The Protectors Christmas Box Set (sexy paranormal romances) (7 page)

“No.”

He didn’t want to tell her the truth. It would ruin her perfect day. But he needed to tell her something. “We weren’t born of this world, Holly. We’re not like the others.”

“I see,” she kept walking as if she hadn’t heard him.

“You don’t want me to explain how I’m a wizard with the power to...” He held his hands out and concentrated. A bright ball of energy formed within the nest of his palms. It pulsed with the heartbeat of the universe. It was a pretty damn impressive trick.

“What? Were you saying something?” She tilted her head and smiled innocently up at him. It was as if she couldn’t see the energy sphere he’d conjured or hear the truth. She wasn’t ready to hear the truth. She wasn’t ready to see the magic. “Did you know that Burl Ives was my uncle? My parents are going to hate that I’m missing this year’s celebration,” she said still looking beyond him as if peering into a distant window.

Her fantasy family. They were more real to her than he was. “I can see them now,” she whispered. “They’re gathering around a long table filled with home baked dishes.”

“Can I buy you lunch?” Hadrian asked. He took her hand, trying to break the spell she’d woven around herself. “I have a friend who’s a hostess at the Towers Hotel. No matter how booked they are, she’ll be able to get us a table.”

Holly nodded absently. “Yes, I’d like that.”

They were nearly through the lavish meal when Holly set down her fork and asked quite plainly, “Am I human?”

He finished chewing his steak. “Um....”

“I mean, what does it mean when you say that I’m like you and like everyone else at The Oblique Café? From what I’ve overheard, it sounds to me as if you and your friends consider yourselves to be not quite human.”

“We’re not.”

She closed her eyes. Her fingers tightened into a fist. After a long silence she asked, “Then, what am I?”

“A foundling. We’re all foundlings. No parents to speak of. Jake is convinced we popped out of a cabbage patch. Kara believes we’re fairies.”

Holly peeled open one eye. “And what’s the truth?”

“No one knows, exactly. We’re different. That much is true. And we all have powers that allow us to move through the dimensions, among other things. Old fables called us wizards. We have the ability to harness the powers of this universe and the dimensions surrounding it. We can use those powers to fight the shadows that threaten the humans.”

Holly didn’t say anything as she stared at him. Her silence made him nervous.

“We’re not alone,” he said. “There are groups of us living all over the world. Have been since the beginning of time.”

Still, she was silent.

“Some in our group call ourselves The Protectors because we take care of the human race. But I’m pretty certain that we’re a race of wizards.”

She didn’t even blink. Hadrian waved a hand in front of her face.

“You’re kidding me,” she finally said.

* * * *

It smelled her. She was different from the others, a blend of the ancients and the new human. It had felt the power of her soul. Freedom. That’s what it craved now. No more long stretches of hunger. No more hiding in the shadows afraid that the ancients might banish it again. No more. Never again. It would have her.

She looked weak. Wide-eyed. Too stunned to be aware of the dangers the soul eater posed. It knew. And it was ready.

Tonight.

“Tell me you were kidding,” she said for the fourth time. Holly knew she sounded like a broken record, but she couldn’t seem to get out of that endless loop. Her mind kept circling the idea, unwilling to touch it.

“I’m not kidding,” he said as patiently as he had the first time. “It’s the truth. We’re wizards. Frank likes to call us The Protectors.”

After paying for lunch, Hadrian had suggested they go ice-skating at the outdoor rink in the park. He said it was a common human tradition to go ice-skating on Christmas Eve and that they should go.

He was trying to give her a perfect Christmas. It was sweet. She swiped at an errant tear with the back of her hand. There was no reason to cry. None at all.

Not human...

There were worst things in life, right?

“You-you were found, like me, in a city gutter?” she asked and held her breath while waiting for an answer.

He nodded. “I was raised by foster families. I left my tenth family when I graduated from high school. It was a rough childhood. Christmases were especially hard.”

“They still are,” she agreed.

“They don’t have to be.” His eyes grew dark with desire. The steady look made her heart thud in her chest. She touched her tongue to her lips...and ended up biting it. She couldn’t fall for Hadrian. Not yet. Not until she convinced herself that this wasn’t just one big scam.

It’s not a scam.

Still, she needed time to...adjust.

“If you’re a wizard, can you do magic?”

He flashed her a playful smile. “Nothing up my sleeves,” he said as he skated by her. He spun in a wide circle on the ice and raised his hands to the gray sky. A bright glowing ball formed in his hands. He spun again and sent the ball of light to the top of the large Christmas tree in the nearby square where it twinkled and sparkled before fading away.

The people around him clapped. Hadrian seemed startled that so many people had noticed his light display.

“Aren’t you afraid that they’ll find out that you’re magical and, I don’t know, storm the castle doors with pitchforks and torches?” Holly whispered.

“There’s nothing to see here,” he said. Holly felt a wave push out in all directions around her. There’s nothing to see here. There’s nothing to see here. “I did a little mind push,” he said. “The other skaters won’t remember seeing anything other than a man skating on the ice with a beautiful woman.”

“You can do that?”

“With some training, you’ll be able to do it, too.”

Holly shivered. “I’m not sure that I like that you can control other people’s minds. It scares me.”

“I can’t seem to control your mind,” Hadrian said.

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” It did. A little. And she did like the beautiful ball of light he’d created.

She thrust her hand in the air. “Do you think I could call the powers of the storm to my hand?”

He was on her in a flash and lowered her arm as if frightened she just might cause a blaze of lightning to rip down from the sky. “Let’s not try that yet.”

She looked at her gloved hand. Her fingers tingled. And little sparkles of light danced on the tip of her thumb. Hadrian rubbed her hand between his until it felt normal again.

“Try not to pull the heavens down around our heads tonight,” he said as he skated off. “It’s harder to get people to forget something like that happening.”

“Am I still allowed to go to church?” she asked. “I mean, I’m not endangering anyone by being there, am I?” She swallowed hard and rushed on, not sure she wanted Hadrian to answer any of her questions. “God’s not going to strike me down for entering into his domain...will he?”

Hadrian skated past her. “Has he before?”

She shook her head. And then laughed. “Okay, okay, I get it. Still, I’m falling off the deep end a little.”

“Personally, I have nothing against going to church,” he said and then skated a full-circle around her. “I’ll go with you to the midnight service tonight. I like looking at all the candles.”

“Are we demons?” she whispered the question, afraid someone might overhear.

“Not that I know about,” he said as he skated by her again.

He seemed so at peace with the knowledge that he wasn’t even the same species as everyone around them. They were different. Sprang from the earth, perhaps. Found under a cabbage patch. Fell from the sky. Who knew? Holly certainly didn’t.

“Are you sure you’ve skated before?” Hadrian asked the next time he glided by her.

“Of course, I have,” she answered quickly enough and then suddenly got nervous that her non-humanness was showing. “Why?”

“Oh, no reason. Most skaters I know usually move around the rink, though.” He twirled around and skated backwards, smiling at her.

“How can you act so normal?”

His grin turned wry. “How else am I supposed to act?”

Good question. She used her toe pick to push off and glided across the ice. Nothing had changed in her life. Not really.

So, she wasn’t human. Several of the guys she had the misfortune of dating over the years weren’t human either...they couldn’t have been. Hadrian, on the other hand—

No, she probably shouldn’t get all gushy over him until she understood how things worked in this non-human world of his first.

“We should definitely get a tree,” he said. He hooked his arm with hers, and they skated side by side. Holly felt like a quaint character in a Victorian winter painting. “Which do you prefer, tinsel or garland?”

* * * *

The afternoon whirled by. After putting up the most wonderful, gaudy tree imaginable—using both tinsel and garland and flashing lights—in the middle of her apartment, Hadrian insisted they make hot chocolate to take over to Karen. After hearing about the ordeal Karen’s mother put her through, he said it was their duty to make sure Karen was holding her own.

“We are protectors, after all,” he said before playfully kissing Holly on the tip of her nose.

She nearly swooned.

“Do that again,” she said.

“Do what?” His smile turned devilish. He crossed his arms over his chest, seemingly waiting for her to make the next move.

“Newton had it right, you are a pain in the—”

He moved faster than her eyes could see and kissed her. Lip to lip. The heat swirling between them was deep and sparkling. It spread through her body.

“Wow,” she said when he peeled away from her.

“Yeah—wow.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “We better not continue that or else we won’t make it to Karen’s. Hell, we won’t make it out of this apartment until after the new year.”

“No kidding,” Holly agreed.

* * * *

Holly’s body was still humming from spark that had been ignited by that kiss. She’d secretly hoped Hadrian would lead her back to her apartment and to her bedroom after they’d visited with Karen and her mother. Karen’s mother, a kindly older woman with a full head of gray hair tinted pink, was the very definition of grace and civility. Except when she spoke to her daughter. The woman’s features would then wrinkle up, and she’d scowl before uttering the most outrageous complaints. Karen hadn’t been exaggerating. Her mother truly had nothing positive to say to her.

The tense situation left Holly twisting her napkin to pieces. Hadrian, on the other hand, appeared to enjoy the impromptu visit. He leaned back on Karen’s sofa and charmed the stockings off Karen and her mother.

“Dear, now this is the type of man you should be dating,” Karen’s mother had said during a lull in the conversation. It was the nicest thing she’d said to Karen since they’d arrived. “You dress like a slut. Men of this caliber aren’t looking for sluts.”

Karen blazed red. Holly wanted to crawl under the coffee table. But Hadrian only smiled.

“Dear, dear Mrs. Hardgrove,” he said, smoothly. “But I like all sorts of women.” He put his hand on hers and stroked it lightly.

A bit of the tension eased from the room. He told a short, meaningless story about a scruffy dog he owned as a child. Karen’s mother beamed with delight. He then turned to Karen and asked, “Did you have any pets growing up?”

Karen seemed surprised by the question. “Why yes,” she said. “Mom and I used to raise poodles. Remember Sofie, Mom? She earned her champion before she even turned one. Her fur was the perfect shade of silver and she knew how to turn on the charm at the shows. Mom trained her. I showed her.”

“Ah, yes.” Karen’s mom closed her eyes and smiled. “You deserve a lot of the credit for Sofie’s wins. My Karen was one of the best handlers. She was truly a natural. I’ve never seen anyone instinctively recognized a dog’s strengths and make sure the judges saw those strengths with same flare Karen would do that. We should do that again, honey.”

Holly held her breath, waiting for Karen’s mother to tack on a biting criticism about her daughter. Holly was about to turn blue from waiting when Hadrian took her hand.

“I think it’s time to go,” he said.

When they rose from their seats, Karen and her mother were absorbed in their reminiscences of past dog shows. They’d found a common ground and were running on it. Hadrian had worked a miracle.

“Just doing what we do best,” he said. “We help the humans.”

“Are you reading my mind?” she asked, hoping that he hadn’t. Otherwise, just a little while ago he would have gotten quite an explicit show of what she’d imagined doing with him once she got him alone. She felt her cheeks burn. “Please tell me you can’t read my mind.”

“I can’t,” he assured her and gave her a quick kiss. He then whispered, “You should know, though, you show your thoughts clearly on your face.”

Holly playfully buried her face in her hand. “Great...just, great. Now you’ll think I’m a slut, too.”

“But, Miss Post,” he said, his tone wreathed in innocence, “I like all sorts of women.”

* * * *

The bedroom romp never did happen. Hadrian assured himself that it was for the best. He shouldn’t be enjoying himself this much...not with Holly...not knowing what was going to happen tonight.

To her.

Actually, exactly what happened would be up to her. He hadn’t lied about not letting her be unwittingly fed to the soul eater. But if she decided to fight the beast, he wouldn’t stop her. According to Frank, facing the soul eater was, after all, her destiny.

She sparkled in the night like the crystals of ice dangling from the storefront awnings. She’d put on a beautiful beaded silver gown. But it wasn’t the dress that made her glow. It was the joy dancing in her eyes. She was happy, so very happy it made his heart ache.

“Dinner was lovely,” she said. He’d broken his budget and taken her out to a posh uptown restaurant that had elevated haut cuisine into an art form. “My taste buds are still singing.”