Adrenaline kicked in, and she grabbed an umbrella from a nearby stand, holding it up like a bat before stepping toward the kitchen to grab her phone, stopping only once when another thump came from her bedroom.
Quietly, she watched the hallway, ready to swing her makeshift weapon at anyone who walked through the door. But after a few moments of waiting while things remained silent, she finally looked at the charger where the phone sat in order to grab it.
Except it wasn’t there. Shit! It's probably in the living room. Sadly, with the mess from the ransacking, it’d take too much time to find it when an intruder was possibly lurking about the place.
With the thought, Charlotte put the umbrella down to exchange it for something a little more threatening—being a steak knife from the wooden rack on the counter—then stepped out of the kitchen area while gazing down the hallway quietly.
Should she call a warning? Say the police were coming? No, she should leave, go to a neighbor’s home, and call the police from there. Definitely the best plan of action.
Before she could turn however, she tensed as something come running out of her bedroom at full speed, which turned out to be her cat, Pepper.
A loud sigh of relief escaped Charlotte as the feline stopped at her legs to greet her. She’d completely forgotten about the animal, who was definitely the source of the thud she’d heard. He liked to jump down from furniture and had probably been messing around before he’d come out. Damned cat scared me shitless.
For the state the apartment was in, he seemed to be in good condition, playfully pawing at the edge of a rug near her feet. Charlotte leaned down to check him for certain, and just as her hand settled on his back, she glimpsed a shadow moving down the hallway from the corner of her vision.
Freezing in response to the silhouette, it moved toward her until a pair of leather boots were visible. Taking a deep breath, Pepper darted off as Charlotte stood quickly and swung the knife without hesitation, hoping to make the intruder back away.
Instead, they swiftly sidestepped from her view before she could get the knife up completely. That action was followed by a large hand grasping her wrist in a tight hold to twist her arm behind her back.
In response to the pain it caused, she accidentally dropped the knife.
Hearing it thud harmlessly onto the floor, her assailant drug her around until she came to an abrupt stop against the hallway wall, her cheek flattening as she was pinned with a strength she knew she couldn’t fight against.
A solid arm pressed across her upper back while her own limb remained twisted. But that didn’t prevent Charlotte from struggling as much as she possibly could when the man suggested, “I really hope you don’t think your cat did all of this.”
His voice was low, possessing an accent that sounded Aussie, or possibly British, she couldn't quite be sure. Still, Charlotte filed the information away before she bit back, “Who the hell are you? What do you want?”
As she demanded this, something told her to never admit to even seeing that box just as the man confirmed her suspicions.
“I want something you received in the mail recently, lady. So you can be a good girl and hand it over without struggle, or I can get nasty and threaten you—and don’t say you don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.”
He'd muttered the line as if he'd heard it so many times it no longer held any meaning, adding like a slap to the face, “I found the packaging it arrived in, all the way from Georgia where I was when I lost it.”
Shit! Charlotte wrinkled her brows, pushing against the wall again to try to get a little leeway to escape, but his hold wouldn’t budge.
Still, she feigned ignorance and used the exact line he’d told her not to. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”
The statement earned an annoyed groan. “Temporary amnesia is it? All right, we'll play that game.”
Taking her free upper arm, he tugged her away from the wall with a jerk, making Charlotte stumble. But she stayed on her feet as he pushed her into the bedroom without much mercy.
Inside, she saw her laptop settled on the dresser, and the picture she'd taken of the box for Julian was displayed on the screen.
“That ring a bell, lady?”
Though Charlotte hadn’t gotten a good look at the intruder yet, she could tell from the location of his voice that he was pretty tall. Not to mention large. His hands felt huge, so whatever fighting chance she had, she knew she wouldn’t get away without having some kind of weapon handy—and he'd already disarmed her once.
Still, his question stood, and she realized there was no way to lie about it.
So she lied about what she'd done with it instead.
“That thing?” she spit out. “I threw it away. Garbage man came yesterday. Sorry.”
She heard a low pitched chuckling that grated because it proved he didn’t believe her. So in addition, she added sharply, “Look, mister, I don’t know who you think you are, but if you don’t let me go right now, I’m–”
“What? You’ll scream? Go ahead,” he interrupted, reaching to clamp a large hand over her mouth, her back hitting against his chest. When it did, she figured he was made of rock because it hadn’t felt much different to hit him than it had to hit the wall a few moments earlier.
“But if you care for the lives of your neighbors coming to check on you,” he added, “you'll keep quiet.”
She wanted to bite him for that, letting out a few select curses beneath his palm when she realized he had a point.
“So, are you going to scream?”
Complacently, Charlotte shook her head. But I'm not going to cooperate either, jackass.
“Good,” he remarked, drawing her over to the dresser in front of the laptop, ignoring her struggles. Charlotte got the feeling she knew where this was going, which he confirmed with his next statement. “I was in the middle of accessing your email when you came home. Now you can do it for me.”
She stubbornly refused, standing deathly still as he removed his hand from her mouth and finally let go of her now aching arm, which she pulled around quickly to rub the feeling back into. She also contemplated darting to the right in order to escape, but two things stopped her.
First, he put his left arm around her waist to pin her there, and second, the item he was deftly flipping in his right hand—a large dagger that put her steak knife to shame in the worst of ways –made her reconsider refusing him anything at all.
Charlotte couldn't help but stare at the weapon. Just how important is this box? It's definitely not worth your life, Charlotte!
Then why didn't she want to give this asshole any information despite the fact that she was unwilling to die for it? Why did she feel so damned protective of it?
No, she wouldn't admit that. She had no attachment to the box and she wouldn't protect it now. Instead, she'd protect Julian.
“I will not,” Charlotte refused as sternly as she could muster, letting anger guide her instead of fear. “Now let go of me and get the hell out, ass—!”
Her yelling caused him to clamp his left hand over her mouth again with a low, bored sigh.
“Listen, lady,” he started as if trying to level with her, “I’ve had a long day, and yours could be so much easier if you’d just cooperate. So do us both a favor and open your damned email.”
“Muck oo,” she retorted under the press of his oversized palm.
He sounded a little amused at what that translated to when he replied, “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”
Oh no you don't! As he removed his hand from her mouth, Charlotte quickly grabbed her laptop which was just inside her reach, and threw it across the room despite the threat he currently represented, hoping it'd break.
Instead, the computer just landed against the wall, then fell downwards with the picture still displayed on the monitor when it hit the carpet.
Any other time, the damned thing would’ve broken immediately, but the one time she wanted it to, it was perfectly f
ine. They say karma's a bitch. Funny how no one ever mentions that irony's an asshole.
But she didn’t have time to think about it when the intruder turned her around to face him, and as soon as she was in place, Charlotte felt cold steel against her throat.
Her heart pounded, knowing she was likely about to die. Still, she tried to hide her fear beneath a mask of anger, unwilling to let him see how scared she was.
But he didn't make a move.
Slowly realizing he wasn't hurting her, she let her gaze turn away from his hand at her throat to see his face, and found herself looking at the most electric blue eyes she’d ever seen in her life. Just as she'd thought, he towered over her, possessing a well sculpted, clean shaven face with long hair tied back at his nape that was such a jet black color it nearly looked blue.
Somehow, it made sense that such a handsome man would only be interested in killing her.
But Charlotte soaked the information up, knowing she'd need a description to give the police whenever she could alert them, holding his cold gaze no matter how much she wanted to look away—with no lack of pride in herself when she was more afraid than she'd ever been.
She also noticed that where he'd looked indifferent at first, his countenance now carried a bit of uncertain irritation, as if he’d hoped she'd be more easily intimidated.
That’s right, I’m not afraid of you or your big stupid knife! Not on the outside anyway.
“Now why’d you go and do that, lady?” he asked completely casually. “What’s so important about your email that you can’t let me see?”
“I’m not telling you!” Charlotte bit out. “I already said I don’t have that box anymore, so let go of me! Or kill me already and find out for yourself!”
A slow smirk turned up his lips, one that scared the hell out of her. Whoever this guy was, she wasn't entirely certain he was sane, though that much was already obvious.
“If you don’t have it, then who does?”
“Garbage man, like I said.”
“That line is garbage,” he shot back. “So stop lying.”
“Kiss my ass! I’m not telling you where it is just so you can chase someone down to hurt them over it!”
He snorted in irritated amusement just before casting his cold eyes to the weapon against her flesh. For a brief moment, she almost thought he was having trouble keeping it there.
Maybe he was bluffing about killing her after all. Please let him be bluffing!
As she had the pleading thought, he informed her, “You don’t seem to realize exactly what kind of danger you’ll be in if you don’t tell me.”
“Actually, I do realize it. I see that oversized butter knife you're holding to my throat,” she forced out as angrily as she could manage. “But better me than someone I handed over to you. You don't seem to have a conscious, so I couldn’t ask you how much you think I’d hurt if someone got killed because I was too stupid or too scared to keep my mouth shut.”
His gaze narrowed at her as if summing her up, deciding how much resolve she might actually have. So Charlotte sneered to hopefully make sure he knew she meant business.
That only seemed to humor him, though she could’ve swore there was admiration in his cold blue eyes as well.
“Who the hell are you anyway?”
He didn’t respond at first, silently considering it before asking, “Why should I answer when you won’t tell me what I want to know?”
“Because telling me isn’t going to kill anyone.”
“You don’t know that. Ever hear the phrase if I tell you, I’d have to kill you? Not that I care. I just want to do things the easy way and you're resisting.”
Charlotte knew that was true, wondering what was stopping him from slicing her throat open at any time if he felt she was more of a nuisance than worth keeping alive for information.
When she had the thought, she glanced to the side to hide the worry in her eyes.
She wanted to save Julian, but she also wanted to keep herself intact if possible, and because the intruder didn’t seem to be in a hurry to hurt her further, she decided to ask a question of her own to hopefully buy some time to think.
“What is that box, anyway? It can't be worth this much.”
“Try half a million dollars.”
“Half a million?” she spit out, seeing now that he was definitely being kind by simply asking for information. “How is it worth that much?”
She really wanted to know, but the man never responded, staring to the side like he’d heard something. He even drew in a few breaths through his nose as if he were … sniffing?
Alright, who was this guy? How the hell had he gotten into her apartment? With a parachute? What was that box and why was it worth so much? Charlotte felt like screaming, she was so damned confused now.
So she did.
“If you don’t let–,” she started loudly and was cut off yet again by a hand clamping over her mouth. But he'd also tugged the knife away from her neck to put his other arm around her, holding her still without so much as even pricking her.
She twisted her head regardless, struggling against his hard grip when he jolted her with the word, “Quiet,” given on a tone of voice so harsh that she couldn’t help but comply.
The look on his face was much more lethal now than before, making her blood run cold. It was as if he knew there was someone else in the apartment even though she hadn’t heard the front door opening.
Or a window breaking, she thought blandly.
Soon, she was being dragged toward the bedroom door, coming to a stop at the threshold before he looked down at her. Something in the depths of his eyes was no longer amused or even remotely sarcastic when he next spoke.
“Listen to me, lady, I’m not the only one after that damned box. Someone else is coming for it now, right outside your door. You may think I'm malicious, but I can promise you they have no honor whatsoever. So if you want to survive, you’re going to listen and follow my direction. Understood?”
She stared up at him, wondering just how much weight his words held. He'd just threatened her life, but someone less honorable was coming for it? What would they do, nuke the building?
Did she even have a choice?
Before she could attempt to make up her mind, he'd turned and stuck his head around the corner, looking down the hallway to the front door. Charlotte had to lean with him, and when she did, she noticed the strangest thing she’d ever seen before.
Smoke was flooding through the bottom and top cracks of the front door, as if a fire was burning in the hallway outside, or someone had set up one of those mist machines seen in concert halls.
“See that?” he asked, tugging her back into the room before finally releasing her. As she stumbled to an abrupt halt near her bed, he added, “They're already here.”
Staring with wide eyes, Charlotte demanded, “Who’s here? What the fuck was that? Is the building on fire?”
He only scoffed at her serious questions. “No time for an explanation, so I’ll make you a deal instead. These people coming for the box will kill anyone who gets in their way without question or mercy. You want out of this alive? I’ll protect you until they’re no longer a threat, and in exchange, you can tell me where the box is.”
Despite the situation, Charlotte stubbornly replied, “No!”
“Really?” he asked in a manner that suggested she'd given the wrong answer, heading to the door with his weapon in hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll take that as a yes since you’re too ignorant of the threat to know what to say.”
Before she could speak another word, he left the room, shutting the door behind himself. Not only that, but he pulled on the knob so hard that a loud ping of metal sounded, saying he'd purposefully broken it to prevent her escape.
Going wide eyed over the notion, Charlotte ran toward the door and grabbed the handle, pulling to pry it open, but the latch stubbornly held it shut. Still, she wasn't entirely certain she actually wanted to get out when she hea
rd an inhuman growl coming from the other side of the doorway, making her back up quickly.
What the hell was going on? If that box was really so important, then who'd sent it to her and why?
More importantly, why don't I own a gun?
Charlotte looked around the room for some way out of this mess, trying to believe that where there was a will, there was a way.
It was just a matter of finding it before it was too late.
Chapter 4
Whatever was inside that curse box had to be important.
Sending a group of vampires to retrieve it from a single mortal was overkill, and Ulric doubted the bloodsuckers were interested in exacting revenge for the mercenary he'd killed the night before. So the box had to be their target. Isadora warned about this.
He arrived in Orange Falls earlier that afternoon, watching the apartment from a neighboring building to learn that Charlotte wasn't home. So he'd invited himself in by jumping to the ledge outside her window and busting it open.
Ulric turned the apartment inside out looking for the curse box, accessed her computers, and finally found a picture of it on a laptop in the bedroom. The packaging the box came in was also wadded up in a trashcan next to the dresser, which had the name James Claybourne in Georgia as the sender.
Ulric mentally filed that information away for reference, ready to check Charlotte's email when she came home at sunset. So he confronted her instead, expecting to get information without much prompting whatsoever.
But things hadn’t gone exactly the way he'd envisioned.
Charlotte was a small woman who had no idea how to fight judging by the sloppy way she’d swung her knife at him. Still, she was determined, refusing to divulge any details of the box's location to keep a friend safe.
It was an irritatingly admirable quality, and strangely, Ulric felt extremely wrong about threatening her. He'd sensed something different about the mortal from the moment they were in close proximity, but didn't figure out what it was until he'd gotten a good look into her green eyes.
What he found was surprising.
Light of Dawn Page 4