Free Her Demon Prince (Forbidden Fantasy) by Cathleen Ross

him. She reached up with one hand
and began pinching her nipples so that they peaked. Her other hand had a
rhythmic flow between her legs. “Help me. I need you,” she begged.
    Agrat
lost it. He strode toward the bed, knowing just what kind of help he wanted to
give her.

Chapter 6

 
    Rachael raced through Phoebe’s open front
door into her studio. In the dim light of the morning, the place looked like
the aftermath of a bomb strike as a thick haze hung in the air. Chunks of
marble littered the floor; fallen statues, a head here, a foot there lay silent
like broken bodies. Shards of stone were embedded in the walls as if thrown by
an incredible force. Panic made Rachael’s heart hammer. Where was her best
friend in all this?
    “Phoebe?” She called out her
name, her heart sinking when she was met with silence.
    There was no way that Phoebe
would ever have left the front door of her precious sculpture studio open to
the street.
    Rachael gnawed her fingernails
wondering what to do. Getting police help sucked. Despite her insistence that
Phoebe was in danger, the cop who’d come to the studio earlier wouldn’t listen.
Nor would he admit to having seen the angel or the demon. Instead, he’d driven
her out of the city, telling her that she was in danger. Was she going crazy?
She didn’t think so. She’d always known other realms existed due to her psychic
ability, but she hadn’t expected to be confronted by it like this. Was the cop
the one who was nuts? He’d dropped her in New Jersey. It had taken her hours to
get back to the Meatpacking District.
    Too late.
    She gripped her head in her
hands and pressed her fingers to her temples. What to do? To her right she
heard a scraping sound like stone rubbing against the floor. Jerking her face
in the direction of the noise, she noticed the large gargoyle-type statue with
the head held under its arm was no longer in the corner of the room. Her spine
prickled. The statue always gave her the creeps; even though the gargoyles made
popular garden sculptures for clients, she’d never taken to them. The eyes
seemed to be staring at her and she quickly looked away. She could smell a
rotting sulfurous scent, which clouded the studio in the haze she’d noticed
earlier. The tiny hairs on her arms stood up. Instinct told her to leave the
way she had come, but she had to check Phoebe’s apartment at the back of the
studio.
    What if Phoebe was hurt and
couldn’t respond?
      Malodorous intent reverberated in the
studio. Rachael could feel it throbbing with every psychic sense in her body.
    Keeping her psychic awareness
on the giant gargoyle, she picked her way over the fallen statues and opened
the door to her friend’s one bedroom apartment. Off the living room, the
bedroom door was open. She gasped. Lying on the bed with wings spread out like
glistening cream and silver fans was Galaden. His eyes were closed in his
pallid face as he took in deep, shuddering breaths. Rachael’s gaze dropped to
his throat. A raw gash oozed blood where the demon, Agrat, had driven his
blade. More blood lay dried on his chest and ribcage, the red color like a
slash of sickly, vivid paint on his pale torso. Even in this dire state, with
his feathered blond hair, high cheekbones and wide mouth, the angel was perfect
like a carving on a sarcophagus.
    “Galaden?” she said, a whorl
of worry confronting her. She’d loved the statue from the moment of its
creation; it felt like he belonged to her and here he was alive, barely.
    His eyelids flickered and
opened. Pain wracked their crystal-blue expression.
    Before she could go to him, a
noise behind her made her turn. She screamed. The sound bounced off the walls
as terror sent her heart to her throat. Standing at the doorway was the
enormous gargoyle statue with its head under its arm. The red eyes stared at
her, and its gaping mouth breathed fire.
    She backed away, stumbling
over her feet, falling to the floor. Her handbag fell from her arm,