, so he forced
himself to steadily, slowly lift his eyes from her.

A succubus woman under his
protection. It was almost laughable. But as he looked back up at that moon, he
knew he would not be laughing come the new moon.

Chapter Four

Henry paused outside the medical
ward. He took several deep breaths before he felt ready enough to go in there.
Maybe she wouldn’t be in there. Maybe some tech would be there instead or even
her asshole brother. Yeah right, he was not that lucky.

Cracking his knuckles, he opened
the door and stepped inside. Instantly he saw her. How could he not? She looked
up at him from behind her desk. Her eyes lit up and she smiled. It was like
being hit in the chest by a truck. The breath he’d been taking just whooshed
out of him. Her eyes tracked down over his chest and her smile died. There, at
least he could breathe again.

She stood and grabbed her white
lab coat from the rack behind her. “What happened?” Her voice was brisk,
efficient, and soft. It also held a trace of her accent that spoke of her
Egyptian heritage.

“Just a fight.” She cocked an
eyebrow in disbelief at him.

“Take a seat on the table. I’ll
need to have a look at it.” He loved the sound of her voice. The way she spoke
rolled her letters together in a way that drove him crazy. As long as she
didn’t say his name. He couldn’t seem to keep his dick down when she said his
name in that soft, husky voice.

He hopped onto the white hospital
bed and barely managed to hide the wince. She snapped on a pair of latex gloves
and came to stand in front of him. It seemed like the most natural thing in the
world to spread his legs so she had to stand between them. He was definitely a masochist.

“I’ll need to know what happened,
Henry.”

He closed his eyes as a flush of
pleasure soared through him. His dick went hard and he didn’t know if it was
because she smelled like a mixture of rain and woman, because she stood between
his legs, or because she said his name. She said his name like it was something
thick and luscious she wanted to roll around in her mouth. No one had ever said
his name like that. He was also certain half of what he was thinking right now
was batshit crazy.

“Got into a fight with a demon.”
He watched her between lowered lashes as she gently lifted his blood-soaked
shirt up to his chest. She didn’t gasp or faint at the ravaged skin of his
stomach. She merely assessed the damage with a critical eye. That shouldn’t
turn him on but… Shit.