The Protectors Christmas Box Set (sexy paranormal romances) (35 page)

Faith’s mother gasped.

Faith would have gasped, too, but since taking a deep breath had only made the sparks brighter, she thought it might be safer to hold her breath.

“Honey, are you okay?” he dad asked. His voice sounded strange. Distant. “Honey?”

Faith looked up at him and blinked. She could see his lips moving and hear the words, but she couldn’t seem to put the two together.

She looked down at her hands. They’d started to glow now, too.

“You’d better not touch me,” she warned. She remembered how she’d had knocked Horace’s friend to the ground with a very similar kind of spark when he’d tried to keep her from leaving the café. And she hadn’t forgotten how she’d broken the wine glass without even touching it. “I don’t know how to control this. I don’t know how to stop it.”

And her heart ached.

What the hell was wrong with her? Despite everything that had happened and continued to happen to her, she still wanted Horace. She wanted to feel the strength of his arms around her and the press of his lips against hers. She wanted to share her life with him, to simply love him. And she wanted him to love her back.

Wanting couldn’t be a bad thing, could it?

She needed Horace. At this point, he seemed to be the only person who could help her.

But she couldn’t trust the jerk. He’d already brought too much chaos into her life.

She didn’t dare risk getting near him again. If she got any more of his powers, she would probably explode.

“Why can’t I have a relationship that is as easy and straightforward as the one you have with Mom?” she cried.

“Easy?” James tossed a loving glance over his shoulder to his wife. “We’re talking about your mother, right? The queen of having her own way?”

“Hey!” Judy protested lightheartedly. “You aren’t so perfect yourself, professor.”

“Love is never easy,” James warned. “But why would you want it to be? It’s the challenges that make life interesting.”

Faith wanted to believe what her father was telling her, but her heart hurt too much. What she wouldn’t do to trade this pain for a nice,
boring
relationship. Compared to glowing and breaking things, dull looked pretty darn good.

Judy twined her fingers with her husband’s. “Sometimes we hurt each other without even realizing it.”

“But-but—” Faith sputtered.

Her parents’relationship worked. They honored each other. Trusted each other.

“I’m not saying you should trust Horace,” Judy said.

“But perhaps you should trust what your heart is telling you,” James finished.

“What if I don’t know if what I’m feeling right now is real? What if these emotions are all a lie?”

“Look deep,” James said. “You’ve always been good at sorting difficult things out. Heck, out in the field you were always able to keep my mishmash of files organized. If you can handle that, you can certainly sort out whatever is tugging at your heart right now. Don’t worry, Faith. You already know the truth.”

“You’re right, Dad.”

“As usual,” Judy said with a grin.

Faith shook her head. “What my heart is telling me scares the hell out of me, though.”

“Most hard decisions do,” James said. “What is it telling you to do?”

Faith drew another careful breath. “I should go to him.”

“No!” Judy shouted. “Have him come here. You should confront him on your terms, not his.”

Faith shuddered at the thought of Horace getting anywhere near her family. He wasn’t human. For all she knew, he might prove dangerous. Her parents needed fair warning. Even if telling them made her head feel like it was going to explode, she needed to tell them the truth about Horace. But she didn’t get the chance even try to explain much of anything before the doorbell rang.

“I bet that’s the police,” her dad said as he started for the front door.

“The police?” She’d forgotten that her mother had called them. She touched her glowing fingers together. A spark danced in the air. “I’m beginning to understand why Horace is so against talking with them,” she murmured.

Her dad paused at the study door and frowned in Faith’s direction. “I’ve seen some strange things—”he started to say but then stopped himself and forced a gentle smile. “I’ll send the police away, if that’s what you want.”

Faith sent a questioning look toward Judy, who quickly gave her daughter an encouraging nod.

“Yes, please send them away,” she said just as the bell chimed again. She had nothing to tell them anyhow. Her stubborn tongue didn’t seem willing to let her tell anybody much of anything.

Her dad returned to the study a few minutes later with an unremarkable man dressed in a dark suit. At first Faith thought the man looked like one of her father’s colleagues. He had dark hair, a regular face, and a pleasant smile. Then she saw the gun in his hand.

And she remembered.

“Please, where is he?” Ballou asked. His voice was soft, polite. He sounded completely harmless, and looked harmless, too, until he pressed the barrel of the pistol to her dad’s head. “Where is the Lion?”

* * * * *

“Faith’s in danger!” Horace dropped the empty teacup he’d been turning around in his hand and shot up from his chair. “She’s in danger. I have to find her!”

“Dallas is watching her,” Brendan said in an irritatingly calm voice. “She would have called if…”

Horace didn’t wait to hear the rest. He nearly knocked Stone over in his rush to get to the door. Car keys in hand, he made a dash for his SUV.

A force outside himself pulled him. Faith needed him. The hell with his mixed-up emotions and fears for his heart. She needed him.

No one was going to stop him from protecting her.

“At least let me ride shotgun,” Brendan said with a broad smile from the passenger seat. How the hell he’d gotten there so quickly, Horace had no clue. “You need me, Horace, especially with your powers on the fritz and all.”

Horace didn’t have time to argue. So he let his friend stay. He punched the gas pedal and sped away.

“She might be a stubborn little thing, but she doesn’t deserve to die,” he said. No, he wasn’t going to let Faith get herself killed.

He’d miss her quirky smile.

Hell, he’d miss everything about her.

As hard as he’d tried to fight it, he loved her.

The tension in the room had grown so tight Faith felt lightheaded. Even so, she jumped out of her father’s leather armchair to surge to her feet. And swayed. No, she could not fall over. She was determined to stand her ground, to fight to the death if necessary. No matter what, she would not let some otherworldly badass hurt her father.

“Let’s not make any hasty moves,” Judy said. She raised her hands slowly, showing her empty palms. “Let’s take a minute and talk about what you want and what we can do for you.” She took a careful step away from Ballou and his gun.

James had stiffened in response to having a gun pressed to his temple, but he looked calm. Of course, he would. He’d confronted violence many times in the past. He’d exposed more than a few government sanctioned crimes and murders in Africa, South Asia, and South America, and had upset several military regimes.

Instead of protesting or getting nervous, James merely sighed deeply, and then asked, “Is this Horace, honey?”

“No,” she answered with great care, following her parents’example. “I tried to tell you earlier, but I couldn’t seem to get the words to come out. This is the man who is trying to kill Horace and me.”

Apparently nothing held her tongue now.

“My daughter will be happy to cooperate with you,” James said. “This boyfriend of hers has bullied and frightened her.”

“And made her glow…and not in a good way,” Judy added with a sweeping gesture in Faith’s direction. Though Faith wished her parents could be anywhere but here, her love for them swelled. They had rushed to defend her like a pride of lions protecting their cub despite the danger to themselves.

Faith suspected that if given the chance, Horace would have been right there with her parents, defending her just as fiercely. If only they had met under different circumstances.

If only he were human. A safe, normal human.

The halo glowing around Faith’s head appeared to intrigue Ballou. His black eyes widened as he watched her. Slowly, his mouth dropped open. He took a step toward her.

“What has he done to you?”Ballou took another step closer. He reached out, looking as if he planned to touch the sparkling halo. If he did, he might be in for a huge surprise. She wished she could control the otherworldly power surging through her veins. If she could focus it and use it against Ballou in the same way she’d used it against Brendan, they might all have a chance.

Faith screwed her eyes tightly closed and concentrated on Ballou and his gun. The power gurgled and popped. She tried to push it away from her and toward Ballou. She tried to make it explode like it had before.

Nothing.

She opened her eyes. Ballou towered over her. He’d tilted his head and had furrowed his brows deeply.

“What are you doing?”he asked.

“Uh, apparently nothing.”

Faith needed Horace to tell her how to use his powers, if a human
could
use them.

And none of that helped her with the pressing problem at hand. She had no idea how to defend her parents from Ballou.

At least he no longer had his gun trained on her dad’s head. But James didn’t keep himself out of harm’s way for long. He slowly crept up behind Ballou, preparing to pounce.

“You shouldn’t be glowing like that,” Ballou said. “The power, Horace must have unleashed it. What was he thinking? It should never be unleashed like that,” he scolded and waved the barrel of the gun at her as he would a wagging finger. Wary of the gun, her dad backed up a step. “Obviously the Lion botched it up. I can’t believe anyone could botch something as simple as a mating.”

“What do you mean?” Faith asked. Perhaps Ballou could shed some light on what was happening to her. She slowly rose from her dad’s leather chair. Ballou followed her movement, aiming the gun at her chest.

“What did he do to me?” she demanded.

“You know what he did.” His gaze deepened to a fathomless black. “He mated with you, but not in a manner befitting a queen. I saw him with you. He treated you like trash, taking you first in a grimy alleyway and then in the middle of the dance floor. And you let him do it. You let him make you his whore.”

A blush stung her cheeks. She’d told her parents about what had happened with Horace, but in not such rough detail. The color in her mother’s face had all but completely drained away. Her parents had always taught Faith to be an independent woman, to never let a man dominate her. She hated to think how disappointed they must be in her right now.

“Where is the Lion? They’re hiding him from me. But you, they treat so carelessly.” His lips didn’t move, but his words boomed through the room with enough force to make the windows rattle. “Why do you let them dishonor you? You’re his queen!”

“Queen, servant, sex slave…”
Whatever
.

Right now, she needed to get that gun away from Ballou. At least he no longer had the damned thing pointed at her dad. Definitely an improvement in her book.

“If she tells you where you can find this Horace fellow, will you leave her alone?” Judy demanded with a quiver of anger in her voice.

“Help me, and I won’t harm your parents.” Ballou swung his arm and pointed the gun at Judy. “If you protect the Lion, I might be forced to shoot them before I shoot you.”

“No!” Faith would not let him shoot her parents.

“Then tell me where he is hiding.” He cocked the gun. “Tell me or she dies right now.”

“He’s—he’s on the other side of town,” Faith said with a rush, terrified that he might shoot her mom before she got the chance to convince him that she would cooperate. She’d tell him anything in order to get him out of her parents’house. “I-I could show you how to find him.”

Judy protested the last with a sharp cry. “What she means is that she could draw you a map!”

“Never mind.” Ballou’s gaze narrowed. He looked every inch a killer. “The Lion. He is here.”

* * * * *

Horace
.
Here
?

His name got stuck in Faith’s throat. She wasn’t sure which danger she feared most, a madman with the power to take her life—or a lover with the power to take her soul.

She might be saving herself from one wolf only to be thrown to another. The thought of falling under Horace’s power again made her shiver. But she needed him. He would know how to fight Ballou.

She hoped
.

Her dad still was sneaking up behind the assassin. He gave Faith a wink and then scooped up a copy of the 1938 classic
Defining Culture
from his desk. The book had to be at least three inches thick.

“Of course I can’t just snap my fingers and nip you out of existence. Your death has to look human-caused,” Ballou casually explained. His easy tone seemed more appropriate for making dinner plans than planning a murder. “And Manelin certainly wouldn’t appreciate interference.”

“Manelin? Who the heck is Manelin? And what did I ever to do upset him?” Faith demanded, hoping to hold Ballou’s attentions while her dad made his move.

James raised the classic anthropological treatise until it was in line with Ballou’s head.

“Manelin?” Ballou asked with a start of confusion. “The prince? Everyone knows the prince. He wants Horace’s power. He’s a bastard, really. But he was very clear on this. You and Horace have to die. A shame…”

James swung the heavy volume just as Ballou held up his free hand. A bright flash pulsed through the room, blinding her.

“Dad?” She rubbed her stinging eyes. “Mom?”

When neither of them answered, her heart slammed into her throat. “Mom! Dad! Answer me!”

She scrubbed her eyes until her eyesight returned. Everything appeared blurry. Faith blinked several times before the book-lined walls came into focus. And then she saw what had to have been her worst nightmare.