Read Protected by Stone (A Paranormal Romance Novel) Online

Authors: Cynthia Brint

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #New Adult & College, #Paranormal, #Romantic Suspense, #Mystery & Suspense, #suspense, #Demons & Devils, #Ghosts, #Psychics, #Witches & Wizards

Protected by Stone (A Paranormal Romance Novel) (2 page)

BOOK: Protected by Stone (A Paranormal Romance Novel)
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Stumbling from my bed, I glimpsed the blinking green numbers on my microwave.
It's three in the morning, who the hell is knocking?

“I'm coming!” I shouted, not awake enough to think straight. Otherwise, I might have been less inclined to announce myself. Anyone who was knocking at such an hour should be handled carefully.

Touching the knob, I squinted through the peephole. There, blurred by the old fish-eye lens, I saw the vague shape of something grey. The hard knock came again, making me jump back.
Who could this be? The cops? My landlady?
“Uh,” I said, my voice fragile to my ears. I was grateful that I'd fallen asleep with my lights on. Everything felt... eerie. “Who's out there?”

Something leaned on the door, I could
hear
it as the pressure crushed on the wood. “Miss Blooms?” It wasn't a voice I recognized. The baritone, it sounded like he (for it was certainly male) had been shouting for hours. A quality like a raw, natural whisper that was far too loud to
actually
count as one. “Miss Blooms, is that you? Let me inside, please.”

My jaw dropped, tongue tangling against my teeth. “I'm sorry, let you inside?
Who
are you, first, if you wouldn't mind telling me.”
Not my landlady, so the police then?

“Time is of the essence, Miss.” The first hint of frustration, a tone that matched so well with the earlier frantic knocking, grew. “If you'd please just let me in, I can tell you who I am.”

Lifting my head, I peered through the tiny glass hole again. I wanted to get a look at him, but it was too dark in the hall. “Amazingly, my ears work much better
through
things when strangers come knocking.” The figure moved, greyness shifting like he was stepping away. I wasn't sure what he was doing, until the piercing black eye appeared at the peephole.

Stumbling back, I ducked to the side as if I'd seen a gun. My heart was slamming into my ribs. “Miss Blooms,” he said, crisp and sour, “I need you to let me in. It's urgent, we need to discuss the matter of your grandmother's house.”

Blinking, I looked around until I spotted the letter where I'd thrown it. “What? You're part of that scam, are you kidding me?”

“I—scam? What are you talking about?”

Wiping my forehead, I leaned off the wall. “I'm not such an easy target, you know. Go away, I know the letter is fake.”
I don't have any family, grandmother or otherwise.

He knocked again, but its weight no longer sounded polite. No, this sounded like my visitor was trying to
break
my door down. “You mean you received the letter? It didn't get lost? You've had it
all along!?

Turning around, I stared at my door as it shuddered under another attack. Down the hall, through the thin walls, I could hear my landlady shouting something. “Hey! Stop that,” I snapped, unsure what was happening. “You're waking up my land—”

“How could you sit on that letter for over a week and
not respond!?
” The fury in his voice chilled me. The sight of my door buckling set my terror even higher.

Whoever was out there was actually going to smash my door down.

In a panic, my mind thick with images of my landlady charging me for damages I could never afford, I rushed forward. “Stop! Hold up!” My fingers snatched the knob, working at the lock. “Just wait a second, please!”

He must have heard me, the slamming ended. My palms were slick with sweat, making it difficult to crack open the entryway. There, standing outside my apartment, was a surprisingly normal man who looked to be in his twenties. Surely close to my age, and normal enough... well.
A bit too pale
, I thought. It was hard to scrutinize him in the moment.

The hallway was dim, the only light coming from my landlady's open doorway. “Farra!” she snapped, clutching her paisley robe tight. “What is all this racket?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I said, my laugh hollow. Impatiently, I grabbed the man's arm and tugged him inside. “Just go to bed, Miss Tanner!” Closing the door, I didn't wait to see if she would listen.

Once I felt safe (or as safe as one could with a stranger at three in the morning) I turned to face my visitor. “What's this all about? You almost broke my door down! Who
are
you?”

He hesitated, seeming stuck between feeling angry and ashamed all at once. I studied his sharp eyebrows, watched them move up, then down, then twist like pretzels. “Grault, Miss Blooms. My name is Grault. Sorry about all this, but we really don't have the luxury of time here.”

“Grault,” I said, tasting the name. “That's... what is that, German? Nordic? I've never known anyone named that before.”

His lips parted, but he didn't respond. I watched his inky eyes dart down, seeing my array of tossed paper airplanes. His gasp was comical, if it wasn't followed by such a look of rage. “I—you—what happened here?”

Standing there in the clothes I'd been working in, smelling of grease and with ruffled bed hair, I was suddenly uneasy. Here I was, letting a stranger in to see how messily I lived. “Oh, um. I mean,” I rambled, “my trash is sort of full and I've been meaning to take it out, but you see, I worked very late and was just exhausted so...”

Grault bent down, lifting the letter from among all the other scraps with reverence. I hadn't noticed how tall he was, not until he spun back to arch over me. “Why would you throw the letter from your grandmother away? How could you be so
cold?

“Cold?” I repeated, lost by what he was saying. “Wait. I'm sorry, you're upset about the fact that I was going to throw
that
away? That letter, specifically?” S
o he wasn't commenting on my pig sty.
“I mean, come on. It's clearly a scam, or at best, a joke.” My confidence waned under his intense scrutiny. “I—isn't it?”

With long, elegant fingers, he smoothed the paper against his chest. “This is no joke, Miss Blooms. Your grandmother sent this to you over a week ago, she assumed you'd come see her before she passed on.”

My mouth felt very dry. “I don't have a grandmother. Not one that I knew, anyway.”

Gently, Grault took my wrist. His touch was cool, his skin surprisingly silky. I didn't fight when he turned my palm over, setting the letter on it. “Your grandmother was a lovely woman. An amazing woman. I'm sorry you didn't get to know her, but this is no scam. You're her only living relative, she wanted her possessions to go to you.”

Only living relative.
It wasn't a shock, but being reminded of my parents' death fourteen years ago still set my stomach twisting.

Grault's face was stoic, making me wonder if the only other emotion he had was anger. His eyes, swimming black pools, drew me in. That was when I noticed his eyelashes were white as snow.
How weird, like an albino, except...
“Wait,” I said, looking down at the folded paper. “You mentioned she sent this over a week ago.”

His nod was sharp, his frown more so. “And you ignored it, which is why I've come to fetch you.”

My brows scrunched low. “Excuse me, I'd appreciate if you didn't act like I was a sort of toy to come claim. 'Fetch' as you said. Anyway, I didn't see this letter till last night.”
Not that I could say it would have made a difference if I'd found it sooner.

Grault's expression shifted, eyes widening. “Truly? Oh, I... hmn. I'm very sorry, then, Miss Blooms. It's a terrible shame you never got to meet your grandmother, Tessa. She held on for a bit, but she knew her time had come.”

Chewing my lower lip, I looked over the letter again. I felt guilty for assuming it had been fake. But, how could I be expected to believe I'd just been handed a
house?
She'd written about other things, too, I could see now. Things that no scam artist would have bothered with.
If I'd been more thorough, I'd have noticed here... she mentions my mother, Gina. The signs that this isn't just an elaborate scheme are right here. Way to go, Farra. Way to be entirely too cynical.

I wanted to sit down, to read every word now that I knew it was real.
I have a grandmother? No, had. Grault said she died. If I'd seen this sooner, would I have been able to meet her? To learn more about a family I didn't know I had?

“Miss Blooms,” he said, ending my train of thought. It was for the best, if I kept on that line of thinking I was bound to start getting emotional in front of this stranger.

I hated crying in front of anyone, it was always very ugly.

“The hour is incredibly late. I really need you to hurry and get ready, otherwise you'll never catch your train.”

Bending the note in my hands, I slid it into my pants pocket. “Sorry? Did you just say I'm getting on a train?”

He wore no watch that I could see, and though my microwave still blinked the time, he glanced towards my window. The blinds were drawn, blocking the night sky. “It's growing close to four, if we want to beat the sunrise—”

“No, wait.” Lifting my hands, I waved them to grab his attention. Amazingly, he did look down at me, but I felt like he wasn't really seeing me. “Wait. Wait wait wait. I'm not ready to just get on some train! I need to... to pack, and that's even assuming I'm going with you in the first place.” I opened my mouth, then shut it while pondering my obvious question. “
Where
are we—where am I—going exactly?”

Grault scrubbed his fingers over the short, bristly pale hair on his head.
Is his hair grey, actually? It must be the lighting in here, he's too young for grey.

“Miss Blooms—”

“Farra.”

“...Miss Blooms,” he went on, ignoring my correction, “we're going to your grandmother's house. We're in dire need of you there, things have gone quite to hell without a caretaker.”

Crinkling my nose, I leaned forward. “You're just giving me more questions. I thought she was
giving
me her house, what's this about a caretaker?”

Again, there was a flicker of impatience. I wondered what was making him so agitated, it couldn't be just me asking questions. Could it? “Miss Blooms, honestly—how am I not being clear? Your grandmother is gone, she was the caretaker of her home. Now, you're the only heir, and as such... we need you to take her job.”

“So this is about me taking up her... job? Her responsibilities?” His nod was brisk. “And,” I continued, studying his face as if it'd help me read the situation, “you said 'we' so unless I'm not following
at all
, that means there are... others... involved in this mess?”

Smoothing his jacket, like he couldn't keep still, he nodded. “Yes. Quite a few residents stay in the home, some for years now. They're all genuinely upset over how things have gone down. Tessa's death has left them distraught, as I said we
really
must be going.”

And like that, it all clicked together. “You're seriously asking me to become the caretaker for my dead grandmother's house. To run it now that she's gone.”

Grault exhaled loudly, relieved by my succinct breakdown. “Exactly, yes.”

Turning away, I sat down heavily on my futon. My elbows draped over my knees, shoulders slumping.

“What are you doing now?” he blurted, not trying to hide his exasperation.

Tucking my hair behind my ears, I looked my visitor up and down like it was the first time I'd seen him. “Trying to take this all in, isn't that obvious?”

“We don't have time for that!” His fingers cut the air, gesturing wildly.

I simply rose my eyebrows an inch higher. “Well, that's too bad. I need a moment to digest this. On the one hand, I love the idea of a house, of money.”
I certainly need that right now. I could pay off my landlady, stop worrying about where I'll be living next. After years of bouncing around from the orphanage, the idea of a place to settle is... nice.

He was staring, so I kept talking. “To just go and become a caretaker for someone's home, I don't know anything about that. I'm expected to just up and take over a... what did she do, turn her house into some kind of hotel?”

He dug his fingers into the collar of his jacket, adjusting it violently. “Miss Blooms, please. I need you to gather your things, or we're sure to miss the train. I can answer your questions once we arrive, I promise.”

Slapping my thighs, I didn't budge from the mattress. “Is it really so important for me to leave right now, in the middle of the night?”

“Yes, it really is!”

Frowning, my eyes narrowed on his angular features. “We leave, and what then?”

“If you just would come along—”


And what then?

We stared each other down. I was tired, I knew my drawn skin and puffy lids were showing it. But still, Grault was looking on the verge of having a nervous breakdown. If there was such a thing as an advantage here, I thought I had to have it.

“Fine,” he snapped, arms locking together over his chest. “Miss Blooms, you are incredibly difficult. That
you
of all people would be Tessa's granddaughter.” Breathing through his nose, he looked at the far wall. “We leave here, I'll take you to the station. I'll put you on a train to New Hampshire, and once there, you'll be able to reach your grandmother's house. Then, fingers crossed, you'll begin the role of caretaker and start putting everything back to normal.”

New Hampshire,
I thought in wonder.
That's pretty far from Georgia. Is that where my mother was from? I know so little about her past.

There was something going on, something too perfect to not consider the opportunity.

Money, a house, how can I say no?

Looking down at the work-shirt I had fallen asleep in, I tugged at the front. “I have one more question. Well, actually, I have a million... but one more before I decide what I'm going to do.”

He turned his head warily, like what I asked would be the death of him. “Go on.”

“She
did
leave me money, right?”

Grault relaxed visibly. “Ah. That. Tessa left everything she owned to you, Miss Blooms. That includes more than her house. If you agree to take up the responsibilities that she left, I assure you, you won't want for anything.”

BOOK: Protected by Stone (A Paranormal Romance Novel)
12.66Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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