The Surrogates: The 5 Book Paranormal Pregnancy Romance Box Set

by Angela Foxxe

  Outside, the rain was coming down hard and Tasha looked at the man who was standing in the rain. He was bald, with what little hair he still had buzzed down to stubble. She stared at him as he looked at the SUV. He was taller than her by a foot and under his raincoat, she knew that there would be a whole lot of muscle that she was going to have to hurt. His jeans were already getting soaked and Tasha gripped the handle of the knife and the cleaver.

  She tried to think about what a man would do—a man who wanted to immobilize and kill someone. With only a second to think, she did exactly what her gut told her.

  Tasha planted the blade of the knife into the base of the man’s neck.

  It was horrifying how quickly the blade pierced his skin and how smooth the resistance seemed as the knife dug deep into the man’s tissue and flesh. It was a sickening feeling, but as the man quivered at the sudden, piercing pain, she knew that she had made a mistake. It wasn’t a fatal wound.

  She stepped back from the man and watched as he turned. His face was a mask of horror and rage mingling together to form some kind of horrid grimace. His right hand reached for the handle of the blade, but swollen shoulders and biceps limited his mobility. He couldn’t reach the handle of the blade.

  His eyes flicked to the cleaver in Tasha’s hand.

  “Bitch,” he snarled and she saw that his eyes were not cold and dark, but a glowing yellow.

  She didn’t know what she was doing, but she adjusted her grip on the cleaver, ready to do whatever was necessary to save her child. She could hear Addy’s screams through the walls of the SUV and through the pounding of the rain on the concrete. She didn’t care what this man was going to try and do, she was going to make sure that he didn’t survive.

  The man reached out at her and she swung the cleaver, swatting at his hand with all the strength that she could muster. Something wet and fleshy splashed on the concrete and she listened to the snarling growl of the man. His meaty right hand clamped down on her throat and Tasha immediately continued to swing the cleaver, hitting anything that she could make contact with, ripping the blade free and swinging again and again as the man shouted and yelped through his rage.

  Everything was going bright white and she could hardly breathe. His hand felt like it was constricting around her throat and she was going to suffocate. She knew that she wasn’t going to kill him in time. It was impossible to tell when the figure appeared in her eye line, but it was in the brief period of time where she could see through the blinding flashes of light. All Tasha knew was that whoever it was that was coming for her, it was big, it was shimmering in the little light that was available, and that it was extremely pissed.

  The bellowing roar was unleashed right before the figure slammed into her attacker and she felt herself thrown to the side, the man’s hand ripping free from her throat, leaving bloody claw marks and the two figures vanished into the darkness of her parents’ lawn.

  She could hear the sounds of something horrific clashing and battling in the darkness, two shadows in the midst of penetrating darkness. She lay there for a moment, summoning the will and the strength to get up. As she rose, she reached for the keys in her pocket and rushed to the SUV.

  Chapter 7

  Sinking the keys into the ignition, she was glad that she wasn’t some sort of idiot girl from the horror movies that she had watched when she was a teenager. The key slipped into the ignition and she twisted it. The car came to life with a quick shudder and she immediately felt warm air blowing on her while her baby was crying.

  “It’s okay, Addy,” she tried to comfort her child the best that she could. It had been four days since she’d been robbed of her precious baby and the thought of it made her furious, but at the sound of her mother’s voice, Addy paused for a second. It was like she was hearing something beautiful for the first time in her life and it made Tasha’s heart swell.

  It didn’t last long, but the frantic sound in her daughter’s crying was gone and it was more of an angry, upset sound that she had in her little, tiny voice. Tasha felt horrible for the child. In the cup holder, she saw a small, tiny bottle, but she didn’t know how to give it to her.

  It would have to wait.

  She needed to get out of here first.

  Flipping on the lights, she watched the flood of pale, white light as it illuminated the yard. She screamed when she saw a naked man standing in the rain, shielding his eyes as he grimaced at the sight. Half of his body was streaked with fading lines of blood that no longer looked red, but were actually veins of pink running over his well-defined body.

  Tasha felt a sinking, stretching feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew that body. She had slept with that body at least a hundred times before and as Dane blinked against the light, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do.

  There was a fresh tear in his flesh right across his ribs. It looked nasty and she could see that the rain was doing little to stop the blood that was coming out of him at an alarming rate. She couldn’t leave him here. Behind him, the corpse of the man that she had tried to stop was lying on its stomach, clearly not getting up again.

  There was a nauseous feeling in her stomach and she wasn’t sure that she could stomach a look at him.

  Dane approached the car and she immediately locked the doors. He could hear the distinct click and stopped near the passenger window. Holding up a bloody hand, he rapped his knuckle on the window several times.

  Tasha cracked it.

  “Don’t be foolish,” he said to her weakly. “We’re better off together.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” Tasha shouted at him. “You drugged me and stole my baby.”

  “Our baby,” Dane corrected her. “Come on, Tasha. Don’t be naïve. Like I had any choice in the matter. They were going to get rid of you, one way or another, we both know that.”

  “And you just let them,” Tasha snapped at him.

  “I did what I thought was best for the child,” Dane answered.

  “What if leaving you here is what I think is best for her,” Tasha said.

  “Then so be it,” Dane stepped back from the car. “I’m sure they’ll be back to check on their friend. You can leave me here to die if that’s what you think you need to do.”

  Tasha hated the way he said that—the way he was trying to pin her to be the bad person right now. She knew better than that. This was stupidity right here. If she left his ass out in the rain and drove off, it would be nothing short of what he deserved.

  He would be the only person in the world shrugging and saying, well, he did what he had to do. No, that was a bunch of crap. He could have done way more than what he claimed he had done for her. If anything, she should back him over with the car on her way out.

  But the truth was that there was a future beyond that and she needed to remember that. There were going to be more of those things out there and there were going to be more people who wanted her and Addy dead. She was going to need help and right now, Dane was the only person that she could help.

  She knew that she needed to contact her parents, but that could be a tricky situation. If they knew any information about where she was or what her plans were, that meant that they could torture them and get the information out of them. It was better to keep people in the dark. Perceptive interrogators could tell the truth.

  They had to, or they wouldn’t have a job. If they got a hold of her parents and family and figured out that they didn’t actually know anything, then they would leave them alone and use them as collateral. Or, at least that was what she was really hoping they would do. If they didn’t, then she didn’t want to imagine what it was they were going to do to her family.

  A cold shiver ran down her spine. God, what was she mixed up in?

  So, the fact that she had an ally right here, right now, that she could use to her advantage, then she needed to take it and run with it. She unlocked the doors and watched as Dane opened the door and dropped in, soaking, bleeding, and naked. He looked at he
r and quickly his eyes darted to the tiny bottle for his daughter. He snatched it up and held it back in the car seat, awkwardly holding it so that his daughter could eat.

  It did the trick and she was silent after a moment. Tasha felt slightly impressed, but didn’t dare show it.

  “What happened?” She asked him pointedly, pulling out of the drive way and heading out onto the road. There was no sign of anyone else following them and she felt a wave of relief. At least she wasn’t getting in a high-speed car chase in the middle of the rain. That she could do without.

  “I don’t know,” Dane said, shaking his head.

  “Well try figuring it out,” Tasha said to him. “Mr. Grayson is dead in my parent’s house and my family is missing. What the hell happened in the past three days?”

  “You gave birth,” Dane said. “My parents and the rest of the Group said that they were getting rid of you because it was too risky to have humans around. Surrogates are always highly attractive and the males tend to get territorial and lusty around so many beautiful women.

  It makes the females jealous and it just doesn’t work out. I offered to leave with you, but they wouldn’t allow it. It would make us a target and it would leave them weaker for having lost me. The option was off the table. So, we went ahead with the C-Section and our child was born.

  “While I was holding her, you weren’t waking up and I began to panic. That was when they told me that you were being transferred to another facility and that you would be well taken care of and discharged. Instead of following you, I was left with our child to take care of her for her first days alive.

  I was planning on taking her and escaping, but I knew that they would follow and that they would hunt us. To teach me a lesson, they would probably kill you and never let me see our child again. I knew that it was futile, but I wanted to risk it anyway.

  “That was when they attacked. The lobby was flooded with other clans and they were out to kill anyone that was in the tower. I took our daughter and I got out the only way I knew how to. I shattered the window, transformed, and flew to safety. There had to have been at least a hundred camera phones that caught me and a dozen sightings. The other clans will have fun mopping that up. Anyway, when I saw that Grayson made it out, I gave him our daughter and told him to get to you.”

  “Grayson said that he escaped with her,” Tasha didn’t like this. Already there were conflicting stories and her trust was wearing pretty thin at this point.

  “That’s exactly what he was supposed to say,” Dane said sharply, wincing as he probed his wound with his free hand. “By all necessities, I was dead. Anyone who was still alive was supposed to go underground, ride out the storm and wait for the smoke to settle. Then, we’re supposed to regroup and take the fight to them.”

  “So this is a gang war?” Tasha shook her head. “You’re not taking Addy back there.”

  “You named her Addy?” Dane grinned like a child.

  “Stop that,” Tasha snapped at him. “I’m serious. I’m not letting my child get caught up in this ridiculous war that you have going on. If you go back, you tell them that Addy and I are dead and tell them not to come looking for us.”

  “Trust me, the Matterhorn Group won’t be able to come looking for you even if they wanted to,” Dane shook his head. “This was an internationally coordinated attack. There were clans everywhere that were taking a hit at us. Everyone wanted us dead and they got exactly what they wanted. The chaos and death toll is enormous. The best we could do now is pick off one of the smaller clans and vanish again. We’re back to guerilla tactics. We haven’t had to use guerilla tactics since the Colonial Era.”

  “Poor you,” Tasha growled.

  “We need to stop somewhere,” Dane said, looking paler than usual. “I need to get something to wear and I need to fix myself up. I’m not going to make it if I keep bleeding like this.”

  “Hang on,” Tasha said. “We’ll make a quick stop on the way to our destination, but not before.”

  “Where are we going?” Dane asked her, furrowing his brow.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” Tasha kept it a secret.

  If there was one thing from all of this, it was the value and the power of keeping a secret from the people who had just ruined her life. She wasn’t going to tell Dane a single thing until she came to a consensus on whether or not she could actually trust him. She was being hunted by things that shouldn’t exist and she was pretty sure that she had just recently hacked off a man’s fingers. She wasn’t in the mood to start taking chances. All she really cared about at this point was the fact that she had her daughter back in her possession and that she wasn’t letting go of her, no matter what or who came against them.

  She pulled out onto the abandoned highway and watched for any signs of lights or movement in the rain. It was hard to tell, but she was hoping that whoever the people were that had left the hulking brute at her parents’ house, that they were far away from her right now. She didn’t like the odds and didn’t have anything to defend herself with. She was going to have to remedy that. Luckily for her, she knew exactly where she was going and what would be waiting for her when she got there and right now, that meant that she was ahead of the game for the first time.

  *

  The Wild Cougar was the kind of place that you would stop by on your way to somewhere far away from this place. It was a greasy spoon that was tacked onto a gas station. For some reason, they decided to add on a souvenir shop, because in the middle of nowhere, people want to stop and buy Idaho memorabilia. Either way, it was where they were stopping and as far as Tasha was concerned, it was like heaven.

  She found out rather quickly just how much a newborn baby actually sleeps. Addy only woke when she was uncomfortably forced to wake up or when she needed to eat, which was very little right now. So far, all she really did was sleep, fidget, and poop.

  She was the most adorable thing Tasha had ever seen.

  Dane did everything in his power to try and help out while they were driving north, pushing toward the horizon and trying to put the events of her parents’ house behind her. She wasn’t interested in getting into another situation like that and if she had her way, she wouldn’t have to. They were making good time and when they finally pulled up to the Wild Cougar, it was time to take a break.

  She went into the souvenir shop and smiled at the homely woman who was standing behind the counter. She had a large, plump face that matched her body and when she looked at Tasha, she beamed with excitement and happiness, like she was the first customer that they had seen in years.

  Tasha knew that this wasn’t the case, since there were five other cars in the parking lot. There were plenty of people here and it was just in the right spot to gather travelers who needed to fill up and unload in any way that they needed. If someone would throw up a hotel here, she was certain that they could build a small town out in the middle of the forest.

  “You looking for anything in particular?” The woman behind the counter barked.

  “Yes,” Tasha said, approaching the clothing hung on the racks and displayed for anyone looking to get something with a potato or an icon of the great wilderness on it. There weren’t many options beyond that. “My fiancée spilled coffee all over himself and ruined his clothes. I need to get him something that he can change into.”

  “Poor fellow,” the woman said. “We got all kinds of things here that you can buy. What’s he into?”

  “He loves potatoes,” Tasha said with a mischievous grin on her face as she gathered up the clothes and took them to the counter and purchased them. “I’m going to run these out to him,” Tasha said to the polite woman.

  Outside, Dane was holding Addy and singing something softly to her, but stopped when Tasha approached him. He looked up at her as she opened the door and handed him the bag of clothing. She sat down in the driver’s seat and took Addy from him.

  “I’m going to bleed all over these,” he complained.

  “I got yo
u these,” Tasha handed him a roll of paper towels that she had bought as well. “Soak it up as much as you can.”

  “I need something better than this,” Dane informed her, his hands quivering.

  She didn’t like the look of him right then. He looked like he’d been thrown to the wolves, which might have been the case. Beaten and brutalized, Dane was her only helper right now and he might not make it through the night. He needed a doctor and the hospital.

  “I should drop you off at a clinic,” she told him.

  “No,” Dane shook his head, pressing the paper towels to his side. “I’ll go in and look for things that can help. You should go pick up some food for us to eat.”

  “Okay,” Tasha said, holding Addy and getting out of the driver’s seat, leaving Dane to sit in the passenger’s seat and try to comprehend how he was going to get through this. There was more blood on the passenger’s seat than there was in Dane at this point.

  Deep down inside, Tasha knew that all they had to do was get where she was going. Inside the diner, she held Addy and waited for the waitress to come over. The woman had bouncy curls and until Tasha had arrived, was probably the prettiest thing that this place had ever seen. She smiled and cooed over the adorable little bundle of joy that was Addy. There was a kindred spirit among most women that was shared and brought out through the sighting of young babies.

  “What can I get for you two?” she sked cheerily, her eyes still fixed on the sleeping Addy.

  “I need two bacon cheeseburgers to go,” Tasha said with a smile. “I need them to have as many patties on them as you can get and I need them with lots of fries. We’re starving.”

  “You got it,” the waitress beamed. “I’ll have those out to you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  “Thanks,” Tasha smiled as she departed.