The Surrogates: The 5 Book Paranormal Pregnancy Romance Box Set

by Angela Foxxe

  Crossing the threshold, she realized that the home smelled stale.

  The air was thick and cold, like it had been left stagnating for a very long time. Her parents weren’t here. She knew it in a heartbeat and in the moment she closed the door behind her. The light streaming in through the windows was pale, ominous and little help for discerning if there was anything in the cold stillness of the house. She could sense the fact that she wasn’t alone. This house was a cavern and there was something in here with her.

  She took a step forward, listening to the hardwood floors creaking under the weight of her foot. Staring up the stairs leading to the next doorway. There were no lights upstairs and it was nothing more than a swirling vortex of darkness, waiting for her to go up and have a look. She wasn’t falling for that trick. There was something wrong here and she didn’t like the feeling of it under her skin.

  Her mind went to a dark place. It was the result of what she had been through recently. It was the fact that her baby had been taken from her that she thought about only the dark and horrible things in the world, and so she stopped and sniffed the air, trying to see if there was a smell of rot or decay in the house.

  There was nothing. There was no putrid stench and there was no metallic lingering of blood in the air. She couldn’t smell anything that would tell her that there had been something horrible happening in this house. She was safe for the moment from finding the bodies of her family. She took a step into the living room and immediately the lights flicked on.

  She would have screamed at the top of her lungs, but she saw the lamp that had turned on and the figure that was sitting in the chair. Honestly, she had never expected to see him again, but the fact that he was holding a finger up to his lips, she knew that there was something wrong. His eyes were heavy and dark, his skin pale, and he looked like he wasn’t long for this world. It was strange to see someone who was really close to her dying, so close that she could practically feel it in the air.

  Before she could ask him why she needed to be silent, she saw the object of her affection, the object of her complete world and all the life that she had inside of her. Nestled into a car seat, sitting by the foot of the chair that the intruder was camped out in, she saw the angel that she had given birth to.

  There was something about the sight that assured her that this was her child. She didn’t need a blood test. She didn’t need someone to prove it to her. She could feel her flesh and blood calling out to her offspring and the future of her life. She covered her mouth and the tears began to well up in her eyes instinctively as there was a flood of emotions rushing to the surface of her mind.

  She stared in a suspended state of amazement, looking at her child and seeing the pink little hat on top of her head to keep her warm and the pink blanket that she was tucked into the car seat with. She looked at her daughter and she felt like she might scream with pure euphoria at the sight of her.

  She was more perfect than anything she had witnessed before. She wanted to scoop her up and never let her go.

  “You’re not safe here,” Mr. Grayson said, his eyelids heavy.

  “Why did you take my baby?” Tasha growled at him.

  “Don’t act like you didn’t know,” Mr. Grayson chuckled and shook his head. “That’s why you were there.”

  “I was there for a surrogacy,” Tasha snapped at him.

  He held a bloody finger up to his lips and held it there. “We discharged you the moment the procedure was over,” Mr. Grayson said with a faint voice. He sounded like he was thirsty and that he was in the middle of the desert. “The moment you were gone, the tower was infiltrated. Matterhorn Group has been building in power and popularity over the past few decades, edging out other clans and getting just enough enemies for them to unite against Matterhorn. When they found out that we had successfully found surrogates and that we had given birth to a new generation of the Dragons, they turned on us and they attacked.

  "Everyone was slaughtered and our network has been dismantled systematically. My assistant corrupted our network so that they couldn’t find out any information that they didn’t already have. God only knows how many got to safety or how many are left of the Matterhorn Group. They could all be dead now for whatever I know.”

  “Why should I care?” Tasha snapped at him.

  “Because they figured you out,” Mr. Grayson said with a wry smile on his lips, like this was all good fun to him. “They’re coming for you, if you haven’t been found out yet. It’s only a matter of time before they find you. They’re going to kill you and they’re going to take your child from you.”

  Tasha thought about the man who had been standing in her doorway at the hospital. She had suspected that this had been one of the Matterhorn lackeys or employees sent to finish her off and to tie up whatever loose thread she was. The fact that he was someone else and that she had just been sucked into a war she hadn’t asked for, terrified her.

  “What happened to you?” Tasha asked Mr. Grayson.

  “Took a bullet,” Mr. Grayson shrugged. “Got all the way to Denver with her before they caught up with me. I barely got out of there and lost them crossing the Rockies. But, I doubt that’ll last long. They don’t know where you live, but they’ll find it. They have wolves with them. They’ll pick up your scent.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Tasha shook her head, confused by all of this.

  “Survive,” Mr. Grayson growled at her. “Get out of here. You have over five million dollars. Disappear and save your child.”

  “What about my family?” Tasha shook her head. “They’ll track you here and they’ll find them.”

  “You can’t save them all,” Mr. Grayson said with a soft, hoarse voice. “You have to decide what is more important to you right now.” He looked down at the sleeping baby in the car seat, nestled and waiting patiently for something to wake up to. “The choice is up to you.”

  “That’s not a choice,” Tasha said angrily.

  “You’re right,” Mr. Grayson leaned his head back against the cushion of the chair and closed his eyes. “It just sounds better when you say it is.”

  Chapter Six

  Tasha opened the back door to the house, staring at her daughter with a mystic fascination that she couldn’t explain in the best of her days. She stared with such utter fascination that all she could do was hold back the tears that she wanted to let run. She wanted to burst out into sobs and weep over the fact that she had her child again. She wanted to cry and thank the heavens, but she was a long way from safety. Outside it was raining harder than it had when she’d entered and as she carried the car seat, she prayed that Mr. Grayson had left the door unlocked.

  The black SUV in the driveway that wrapped around the house looked like it was made of spilled ink in the darkness of night. Walking out into the rain, she pulled up the hold of the carrier and made sure that her daughter was safe. Adelaide. Her name was Addy. There was a swelling in her heart and Tasha knew that this was the right name, regardless of whatever Dane or the others had thought she should be named.

  Dane.

  It was the first time she’d thought about him since Mr. Grayson had appeared out of the darkness of her parents’ living room. She wondered for a moment if Dane was alive or if he had died. Was he out there still? Was he looking for her as well? If Mr. Grayson’s assistant had corrupted their network before being killed, then how much time did that buy her and should she try to find Dane?

  No, the thought seemed futile and why would she want to go back to that piece of trash who had abandoned her in the middle of a hospital to wallow in her misery and despair? No, he was not the kind of man that she was going to spend another moment thinking about.

  Reaching for the handle of the door, she was relieved to find that it was open and she immediately found that Mr. Grayson had stocked the car with enough baby supplies to survive a nuclear holocaust underground with a fully functioning nursery. She looked at all of it and wondered how much money Mr. Grayson ha
d dropped on Addy before he got her to her parents’ house. She smiled and placed Addy in the car, listening as the carrier locked with the base of the car seat. It was a loud click and Addy didn’t so much as stir.

  As she closed the door, she realized that there was still the question of her parents. Where were they? Why weren’t they home? Had Mr. Grayson lured them out of the house or were they just on a trip somewhere or something like that? The questions were terrifying and the lack of answers was even more so. It wasn’t like them to not be home. They didn’t go to movies or concerts and they didn’t hang out with friends late into the evening. They were the very definition of homebodies. She took a deep breath and felt the bandages around her abdomen and took a deep breath. She had to go back inside and get the keys off Mr. Grayson.

  Looking at the car, Tasha opened the driver’s door and locked it. She was no fool. Not anymore.

  Making her way back to the house, she walked in through the back door and rushed as quickly as she could to her room to change. As far as she was concerned, if the stalkers that were chasing her showed up, they were more likely to break into the house. With Addy out in the car, she wouldn’t have to worry about gathering her up and getting out of the house with a screaming baby.

  Changing as quickly as she could, she stuffed an extra pair of jeans, a hoodie, some shirts, and underwear into a bag and grabbed a few things that she might need for the road. Getting everything that she could think of, she made her way back to the living room and looked at the body of Mr. Grayson in the chair. She had checked his pulse when he had stopped answering her questions—or more like avoiding them. He was dead and she had pulled back his jacket to see where the bullet had ripped into him and destroyed most of what was left of his side. It was amazing that he had made it this far.

  At some point, he had tried to clean it and bandage it, but it hadn’t done him much good. As far as she could tell, it looked like he’d left the bullet inside of him, which meant that the metal had probably poisoned him. In three days, he had driven across the country with a newborn. She found that impressive. She reached into his pants and found his wallet, pulling it out and finding that he had more hundred dollar bills on him than she had ever seen one person carry. He must have been paranoid to the point of extreme action. He’d probably withdrawn as much money as he could from an ATM and then ran for the horizon.

  With all the money that he had on him, she could probably survive for several months. She didn’t need this much cash, but she wasn’t going to pass it up. Stuffing it into her pocket, she fished through the other pockets he had on him. Annoyed at the fact that she hadn’t found any keys, she was curious about the phone that she wrapped her fingers around in the pocket inside his blazer.

  Pulling the phone out, she looked at all the messages that he had racked up on his way here. She wondered how many of these messages were from the phones of dead men hoping to lure him out or to get a response. Depending upon how well funded and resourced these trackers were, they might have been following his phone. She grabbed it and walked to the bathroom, kicked open the lid and dropped it into the bowl. In the movies, it always made a sort of fizzle or a hissing sound when it died. That wasn’t the case. It just sank to the bottom of the bowl with a clank. There was no way she was going to let them track her.

  Now, the question of where the keys were remained and as she walked back into the living room, she looked around. Maybe he had tossed them somewhere or dropped them on a counter or tabletop. She searched, trying her hardest not to move or over extend herself. She didn’t want to tear out all of her stitches and the staples that were still in her abdomen. She needed to find something stronger to take; she realized that the moment she started to move around more in her search.

  Standing up, she looked toward the kitchen and saw them sitting on the island. That bastard must have just tossed them and collapsed into the chair. It was a miracle that she had made it back before he’d died. What was his plan exactly? Just die in the chair, hoping that I would come back here?

  That was a risky plan and something extremely stupid. It was the kind of move only idiots in movies would make. Then her daughter would have been left alone in this house without anyone to care for her. The thought of Addy alone in this house with Mr. Grayson dead next to her made Tasha’s blood boil. She wanted to kill him all over again.

  Taking a step toward the keys, she heard something that sounded distinctly like glass being broken. She froze and looked up above her. The sound had come from the second story. There was someone in the house with her. She held her breath and looked back down at the keys. She knew that her parents’ island was designed with a compartment underneath for a trashcan to sit, but her parents had never used it for a trashcan. It was always wasted space and her father spared not moment to complain about it.

  She walked silently, making sure that the weight of her movements were focused on the balls of her feet and she made her way to the kitchen. Sneaking into the kitchen, she grabbed the keys, gripping them tightly in her hand so they didn’t jingle and she slipped underneath the island, squeezing into the claustrophobic spot and barely pulling her legs in close enough. She was stiff and it hurt to do this, but the fear of getting caught outweighed her fear of tearing any stitches.

  There were footsteps moving through the darkness of the house and upstairs she could hear them making their way toward the stairs. They were moving with determination and with purpose, not the footsteps of a thief, but a killer.

  As the footsteps drew closer, making their way down the stairs and toward her location, she felt her throat seizing up. She wanted to scream and cry for help, but she wasn’t that stupid. She wasn’t a fool. There was no one to help her and there was only herself that she could count on. Her baby was outside and that meant that she had to survive. She had to make sure that her baby was okay.

  The footsteps moved to the front of the house and opened the door. There was suddenly the sound of more footsteps. She couldn’t be certain how many people entered her house, but there were definitely more than two people in the house right now.

  She could hear the rustling of their fabric and the breathing they made as they moved from room to room. One of them made their way into the kitchen and looked around, glancing around the island, but never looking underneath and seeing Tasha. She could see the intruder’s shadow, but that was it. Fear stabbed at her like a blind swordsman.

  “She’s not here,” a man’s voice growled in frustration.

  “She can’t be far,” a woman answered.

  “At least, Grayson’s no more,” a third person said with a sort of wicked, malicious contentment in his voice. Tasha didn’t like the sound of that. That was the sound of someone who was fine with death. That was the sound of someone who would gladly kill a baby.

  “Grayson’s dead, but the baby is missing,” the woman snapped. “Hugo, did you check the car outside?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s locked. Couldn’t see in the windows, but no one would be stupid enough to leave a baby in a locked car.”

  “What about its scent?” The woman asked.

  “Its scent is all over this place,” Hugo answered. “That’s not how it works.”

  “Fine,” the woman snapped. “We need to start looking again. Matterhorn is starting to mobilize and if any of them get a hold of that child, we’re going to be screwed. We’ve got them on the run, let’s keep it that way.”

  “Yes ma’am,” the other man growled.

  “Let’s get out of here,” the woman said.

  “What about the girl’s family?” Hugo asked.

  “Last resort,” the woman replied. “If we can’t find her, then we’ll deal with them. No excessive bloodshed.”

  “Fine,” Hugo said gloomily.

  Tasha could hear the footsteps moving back toward the front of the house and when they were gone, Tasha felt something very close to a sigh of relief inside of her mind. They were gone and she was safe for another moment.
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br />   She held her breath and waited for a moment, listening for the sounds of any of them. If she were one of them, she would leave someone behind. She would leave them behind, just in case there was someone who came back or was hiding that had escaped them. If there were anyone still here, they would wait for a while and then give up. Tasha tried to think of how long she would think was a reasonable amount of time to wait, maybe an hour, not much longer.

  She kept her breathing slow, telling herself to just calm down and to take it easy. She didn’t need to panic and she didn’t need to freak out. There was plenty that was happening right now and if she wasn’t alive to help her daughter, then Addy was going to end up all alone in a car without anyone to take care of her.

  She glanced out from under the island and could see the knife block and the knives that her father had spent a thousand dollars on. They were the kind of knives that professional chefs bought, not a man who barbeques on the weekends over the summer. Monitoring her breathing and her noise, she waited.

  At least, until she could hear the muffled screams of Addy.

  Before she could react, she heard that someone else was reacting as well. From inside the living room, she heard someone push off a chair and start to make their way across the room.

  “The hell?” The third, sinister sounding man growled. It was the one that she was most afraid of seeing. As he moved, there was a significant weight to his footsteps, like he was moving three hundred pounds across the floor as he headed toward the back door. Making his way through the kitchen, she could hear him dangerously close to her and making his way to the mudroom and the back door.

  The moment he was past the island, she bolted as quickly as she could for the knife block. She reached for the largest of the knives, taking it and holding it in one hand and then looking at the cleaver her father had stuck to the magnetic strip along the wall. She looked at the silver, carbon shine of the blade and grabbed it, yanking it form the wall and rushing after him.