Mystical Seduction: full-length sensual paranormal romance (The Protectors) (9 page)

Faith’s heart beat so hard in her chest she couldn’t seem to
breathe right. She scooted across the floor. Though her hands trembled, she
managed to pull her cell phone from the pocket of her discarded jeans. She
pushed her clothes in front of her as she quietly edged toward Horace’s office.

No matter what Horace might think, she needed to involve the
police. Their lives depended upon it.

Before she dialed, she slipped her green tunic on over her
head. If she’d thought there had been time, she would have pulled on her jeans
too.

Though she’d spent most of her childhood with primitive
tribes with no qualms against nakedness, her parents had done a good job of
instilling a healthy dose of modesty into her upbringing. Public nudity made
her uncomfortable, especially when coupled with the chance she might be killed.

She didn’t want to be found dead in the middle of the club’s
dance floor completely nude. A foolish thought, she supposed, to worry about
something like that. But she didn’t care.

She simply didn’t want to die in the nude.

“Be gone!” Stone shouted again. Talk about being foolish. He
needed to do something more than shout at the shooter. What did he hope to
accomplish with that? His voice echoed through the empty club. “Be gone!”

Her phone sang a little tune as she switched it on. No one seemed
to notice. Letting Stone serve as a diversion, she quickly dialed 911.

“You’re not on the list, Frank Stone,” Ballou said. The gun
clicked as he cocked it.

“Hello? Police?” she whispered into her phone. Could the
operator hear her voice over the thundering of her heart? “I’m calling from
Club West. There’s a gunman—”

Ballou suddenly swung toward Faith and, without even turning
his head, aimed the gun so that she found herself staring clear down its dark
barrel. He pulled the trigger.

Time seemed to move at a snail’s pace after she saw the
explosive flash. She watched the golden bullet swirling toward her forehead,
heard Horace give an anguished shout, felt a great power leap out from Stone’s
upraised arms, and watched as a whirlwind surrounded Ballou and sucked him into
oblivion.

Though the assassin had vanished, the bullet still hurled
toward her.

“Stop!” she shouted.

She closed her eyes and held out her hands, as if that would
do any good. It wouldn’t.

It was too late for her.

No one could stop a bullet.

Instead of her life passing before her eyes, her future
paraded before her…a bright, beautiful future that, because she’d been too
stubborn to listen to Horace’s warnings to stay away, now would never get the
chance to unfold.

She’d never see her parents again. Never get the chance to
make them proud by earning a Ph.D. of her own. Not to mention the whole
marriage deal. Dead at twenty-three. A spinster before her time. No husband to
mourn her. No children. She’d always pictured having at least one child.
Perhaps two. They’d both be scamps.

But now, that would never happen. None of that would happen,
because she was dead.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

She covered her face with her hands and cried. Since it
didn’t matter anymore, she let go and wept loud, messy sobs.

“Shhh…shhh…” A familiar, welcome hand rubbed up and down her
back. “It’s okay. It’s over, sweetie.”

“Nooo,” she sobbed. “You-you don’t un-understand. I’ll never
have a husband to love me, or children to pester me. It’s all over for me.”

Loving hands pulled her into a tight embrace. “Nothing is
over for you. You can still have a brood of children if you want. I promise.
Please, Faith, please just stop crying.”

She sniffed and blinked up at Horace. He looked close to
tears himself. He brushed the pad of his thumb against her cheek, wiping away a
crystalline tear.

“That’s my brave girl,” he said gravely.

She carefully touched her forehead, expecting to find a
gaping hole. Of course, there wasn’t one.

“How?” she asked.

His gaze traveled to the floor where a perfectly shaped
bullet was lying next to her foot. “Looks like he missed.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Her heart started to pound
out of control again. The bullet may have fallen short of its target, but it
wouldn’t have dropped from the air intact like that. Not unless something
unnatural had stopped it.

But how?

You stopped it
.

But that would be impossible.

She glanced down at the bullet again. As impossible as it
seemed, she needed to start trusting her own instincts. She might not want to
believe what they were telling her, but deep down, she knew the truth when she
heard it.

“I did that,” she whispered.

“If you say so,” Horace said with a shrug.

How could he so readily dismiss what had just happened? She
had stopped a bullet. By wishing hard enough, she’d changed the course of the
future.

Impossible.

No one could simply will a solid object to change its course
mid-stream like that. She wanted—
needed
—to talk about it.

But Horace didn’t seem interested. His attentions had
already turned elsewhere. He glared at her pearly pink cell phone she’d dropped
on the floor at her feet. The lights on it blinked periodically. He picked up
the phone and held it to his ear.

“Yes. We’re okay,” he said.

Faith remembered then that she’d never finished that rather
frantic conversation with the police operator.

“Yes. Yes,” he said. He listened for what felt like several
minutes. Though, thinking back, the conversation couldn’t have lasted for more
than a few seconds. “I understand.” He snapped the phone closed and handed it
back to her.

“The police are on the way,” he told Stone.

He didn’t sound happy about it. Instead of thanking Faith,
he gave her such a disgusted look, she felt an urge to bury her head in her
hands again.

Why wouldn’t he want the police involved with…with…mysteriously
disappearing gunmen?

Oh
…

Even she could understand how that might be difficult to
explain.

“I’ll get Hadrian over here,” Stone said, pulling a cell
phone from his suit coat pocket. “He’s got connections with the police
department. He can handle the difficult questions for us.”

Horace nodded, but he didn’t look satisfied. “You had to go
and call the police, didn’t you?” he grumbled.

“There was a man shooting at us,” Faith shot back.

“We had it under control.”

“Did you?” She motioned toward the spent bullet on the
floor.

His lips tightened. “This isn’t the time to argue.”

“Oh?” But she felt like arguing. It was either do that or
start crying again. Her hands started trembling. She quickly tucked them under
her arms. “When will it be a good time? After you try and break up with me
again. Or…or should we wait for another man to start shooting at us?”

Horace rolled his eyes.

“What was that thing?” he asked Stone. He helped Faith to
her feet and pushed her pair of panties and jeans into her arms.

“I don’t know, but it sure as hell wasn’t human.”

“No kidding,” Faith said. Whatever had attacked them had
disappeared into thin air before her eyes. No ordinary man could do that. And
neither man seemed interested in hearing what she had to say about it.

“It wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen or heard of.” Stone said.

“You mean it’s new?” Horace asked.

“Or that ancient.” Stone shrugged. His eyes suddenly
darkened. “Judging by its power, I’m betting on ancient.”

Horace was impressed with how well Faith handled herself.
After a few well-deserved tears, she’d managed to pull herself together and
had, though not happily, accepted what must have appeared to her to be an
unfortunate trip into insanity.

Instead of dwelling on what almost had happened—his body
still shook from the thought of how close she’d come to dying—Faith blushed
furiously while dressing. He found her sudden bout of modesty charming.

When she finished buttoning up her jeans, she turned around
and thrust her hand out to Stone. “I know we’ve already met, but everything
about last night seems hazy. You’re Stone, right?”

Stone raised a brow as he focused his steady, unforgiving
gaze toward her proffered her hand. “You remember meeting me?”

“It would be impossible to forget you,” she said, “seeing
how you’re the only person Horace would let me call after he was shot.”

“Indeed.” Stone’s silvery eyes widened a touch.

It wasn’t an easy feat to surprise a man as talented as
Frank Stone. Horace’s pride swelled. Faith was indeed an uncommon woman.

“I suppose it would be difficult to forget something as
important as that, wouldn’t it?” Stone said.

Faith frowned and rubbed her temples.

“But perhaps,” Stone continued. His steady voice carried
with it a power that pressed down on the club like an oppressive hand.
“Perhaps, it would be easier to forget me and Horace and what you witnessed
last night and today.”

The spark in her pale blue eyes dimmed, and she nodded
slowly.

“Yes, it would be easier to forget…” she said.

“You don’t need the pressure of things that seem fantastic,
things that are impossible. Life is complicated enough. Don’t you agree?”

She nodded again. “Life is complicated…”

Stone flicked a glance in Horace’s direction. “You came to
the club this afternoon to talk to Horace, did you not?”

“Yes, yes I did!” A glimmer of life returned to her
expression. “I wanted to—”

Stone shook his head. “You wanted to resign your position as
bartender. That was why you came here this afternoon, remember? You wanted to
resign.”

The power behind Stone’s voice had been enough to overwhelm
Faith’s excitement. Her rosy cheeks paled, as the life seemed to drain from her
body.

“Now see here!” Horace protested. He didn’t want to lose a
competent employee. Hell, he didn’t want to lose
her
. “It’s one thing to
make her forget about what happened here, and quite another thing to force her
to leave—”
To leave me!

He didn’t want her to leave him. Ever. But he couldn’t say
that. He couldn’t reveal that much of himself or his feelings. So he quickly
changed course. “You can’t force her to leave Club West.”

Stone lifted a staying hand. All the while, he kept his gaze
locked on Faith. “Life is complicated enough, Faith, don’t you agree? You don’t
need this job when you can get another one at the university.”

“Yes,” she said her voice as flat and empty as her
expression. “That would make my parents happy. They worry.”

“And you wouldn’t want to worry them.”

“No.” The spark had completely dimmed in her eyes.

Horace felt her slipping away. Her memories of what had
happened between them would soon be gone. Unlike last night, Horace didn’t feel
so relieved about letting her go anymore.

“Wait,” he said. He wedged himself between Stone and Faith.
“Wait.”

“I know you have feelings for her, but think this through.
You can’t keep her.” Stone put his hand on Horace’s shoulder. “We both saw it.
She’s still able to control your powers. We need to make her forget, to lock
that knowledge away forever. Otherwise, she might attract the attention of the
Council.”

And that
would
be a disaster.

Some members on the Council seemed to love power more than
justice. Neither Horace nor Stone could predict the amount of trouble the
power-hungry members of the council might make if they found out about Faith’s
powers.

“You’re right. Damn, of course, you’re right. We can’t let
her fall into the Council’s hands.” Horace started to step away and let Stone
wash away her thoughts for a second time. “But how do you know it will work
this time?”

“I’m pushing harder, deeper.” Stone’s expression darkened.
“She’ll forget.”

Horace believed him. Stone’s push on Faith’s mind was so
strong that the power fogged even Horace’s thoughts. This time, the process
would surely stick.

Horace rubbed his temples, trying to hold onto the important
thing he needed to tell Stone, the thought that kept nagging at him. But
because of Stone’s magic he couldn’t seem to keep the words together long
enough to put them into his mouth.

“You’re-you’re not going to harm her, are you?” he asked
Stone, but that wasn’t what he was trying to remember.

“I’ll try not to.” Stone promised. Somehow, it didn’t seem
good enough.

Stone may have vanquished the assassin from the club, but
Ballou—whatever
it
was—hadn’t been destroyed. It was still out there.

Waiting.

The assassin’s warning haunted Horace.

“You’re now a package deal,” it had said, which meant
Faith’s life was in as much danger as his. Only she didn’t understand what was
going on…and would soon know even less.

Taking away what little she did know would leave her
vulnerable. She would be as good as dead if Stone succeeded in wiping her
memories clean.

And that’s what he’d been trying to remember!

Not only that, Horace had marked Faith twice. He couldn’t
quite remember what those marks meant. And it made his head buzz to try and
remember the importance of marking a woman, but he knew that what he’d done to
her meant something. Something important.

He couldn’t let Faith go. At least, not until they untangled
the mystery of why someone would want to kill the both of them.

“She’s part of this,” he said. He put his arm around Faith’s
shoulder and pulled her to his side. “Until we figure out why, we need to keep
her memories intact.”

Stone didn’t look convinced.

“That monster tried to kill her,” Horace reminded Stone. “It
could have shot you. It had every opportunity to shoot you, but it clearly said
you weren’t on its hit list.”