Her Demon Prince (Forbidden Fantasy) (6 page)

Phoebe’s
stomach turned in sickening horror. Blood gushed from the angel’s throat. His
hands clutched at the wound in his attempt to staunch the flow. How could he
still be alive with an injury like that?

The
policeman strode over to Agrat. “Hands up.”

Agrat
pointed his fingers at the cop. The strange red energy that Phoebe had
experienced flowed from his fingers to the policeman. “There is no problem
here.”

Galaden
reached out and grabbed his sword with silver, blood-soaked fingers, struggled
to his feet and vanished.

The
officer blinked, looked over the scene and blinked again. Aside from the
damaged sculptures, there was no angel and no blood. Even the silver glitter
that had spread across the floor from the angel’s wings had disappeared.

“Put
away your weapon.” Arm outstretched, Agrat continued to point at the officer
who lowered his gun. The energy seemed to weave its way around the policeman’s
body, coating him so that he appeared to be surrounded by a fine, red mist.

The
officer, his face blank, pushed his gun back into its holster.

“Leave!”
Agrat ordered.

The
officer turned and walked toward the door.

Agrat's
words shocked Phoebe into action. She bolted to the door, but it slammed shut
in front of her. Gripping the cop by both arms, she shook him, trying to get
him to respond. “Don’t leave me here with this monster.”

“She
is safe with me,” Agrat said to the cop.

The
cop looked down at her, his movement robotic, his eyes glazed. “You are safe
with him.”

Disbelief
flooded her body. “That’s insane. Your job is to help me. I have to get away
from this creep.”

Agrat
strode forward, disengaged her fingers from the cop's arms, put his arm around
her waist and pulled her back. She thumped down on the dark bruise where she’d
hit him with a hammer.

The
demon growled and Phoebe felt her heart plummet with fear. His grip tightened
on her.

“Open
the door, leave, and close it behind you. Protect Rachael outside. Take her
away from here,” Agrat said to the cop.

Phoebe
struggled, pushed against the demon’s rock-hard body. “Please. No. Don’t listen
to him. He's a psychopath. Don’t go.”

But
the cop backed out of her studio, saluted Agrat and left, closing the door on
his way out.

Leaving
her with the demon.

Chapter 5

Agrat held Phoebe to him to stop
her racing out of the studio and onto the crowded street. “Look at me, Phoebe.”

“Like
hell I will. Let go of me.” She bunched her fist, punched upwards and caught
him on the jaw.

Shock
made him release her, though her fist had no more power than a young soldier’s.
When had his princess learned to fight? First with the hammer, then with her
fist?

“Stop
this,” he said, gripping her by the forearms.

She
let out a scream loud enough to singe a banshee’s ears and he clamped his hand
over her mouth. Pushing her against the wall, he pressed his body against hers
to contain her. She writhed and struggled against him until eventually,
exhausted, she stilled and he held her close, fighting to control the surge of
lust that made his cock swell with need. He took his hand away from her mouth.

Instead
of submitting, she glared at him, her hands pushing hard on his chest. “You’re
crushing me with that breastplate.”

“Then
stop fighting.”

“Fuck
you!”

“Any
time,” he growled. How had the woman he’d fallen in love with become so fierce?
Sure, she’d been determined in their past life together. It was rare for a
concubine to have the courage to escape the king’s harem, but this woman, who
looked so beautiful with her blond hair and large sky-blue eyes, had courage.
She questioned everything he said with courage and determination that
infuriated him, and yet, he respected her too.

Her
look was subtly different as well. Her long blond hair had been cut with
scissors so that it draped around her face, instead of hanging straight to her
bottom. Her eyes held a steely determination as if she were used to making her
own decisions and her body, though slim like he remembered, no longer yielded
to him. Instead, when she fought him, her torso and arms were made of rock-hard
lean muscle. The once-soft hands that had caressed him were rough with calluses
from her work; even her fingernails were short and bruised in places from her
tools.

Yet,
as he eased back allowing her to take in a deep breath, the memories came
flooding back: the intensity of the love he had for her and the sensual feel of
her warm body against his that made his cock swell with wanting her.

The sheer, black pain of losing her jolted through his mind.

He
wouldn’t let it happen.

Not
again.

Summoning
his mind-melding powers he focused on calming her, putting her under his
command, but try as he might, he didn’t seem to be having the effect he
expected.

Instead,
she stiffened and glared up at him. “Damn you,” she growled, “I felt you
probing my mind. Stay out of my head. I saw what you did to that cop. You
turned him into a zombie.”

Agrat’s
image of what constituted a zombie was taken from the cop’s mind, and it confused
him. The cop had all his body parts, didn’t walk with a shuffle or have his
brains hanging out of his head. Still, there wasn’t time to clarify. Instead,
he fisted Phoebe’s layered blond hair so that he could look her in the eyes
without her shifting her face. “Quit fighting me or I’ll bind you and carry you
out of here like a sack.”

“So
you can rape me?”

“I.
Don’t. Rape.”

“Do
you think I can’t feel that hard-on you’ve got pressed against me?”

Although
her look was pure fury, his sense of smell was so acute he was aware of her
body’s arousal too. “Do you remember nothing of what we had?”

“I
don’t know what you mean.”

He
searched her face looking for the love she’d once had for him. It galled him
that she’d beseeched Galaden for help, rather than him.

Sickened,
he watched as she looked back at him out of terrified blue eyes. “In my dreams,
I remember the angel putting his wing around me, protecting me and I
remember…terror…and you.”

He
let out a growl of frustration. “I loved you.”

“Pah!
Demons don’t love. Go to hell.”

“That’s
where we’ll both end up once these other statues come to life,” he said grimly,
pushing aside the black pain from her retort. He couldn’t bear to think about
it. Not now. Instead, he had to get her to safety, which was not going to be
easy. She was difficult to compel, almost impossible, only the binding red
energy worked on her. Was Galaden right? Did she have her own powers? How was
she blocking his compulsion?

“What
are you talking about?” she asked him, her face full of suspicion.

The
light of the moon lit up the studio settling dangerously on the statues. Agrat
heard a scraping of stone. “Your people call this time Halloween. Mine had
another word for it: Devil’s night.”

Phoebe
shrugged as if his words had no significance. “Halloween is for Trick or Treat.
That’s it.”

“It’s
more than that. It’s when the dimension between the living and the dead is
thin. Look around you.”

The
gargoyle statue of a small demon with a crocodile's head shuddered. The marble
was changing color in front of his eyes and he knew he had only moments before
the dangerous entity came to life.

“Oh
my God, I can’t believe what is happening here. I caused this?”

“It’s
not that simple and I haven’t time to explain it to you. I have to get you
away. If Galaden doesn’t kill you, one of the other demons will.”

The
crocodile-headed demon’s eyes opened. He turned as if sensing Phoebe’s presence
and his gaze fixed straight on her. His reptile-like hand moved to his sword.

Agrat
released Phoebe and sent a glowing bolt of energy, which shattered the statue.

“Destroy
them.” Phoebe’s face was bleached with fear. She waved her hand at her work.
“Get rid of them all.”

“I
have to pulverize them so they can't reform. There's no time. Come with me or
I’ll bind and make you.”

“Why
should I trust you?” she asked, her face stricken.

A
loud groan echoed around the studio. Phoebe’s head snapped around to examine
the statues.

Agrat
followed her glance. The powerful demon, Envy, was awakening. “Don't look into
his eyes. You will lose your mind. Let’s move!”

“How
can you protect me? Do you know this century?” Phoebe said.

He
gripped her forearm. “I learn fast. I subdued the cop, took his memories, his
speech patterns. Everything.”

Her
mouth turned down in a thin, flat, line. “Well, you won’t do that with me. I
won’t let you get that close. Make do with lobotomizing the cop.”

Envy, a large sculpture with a
long torso, carrying a severed heard under his arm, creaked and shuddered in
the corner. The smell of sulfur came from the gaping mouth.

Phoebe looked like her knees
were about to buckle underneath her with terror.

“Princess,
we’re going. Now!” He wrapped his arm around her waist, strode out of the door
with her by his side, out onto the street. She clearly didn’t trust him, but at
least she wasn’t fighting him.

Once
outside, the onslaught of street energy hit him. Revelers in masks and carrying
carved pumpkins danced on the street. Music from the Heifers and Bulls bar was
playing and men stood outside drinking. A black Dodge Challenger drew up
alongside the curb.

Agrat
opened the passenger door and pushed Phoebe inside.

“What
the fuck?” the male driver said.

“I
have an emergency. Leave the vehicle,” Agrat ordered the man.

“Are
you nuts?” the man said.

Agrat
strode over to the driver’s side, opened the door, pulled out the man hard so
that he stumbled over the pavers and fell onto the street. Agrat slammed the
door and drove off.

“You
can’t do that. You can’t steal a car,” Phoebe said. She grabbed the door handle
and tried to open the door but he willed it to stay closed.

“I
will return the man’s chariot when I no longer have need of it.” He recalled
the road map that he had taken from the cop’s mind. He knew just where he was
going.

"You
can't hypnotize or kidnap people. It's against the law," Phoebe protested.

"These
laws are made for your people." A car stopped in front of them. Agrat
frowned, furious at the delay. He honked the horn but the car in front didn't
move. He unwound the car window and a fireball grew in his hand.

"Stop!
You can't set fire to that car," Phoebe screamed.

"He's
blocking my way."

"I
don't care. It's wrong to kill innocent people," she said.

"I
do not kill innocents. I only wish to incinerate the car. The driver will
run."

"Don't
you dare.
"
Phoebe glowered at him.

Agrat
extinguished the fireball, pulled his arm in and wound up the window. There
seemed to be no end to the rules of this time, one of them being that women did
not hold their tongue.

“Where
are you taking me? And since when did you learn to drive?” Phoebe asked.

“I
told you, I extracted the policeman’s memories. We’re going to a safe house
outside Salem.”

“But
that’s over four hours' drive.”

His
lips turned up at the thought of having Phoebe all to himself, even if she
didn’t want to be there. She’d remember their love. He’d make sure of it.

Agrat
put his foot on the accelerator, impressed at the force of this chariot which,
according to the memory from the cop, had horse power in the engine, though he
wasn’t quite sure how that worked because there were no living creatures in
there. He swerved around the cars in front of him stopped at a red light and
floored the accelerator, enjoying the expression of the word ‘floored’, a
thought the cop had enjoyed too. The horses in the engine made the car jump
forward and move with incredible speed.

Phoebe
pulled on her seat belt with trembling fingers. “Slow down or you’ll get us killed.
You just ran a red light.”

“It
is permissible in an emergency.”

“For
cops, yes. Not for ordinary citizens.”

He
glanced over at her remembering how her body had melded to his when he’d had
her pressed up against the studio wall, even though she hadn’t wanted to. He
was glad she couldn’t see his burgeoning erection because from the way her eyes
were darting from side to side as he maneuvered his way around the traffic, she
looked close to breaking. Even so, he couldn’t get rid of the image of her
naked under him. “I make the rules, Princess. I don’t follow them. You’re going
to find I do a lot of things that aren’t permissible, especially when it comes
to you.”

“Sleep deeply, Princess. Rest.
Remember your love for me,” Agrat chanted while he drove the long trip to
Salem. It had taken two hours of silent incantation before Phoebe’s eyes began
to close. Only when he approached Salem did she finally stop fighting him
mentally and fall into a deep sleep. He’d never encountered such resistance
from a human before. Clearly, Galaden had learned something about her he didn’t
know.

Agrat
turned off the freeway and drove up a long, deserted road to reach what the cop
called, “a safe house’. Steering the chariot onto the loose gravel in front of
the place, he cut the engine, grateful that he didn’t have to organize a stable
or hay for the vehicle. Instead, he strode around to Phoebe’s side, opened the
door and continued to intone close to her ear as he carried her from the car
and up the stairs to the front door.

He
thought about the time in his palace when they’d been happy and implanted the
memory into her brain of him holding her close in their past life, when she’d
trusted him. Phoebe frowned and her eyelids flickered, even though she slept.
Still, she fought his
mind-melding
, but he knew he’d
reached her with his incantation this time when her face softened and her lips
turned up into a smile.

In
sleep, she no longer had her defensive shield up and he could penetrate her
thoughts efficiently. When awake, she seemed to be able to maintain a
protective barrier, which puzzled him. Only immortals had this skill.

He
ordered the door to open and he walked down the hall into the main bedroom.
According to the cop’s memory, the house, situated on a hill with land
surrounding it, would be free for a couple of weeks. When he entered the
bedroom, he recollected the cop’s disgust at having to guard the last
informant, a drug pusher who’d been given a new name, address and a whole new
life for agreeing to testify against his fellow drug pushers.

This
house was a good choice because it was hidden from view from the road by trees,
which would help keep it free of human interference. More importantly, the land
around Salem held the sacred energy of the
elements,
ones Agrat could call on to protect Phoebe.

His
task of looking after her was not as simple as the cop’s protection of an
informer. His enemy could materialize in an instant and he had to prepare for
them, which is why he kept Phoebe in a deep sleep and laid her on the large bed
in the main bedroom. Having her angry and opposing him was not a situation he
wanted to deal with.