The Divine Whisper (32 page)

She squeaked when he tightened his hold in her hair and tugged back.

“Let me go,” she gritted out between clenched teeth.
“You’ll regret it, if you don’t.” She had lost her grasp on the spray when she ran into the man still holding her, but she desperately moved her hand around in her purse to try to find it again.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” the man with the silky voice asked.
He made his voice sound like he was talking to an annoying child. “If you try to do what you’re thinking, there will be a struggle. If there is a struggle, how will your babies fair. You did just get off bed rest after all. I don’t think it would take too much to put you back into labor.”

A feeling of horror and panic consumed her.
How did he know so much about her? That’s when it hit her. It was no regular, run of the mill attack. She had been followed, and not by the person she had hoped would.

He was right.
She didn’t want anything to happen to her babies, so she went with them willingly. He turned around to sling his arm around her shoulders and walk next to her. That left Pock Face to walk behind.

When they were almost to the street, Nicole felt something breeze by her head.
The sound was almost like an insect, but not quite. A gargling noise from behind them had her covering her stomach protectively and turning around to see what was happening.

Pock Face was standing in shock.
There was something silver sticking out of the side of his neck. She watched as he grimaced and slowly brought his hand up to tentatively touch the object. Once he found the shape, he wrapped his hand around it and with a savage jerk, pulled it out. He looked down at the star shape in his hand and slowly brought his head back up to look at them. Not five seconds later, the man shut his eyes and crumbled dead to the ground. She didn’t know the guy, and she definitely didn’t like him, but she was still in shock with how quickly he died. The object had to have hit a main artery for it to happen that fast.

“Wow.
I was expecting flames,” came a voice from the shadows. “Anyone that ugly would have to be of a demonic nature.”

Mouth open in surprise, Nicole watched as another man walked into the park; the man that she had went there looking to talk to, the same man from the other day.
Conner.

He strolled in as if he were on a leisurely walk and stepped up to the dead man on the ground.
Leaning down, he picked up the silver weapon, grimaced, and wiped it clean on the man’s jacket. “I guess in the end, it doesn’t matter,” he continued as he stood up. “Dead is dead, right?”

With speed that Nicole hadn’t seen before, Conner threw the star in their direction, and the man that was still holding her, leaned to the side just in time, before it got lodged in his skull.

An inhuman hiss came from his lips and he tightened his grip on her arm. Quickly pulling her to face him, he leaned down to look into her eyes. She reared back and tried to pull from his grasp. Eyes that were once hollow were then a muted red.

“Stay here,” he growled.

His eyes widened marginally, as if he wasn’t expecting something and instead of letting her go, he grabbed her neck, spun her around, and moved her in between Conner and him.

“She’s mine.
Leave now, Nephilim, and I won’t have to rip you to pieces.”

Conner lowered the star he was about to throw, but his body stayed alert.
He shook his head. “Not gonna happen.”

Nicole felt something on her stomach and she looked down to see a mangled limb with long claws gently stroking her belly.

“Do you know what I can get for these babies? Master will be pleased.”

The smooth voice from before had turned into something unnatural.
She looked up and saw his tongue slide between his lips; a very long and forked tongue.

She tightly shut her eyes, and started to ramble.
“I’m hallucinating. Great! I probably didn’t even leave the house tonight. When I open my eyes, I’m going to be on my bed, sleeping off the long day.” She opened her eyes, and when nothing had changed, she closed and opened them again with the same result.

Conner took an opportunity from the distraction she caused and threw another star.
The thing holding her was not so fast a second time, and it got a small nick on the cheek. Immediately, she heard a sizzling sound.

As if she were a discarded piece of trash, Yellow Eyes threw her to the side and charged forward.
She hit the ground hard, but managed to scramble to the edge of the sidewalk. When she looked up, she saw Conner throw Yellow Eyes to the ground, but it wasn’t too long before the tables were turned and Conner was pinned.

Nicole started to panic.
She willed herself to stand up and run to her car, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the fight. If Conner were to win, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he had to say anymore. Everything felt too unreal. On the other hand, if he were to lose, she would be stuck with the creature that wanted to take her babies.
All the more reason to get up and go
, she thought.

The men got separated when Conner used his legs to shove the other guy away.
In an impressive backwards roll, she saw Conner get to his feet at the same time he reached for his back pocket and pulled out another star. His throw was so quick that she didn’t see it leave his hand. However, she did see the lower half of Yellow Eyes arm fall to the ground.

Instead of the customary blood that she was expecting to see, flames sprouted from the wound, and a terrible high pitched noise came from the creature’s mouth.
When the section of the arm on the ground burst into flames, she no longer had any hesitation in running.

There was a slight cramp in her stomach when she got to her feet, but it didn’t slow her down.
She started to run strait for her car, and reached into her purse at the same time to pull out her pepper spray. It was all too much. She felt as if she was going insane, and all she could think of was getting home to forget the nightmare ever happened.

She had just gotten to her car when she felt someone grab her shoulder and spin her around.
She didn’t think but only acted on instinct when she brought up her hand and pressed down on the button to release the spray.

“Ahh!
What the fuck!?!” Conner jumped back but didn’t release her arm when he put his other hand over his eyes.

“Oh, shoot.
I’m so sorry,” she apologized, but still tried to pull away from his grasp.

“What the fuck?” he repeated while still wiping at his eyes.

“I didn’t know who it was. I just reacted.”

“Not just the spray.
What the fuck were you thinking? What are you doing here?”

“You swear just as much as Gemariah.
Don’t you know that you can get the point across just the same without cussing?”

He didn’t answer her, but she could tell that he was irritated when a deep rumble came from his throat.

“Fine!” she said exasperatedly. “I wanted to talk to you, so I thought to—”

He didn’t let her finish before he raised his voice and interrupted her.
“That’s just the thing… You weren’t thinking.”

He finally let go of her but it was to snatch her purse off her arm.
She thought about making a break for it, but she didn’t think she would make it very far. Already, she had started to doubt her assumption about the man. He was starting to look crazier to her by the minute. When he ducked his head to start ruffling through her bag, her ire went through the roof.

She made an unsuccessful grab for her bag and snapped, “Get out of there!
That’s my stuff!”

“No shit.
Why do you think I’m searching through it?” He pulled out her set of keys before giving her bag back to her. “It’s definitely not for my health, that’s for damn sure.”

He clicked the key pad to unlock her car and opened the driver’s side door.
“Get in,” he told her as he gestured with his arm to indicate the seat.

It was not looking good.
What were the chances of being found if she were to get in the car? Sure, she had gone there to talk to him, but that was it. She hadn’t been planning on going anywhere
with
him.

She must have taken too long in his opinion because before she could think twice, he growled in frustration and grabbed her arm to guide her down.
The sound was so much like Gemariah’s when he was aggravated with her that she didn’t think to put up a fight. When her butt hit the seat and all limbs were out of the way, he slammed the door closed.

The thought crossed her mind to drive away, but when she reached to turn the key in the ignition, it wasn’t there.
Damn
, she thought. He still had the keys. Not being able to drive away, she did the next best thing she could think of, and locked the doors.

She watched as he slowly walked around the car to the passenger side, rubbing at his eyes the entire time.
She hated being forced to do anything, and the more that Conner ordered her around, the less guilty she felt about spraying him with Pepper Spray.

She started to tear her car apart, looking for her cell phone.
If she could just get a call out, to somebody… anybody, she could go back home and forget the night ever happened.

“Where is it?
Where is it?” she mumbled as she dumped out the purse that Conner had shoved back in her arms. It was then that she heard a knock on the window. It was not a heavy knock but one that was sharp enough to tell her that he was not amused.

He leaned down and looked at her through the window.
“Unlock the door,” he demanded.

Letting out an exaggerated but fake laugh, she leaned to the back to see if her cell phone was on or under the rear seat.
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen,” she said without looking at him.

“You have three seconds before I break this window.
One!”

He was bluffing…

“Two”

He wouldn’t dare.
She scowled at him.

“So be it.”
He pressed a point to one of his stars to the corner of the window. “Th—”

“Wait!
Wait!!” She quickly reached over to her door and pressed the unlock button.

Without another word, he opened the door, unceremoniously pushed all the clutter to the floor that she made while looking for her cell phone, and sat down.
He didn’t gloat, he didn’t smirk, he just shut the door and tossed her the keys before leaning back, and ordering her to, “Drive.”

His superiority complex was getting on her nerves.
It probably wasn’t wise to anger her kidnapper, but she couldn’t stop the words from leaving her mouth. “Where to your highness? Or would you like me to just drive in circles.”

Kidnapper…

The word stuck in her head like a bad taste in her mouth. Is that what had happened? She had been kidnapped… abducted?”

“North.”

She started the car and pulled away from the curb.
They weren’t on the road for two minutes before he snapped.

“So tell me.
Have you always been stupid, or is this just a recent occurrence?”

“Excuse me?”

“You were there when I warned Gemariah about people wanting to get their hands on you. There’s that popular question that comes to mind, ‘Are you deaf or just dumb?’ I’ve been tailing you long enough to know that your hearing is in tack, so I’m thinking it’s the latter.”

What an irritating and insufferable man!
“My plan worked, if you must know,” she spat. “I wanted to flush you out of hiding to talk to you. Sure, there were a few drawbacks, but it still worked.”

“Drawbacks?
You think almost getting abducted by a demon and a henchman is a drawback? More than likely, they would have cut you open to take your babies. If you lived, you would have been sold to the highest bidder to do with what they pleased. And believe me when I say, you would have never seen anyone you knew again, including your children.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out.
There were too many thoughts going through her head, and she didn’t know how to vocalize any of them.

There was definite terror at the thought of those men and what they might have done.
There was also confusion. He used the word demon to describe one of the men. She didn’t know if he was just describing his manner, but it sounded as if he was talking in the literal sense.

She wanted to tell him that he was crazy, but then she remembered what she had seen that guy turn into, and how his arm had caught fire from a wound.
Maybe she was the one going crazy, but there was something inside of her that made her think otherwise.

He let out a frustrated huff when she remained silent and leaned back into the seat again.
“You know, I don’t know why I bothered saying anything at all. Do you think it was for my own good that I chose to warn the two of you? No! Just the opposite. In one night, you have managed to ruin the reputation I spent many long and grueling years building. Poof!” He clapped his hands and pushed them to the sides. “Gone.”