DARK ANGEL'S SEDUCTION (The Children Of The Gods Paranormal Romance Series Book 15)

by I. T. Lucas

  “Call Franco. Donnie was hit over the head and needs to be taken to the hospital. I’m going to look for Calypso.”

  He didn’t wait for her response as he dashed out, stopping momentarily by Donnie. “Franco is coming, and he is going to take you to see a doctor. I’m going to look for Calypso.”

  Donnie staggered to his feet. “I’ll come with you. I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine, and I don’t need any help.” Brundar sprinted to his car.

  He had a good idea who had taken Calypso and where. The thing was, to get her out alive, he might need help after all. The jerk had a gun. Shawn couldn’t kill Brundar, but he could incapacitate him.

  Brundar needed backup.

  For the second time in one day, he was going to ask his brother for a favor, and he didn’t care what it was going to cost him.

  To save her life, he would pay any price.

  Hopefully, he wasn’t too late already.

  CHAPTER 58: CALLIE

  Shawn wasn’t going to kill her.

  He was going to keep her locked up and make her life a living hell. Callie had read several stories about women who’d been held captive for years, rotting in some basement with no one suspecting the psychos who’d kidnapped them of anything. The difference was that in all of those cases the abductors were strangers, not ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends.

  Severe cases of spousal abuse usually ended in the woman’s death, not her imprisonment.

  It seemed the perpetrators of the respective crimes didn’t share the same psychosis.

  Except for Shawn.

  Either that or the stories of spouses kept under lock and key didn’t make the news.

  For the past several minutes, Shawn had been quiet, staring intently at the door, waiting for Brundar to show up. He was going to wait for a long time.

  Thank God, Brundar was on rotation tonight. He wouldn’t even know she was missing until he came to her apartment in the early hours of the morning.

  Crap. When Donnie regained consciousness, which he had most likely already done or was about to, he would sound the alarm. She had no doubt someone would call Brundar.

  Would he know where to look for her?

  If the roles were reversed, she would’ve figured it out immediately. There was only one person after her. The chances that Shawn had been the one who’d taken her were far greater than her falling victim to some random act of violence. Someone as experienced as Brundar would come to the same conclusion.

  Which meant that he was either on his way or would be shortly.

  God, make him call the police and not barge in here like some avenging hero.

  He would, though.

  The guy thought of himself as the best fighter, and maybe he was, but he wasn’t fast enough to dodge a bullet fired from less than ten feet away, no matter how good he was.

  She should scream for help.

  No, she shouldn’t.

  The moment she did, Shawn would punch her again and then gag her, and the chances that someone would respond to one scream for help were slim. Shawn would hide her in the bedroom, and smile charmingly at whoever knocked on the door, telling them a story about a loud movie.

  People would believe him because it was human nature to believe in what they hoped was true, and not what they feared.

  Gagged, she would lose her chance to warn Brundar or plead with Shawn for mercy. Not that she harbored much hope for either, but it was better than nothing. Better than feeling completely hopeless and defeated the way Shawn was planning for her to spend the rest of her life.

  Callie would welcome death with open arms rather than live like that.

  CHAPTER 59: BRUNDAR

  Driving like a bat out of hell, Brundar’s mind was calm. Thanks to years of practice, he was able to slip into the zone even under the most difficult circumstances.

  And these were the most disturbing he’d ever experienced.

  Shawn showing up at the club meant that he’d somehow remembered their first encounter, as well as the others, and had connected the dots.

  The bastard had already suspected Calypso of cheating on him, and now he had a face to put on her imaginary lover.

  Well, not imaginary, but Calypso hadn’t been unfaithful although she’d had every right to be. Her husband certainly hadn’t refrained from it, as Brundar had witnessed in his memories.

  Parking his car a few houses down the block, he removed his boots and sprinted the rest of the way barefoot. A stealth approach would give him the element of surprise. A split second difference was all he needed to disarm Shawn.

  He’d expected to hear loud arguments, maybe even Calypso crying, but the house was eerily quiet, and all the blinds were pulled down, blocking him from peeking inside.

  Imagining the worst, Brundar’s pulse quickened.

  He prayed he wasn’t too late.

  He prayed he hadn’t misjudged the situation and Calypso wasn’t somewhere else altogether.

  Far from a criminal mastermind, Shawn was a simple-minded thug. He wouldn’t have thought to take Calypso to a motel. Besides, he needed privacy for what he intended.

  But what were his intentions?

  To hurt Calypso was one, that was for sure. Brundar had seen into the guy’s mind. The other was to kill her lover.

  He was waiting for Brundar. Which was excellent because it meant Calypso was alive. Probably gagged.

  By holding her hostage, Shawn could force Brundar to submit. The jerk could actually manage to kill Brundar. The right kind of bullet, shot point blank to the heart or the brain, would end him.

  It was good that backup was coming. He only hoped Anandur hadn’t mobilized the entire Guardian force. He’d said he wouldn’t, but he hadn't sworn on it.

  Circling the house to the back, Brundar checked every window and door, but they were all locked. Not only that, they were all wired. Shawn had either activated the alarm or not, but Brundar couldn’t take the chance that he had.

  Not with Calypso’s life on the line.

  That left coming through the front door. If Shawn was waiting for him, he would be sitting in his living room and facing the door with a gun in his hand.

  The question was whether he was going to shoot first and talk later or the other way around. Brundar was hoping for the second one. The guy had probably taken all of his villainous ideas from the movies, where the bad guys delivered long speeches before firing a single bullet.

  A knife in each hand, Brundar kicked the door in, zeroing on his target, who was hiding behind the terrified Calypso, a gun aimed at her temple, and a second one pointing at the door.

  She was tied to a fucking chair, and the only part of the coward’s big body sticking from behind it was his left shoulder. Brundar could’ve hit it easily, but the jerk would press the trigger and kill Calypso on the spot.

  It was back to the original plan—serving as a pincushion for the guy’s bullets until Anandur arrived.

  “You don’t want to do that, Shawn.” Brundar imbued his tone with as much influence as he could muster.

  “None of that, asshole.” Shawn pressed the trigger, hitting Brundar in one knee, and then immediately going for the other. Brundar’s legs collapsed. He would’ve powered through the pain, but the mechanics simply were no longer there.

  His knees were shattered.

  It was one of the rare injuries that took weeks of regeneration instead of minutes or hours. For some reason, re-growing bones and tendons was harder than internal organs and muscle tissue.

  Calypso screamed. Shawn put an end to it with a blow to her face, sending her toppling sideways together with her chair.

  With Calypso out of the way and no longer providing cover for her ex, Brundar let his knives fly, both hitting the same target—Shawn’s blackened heart.

  The knives bounced back and clunked to the floor.

  Laughing, the guy tore his shirt open, showing Brundar his makeshift armor—a large cast iron griddle strapped to his torso, protecting
all of his vital organs.

  Fuck, he should have aimed for the knees, same as the motherfucker who wasn’t as stupid as Brundar had thought he was.

  It also made sense now why he’d aimed at Brundar’s knees without having any way of knowing Brundar’s vital organs were less vulnerable than his joints. Shawn had assumed Brundar had come prepared the same way he had, with something to shield his heart.

  The guy calmly walked around him, keeping his distance as if sensing that Brundar wasn’t as incapacitated as he looked, and closed the door Brundar had left open.

  Brundar tried to concentrate and effect a thrall, but the pain was too intense. He managed a weak one, only to feel it disintegrate before he was able to coalesce enough mental power to hurl it at Shawn.

  Besides the guy had somehow figured it out, probably assuming hypnosis, and was ready for it, actively resisting.

  Even in peak performance, Brundar would have had a hard time thralling an actively resisting human.

  “I could kill you right now, motherfucker, but I want my whore of a wife to see her lover die.”

  He grabbed Calypso’s hair, lifting her up together with the chair she was strapped to.

  Thank the merciful Fates she was still unconscious and didn’t feel it.

  “Wake up, bitch.” He slapped her bruised cheeks, first one, and then the other.

  As if yanking her by the hair wasn’t enough to wake her if she could’ve been awakened. Brundar could hear her steady heartbeat, which meant she was first and foremost alive, but also that she was mercifully spared the pain and anguish.

  “You’ve got the situation all wrong. I’m just a friend.” Brundar was trying to stall, and he wasn’t above using the misconceptions people had about him. “I’m gay. She has nothing I want. I swear.”

  Shawn frowned, contemplating Brundar’s statement and eyeing him suspiciously.

  Then he waved his gun and smiled.

  “Nice try. Is that why you delivered the divorce papers in person and roughed me up? Because she has nothing you want? Is that why you are here facing death? Because she has nothing you want? I don’t think so. You were thinking with your dick, buddy, not your brain. And your dick is dumb as fuck.”

  Hell and damnation.

  Where in the name of the bloody Fates was Anandur?

  CHAPTER 60: CALLIE

  Callie came to with a start, her pain immediately forgotten as she saw Brundar on the floor with both his knees looking like they’d been blown to pieces, his pale face paler than she’d ever seen it. Shawn was standing next to her, pointing both of his guns at Brundar. He had silencers on them. No wonder none of the neighbors had called the police yet.

  Or maybe they had, and help was on the way.

  Not letting on that she was awake, she listened to the exchange between Brundar and Shawn. If the situation weren’t as dire as it was, she would’ve laughed at Brundar’s attempt to convince Shawn he was gay. Given his looks, it was a good try, but Shawn wasn’t buying it.

  She needed to come up with something else to stall.

  Something that would stroke Shawn’s ego. Maybe she should tell him she’d been only using Brundar, and that he meant nothing to her. She could say that she’d filed for divorce because she’d been mad about the school situation but had regretted it immediately because she missed him. Where could she ever find another man as sexy and as manly as Shawn?

  Callie was about to open her mouth and start her pleading when she caught Brundar’s nearly imperceptible head shake. When she closed her mouth, he closed and opened his eyes several times until she understood what he was trying to tell her.

  He wanted her to pretend she was still out.

  Callie closed her eyes, forcing her body to go limp and letting her head loll down.

  “Say your final prayers, asshole. As soon as she wakes up, you’re history.”

  “Don’t do it, man. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life in jail because of a woman, do you? She’s not worth it. No woman is.”

  Shawn chuckled. “You’re preaching to the choir. But no one betrays me and cuckolds me without paying the price. I’m not going to jail for ending your miserable life either. I’ll drop your carcass in the mountains for the predators to dispose of. The bitch over here will tell no one because I’m going to keep her naked, chained to the bed, and gagged.”

  Callie suppressed a shiver. She had no doubt Shawn meant every word.

  Brundar closed his eyes again, signaling her to keep playing possum.

  “Don’t you dare pass out, asshole,” Shawn spat in Brundar’s direction. “Or are you praying?”

  “I’m praying.”

  “Good. Make peace with your maker, motherfucker. Pray for the Lord’s forgiveness for you have sinned. God is on my side. As the cuckolded husband, it’s my right and obligation to kill you and my whore of a wife. But I prefer to let her live out the rest of her life in misery.”

  Crap, don’t let the tears fall, don’t cry, dead possums don’t cry…please God, if you can hear me, please help us, we don’t deserve to end like this.

  Callie was losing the battle against her tears. Any moment one would slide down her cheek and Shawn would kill Brundar. She scrunched her eyes, holding tight, hoping Shawn couldn't see her face because her chin was practically down to her chest.

  Boom!

  The door burst open, ending Callie’s pretense as she instinctively jerked her head up and opened her eyes.

  Her first thought was the Terminator, her second and more logical one was that it was a guy wearing a futuristic soldier’s body armor like the ones she’d seen in Sci-Fi movies.

  Shawn fired at the soldier until both guns clicked on empty, but the guy kept on advancing in his slow lumbering strides, probably unable to go any faster because of the heavy suiting.

  Shawn backed away, but the soldier reached with a long arm and grabbed him by the neck. A split second later, she heard a snap, and Shawn's body crumbled to the floor.

  “What took you so long?” Brundar asked.

  Putting both gloved hands on his helmet, the soldier pulled it off, revealing a headful of crinkly red hair.

  “Anandur!” Callie called out.

  He turned to her with an apologetic expression on his face. “I hope you don’t mind.” He tilted his head toward Shawn’s body. “After seeing what he did to you and to my brother I couldn’t help myself.”

  “It was self-defense,” she offered. Callie wasn’t going to shed a single tear for that monster. Anandur had done the world a favor by getting rid of him. She would testify in any court that it was done in self-defense.

  “Nope, not really. I was wearing a protective suit. But I can’t say I’m sorry I did it.” Anandur removed his gloves and gently unwrapped the duct tape from Callie's wrists, causing her as little discomfort as he could. A gentle giant.

  “Go help Brundar, I can do the rest.”

  “Don’t worry about him. He is going to be fine.” Anandur kept unwrapping, removing the tape around her torso and upper arms.

  “God, how can you say that? I don’t know if your brother will ever walk again.”

  Brundar groaned, but Anandur’s big body was blocking him from her view. “He is right, Calypso. I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse. But it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch.”

  Anandur turned his head toward his brother. “Don’t be a pussy. Suck it up like a man.”

  “Up yours.”

  He turned back to Callie and started working on the tape around her ankles. “I apologize for my brother and myself. That’s no way to talk in front of a lady.”

  “I heard much worse tonight. Thank you for coming to our rescue.”

  He nodded, tackling the tape around her thighs.

  “We need to call the police.”

  Anandur shook his head. “No, we don’t.”

  “Are we going to just leave him like that? They will eventually find him and come asking questions. If we don’t report it, we will look guilty.”


  “I’m going to make it look as if he hung himself, and we are going to clean up Brundar’s blood from the floor. Case closed.”

  She threw him an incredulous look. “Do you think anyone would buy it?”

  “Scatter the divorce papers on the floor next to where you hang him,” Brundar suggested from behind Anandur’s back. “They are on the coffee table.”

  He sounded awfully calm for someone who was in lots and lots of pain.

  “All done.” Anandur removed the last piece and helped Callie up.

  She swayed on her feet, catching herself by bracing on his bicep. He wrapped his arm around her waist, which elicited a peculiar growl from behind him.

  “Cut it out, moron. The woman can barely stand.”

  Brundar responded with a grunt.

  “I’m fine. Just a little woozy. I want to tend to Brundar.” She took a couple of wobbly steps and plopped down on the floor next to him. He was lying on his back, looking as pale as a ghost. “You look terrible.” She caressed his cheek, finally letting the tears flow. She’d been holding them in for so long, there was a lake of them ready to spill.

  Brundar lifted his arm and wiped her tears away with gentle fingers. “You don’t look so hot yourself. But you’re always beautiful to me.”

  “Oh, that’s so precious. I’m going to cry.” Anandur affected a Southern belle tone and accent while hefting Shawn’s body over his shoulder.

  “How can he joke while carrying a dead body?”

  Brundar rolled his eyes. “Don’t get me started on that. In the dictionary, next to the terms inappropriate and crude, you’ll find a picture of Anandur with a goofy smirk on his face.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t get how you can joke at a time like this either.”

  Clasping her hand, he brought it to his lips and kissed the inside of her palm. “I’m a happy man. You’re alive, I’m alive, and we get to live another day. What else could I ask for?”

  The end… for now.

  Brundar and Calypso's story