Ivory Guard Read Online Free Page B

anything but her suddenly racing heart, and her body was ready to move. To pounce. She had never felt so alert…or stupid. Inwardly she shook her head at herself. Those angels and all their talk about fighting and training had really gotten to her.
    Another creaking sound . Shit. She wasn’t imagining things, someone was in the house. Downstairs. Somehow she knew it wasn’t the angels.
    Then her mother screamed.
    In a heartbeat Lillian was up from her bed and running down the stairs, towards her parents’ bedroom. Her heart stopped as she saw two creatures that her eyes couldn’t even begin to understand holding her parents. What she noticed was their brown and red scaly skin and the horn-covered arms that wrapped around her parents’ necks. Her mother was crying and bleeding from a corner of her mouth and her father was wide-eyed with shock.
    Her mind stopped working, her body froze.
    “Well, hello there.”
    It took Lillian a moment to rip her gaze away from her parents and to focus on the owner of the voice talking to her. Turning she took in the man standing in the hallway that led into their living room. He was nothing like the other two creatures. Only a few years older than Lillian, clad in black jeans and shirt, the guy was dark heat, sex and ruggedness wrapped in one tall, ripped package. With his tainting aura of evil as the black bow on top of it.
    “ Thanks for being so cooperative.” A wicked gleam entered those mesmerizing eyes of his. Though the color of honey, they seemed unnaturally lightened from within him. And they made her want to run. “Though I have to admit I had hoped for a little cat and mouse.”
    The sudden fear flooding her, had her heart galloping in her chest and replaced the numbness that had had kept her mind from working. It wasn’t crippling but a healthy shock to her system. She still wanted to run, but not without her mother and father.
    “Let my parents go.”
    “Now where would be the fun in that?”
    Right. Where indeed? “Who are you? What do you want?”
    He tsked, “No names, sweetheart. Don’t want to give power where it isn’t properly appreciated.” Hands in the pockets of his jeans he approached her, a predator enjoying playing with his prey. “Given your reaction, namely not running away screaming, I take it the angels already clued you in. Well, in their oh-so mysterious half-assed way that is.”
    Out of the corner of her eye Lillian gazed around her. Besides the two creatures…demons, she amended, still restraining her parents there were two more of them, slowly approaching her from the sides. One small step at a time.  Damn it. She had to find a way out of this, and fast. The angels, she suddenly thought. How much time had passed? It seemed like forever and yet it might have been only seconds. Would they pop in at any moment now? She couldn’t risk betting on it. Amber had come to her when she had called. Out loud. But would it work if she called for the angels in her mind? Only one way to find out.
    Amber! Raz! Demons in my house. Holding my parents. Goddamn it, this better works. Amber!
    Laughing coldly he continued, “By the devil, they never change. How many Ivorys do they have to lose before they give up their do-goody policy of letting you guys say good bye? Gives us even more time to find you… ” A smile curved one corner of his mouth, “…and kill you.”
    Lillian’s mind was racing as she realized the angels probably hadn’t heard her and tried to come up with a way to stall. What could she say? What could she use as a weapon? What would be a weapon against demons? Holy water? Inwardly she kicked herself. Even if it worked, she was a little short on that. Crosses? The same applied here. Not really religious folks her parents. She hoped she could find the time later to laugh at the irony in that.
    Her gaze darted around. And she forced it not to linger on the keys lying innocently in the bowl on the cupboard which was just a few steps