The Fallen King: The Bellum Sisters 4 (paranormal erotic romance) (5 page)

“What do you want?”

The voice didn’t answer. All went
silent. Abbigail swept her gaze around her house again as if, at any moment, a
window would burst and some crazed maniac would jump through her window ready
to gut her like the victim she saw this morning.

“Open this door.” It was a
command, an order.

Abbigail had no intention of
answering it. Instead, she slowly raised her gun, keeping her thumb near the
safety, and pointed it at the door. Quietly, she backed up towards the kitchen
and to her phone.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
The knocking started again,
unrelenting.

Her breath caught at the sound of
cracking wood. Her eyes darted around the door trying to see a crack, but she couldn’t
see any broken wood. She could have sworn she heard it crack. He knocked again,
louder, the banging sound ringing in her ears amidst more splintering sounds.
God, he’s breaking down the doorframe, tearing it down!

She turned and ran to the phone.
She faced the door, gun ready as she dialed. Her fingers slipped in their haste,
and she had to end the call and try again twice before she got the three digits
dialed—911.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“A man’s trying to break into my
house,” Abbigail whispered, but her voice sounded just as panicked as she felt.
The knocking continued, never stopping. “Oh my god, do you hear that?”

“What’s your address ma’am?” Abby
related it quickly. “Ma’am, get to a back room with a lock on it and lock
yourself in there. Stay on the line. Patrol officers are on the way.”

Abby started towards the bedroom
then stopped as she felt the cord to her phone pull taut. “I can’t take the
phone with me. It’s not wireless.” God, she felt really stupid now. She thought
the corded, old-fashioned phone was cute and trendy when she bought it. It was
one of those vintage, dark yellow ones that hung on the wall. She liked it because
it came from the fifties and had a certain flair to it.

“Then set the phone down but do
not hang up if you can. Patrols will be there shortly.”

No sooner than the operator
declared that the door shook violently.

“He’s kicking it,” she said, part
in fear and part in disbelief.

Abby waited no longer. She turned
and ran for the bedroom just as she heard the door burst open in an explosion
of splintered wood. The front door bounced off the wall with a resounding crack
just as she entered her bedroom, slamming the door closed and flipped the
measly turn lock.

Her thumb swept the safety off
her gun and she sprinted into her bathroom as another bang came at her bedroom
door. No way would that weak wooded door last nearly as long as the front door.

She slammed the bathroom door
shut, locked it and moved as far back as she could in the tight space by wedging
herself between the toilet and shower. Shaking and scared out of her mind, she
raised her gun, index finger poised over the trigger and waited.

BAM! BAM! CRACK!

The bedroom door slammed open.
She heard it beat against her nightstand with another blow. She started praying
for the police to come, and she didn’t want to be another body like the ones
she found for a living. Her arms shook. As she looked down the peephole of the
black gun, the hole wavered, wobbling around in waves that she tried to steady
but couldn’t.

She kept waiting for him to come,
kept waiting to hear the banging on the bathroom door. But it never came. A
minute passed. Then another. And another.

A part of her told her to check
the door, open it just an inch and peer outside. Maybe he was gone and she did
have a gun after all. She could shoot if he charged at her, but the smarter
part of her mind told her to wait there. Wait for the police. They shouldn’t be
that long. After all, she lived close to her job and her job which was with the
police department.

Sure enough, another minute
passed and she could hear the faint howling of sires in the distance. As they
got louder, her heart rate slowed and her muscles relaxed, but she never
dropped aim no matter how hard her arms shook.

She heard men entering her house.

“Abbigail Krenshaw!” a voice shouted.

She’d never been more relieved to
hear another person’s voice in her life. She collapsed against the toilet.
“Mike, I’m in the bathroom!” Footsteps bounded in her bedroom but something
made her stay in the bathroom. As if she had to be certain it was safe and this
wasn’t all some gimmick.

A soft triple knock came at the
door. “Abbigail, are you all right?”

Mike’s voice was tense, not that
she was surprised. He was a sweet guy. A good cop and she’d probably just
scared the shit out of him with her call. She stood on legs that didn’t feel
like her own and unlocked the door. She opened it slowly, peering out as she’d
wanted to before. She met his dark blue eyes and light head of hair then let
the door open all the way.

He had a hard look in his eyes, the
kind he used when surveying a crime scene. “You okay?” His eyes traced her
quickly from head to toe ensuring all parts were accounted for.

She nodded and before she knew it,
he wrapped her in his arms. It was beyond unprofessional but she hugged him
back. After the insanity she just went through, the least she deserved was a
hug, right?

She pulled back first and gave
him a tight-lipped smile.

“Now tell me why your doors are
busted in and what the hell happened.”

Abby shrugged then told him what
happened. His frown got deeper and deeper as she continued. No matter how hard
she tried to describe how terrifying it all was, she couldn’t. No words could
describe that.

“Stay in a hotel tonight. Use
cash.”

It was Abby’s turn to frown.
“What? No, why?”

He lifted a dark blonde eyebrow
at her. “Because you don’t have a front door.”

Her face flushed and she nodded.
“Right.”

She packed a bag, being sure to
put her gun in there, and changed out of her pajamas. As she left her house,
she saw the detective unit making a crime scene out of her home.

Mike watched her walk to her car
from the front door. She didn’t like his scrutiny or that she’d needed help
like this. These were good cops and had much better cases to be working on then
spending time in her house. However, Mike insisted.

This whole thing was all so
bizarre. Too many questions rang in her head: who had beaten in her door, and
why did he want her?

She opened her car door and
tossed her hastily stuffed duffel bag into the passenger seat. Strange, she
didn’t feel tired now. She felt as if she could run a mile at a full on sprint
and not even be out of breath.

“Damn, hey, Abby.” Mike took a
step towards her, but then stopped.

Abbigail blinked. What the... he
didn’t stop, he froze. No, not just him, everything had frozen. The air that
had been stirring the hair around her face stopped. The strands dropped flat
against her. The trees swaying from the breeze stopped up and down the street
leaning in mid-sway as if reaching for something. The voices in the house
ceased. All went quiet, dark.

She felt him before she saw him.
A roar filled her ears. She turned around and leaned back against the car for
support. Time seemed to slow or maybe it was just her adrenaline pumping that
made it seem like time slowed. What was that sound, the roar? Shoot, it was her
heart racing.

“Mike!” Her one last chance for
help, she called out. She darted a glance at Mike and saw him still frozen with
one foot forward, his body in mid-step, and eyes locked on her, unblinking.

It dawned on her then...magic.
The man coming for her was using magic. She should have realized it sooner, but
she was so out of touch with it.

She felt him coming.

Spinning around, she stared at her
neighbor’s dark house. Her neighbors were older and paranoid and they always
kept their outdoor lights on and several inside the house at night. Now the
house sat completely dark and empty looking. Somewhere in the back of her mind,
she realized the streetlights were off too leaving everything dark with only
the moon light to guide her eyes.

The man appeared before her very
eyes. A cloaking spell to disguise his presence,, that took strong magic. He
didn’t move towards her, just faced her from her neighbor’s yard.

Her breath caught, heart
stuttered. The first thing she noticed was his eyes. The darkest eyes she’d
ever seen, too dark to be human. Pitch black. Her eyes moved away from his face.
Curiosity had her digging to learn more about him. Just who was this and what
did he want with her?

“Abbigail Krenshaw.” Her stomach
trembled at his deep voice. He had a deep voice. It could be sexy if it wasn’t
so terrifying. The way he said her name was unusual too,
Abb-ee-gyle
Kreenshaw
.

She sensed the question in his
voice though she hadn’t heard the upward inflection normally there in a
question. Maybe it was fear or the strangeness of everything, but she answered.
“Yes.”

He started towards her. Coming
closer, out of the shadows, she could see him more clearly. His long, dark hair
was as black as the empty pit of his eyes. His hair came down to his shoulders
but was cut unevenly at the ends, not straight. She saw ebony skin that was so
dark it was to the point of being black not brown. He wore a strange looking shirt
that reminded her of a tunic. It was black, knitted, long-sleeved but with an
open collar
,
black pants, and tall black
boots. None of this kept her attention for very long because as he came closer,
she saw the glint of metal on his back. Two weapons, swords actually, were strapped
in an X pattern across his pattern.

“What are you?” she whispered. He
was handsome, tall, and looked strong enough to pick her up and snap her in two
she’d bet. He also didn’t look entirely human.

He stopped so close she could
feel the heat from his body. For some reason, she found she wasn’t scared
anymore. Maybe it was finally seeing her pursuer, but she didn’t get the vibe that
this man would slit her throat and leave her for dead. It might be dangerous,
but she trusted her instincts on this. She craned her head up to see his face.
No, he wasn’t handsome. He was stunning.

His hair formed from a peak at
his broad forehead. He had a brusque, distinguishing nose and high cheekbones that
gave a hollowed definition to his cheek line. Dark stubble covered his jaw line
and chin, but underneath that she could see he had a hard, jutting chin. He had
full, masculine lips with the top just thinner than the bottom. They weren’t
perfect but that’s what made them even more intriguing. All of his features on
closer inspection were too perfect, and they shouldn’t have formed a
good-looking face. He should look too fierce, too sharp but somehow his
features came together in a way that drew the eye.

“Demon,” he answered.

His voice drew her out of her inspection.
She’d forgotten she’d asked him a question. He’s a demon? She knew about them.
Most humans just pretended they didn’t exist or only did in a religious or mythical
way, but she knew about the supernaturals. Heck, her best friend Jenna could
shapeshift into a panther, and Abby had once autopsied a vampire. However,
she’d never met a demon. To say they were uncommon would be an understatement.

Her mother had spoon-fed her lore
of the great wars fought by the vampires against demons long ago. Weapons
manufacturer and wealthy tycoon, Telal Demuzi had come out publicly when heat grew
on him about his strange appearance some years ago. He’d admitted to being a
demon, he’d embraced it, said he was over a thousand years old, and it’d
shocked many humans. You wouldn’t think they could be shocked. Vampires were
all the rage—real ones anyway. They were slowly coming out but most still lived
in secluded communities across the globe. Many more had called him a liar and
still believed he used makeup and hair dye to achieve his unique look. They
said it was a marketing gimmick.

But, Abbigail knew better. Her
best friend Jenna was a shapeshifter, something else many humans pretended
didn’t exist, however many knew. Humans just didn’t seem as interested in the
beings who could shapeshift. Abby had seen Jenna shift before—it was one of the
most frightening and beautiful things she’d ever seen in her life.

Yet the creature before her was
neither vampire nor shapeshifter nor witch for that matter. He was the stuff of
nightmares.

“What do you want?”

His answer came fast. “You.”

Her stomach knotted then dropped
right out of her.

A flutter moved inside her.
Pleasure.

Oh, don’t be silly, Abby. He’s
probably going to kill you.
She
should seriously not be flattered that a good-looking demon said he wanted her.
It had to be hormones because she could feel the beginnings of a blush stir.

Before she could say anything, he
wrapped a strong arm around her shoulders pulling her close and then she felt
the earth sway at her feet. Darkness enveloped her eyes, and she went blind.
Then she felt nothing under her feet. She was falling in space, seeing nothing
but empty blackness and hearing nothing but her own fast breaths. The strong
arm holding her drew her in tighter as her heart thumped louder in her ears.