Mystical Seduction: full-length sensual paranormal romance (The Protectors) (15 page)

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.

“I gave fair warning,” Ballou said. “I clearly told them
that Manelin wouldn’t appreciate any interference. Sneaking up on me from
behind…that is rather dishonorable, don’t you think?”

Faith barely heard the madman. She couldn’t, not when she
was still trying to comprehend what she was seeing.

Her parents were dead
.

* * * *

A wicked storm stirred the summer air, sending a sharp
breeze whipping around Horace’s face as he made his way across the cedar-lined
street and toward the house where his instincts told him he’d find Faith.

“Wait.” Brendan grabbed Horace’s shoulder and nearly ripped
it out of its socket. “There’s Dallas. She can tell us what’s going on.”

As they approached, Dallas’s upturned gaze remained intently
focused on a point above the house.

“Trouble?” Brendan asked.

“In spades,” she said, her voice strained. “I’ve been busy
keeping the universe from ripping open.” They followed Dallas’s gaze. An
ominous willowy light spiraled up and up to a point high in the sky where dark
clouds continued to gather. Lightning rippled through the air.

“She’s doing that?” Horace demanded, hoping beyond hope that
it wasn’t true.

“That’s all her,” Dallas said. Her delicate features had
tightened from the strain of keeping the rift in the universe from spreading.
“And your assassin is in there with her.”

* * * *

“No!” Faith screamed. “Nooooo!”

“I do apologize, my queen.”

My parents
!

The bastard
!

“What did you do to them?” Tears spilled over onto her cheeks.
Heedless of his gun, she rushed him and beat her fists against his chest. “Why?”

She’d brought a killer to her parents’doorstep. She should
have never come here. This was her fault. All her fault.

“Unfortunately, I have to kill you now.” He pressed the gun
to her forehead. “But perhaps it’s for the best. Perhaps I’m doing you a
favor.”

“Go to hell,” she growled. Anger exploded from her skin like
a bomb.

* * * *

“Dammit, no! Stop!” Horace broke through the heavy oak door
and charged into the room just as Ballou burst into a cloud of black smoke. A
piece of smoldering black cloth floated across the toe of Horace’s expensive
loafers and landed on the richly hued orange and red Oriental carpet.

Fury swirled in the light blue eyes that turned toward him.
The hard orbs reminded him of a hurricane raging in a tropical sea. Faith had
encased herself inside a golden cocoon. Sparks sizzled in the air, her
expression raw and overflowing with power. It was both the most terrifying and
beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

“Faith, honey, you need to stop,” he said with greater care
this time.

“He killed them.” Faith’s voice crackled with electricity.

Horace glanced at the two humans lying motionless on the
floor. Though shallow, they were breathing. If he had to guess, he’d say they’d
both survive.