The Fallen King: The Bellum Sisters 4 (paranormal erotic romance) (28 page)

She must be spent, exhausted and
hungry now. That kind of spell casting came at a price. He knew, he’d casted
his share of magic before. A physical need in his gut screamed at him to go
after her, to feed her and take care of her. He would just have to convince her
to stay with him. No, no.

He didn’t know how much she’d
realized, but she definitely had learned of his lie. Once again, it was all his
fault. He hadn’t been able to hide his eyes from her. She was too smart to miss
the overpowering guilt he’d felt.

“Where did she go?”

“My men said she ran east along
the fissure then disappeared. They tried to track her but couldn’t. She might
have used a spell to cloak herself. Or maybe she ported home.”

Alrik froze. An overpowering
sensation swept through him. The feeling that he had no control over this
situation, over her, and was helpless to everything.

Dread grabbed him by the heart.

Home? She could make a portal and
go home? A foul roiling emotion filled his stomach like a lead ball. His fists
clenched into hard hammers ready to pound.

“She wouldn’t leave.”

“If she could do what we’ve seen
her do, then I think she has enough power to go home and make sure you never
touch her again. But, hey, that’s just my opinion.”

Suddenly Aidan found his neck in
Alrik’s hand and his head slammed into tree bark.

“Watch what you say to me,” Alrik
growled.

He had to go after her. He had to
find her. He would because nothing would stop him. After he found her, they’d
talk and then...everything would be okay. He’d explain…

Betrayal burned hot inside him
like fire.

How could she just leave him? After
he took her body…after she kissed him and looked up at him with soft, innocent
eyes.

His hands shook with the need to
release the high emotions riding inside him.

He needed to get her back. It was
a physical ache burning inside him, a panicked throb that wouldn’t ease until
he had her safe in his arms. When he got her there, he was going to do more
than hold on to her.

“
Go, I’m done here with you. I
must say I think I can move on now. Now that I’ve seen how far you’ve fallen,”
Aidan said, despite the fact that his throat was being squeezed with an iron
fist. He sounded as if this wasn’t concerning in the least.

Alrik tried to ignore the vampire’s
taunting words. He released his grip then stalked away, heading west. If it
took every last one of his days to find her, he’d use them all for her.

“Who would have thought you could
love after all?”

Alrik didn’t stumble, but inside
he did. His heart skipped a beat, his mind spun circles in his head. He didn’t
turn back around. “I don’t love her.” He said it as if to prove to himself he
could. Yet, his voice wasn’t strong with the words, his soul not in them.

“Then why are you putting her in
danger? She may be powerful, but the queen could just as easily kill her before
she could cast any magic. Surely, you know this! That you are putting her life
at risk!”

Alrik was far enough away that
the vampire’s shouts faded with an echo.

He had to ignore them. He had to
because he needed her. Whether she was willing to help or not.

Things had changed. This was more
than just a quest to kill his mother and remove the curse. Something had
happened between them. Why else did he have this physical need in his gut
pulling him towards her and needing to find her? To keep her for himself,
always.

There was only one answer to the question
to why he had this need.

Surprisingly, he knew the answer
and it didn’t scare him. Not in the least.

It might have in the past, but
now he saw a spark of light at the end of the tunnel. That light was made from
Abbigail Krenshaw. Now he felt up to the challenge; proud and ready to be the
man he knew he could be.

A bit of warmth flared in his
chest as if he stood near a fire. It ebbed and waved as he stalked the night,
tracking her.

He loved her.

This changed everything.

Chapter Nineteen

She didn’t want to cry.

Liar!

Abby sighed and poked her finger
into the dirt moving it around.

Okay, she did.

Maybe.

Just a little.

She wasn’t a crier, not really.
Sure, she cried when she got that letter from her father, but she wasn’t really
a crier. She definitely wasn’t a loud crier either. She didn’t sob or boohoo
around. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but she could never let
herself do that. It was too embarrassing.

The worse was when she would
watch a drama movie with Jenna where the climax comes and a loved one or a dog—the
dogs are the worst—dies. Jenna, always the stalwart, watches without expression
while Abby cornered in her chair trying to hide her face from the burning tears
in her eyes.

Hell, she felt embarrassed crying
even when she was alone in her house. It didn’t matter how silly it was, she
still felt that way.

She’d walked the whole day. Pain
kept her moving like a zombie across unknown environments. A part of her
expected to be jumped by
idummi
demons or maybe a wild plant monster or
something, but nope. None of that happened. A whole day passed. She knew that
because she’d left Alrik at night and that strange light, similar to the sun
but not nearly as bright, came up and then went down again.

Everything hurt, even her eyes
felt dry as a desert as if she’d been staring straight into a light bulb without
blinking.

She only stopped because one of
her legs had given out. Her knee bowed out and sent her crumpling the grassy
ground. So she just stayed that way, cheeks in the grass, finger swirling in
the dirt.

He would come after her.

How far away was he? God, she
hated that she wanted to know but she did, badly. She didn’t want to know out
of fear of being caught but at the hope that she might see him.

Pathetic
.

She’d been running on anger and
high emotions. After the rogue demons started to follow her, she remembered to
cloak herself. Surprisingly, it’d worked. Not even seconds after they started
off in the wrong directions, talking amongst themselves and trying to figure
what had happened to her. It was eerie watching as they started to run in the
wrong direction, talking amongst themselves, and trying to figure out what had
happened to her.

Abby had learned that little
spell from her mom.

Back when she used to practice magic,
her mom used to tell her stories. One story was about a witch who could cloak
herself completely, turn herself invisible with only a thought and a burst of
magic. A witch could even lose her scent, but that required a potion with
special herbs that Abby would likely not find in the rift.

So, instead she’d cloaked her
body. Did demons have a powerful sense of smell? Probably not, or at least, she
hoped not. She was relying on the fact that aside from Alrik’s incredible
strength, which was far greater than a human’s and his ability to wield magic,
that he didn’t have the nose of a hound. Still she couldn’t be sure so she had
just kept walking. After a while, even her stomach stopped its annoying
growling.

Damn she was tired. Each time her
eyelids drooped it became harder and harder to pull them back up. However, sleep
never came. She tried to no avail. Something was wrong with her.

Yeah, it’s called paranoia!

True enough. She was paranoid
because she really didn’t want to get caught. Not by Alrik, the vampire, or the
demons. She just wanted to be left alone with no more thoughts and worries. She
wanted to go home and get back to her job, if she still had one. She wanted to
look up her half-sisters, the Bellums, and see if a friendship could be found
there. Heck, she even wanted to tell her mom she was sorry and that she
understood why she’d done what she did.

Abby curled up along a tree.
While walking, she’d tried to find a hiding place but she’d found nothing but
long rolling hills and mountains in the distance. There’d been nothing,
nada
.
Of course that’d be her luck. She just knew that if Alrik had been with her
he’d probably have found some secret cave that was perfectly safe and much
warmer than out here in the open.

Whatever, this spot on the ground
was just as good as any. Maybe if she just slept for a little while she’d feel
better, the tightness in her throat and chest would ease.

The real question was: could she
keep up the cloaking spell while sleeping? She had no clue, but she was about
to find out.

Abby’s eyes drifted closed.

Her thoughts refused to slow. Her
mind didn’t want to stop thinking about Alrik. Her heart wanted to keep
reminding her of how badly it hurt.

Well I don’t want to think about
it
, she wanted
to scream.

Tears pooled in her eyes. She
didn’t want to think about how much it hurt to leave or how much it hurt to
know he’d been hiding something huge from her. She sniffled and wiped the tears
off her face.

As she did, a strange feeling
came over her. One of those little sensations you got at the back of your neck
when you were being watched. Her eyes popped opened, straining in the darkness
as she kept her body still. Something was here. From her view, she saw nothing
but more grass at the level of her head with great mighty trees flowering
pretty red and pink flowers from above. She hadn’t even lit a fire so she had
no light.

That was the thing in this rift.
No sun, and no moon. So when the daylight came out it wasn’t nearly as bright
as it should be and when it got dark it got
really
dark. No luminous
moon lit the way for her. Her human eyes could only adjust so much and still
they left her squinting hard into the night.

Nothing strange stood waiting for
her. That left only one other option, which was the worse one.

Moving with agility that surged
from a rush of adrenaline, Abby spun around and let a spell fly from her
fingertips. The spell was weak, a cloud of fog at best.

Alrik stood there.

Her breath caught, lodged in her
throat with so much emotion: happiness, anger, pain. Her chest squeezed tight
like being wrapped in a painful bear hug.

With a flick of his wrist, he
deflected her spell as if shooing away a fly. She must be weaker than she’d
imagined if he could deflect her spell so easily.

Abby gazed up at him. She’d been
away from him for little over a day and yet he looked taller than she
remembered.

That’s only because you’re
sitting on the ground below him, idiot.

Not true, she corrected. He also looked
even stronger and more gorgeous than she remembered. His eyes looked brighter
and not as dark as they’d been. They were inky black recesses that she could
lose herself in but somehow they were lighter than before. How did he do that?
How did his eyes change colors like that or was it just a trick of light? Maybe
his dark black eyes had never changed at all.

“You thought to leave me?” he
asked.

Anguish coated his words and the
sound took her back. Out of all things she might have expected if he caught
her, the sound of
pain
wasn’t one. That sound grabbed her by the heart
and squeezed until she gasped. God, she did love him.

So stupid, Abby.

Abbigail pushed herself to her
knees then slowly stood. There, she felt more in control and more on level with
him even though he still stood more than a foot and a half taller than she did.

“Yes.” She had to swallow over
the knot in her voice because it took her two tries to speak, and even then her
voice came out throaty.

“Tell me why.”

Her eyes traced to the grass.
That was easier to look at.

She countered with her own
question. “Who is Arianna?”

She watched him from the corner
of her eyes and saw his eyes flare with surprise.

“How do you know that name?” he
demanded.

Abby met his gaze as her own
anger rose. How dare he take that tone with her. After she saved his butt
nearly twice if you included the
jaheera
attack and she was.

He came towards her. Each step
sent her heart beat pounding faster and faster. He kept coming until he grabbed
her by the shoulders. “How do you know that name? Answer me!”

She looked up into his eyes. What
she saw there broke down her anger. He looked panicked, uncertain. God, she
hated seeing that look on his face. She wanted to help him, to make him feel
better, and to maybe even make him happy. She didn’t want things to be like
this.

“You said her name in your sleep,”
Abby said, pain masking her voice. “Why don’t you tell me who she is and then
maybe you can explain why she sounds so important to you?”