Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Iclosed my eyes, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, repeating my mantras over and over. I am in control. I am strong, and capable. I am firmly rooted in reality. After a minute, I opened my eyes.
Goddamnit, they were still standing there. My door had not reappeared.
I scowled. It was a trick of some sort. “What did you just do?”
The man stepped forward. “I did what I told you I would.” His voice was soft, but there was nothing gentle about it. He appeared to be having as much trouble with controlling his temper as me. “You didn’t open the door as I ordered, so I removed it.”
“How did you remove it?”
“I sent it elsewhere.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Elsewhere?”
“Somewhere in my own realm. Now that the way is clear, and we can enter your domain to speak to you, I will return it.”
I stared at him for a full minute. The audacity.
An obvious thought occurred to me, and I groaned out loud. “Richie Curran put you up to this, didn’t he?”
I let out a bitter huff of laughter. Richie wanted the promotion bad enough to hire models to make me think I’d gone insane again. Of course. “He hired you to mess with me, right? It’s overkill, but I have to admit, it’s creative. You guys must have cost him a fortune.”
The beautiful man frowned, his brow furrowing deeply. “We are not in anyone’s employ. Back up now, so we may enter.”
“Fine, fine. Let’s get this over with.” I turned and lifted my bed up again so I had enough space to move away from the door, pirouetted, and gave them all a dazzling smile. “Come on in!”
The tall one—obviously the leader, he was truly owning his Alpha role—strode into the tiny space and stopped just over the threshold.
The girl—who I assumed was his girlfriend, since they were obviously close and perfectly matched in beauty—glided in close behind him, her proud chin lifted, eyes taking in my whole tiny space in a fraction of a second, then, she frowned. “What is this place?”
“It’s my apartment.”
The two other men gave each other an awkward glance. There wasn’t enough room in my apartment for them to come in.
The leader glowered down at me. “We must talk. Extend the wall, so we may all enter.”
I shook my head, confused. “You want me to do what now?”
He stared at me. A muscle in his jaw ticked. Give that man an Oscar. “Extend it. We are wasting time.”
I rolled my eyes. I hadn’t blazed my way through the corporate jungle that was the San Francisco finance industry by rolling over every time an arrogant man ordered me to do something.
“No, honey. You’re wasting time. Don’t get me wrong; if you haven't agreed on a billable set of hours for this job, feel free to milk that slimy bastard for whatever you can get. Otherwise, just get on with whatever speech you’ve got prepared, put my door back, and go home. ”
The leader’s dark emerald eyes flashed; a deep, furious rage snarled at me from the depths of his iris. If I hadn't already danced on the edge of total oblivion, I would probably be quite scared right now.
When you laugh in the face of madness, you’re not easily intimidated. Richie Curran didn’t know who he was dealing with.
“Your Highness.” The dark, overly muscly one in the hallway called out. “I will do it.”
“Ooh.” I winked up at him as he maneuvered his broad shoulders inside. “Your Highness. A prince, is he? That’s a nice touch.”
The muscled man faced my wall and clapped his hands once. Blue flames erupted from his palms.
I stumbled back as adrenaline surged through me. I couldn’t even force out a scream. Speechless, I watched as he pushed the blue flames out from his palms, directing a surge of energy towards the wall closest to him. It shrank back. He pushed again, and it retreated with a subsonic rumble.
This isn’t real. This is not real.
He pushed one more time; the flames pushed my apartment wall three more feet back. My whole living space was now double what it had been. Finally, he clapped his hands together and pulled them apart, creating a circle of flames in mid-air. The blond one strode in and reached inside the circle.
His hand disappeared. I gasped.
He pulled it out and tossed a little brown stick behind him. The stick stretched out as it flew through the air, expanding into my front door with a loud pop.
Both men arranged themselves behind the leader, armored muscular arms crossed over their chests, staring at me, while the beautiful girl lounged in the background, bright-green eyes flashing in the dim light of the room.
“Susan Moore,” the leader rumbled, pulling my focus back to his perfect lips. “You are the Chosen One.”
“Oh, no,” I mumbled. My lips felt numb. “It’s happening again.”