Page 17 of Roman

“The fallen!”

Slowly, he stepped back into the cell, frightened.“Shit, we’re about to get a one-way ticket back to Hell.What the fuck are we going to do?”

“If we let them take her, we will be up for a worse fate.Azazel will flay the flesh from our bodies, put us in the pit, and torture us for years.”

Who the hell was Azazel?Their boss, maybe?Whoever he was, it was clearly someone Charlotte didn’t want to meet.She didn’t know who the fallen were, either, but if they scared these guys, she’d prefer to take her chances with them and hope they would release her.

Frantic footfalls came rushing from a distance, and more men ran by screaming.Some fell to the ground as a wall of bullets hit them, the bullet holes glowing like fire.

Must have got my head knocked around more than I thought.

The men fell to the ground, dead outside the cell.Shock hit her hard.She’d never seen anyone die before—they could have been playing a practical joke for all she knew.If it wasn’t for the blood and the holes in their bodies, they simply looked like they were sleeping.

In the blink of an eye, a figure flashed past the door.Charlotte could have sworn she’d seen a man with dark black wings.She was officially losing her mind.

Yep, definitely took too many knocks to the head.

As the figure flew by the door, the two men rushed back so fast they bumped into her, shoving her out of the way to use her as a shield.The movement had her swinging from side to side, a painful cry escaping her as the feeling of fire shot through her arms and shoulders.Her shackles painfully sliced deeper into her wrists, the blood running down her arms and dripping onto her face.

“She’s down here,” a deep voice called out from somewhere outside the cell.

“Fuck, we’re dead demons,” the dark-haired man whispered from behind her.

When Charlotte saw how scared the two men were, she panicked as a tall, dark shadow stepped into the light just outside the cell.

Oh god, what the hell is that?She could see two dark shadows stretching out from either side of the figure.Wings?Her mind had to be playing tricks on her.The wings pulled in, folding behind the figure and disappearing out of sight.

I’m losing it.I’m hallucinating,Charlotte thought, wondering if the men had drugged her.The figure slowly stepped into the cell like a predator hunting its prey.

“She’s mine,” he whispered, deep and menacing.

Charlotte couldn’t stop the fear creeping over her as she shook uncontrollably.

I was wrong.Better the devil you know,she thought, looking the giant man up and down.

His presence swallowed up the small cell.He was covered in blood from head to toe, his shirt torn to shreds by what looked like bullet holes and claw marks.But it was his eyes that terrified her.When he looked at her, they were… glowing a bright, unnerving red that reminded her of the yellow-eyed creatures she’d seen in her dreams.He looked like a monster, making her cry out again in horror.

“Shoot him,” the oily-haired man yelled as the two creeps stepped forward, one on either side of her, raising their handguns and shooting at the man.

Charlotte screamed again, her eardrums feeling like they’d burst as the men kept shooting their guns.

The stranger was suddenly gone.The red-haired man made a horrific noise as he fell to the ground, throat slit, blood pouring onto the filthy floor.As the oily-haired man ran for the cell door, Charlotte realized the stranger wasn’t gone—he was moving so fast he was a blur.

The oily-haired man barely made it two steps before he went flying into the brick wall.He slumped to the ground in a limp heap, the large man standing over him.He grabbed him around the throat with one hand, lifting him off the ground as if he were as light as a feather, and slammed him against the wall.The man seemed terrified as he stared into the stranger’s glowing red eyes.

“Roman, please, no!”

Charlotte frowned at the name, remembering the handsome man from the club.

Not possible.She shook her head in confusion.There was no way this creature was the man she’d been sucking face with at the club.

“So, you know who I am, demon?”Roman smirked at the terrified man, blood now pouring down his face from a gash in his temple.

“Your… your eyes.I know who you are because of your glowing eyes.Don’t send me back, please!He will send me to the pit,” the man begged.

“Who?Lucifer?”Roman demanded.

What the hell was he going on about?Demon?Lucifer?Glowing red eyes?Charlotte thought, her head spinning, and then her mind flashed with hundreds of memories of her nightmares as the realization hit.My dreams…She had seen it all before.

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