Her Demon Prince (Forbidden Fantasy) Page 5

  “She. Is. Mine.” His eyes focused with deadly intent as his arm tensed and he drove the blade into the angel’s throat.

  Rachael let out a high-pitched scream.

  Phoebe turned to see Rachael had returned with a policeman, a burly New York cop.

  The policeman stormed into the room, his gun drawn, his face expressing amazement at the strange scene. “Police. Drop the weapon. Hands up.”

  Agrat whirled around to face the officer, dropped the sword and narrowed his eyes.

  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.

  He took a long, exacting breath to prepare himself for the work he had to do. Agrat stripped off his cloak, body armor and soldier’s sandals and let them drop to the floor. Dried blood stained the side of his shift and it stuck uncomfortably to the wound where Rachael had hit him with a hammer. He walked to the bathroom, turned on the tap and caught himself grimacing in the mirror as he wet the shift and peeled it off his body, throwing it on the
floor. Nakedness was essential when calling up the elements because anything he wore would be incinerated. He frowned as he inspected his forearm where Phoebe had broken the bone. Already it had knitted, but the deep, raw gash on his side still oozed blood. How would having a wound affect him when he needed his body to be a solid vessel when summoning the elements?

  Would the Lord of Lightning tear him apart?

  Walking out of the bathroom, he cast one last look at Phoebe who lay curled and peaceful on her side. Nothing mattered more than keeping her safe.

  Naked, he strode outside onto the lawn, ground his bare feet into the grass and raised his palms to the sky. “I call upon my ancestors, gods of the elements, to honor me with their strength and protection. I call upon earth, wind, fire and water to do my will. I call upon the wind to blow the clouds and form a mist around this land. Veil this place from my enemies.”

  Icy wind flowed down from the hills, swirling around him until the sound of it roared in his ears. Soon, a gale followed by driving rain lashed his body, growing fiercer and stronger until it whipped his hair across his face and stung his skin like a thousand bee stings. Clouds misted his view until he could barely see the lighted house in front of him. He raised his arms higher and the tempo of the storm exploded around him. Hail beat down on him, bouncing off his body and coating the grass at his feet. As he lowered his arms the gale became subdued, the hail stopped but the mist intensified as he absorbed the power of the elements into his body and worked them to his will.

  Agrat bowed to his ancestors. “Great ones, I thank you.”

  Grinding his feet further into the earth, he gritted his jaw in preparation. The Lord of Lightning was mercurial in nature and he couldn’t afford for this to go wrong. Without him, Phoebe was as good as dead once Galaden found her.

  Agrat knew loss. The deep painful loss of this woman.

  He focused on his love for Phoebe, drawing strength from it to mentally steel himself. Any show of weakness was unworthy of the Lord of Lightning and he would tear Agrat apart.