The Protectors Christmas Box Set (sexy paranormal romances) (8 page)

“So are mine,” he agreed. If this was going to be her last day, she deserved the best and the hell with the cost. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look?”

“Yes,” she smiled up at him. “But I like hearing it.” She hooked her arm with his and stole a kiss that warmed him to his toes. “Thank you. Today was amazing.”

“It was amazing for me as well,” he admitted, his heart breaking. He didn’t want to lose her.

* * * *

Hadrian had escorted Holly to the midnight Christmas service at St. Agnes’s. It was a grand cathedral with a ceiling that seemed to reach into the heavens. Holly hadn’t attended a service here since her days at the orphanage.

Years had passed since she’d even visited this part of town. These were the places she was trying to forget. The memories here were of holidays that looked nothing like the images read about in books or saw in paintings.

Seeing the old neighborhood again threatened to chase away the image of her fantasy family. The loving mother and father who were still waiting for her to come home and sit down with her extended family at their oversized table to eat their oversized turkey. She almost made Hadrian take her home.

“There’s power in the past,” he promised her. “Don’t be afraid.”

It wasn’t much of an assurance. She’d felt his tension grow with each passing minute and knew he was worried about something. His gaze kept traveling around the church pews, even after the service started.

The congregation was singing the first carol when he whispered in her ear, “It’s here.”

Before she could react, a great wind howled outside that sent the heavy doors swinging open. With a thundering crash, the lights and candles went dark.

“I’m hungry,” it cried. It no longer looked like a man but moved like a shadow, like a ghostly demon down the center aisle toward her. And this time she knew exactly what it wanted. It wanted her.

Hadrian kept a tight hold on her hand. “I’m with you. We can fight it.”

“The humans have changed,” the beast said moved closer toward her. “Their souls are sealed against me. What has happened? What has changed them?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hadrian said.

“Liar!”

Holly could feel the beast reaching out to her. Its darkness shivered through her.

“Look,” it said and lifted its arms. As one, the congregation sighed and collapsed. A ghastly glow spread throughout the church. “I can’t tap into their power. It’s not mine to take. What has changed them?”

“Do something, Hadrian! The soul eater is killing them! It’s killing all of them!” Holly shouted as she tried to help the woman who’d fallen beside her. “It’s not supposed to be able to take more than one soul a night!”

“I-I don’t know what to do. It’s too powerful,” Hadrian said, even though he had lifted his hands had conjured an orb of light filled with crackling lightning. “Can’t you feel it? The soul eater is using their deaths to pull us into another dimension. One where it’s even stronger. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what Frank thought either of could do. I suppose I could.” He tossed the orb of light at the soul eater’s dark figure.

But it opened its mouth and let out a horrible wail that shattered the orb.

“No,” Hadrian cried. Holly watched in horror as Hadrian was lifted off his feet by an unseen power and tossed across the room. His head splintered against the marble altar. Her brave protector reached out for her and mouthed, “I love you, Holly,” as he sank to the floor.

“No!” She ran to him, but she felt it even before she’d reached him. He was dead. Like all the others. Holly could feel the emptiness clawing at her. His soul had been ripped from his body.

She wanted to shout at Hadrian, to beat her fists against his chest. He’d left her alone and defenseless. He’d promised to stay with her, to protect her. He’d promised to help her.

She was alone.

It was Christmas, and she was alone.

Don’t leave me. “I love you Hadrian. I love you.”

She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her tear-soaked cheek to his. She’d thought things would be different. She’d thought she’d finally found someone who could love her...who would share her life. And this...this...thing killed him.

The soul eater grabbed her shoulder and dragged Holly to her feet. As it did so, its body shifted into another man’s body...into Hadrian’s body.

“No!” He wasn’t Hadrian.

The soul eater’s fingers tore into her cheeks as if trying to burrow itself deep inside her. “You’re different from the others. You taste almost...like the humans that used to feed me.” His spindly hands wrapped around her arms. His tongue flicked out of his mouth like a snake’s. “You will help me unlock the humans’ souls. You will give me the freedom I crave.”

“Stop! Stop!” she shouted, twisting and turning and kicking at the soul eater. “No. You won’t win. I won’t let you win.”

Holly remembered the wizard council member back at the café had said that her powers were different from the other wizards. He thought she had what it took to fight the soul eater. But they hadn’t taught her. Why hadn’t they taught her what she needed to do? Because they didn’t know how? Were her powers really that different from theirs? Why hadn’t Hadrian tried to teach her how to defend herself?

“Keep away from me!” She threw her arms up and twisted out of the soul eater’s deadly embrace.

“Don’t fight...you are alone. And powerless.”

For most of her life, she’d felt that way. She’d thought if only she had a family, things would be different. Her life would be better. But today Hadrian had showed her that she could live and feel loved even though she didn’t have a picture-perfect family and didn’t live in a picture-perfect world.

“I’ve gone through hell trying to get the perfect Christmas!” And blessed be she’d never come so close to actually enjoying a holiday. “I’ve pretended to have a family.” She tossed her beaded purse at the beast’s head. It bounced harmlessly off him.

“Contemplated sleeping on a bench in the train station.” She grabbed a hymnal from the pew and threw that at him too.

“You took everything from me! Not only did you steal Christmas. You robbed me of the man I love. You are the one who should be trembling, not me, because I no longer have anything to lose.”

No matter what, she had to stop the beast. But how?

You’ve not lost everything, Holly heard someone whisper in her mind. Who was that? The voice sounded warm and soothing.

It was the voice of her mother. The mother she’d created in her imagination.

She wasn’t alone. Not really. She still had her family. They weren’t real, but thinking of them always made her feel strong.

Her family. When she closed her eyes she could see still the shadows of them. And Uncle Burl...he was singing. They sounded so happy. And so real.

She turned and stared at the soul eater. His face had changed again. He no longer looked like Hadrian.

“You are me,” she said. The beast now looked exactly like her.

“You are me,” it echoed.

The monster had attacked her soul twice now. She could feel pieces of her soul fluttering inside the soul eater. Because of that, her fantasy family no longer called out only to her. She wasn’t the only one now yearning to rush home. The soul eater now wanted that, too.

This was its trap.

Hadrian had said that wizards could tap into the powers of the universe, that they could move time and space with a trans-dimensional shift. She had no idea how, but she needed to get the soul eater to follow her into her fantasy family’s house.

She stared at the empty space in front of her, picturing the cozy house. The lights in the windows. The fire burning in the hearth. Log by log the mountain house started to form in the center of the cathedral. Holly took a tentative step toward the house. The soul eater, hungry for her soul, followed.

“What are you doing?” the soul eater growled.

The ground shook as she opened the front door to the cozy cabin. “I’m sending you home.”

Then, from deep in her distant memories, she heard it. A song. Her family. They were singing. She joined in grossly off-key. She never could carry a tune. But it didn’t matter. Tears ran down her cheeks. But that didn’t matter either.

She could run through that door, slam the door closed behind her and escape the world she’d been born into, escape the soul eater. She’d be with her family (a family of her own imagination), but she’d be with them. She wouldn’t have to face the grief of losing Hadrian. She wouldn’t have to face the knowing that she’d ever loved him...because he wouldn’t exist in her new world. A perfect world she’d spent a lifetime creating.

And this imperfect, painful world...?

It would still have the soul eater to contend with.

She looked at the soul eater. It gazed into the open door with the same look of longing as Holly felt.

This was its trap.

With a cry of frustration and grief Holly pushed the soul eater through the open door.

“No...!” the soul eater shouted as it was sucked through the door. The house, her fantasy family, and the soul eater all exploded in a brilliant flash of white light. They were gone. Forever gone.

Slowly, the colors inside the church returned. Holly held her breath. The stark silence frightened her. In the midst of so many good people, she was the only one left alive. It didn’t feel right. It wasn’t right.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Don’t let this be the ending. Don’t let me lose Hadrian.” Like she had when conjuring her fantasy family, she imagined the people in the church breathing and healthy again. But it was one thing to breathe life into a fantasy. The people in the church were real. Their souls were real. Even so, she had to try. “Give me the power to save Hadrian and everyone else here and let me find my home.”

A tingling tickled the tips of her fingers and then spread up her arms. This was it. The magic. It was awake and alive inside her! Holly waved her hand, sending the power out through her fingers and into the church.

A dim light in the back flickered. A lone candle sputtered, its flame returning. One by one the candles surrounding that single candle took a flame, giving the interior a warm golden glow.

A child who had collapsed in the middle of the aisle stretched his arm. His mother yawned. One by one, people started to move. And then Hadrian started to sit up. Holly gasped a disbelieving breath and rushed to his side. “My God, Hadrian!” She helped him to his feet.

“You did it.” He broke into a wide smile and pulled her into his arms. “It’s gone. You’ve locked it away.”

“But I don’t understand . . .” She stared up at him confused, unable to grasp what happened. She touched his cheeks, feeling their warmth, his eyes, his lips. “You came back to me.”

“Your love brought me back. Can’t you feel it?” He kissed her hard on the lips. “Oh lord, you’re powerful. So powerful, you almost scare me. Your love, your power is surging through me like molten metal.” He held her so tightly that she knew she’d never feel alone again. “I love you, Holly. I love you.”

“What...what do we do now?” she asked on a shaking breath.

“We go home.”

Together they helped the stunned congregation return to the pews. The priest, his legs a little wobbly, shook his head as he made his way back to the podium. He then opened the prayer book and started to read the closing prayer.

“They won’t remember what happened here tonight,” Hadrian said. He held Holly’s hand as they walked out of the church.

Holly nodded. “I think it’s for the best. I want everyone to feel a warm glow when they remember this Christmas. My first truly happy Christmas.”

* * * *

The Christmas bells chimed throughout the city, heralding the coming of a crisp new day. Hadrian put his arm around Holly.

“Imagine,” he said as they walked past the manger scene in front of St. Agnes’s where a tiny, seemingly helpless, baby took center stage. “Over two millennia ago the soul eater walked the earth, and the humans were vulnerable to him. Their souls were open for his taking. But now they are protected. Sealed against the darkness. People have changed. They’ve grown. The beast could kill them...and us...but it couldn’t destroy their souls. They’re evolving. We all are.”

“Amazing.” Holly leaned her head on Hadrian’s shoulder. She liked the warmth he gave her.

It was over. Christmas had come and the world was safe again. A bright star twinkled in the silent sky above them.

She closed her eyes and pictured Priscilla kissing her husband under a sprig of mistletoe while their three little ones slept in a delightful heap on the sofa. And Karen, still dressed in her new Christmas dress, was toasting the new morning with her mother—a temporary truce being made.

A familiar ache stabbed through her. Even happy Christmases can feel bittersweet. Holly had always been on the outside, apart. Although she had Hadrian, she was still on the outside when it came to Christmas because the Christmas spirit needed families to fuel it. And a family was something she’d never had. Even her fantasy family was forever lost to her. She’d sacrificed them to defeat the soul eater. When she closed her eyes, she could no longer see them.

But then Hadrian led her into the café. There was music and laughing. A playful brawl was underway in the center of the room. And she knew.

She had Hadrian. And this was her place. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even beautiful. But it was where she belonged. Finally, she belonged.

**End**

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Turn the Page to Read Neptune’s Lair

by

Dorothy McFalls

Praise for
 
Neptune's Lair
 

"...tender in all the right places and hot and steamy everywhere else! Ms. McFalls has a skill for penning an addictive read." ~ Book Reviews by Crystal