“Remember, lock the door.”
Xavier hated leaving her. Twice in one week he’d almost lost her. All before he’d really gotten a chance to truly know her.
Though time hadn’t been on their side, and circumstances seemed to have evil plots all their own, Xavier was not about ready to give up.
He’d just found Elizabeth. And all the demons in the world, not even Andras himself would stand in their way.
Not a chance in hell.
Chapter Twenty
He fell to the ground in a pool of his own blood. The chair he was on went down with a thud almost as hard as his body did.
Now he remembered where he'd seen this guy before. All three of them always seemed to be around town somewhere. They lurked around, never really making themselves that noticeable, but he sure noticed them. He saw how they watched everyone like they were always looking for something.
Forever reason he was now the target of their attention as they continued to beat him relentlessly with blow after blow.
He had no idea what time it was, or if the boss had figured out, he'd failed in his attempt to take out Ms. Hawthorn. The physical pain he felt was nothing compared to what his heart was suffering at the knowledge that at any moment the Giancano family would be knocking down the door to his family home.
He closed his eyes to keep tears from rolling down his cheeks as he thought of his daughter Becky. She was so young, so innocent. She had her whole life ahead of her and didn’t deserve to die just because her father was stupid enough to get involved with Paul Giancano so many years ago.
“Are you done yet? Or do you want some more?”
The angriest of the men taunted him, screaming into his ear. He didn’t care what they did to him. The truth was he knew he deserved whatever was coming. But not his family. Not them.
“I didn’t have a choice, ok?” he was surprised by his own admittance. He hadn’t meant to tell them anything.
All eyes in the room turned to the huddled lump of shit that he was. He hated himself at that moment. Hated what he had become.
“Keep talking.”
The one who appeared to be in charge ordered him to continue, but he wasn’t even sure what he could say. Then a moment of desperation came over him. He might be a pathetic worthless degenerate of a human being, but these men, whoever they were obviously cared for Elizabeth Hawthorn. Maybe, if he were lucky, they would show pity on him and help his family as well.
“I’m waiting.” The man insisted.
“If I tell you, will you save my family?” he looked up at them from where he lay on the floor. “Please?”
“They’re innocent.”
One of the men interrupted them, surprising him by his statement.
“They are. I swear they are.” He pleaded. “I never deserved them, but they’re all I have. You can kill me now. Just please, I beg of you… help my family?”
“What do you think, X?”
The three men seemed to be zeroing in on him; their eyes pierced him as though they were searching for a sign as to why they should do anything for him. "Please."
“We’ve got to help them, X. He’s telling the truth. They’re innocents.”
He couldn’t understand the strange way that they spoke about his family. And he didn’t really care. All that mattered was that they seemed, for reasons unbeknownst to him, like they were willing to help.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” He begged some more, refusing to give up hope for his family.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Because if you screw with me. If anything happens to Elizabeth, I’ll take great pride in killing you myself. Understood?”
“Yeah. I got it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Elizabeth was waiting inside her apartment when someone knocked on her door. She jumped up and ran to open it before she even realized how careless she had been.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her boss, Mr. Giancano. “Sir, what are you doing here?”
"Now is that any way to greet your boss?"
Embarrassed by his remark, but still slightly confused by his visit she offered an apology. “Oh, I’m sorry. Would you like to come in?”
As soon as she made the offer she had already regretted the decision. Xavier’s warning of locking the door and not letting anyone in rang in her mind.
As he stepped inside, she couldn't shake the odd feeling that something wasn't right. He wasn't a threatening man. In fact, he looked anything but. He was clean cut, well dressed and reminded her more of a banker than a club owner.
With the week she’d had she wrote off her paranoia to frazzled nerves and a whole lot of stress.
He was near her couch when he turned back to face her. “You know, I had really high hopes for you.”
Elizabeth stared at him. A bit perplexed by his comment. “I’m sorry?”
“Well come on. I mean you’re what… twenty… three? Four? You’re petite, have a great body and I bet men just go crazy over your long dark hair.”
She had no idea what he was getting at, but she was certain that she didn't want any part of it. "Look, Mr. Giancano. I like my new job, and I'm grateful that you hired me, but –."
“Did you think I was just going to let you go? After what you saw?”
“Please, Ms. Hawthorn… let’s quit with the dramatics, shall we? You know what I mean.”
“No. I’m sorry I do not.”
He shrugged as he pulled a silver pistol out from his jacket pocket. “Maybe not. Maybe Lou had been right, and you hadn't seen a thing."
“Lou? You mean my old boss?”
“Still.” He pulled out a long cylindrical barrel and twisted it on the edge of the gun. “I couldn’t just take that kind of chance, could I?”
"Please." She took a few steps back. She was over her quota of people trying to kill her and with the more people that tried, the more resilient she became.
He came toward her, his look menacing and filled with contempt.
Instinctively she ran to the other side of the room, but he quickly cut her off before she could make it to the fire escape.
“Leave me alone!”
“Look, I’m not going to let you go. I can’t chance my entire operation on the possibility that you saw that woman’s body.”
“I didn’t. I swear to you. I didn’t see a thing.”
“Hmm. Regardless, it’s you or me. And I didn’t become one of the most powerful men in southern California by having a conscience.”
He raised the gun and pointed it at her. She was cornered in the living room. There was nowhere to run or hide as she heard the click of his releasing the safety.
She closed her eyes tightly. Her thoughts went to Xavier. She’d told him she loved him. If nothing he knew that, and for a brief time in her life she’d experienced something that no one could take from her.
The muzzle flashed and in a moment time stood still. She watched in almost slow motion as the door to her apartment swung open, and Xavier stormed inside.
He hurried to where she stood and hovered over her body in a protective manner. A flash of a thousand suns filled the room and nearly blinded her with his brightness before she saw the man fall to the ground.
Time slowly crept back up to an average pace. She could feel the blood course through her veins again, and breath began moving in and out of her lungs.
“Am I alive?”
She looked up at Xavier with confusion.
“Yes, baby. We both are.”
“What… how?”
“I don’t…” Xavier stopped, as he looked off across the room.
She turned her head and saw the vision of a man or a bird. She couldn't quite tell what it was. He seemed to be two creatures melded into one.
“Andras?”
“You have suffered long enough for my crimes. I couldn’t allow you to suffer this fate too.”
The man disappeared as quickly as he appear
ed.
“Xavier? I don’t understand.”
He shook his head, wrapping his arms around her. “I don’t either.”
“Is it over?”
He pulled away just enough to look down at her. “No, honey. No. You and me… we’ve only just begun.”
About the Author
Nicole Morgan has been writing since 2009 and is an author of erotic romance novels, which more often than not have a suspenseful back story. Erotic romance mixed with good old-fashioned whodunit. While she’s written everything from contemporary to paranormal, her leading men will more than likely be wearing a uniform of some kind. From military to police officers, she has a love for writing about those who protect and serve. From her very first novel (which turned into a four book series) about Navy SEALs to her more recent releases you will be sure to find a few twists and turns you were not expecting.
Nicole also writes under the pen names of Taylor Brooks and Nicki Day.
www.NicoleMorganAuthor.com
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Other titles by Nicole Morgan
Intimate Persuasions (Intimate Temptations 1)
Intimate Confessions (Intimate Temptations 2)
Intimate Seductions (Intimate Temptations 3)
Sweet Redemption (Sweet Awakenings 1)
Sweet Salvation (Sweet Awakenings 2)
Sweet Vengeance (Sweet Awakenings 3)
Sweet Affliction (Sweet Awakenings 4)
Impetuous (Incessant Passions 1)
Tempestuous (Incessant Passions 2)
The Nexus (The Paladins 1)
Risqué Renovation (Blue Collar 1)
Night Falls (Racinitine Pack 1)
Secrets of the Hollows (The Hollows 1)
Say My Name
Surrender Her Inhibitions
Beautiful Mess
Surrounded by Roses
Remind Me
Love Knows No Boundaries
Sudden Devotion
When Promise Meets Passion
Entice Me
Fallen
Book 1
Tamsin Baker
Gabriel is a Fallen Angel, doing time on Earth for his sins in Heaven. He is working to earn his way back into Heaven by saving the souls of the Damned.
He doesn’t expect to meet a woman with witch-like powers, and to have the Demons chasing her exceed all expectations in their pursuit of her.
Gabriel must beat back the powers of Hell and save his woman.
Chapter One
The city lay one hundred and fifty floors below, but that didn’t stop me from seeing everything in minute detail. I witnessed every flicker of movement as though it were only a foot in front of me. The power of my advanced sight. One of my many paranormal gifts.
New York City. The city they say never slept.
But whoever said that was wrong. There was an hour, before sunrise, when the city fell quiet. The music switched off, and the humans that partied through the darkness dragged themselves to bed.
Then, as though someone had flicked a magical switch, a shift change happened. Time for the workers to begin their bee-like activity. Making lines in the streets. Hustling and running to and from their busy lives.
Five hundred years I’ve watched over them, and the city has changed a lot in that time. But the wager going on between Heaven and Hell…hasn’t. For as long as people have existed on this planet, an Almighty being watching over them. Two of them, actually. And a long time ago they made a wager, for all the souls on Earth.
The terms and rules have changed over the years as Heaven began to move further ahead in score, but essentially all remained the same. The good went above, the bad went below. And those lost souls that could be pulled either way, well…that’s where I came in.
As a Fallen Angel, I fought as one of the soldiers for the souls on Earth. I protected those that should be heading to Heaven, but were manipulated into Hell by those who weren’t meant to be here on Earth. Those fiery Demons who liked to cheat and control the choices made by those too weak to fight, or those too important for Hell to give up on.
Not that I’d known this when I’d first Fallen.
I’d thought my life was over, my punishment absolute. And yet, my battle had only just begun.
Tabitha had been there. My Angel agent, or so she called herself.
I’d always wondered if she’d been an Angel herself? Once upon a time. Perhaps. No one really knew what sort of being she could be classified as. What we did know though, was that she was as immortal as I.
She’d found me naked, broken hearted, and black winged. She’d explained that the only way to win myself a place back in Heaven, was to fight for those souls headed for the pearly gates.
Tabitha said that she’d guided other Fallen Angels back into Heaven. The rules, according to Tabitha, were that I had to save enough people, fulfil enough good deeds, and I would be allowed back.
Well, I’d followed her guidance and five hundred years later, I remained in the land of this living limbo. I would like to call it unjust, but my reason for being thrust out of Heaven had been worse than most…or so they all said.
Maybe I needed to save more people, do more years? I didn’t know. But I had nothing else to cling to that kept me sane through the unending hours, days, and decades. I had one goal. To go home. And that kept me alive.
A tingle coursed over my skin, rippling over my arms and down my spine like waves in a pond. The sun began to rise and I could sense the warmth before it reached my fingertips. My eyes slid shut as I faced the sunrise. Flashes of red, orange, and yellow lit up my mind even as I took a long, deep breath.
Another day, another human to save. Tabitha recently alerted me to a new female on the list.
The list was a compilation of names that held exceptional people. Humans that Hell wanted to seduce into the fiery side. A side we did not want to lose these special people to.
And the worst part of it all was that Hell Demons did not wait for the death time to seduce such humans. No. They weren’t that kind, nor that willing to lose a soul they wanted. Instead, those Demons would torture those special beings until suicide seemed like the best way out.
That lost them from Heaven forever, and Earth missed out on a human worthy of changing things for the better. A huge blow to our side. That was what my job was—to stop such things from happening.
I stood up from my crouched position and tucked my wings beside me. Invisible to the human eye when needed, I could slip into anyone’s life at any time.
Calm descended on me like a cloud. There she was. My target.
Her red hair that caught my eye more than anything. The way it billowed in the breeze. Untamable and beautiful. Such a contrast, those flowing red curls, to the modern, straightened blonde look of today. Her locks sent me back to a time of more natural beauty. Although the new looks humans adopted had its moments of shocking me speechless.
I stepped off the ledge and let my wings spread out. The black feathers picked up the warm, upwards drafts of wind as I floated down the silver city skyscraper. My feet landed on the cement below with a solid thud and a part of me smiled as I reconnected with the Earth.
The humans around me couldn’t see me, and as I stepped out of their way and released my hold on my invisibility, a dark-haired woman gasped as she ran into my chest.
Her heat against my body startled my senses, but in the best way. Every nerve fiber in my body reached out as though they had their own limbs.
I longed for human contact, any contact actually. But there were rules against such things.
“Sorry. I didn’t see you there,” the woman who had run into my side muttered as she tilted her head back to look up at me. Her pupils dilated as she took in my massive frame.
I grinned at her and turn
ed away to walk down the street. If she knew what I really was, her long brown hair would probably turn white. Human’s didn’t handle knowing that there were paranormal creatures all around them. They liked to stay firmly in ignorance, believing that they were the supreme creatures on the planet.
Not even close.
As I walked, I kept my eyes on the redhead in front of me. It still wasn’t busy in the city, which was nice. I hated crowds. Too much intense energy and emotion made my head ache.
I slid through the people hurrying along the street and shadowed the woman I’d been assigned to protect. My gaze slid over her tiny frame from behind, taking in her lush curves.
Well, she probably wasn’t tiny, compared to most humans. But to me, she felt diminutive. I stood at almost seven-foot-tall and although I could adapt my size to suit my surroundings, it was uncomfortable to do so.
The woman—Kadie, Tabitha said her name was—didn’t seem to be anything special. Not compared to the last hundred or so targets I’d followed. She wore clothes that clearly indicated she lived life as some sort of free spirit. This was no doctor or lawyer.
She did not adhere to corporate clothes, nor fashionable denim. She wore her hair free. Her long cotton skirt billowed around her legs as she walked. Most unusual. Her shoulders were bare except for a few strands of material that clung to her skin. A wrap-around grey top bound her tiny waist and made me want to circle her with my hands and bring her close.
She glanced over her shoulder and her gaze met mine with a precision I’d never experienced with a human. Our eyes locked and a strange familiarity passed over me. Perhaps I’d known her in a past life?
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