Mystical Seduction: full-length sensual paranormal romance (The Protectors) (5 page)

Even his slow, steady breath matched hers. Horace reverently
kissed her neck before murmuring against her ear, “ You do know that there can
never…? That we can never…?”

“
What
?” He had to be kidding.

And even if this was a joke, she planned to give him an
earful. She poked her finger on his chest. “You just can’t—!”

* * * *

“Shhh…” Horace pressed a finger to Faith’s well-loved lips.

He’d spotted a shadow in the darkness. It could be his imagination.
Or perhaps one of the stray dogs he regularly fed had come around hoping to
find a late-night snack. Or even an oversized rat had crawled out of the sewers
in search of food. But the shadow moved again, and Horace got a better look. It
unfolded from a crouched position, forming the unmistakable shape of a man.

Horace’s “this was a one-time thing” breakup speech would
have to wait. The shadowy figure held a long cylinder in its hand. The object
caught in the light above the club’s back door. Metal glinted in the darkness.

The shooter
.

Horace lifted his hand to stop the forces of fate from
marching forward with its plan to kill him. He intended to crumple the barrel
of the pistol the shadowy figure had pointed at them—but sex with Faith must
have wrecked his focus. No matter how hard he concentrated, his powers refused
to come to him.

The shooter had them cornered, and he couldn’t do a damn
thing about it. They didn’t even have time to run. A flash lit the dark
alleyway just as an explosion cut through the air. The sound must have bounced
off the walls. It seemed as if it went on and on forever.

Horace tried again to focus his powers. A sputtering wind
whooshed past him as he tried to hold back the bullet. But it was too little
and too late.

Horace shoved Faith out of the way a heartbeat before a lead
fist slammed into his chest.

It hurt like hell. Horace slid down the brick wall.

And suddenly, he didn’t hurt at all.

“So much for changing the future,” he grumbled as he dropped
to the cold, hard ground.

He wasn’t dead, not yet, which surprised Horace. He must
have passed out, though, because the next thing he knew, he woke up flat on his
back on the ground with Faith on her knees beside him. Lovely, beautiful Faith.
She looked like an angel. A
damned
sexy angel. An angel Horace wanted to
pull into his arms and kiss with his very last breath. If not for the
unmistakable lust tugging at the lower parts of his body, he might have thought
he’d already died and woken up in Heaven.

With every drop of his overheated blood, he wanted Faith. He
could still smell the sweet scent of sex on her, and it only made him want her
more. Nope, not dead. But he might as well be dead since he sure as hell
couldn’t act on any of his sexual urges.

Faith had removed her lavender shirt and had it pressed to
his chest wound. Blood had already soaked through to her hands.

Damn, his chest hurt like hell. He tried to bat her hands
away, but she remained an immoveable force. Stubborn. Considering how she’d
doggedly pursued him despite everything he’d done to keep her away, Horace
figured he already knew about that stubborn streak of hers.

“You need to get out of here.” His voice sounded harsh,
raspy. He tried to push her away again. “You’re in danger, Faith. The shooter
might still be out there.”

“I’m not leaving you.” She flicked her tongue over her full,
pink lips, a frantic gesture. And if he hadn’t been in so much pain he would
have tried to kiss her. She glanced around nervously. “I don’t see anyone.”

“And we didn’t see him the first time, either.”

She ignored that reasonable bit of information. From
somewhere on her body, he couldn’t figure out where, she produced a small
pearl-colored cell phone. “I’m calling 911.”

Oh no, she wasn’t. It took considerable effort to wrench the
clamshell phone from her hands and close it.

“No police. No ambulance.” The first would only complicate
matters, and the second might seriously screw him up…if he managed to survive.

“But-but—”

“I need to get in touch with Stone.” Horace’s head hummed
with pain. Thoughts drifted helter-skelter within his head. It took all his
concentration to remember and then recite Stone’s cell number while his
eyesight blurred in and out of focus.

He needed to kiss Faith…to feel her sexy-as-sin lips on his
one more time. Not call Stone.

Look at her. Faith could use some comforting. Her hands
trembled so badly she could barely hold her cell phone, but somehow she managed
to dial. Her voice sounded calm, neutral, and very out of place for this
damnable situation as she introduced herself to Stone.

“Horace has been shot,” she said with great care, which made
Horace wince. Hearing it said aloud somehow made the bullet wound hurt worse.
“You need to come to the club. Horace wants you here.” She listened.

He wished he could hear Stone’s reply.

Faith nodded. “We’re out back in the alleyway. He won’t let
me call an ambulance.”

She didn’t seem to like Stone’s reaction to that. She
actually sneered at the phone.

“You can’t be serious.”

Another pause.

“Okay, I’ll try,” she said, and then turned off the tiny
cell phone. Tears pooled in her eyes.

“Baby,” Horace said. He wished he could protect her from the
inevitable. The bullet had caused too much damage. He could feel his soul
slipping away. “I’m dying. I’m sorry…”
that you had to be here
. “I’m
sorry…”
that it had to be like this
. “But-but—” He coughed on his own
blood. “I-I’m not sorry that we—”

“Oh, shut up,” Faith snapped.

“
What
?” He was trying to do the right thing, to be
sensitive to her feelings and to understand what his dying in her arms like
this might mean to her. Didn’t she understand the mountains of effort it took
for him to even talk?

“I said, shut up.” Flames flashed in her baby blue eyes.
“Listen, Horace.” Rage deepened her voice. A force behind her words, one very
similar to the mental push he’d used when he’d told her to go home earlier that
evening, pressed against him.

“
You are not going to die
.”

“I don’t think I have a choice in the matter.” He doubted
he’d be able to hold on long enough for Stone to get there.

“I won’t let you die. So you better stop scaring me with
this talk about you giving up on life and leaving me alone in this alleyway.” The
fire in Faith’s eyes grew hotter. Her pupils widened, swallowing her light blue
irises, making the pair of eyes staring at Horace appear solid black.

And Faith’s hands felt like hot coals against his chest.

Horace tried to wiggle away from her touch, but she wouldn’t
let him. She pressed against his wound.

“
You are not going to die
,” Faith repeated. Her words
shuddered through his body. The fire in her hands grew hotter. A faint glow
illuminated her skin and face. Even her eyes glowed. “You are not going to
die.”

Faith could repeat that litany a hundred times, but Horace
knew her words couldn’t save him. Nothing could.

Perhaps if a healer had been on hand, or a doctor who
understood the complexities of their kind, but that wasn’t how it had happened.
His eyesight darkened. The life-giving air in his lungs drifted away, leaving
him empty.

At least he wasn’t going die alone…

You are not going to die!
Faith’s angry voice tore
through is head.

A slug of solid air slammed into his lungs, filling him. He
shot up from the ground like a bullet. Suddenly, without knowing how, his
wobbly legs supported him. Faith blinked those beautiful blue eyes of hers.
They still glowed. She still glowed. But it didn’t matter, because he was
alive.

Horace couldn’t believe it. He’d been dying one moment and
alive and well the next. Amazing. Nearly as amazing as the woman who knelt at
his feet. He pulled Faith into his arms and did what he’d wanted to do all
along.

He kissed her.

* * * *

“What-what-what just happened?” Faith stammered.

Horace felt about as stunned as she looked. The pain in his
chest had vanished. He carefully peeled back his shirt to reveal healthy, but
bloodstained, skin. The bullet hadn’t left a mark or even the slightest
indentation.

As Faith watched wide-eyed, Horace touched his chest.
Automatically wincing, expecting the slightest touch to hurt like the devil. It
didn’t.

He hadn’t felt this healthy in years.

Faith, on the other hand, look as if she’d been dragged
through hell.

“Are you okay?” Horace asked as he vigorously rubbed her icy
hands between his own. Hadn’t they been burning hot just a moment before? Her
skin had turned pasty white and her lips blue.

“What did you do?” he demanded.

Faith swallowed and shook her head. Something was seriously
wrong. He wrapped his arms around her and caught her as she fainted.

* * * *

“What the hell happened?” Stone demanded after fingering
Horace’s blood-soaked shirt, complete with bullet hole.

“Hell if I know. None of
the Protectors
could have
done a better job healing me.” He motioned toward Faith.

She was sitting at the desk in his office. He’d propped the
office door open so he could keep an eye on her. He watched as she cradled her
head in her hands, concern tightening his chest. He’d given her a white workout
T-shirt to put on since she’d sacrificed her own shirt to staunch his blood
flow. He kept several spare T-shirts in his office in the event he wanted to go
directly to the gym from the club. Right now, he was glad he did. Glad he had
something to offer her.

He didn’t know how she’d done it, but by some miracle she’d
saved his life. A completely normal human had used magic—magic very similar to
their own—to save him.

Faith looked up and stared blankly at the unopened birthday gift
bag Brendan had brought over earlier that night. She looked quite shaken.

“
She
did this?” Stone’s tone crept up into the
incredulous range.

“I can’t imagine how. She’s human.”

Stone nodded. “What were you doing before you were shot?”

“Ummm…” He wasn’t the kind of guy who talked about those
things with his buddies.

“I see,” Stone said.

“Do you? Because I sure as hell don’t.”

“You must have transferred your powers somehow. I remember
you’d once mentioned that you didn’t think you could safely have sex with a
human. Maybe it’s time you talk about what you meant by that.”

“No!” Horace barked. He glanced toward his office and met
Faith’s frightened gaze.
Great…just great
. He’d screwed up both of their
lives. He should have never touched her. He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry,
Stone.” He couldn’t talk about it. He
wouldn’t
talk about it. He
couldn’t even think about that missing time in his life. “I…I can’t.”

“I don’t need specifics. But can you tell me if a transfer
of powers has ever—?”

“No—” He slashed his hand through the air. “I can’t talk
about this.”

“Why? Does this have to do with what happened when you were
away from us? When you were missing? Where did you go?” Almost six years
earlier Horace had disappeared for two solid years. Two years that Horace couldn’t
really explain or remember.

He didn’t want to remember.

“I can’t talk about it.” Horace slashed an angry hand
through the air.

That piqued Stone’s interest. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Both.”

Stone shrugged and appeared willing to let the matter drop,
for now. “She must have soaked up your energy. I’m sure it’s only a temporary
thing. Nothing to worry about.”

Only Stone did look worried. His frown deepened. He flicked
a glance in Faith’s direction. “We’ll need to deal with her.”

“Deal…with…?” Horace asked.
The Protectors
rarely
harmed the humans. Like a band of wizards living in a tower they watched over
the humans, kept them safe from malevolent forces. All of
the Protectors
believed they existed on earth to do just that. No one had ever given them a
mission statement, or even told them what they were or where they came from.
But watching over the humans seemed like a pretty obvious reason for their
existence.

They had powers and abilities far beyond anything the humans
would believe. And yet, every single one of
the Protectors
had been born
to humble beginnings, made to suffer as children. It only made sense that they
existed so they could ease suffering. To help. Not harm.

But that didn’t mean they
never
harmed a human.

The Protector’s
had a council, a formalized justice
system. Unlike the human court of law, their justice tended to be swift and often
extremely brutal. And one of the most staunchly held laws of their kind was that
they couldn’t reveal their powers to the humans.

What would the council say when they heard that a human had
borrowed Horace’s powers? Would they consider Faith a danger? Would they call
for her death?

Horace rubbed his tired eyes. “I don’t have any healing
abilities. I’m not convinced she used my power.”

Stone nodded again. It was a noncommittal gesture.
Meaningless. Unreadable. But Horace knew one thing for a certainty—Stone
protected his own. He would walk through fire before letting anything bad
happen any of them. Even if that meant keeping secrets from their council.

“Ms. Summers, may I speak with you for a moment?” Stone
called.

Faith pushed up from the office chair and walked cautiously
over to them. She still looked shell-shocked. Horace put his arm around her
shoulder, not because he felt a need to touch her, to connect with her, but
because she looked like she could use the support. He’d gotten rid of any
tender yearnings to connect with others in that manner years ago…hadn’t he?