The Fallen King: The Bellum Sisters 4 (paranormal erotic romance) (3 page)

“Fine.” Alrik turned without a
goodbye and headed back towards the hall. He’d just stepped foot onto the dark
path when the seer spoke.

“She’ll die in the process.”

Alrik looked over his shoulder at
the seer. “Then so be it.”

The seer’s merry laughter echoed
around him as he stalked away with his next quest on his mind.

Chapter
Three

Abbigail stretched her tight
muscles as she got out of the car. The sun was entirely too bright today…like
it was trying to sear her eyeballs. Stupid sun. It wasn’t the sun’s fault she
hadn’t been sleeping well.

She’d never been a great sleeper
because she woke at the slightest of noises. Her mother said it was paranoia.
Whatever it was she had a hard time sleeping and it didn’t help that she lived
alone. At least with a roommate she felt some added comfort and could sleep
mildly better.

Abby pinched her eyes into slits
to hide the brutal sunlight and grabbed her mail from the mailbox. She pulled
out a stack of mail and flipped through the envelopes as she strode back to the
house.

“Bill, bill, wrong address, junk,
junk, more junk...” she muttered.

She paused as her gaze landed on
the last envelope. The envelope was tinted yellow, the paper thick and scratchy
like parchment. It certainly didn’t look like any kind of envelope she’d ever
received before. Then again, companies that sent out junk mail did seem to be
finding more creative ways to get people to open their trash mail.

The tall black cursive letters on
the front read:
To Abbigail Krenshaw
then listed her address below in
the same unique scrawl that looked like something from an older era. No return
address, and Just a stamp. She flipped the envelope over and her brow drew down
in confusion. A black seal made of wax covered the V-closing of the envelope.

Apparently, this was no envelope
you licked closed. Certainly not something you’d see from a credit card company
trying to get you to apply for a high-interest, low-limit card. She fingered
the material and touched the seal feeling the waxy material under her
fingertip. Some symbols marked the seal, but it was hard to make out. It just
looked like something official. There were two poles curving left and right on
the outside with a regal bird’s head in the middle. Peering closer, she
corrected herself. Swords, not poles. She could just make out the handles and
the edge of the blades if she looked hard enough but not any details of the
bird’s head.

“What the...” she said under her
breath.

Just to make sure she flipped the
strange envelope back over and ensured that it was indeed her name on the
letter. Yup, sure was. A strange feeling filled her, starting in her gut and
working its way up to the back of her neck until the little hairs stood on end.

She had to sit down for this.
Heading back to the house she plopped down on her sofa. Dropping the rest of
the mail on her chipped coffee table, she propped her feet up on it and leaned
back to inspect the letter.

She hadn’t noticed something before.
She had been taking in too many other things on the letter: the handwriting,
the seal, but now she noticed it. The worn look to it. As if it’d been crumbled
again and again or passed between many hands. Where the envelope should be
smooth and firm, the paper was wrinkled and weak, and one corner was bent.

“I’m stalling,” she muttered.

Taking a deep breath, she fli
pped the envelope over and peeled back the seal; it popped off
with a soft snapping sound. A heavy ball formed in her gut. It was almost as if
she knew what it was before she even pulled the letter out, which had to be
impossible. Maybe a part of her did know, could feel it.

She pulled the yellowed letter
out of the envelope, folded thrice. It too was wrinkled and crumpled. This
paper was much thinner than the envelope and softer but not as wrinkled like
the envelope. The front and back were covered in handwriting of the same
elegant, heavily inked hand.

It took effort to keep her hands
steady, but she managed it as she parted the folds and opened the letter.

She read it slowly, her feelings
so confused she didn’t try to control or understand it. As she read the last
word on the page, her chest twisted so tightly that her heart felt like it was
being wrung like a wet rag in someone’s hands. She took deep breaths and read
it again.

Dearest Abbigail,

I’ve started this letter so many
times only to throw it away.

What does a man say to his child?
His child whom he’s never met, but watched from afar. I’m afraid, dear
Abbigail, that there is no way for me to tell you any of this gently. I only
hope that you read this and that you can understand.

I met the love of my life many,
many years ago and I lost her. She was taken, stolen from me. She’s been lost for
a long time. I was nearly lost to despair, even with my own three girls to
raise. I think that made it even harder. I couldn’t break down like my heart
wanted to. I couldn’t hide or leave them to search for her. I had to be here
because they’d lost someone special too. That woman was my wife, my Protector,
Mary Bellum.

One day a new light entered my
world. It was so unexpected. I don’t know if I could even describe it. My
children made me happy. They filled me with love, but there was and always will
be a gaping hole in my heart. Nothing could fill it, or so I thought. The day I
met your mother all of that changed. It was as if I could breathe a full breath
of air for the first time in so long. I wanted to fall to my knees before her
and cry in joy. Naturally, that wouldn’t have been very brave of me, so instead
I asked your mother out and she said yes.

She said yes. She changed my
life.

Then, something else that I’d
never thought possible happened. She had a child. Our child.

I can still remember the feeling.
It was like so much happiness and joy had been shoved into my chest it might
burst. I didn’t know if I could contain it. However, things can never be
perfect. I missed my mate dearly. Even though I loved your mother dearly, she
could never fill the whole in my chest fully. No matter how much I wanted her
to.

This is where I falter. What to
say next? Nothing could ever replace my not being there for you, though from
afar I was. I saw your pictures as you grew up, could hear your small voice in
the background when I called your mother on the phone. I heard and watched you
grow up into a lovely, smart, and charming young woman. A man and a father,
dare I say, could never be prouder than I am of you, dear Abbigail. Please
believe that.

The day your mother told me you
punched a girl in the face after she started a fight with your shapeshifter
friend, I grinned in pride. The day your science project won the highest reward
in both high school and college brought me to tears. Your mind, darling girl,
nothing, and I mean nothing, is more beautiful than that.

Now, for the hard news. I wish I
didn’t have to tell you like this. Just once in my life I wanted to pull you
into my arms and feel you there, to sit across from you and hear your voice in
person. It breaks my heart to think of it. Maybe I should have done more. God,
it’s something I’ve struggled with every single day since the day you were
born.

However, I have one fatal flaw.
I’ve loved one woman in my life and she is gone. Nothing and no one can replace
that. I hope one day you understand that feeling.

You need to know that if you’re
reading this letter then I am no longer on this earth. I have met my Great
Death and moved on to the next life. Perhaps it’s my own cowardice waiting
until now to send this letter, but I didn’t know what else to do.

The point of this letter, the
point of my writing you is to tell you that I love you. I love you so much that
just writing the words on a piece of paper can’t possibly show you just how
much I feel or explain how I can love someone so utterly and dearly without
ever meeting them. But I do. How I do, Abbigail. Please, if nothing else in
this letter, believe that. Believe me. I love you.

I want you to know you have three
sisters. Chloe, Willow, and the youngest Lily. You have sisters. If you’re as
courageous as I think you are then I know you’ll seek them out, and I sincerely
hope you do. It’s my hope now that you can be a family together in a way I
could never provide. I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me.

With all my love,

May
15, 2011

Francis
Jeremiah Bellum

Tears formed at her eyes. She
blinked and two dropped onto the letter splattering wetly across the words. She
rubbed gently at them as she sucked in a ragged breath. She made sure to be
careful, not wanting the wetness to smudge the ink.

She sat the letter on the cushion
next to her and stared off at the wall, her mind turning slowly trying to put
the pieces together. After some time, her mind returned to normal speed. Her
body slowly relaxed and the weight on her chest gradually released. The tight
knot in her gut faded. Her body relaxed as best it could considering what just
happened.

She knew what she had to do. She
just wasn’t sure she wanted to do it. But she had to.

She went to the kitchen, picked
up the phone, and dialed the numbers she called many times a week. Her mother
answered on the second ring.

“Hey, baby. How you doin’?”

She could hear the sounds of
people chattering in the background. The soft Celtic music her mother always
listened to playing gently. She was at work.

“I got a strange letter in the
mail.”

Silence. Abby’s gut feeling came
roaring back to life. She gripped the counter in her hand, squeezing tight to
the surface until her knuckles locked and blanched. Her eyes fixed on some
indescript point on the white stucco wall of her kitchen.

“Mom?”

“I think we need to talk,” her
mother said gently. She heard her mother’s voice break. The sound crushed her
heart as if a fist gripped it. She could never stand the sound of her mother crying
without feeling the same emotional pull inside her.

Abby’s fist clenched tighter
around the lip of the counter. “About what?” she managed to ask over her own
clogged throat.

“It’s about your father.”

It was then that Abbigail
Krenshaw’s life changed.

* * *

By the time Abbigail arrived at
her mother’s magic shop aptly named
Magic Shoppe
, her mother had cleared
out all guests, sent the employees home, and closed shop. This left the parking
lot completely empty except for her mother’s green Volkswagen Bug parked off to
the side. The shop didn’t have many employees, and mom had two coworkers under
her. Both were witches who practiced magic in the same circle as her.

Her mom even managed to pull in a
decent amount of profit from her shop. Abbigail thought the idea was hilarious
when her mom first told her some eleven years ago that she’d be opening a “new
age” store. She stopped laughing when her mom sold her fifty-year old home with
bad plumbing and shoddy insolation and upgraded to a brand new two-story house
in the suburbs. It was far from a mansion but wasn’t close to being a dump
either.

She’d done well because of the “new
age” fad that had come and gone but wasn’t really gone. Her brand and business
had stuck around well enough in Fort Collins even among the local humans.

Humans knew about magic, though
some still didn’t believe in it. Some even knew about demons, shapeshifters,
and the vampires of the world. Most ignored it because if they didn’t then
they’d have to accept something most weren’t ready to. So most humans stayed
out of the paranormal business, except for the fundamentalists. Whenever they
got involved, things always got bloody. A slain vampire here, a dead
shapeshifter there. Abbigail knew all about it. ‘Course it went both ways when
humans wind up dead, but that wasn’t the area Abbigail worked. It didn’t help
that she got to see it more often than other folks.

Abbigail stepped inside her
mother’s shop and stopped. She didn’t want to do this, but she needed to. Her
stomach twisted with nerves, and her hands fidgeted no matter how hard she
tried to still them. Even her legs felt weak like she could fall down at any
moment. The music was off leaving the shop quiet except for the soft whirr of
the A/C unit. The A/C was a bit of a strange thing in the North of Colorado.
Usually by now, the temperature had dropped and people were preparing for the
cold wet weather to come with winter. Instead they’d had a surprising amount of
heat that still lingered in the air.

“Abby, is that you?” her mother
called from the back of the store.

This is it. She couldn’t turn
back now. All those years of never knowing who her father was, of asking her
mother repeatedly for answers only to get shut down time and again, this was
her chance. She’d never told her mother, but that was the reason she’d shunned
her mother’s craft. It was petty, she thought, looking back on it, but no
matter. That’s just how it turned out.