The Forgotten (Demons Book 2) Read online

  THE FORGOTTEN

  Demons, book 2

  By Marina Simcoe

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  To my Captain

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  EPILOGUE

  Grand Master

  More By Marina Simcoe

  About the Author

  Please Stay in Touch

  To my Captain

  The Forgotten

  Copyright © 2018 Marina Simcoe.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact the author.

  Marina Simcoe

  [email protected]

  Facebook/Marina Simcoe Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover Original Art and Design © 2018 Marina Thompson

  Marinathompson.deviantart.com

  First Edition

  Spelling: Canadian

  Editing by Two Horses Swift

  Proofreading by Nikki Groom, The Indie Hub

  The Forgotten is a paranormal romance. It contains sexual situations and graphic descriptions of intimacy. Intended for mature readers.

  Chapter 1

  THEY WERE COMING FOR me.

  I heard their footsteps down the corridor outside my cell. Closing my eyes for a moment, I inhaled deeply and prepared myself for what was to come.

  The familiar dread hollowed my stomach. What was done to me in this place was wrong. All of it.

  I had been abducted out of my bed and brought to this basement cell where they’d been keeping me ever since. At night, they took me to the large white room and locked me to an X-shaped cross. Then one of them—silent and impassive—touched my naked body, while thirteen others watched.

  There was something dark and scorchingly dangerous in their stares that made my insides twist with terror at the same time as my body ached with desire building under the stranger’s touch.

  I couldn’t accurately sort out my emotions in this place, but I was fairly certain that the shame I felt after each session on the cross had less to do with my exposing my naked body to the hungry stares of strangers and everything to do with my knowing that I shouldn’t be enjoying it.

  I hated them. They took my freedom and made me crave the shameful things they did to me.

  With the sound of their footsteps approaching, anticipation filled me with tingling excitement. Immediately, a sharp stab of guilt for feeling this way triggered the usual disgust with myself.

  I couldn’t afford to risk losing myself to self-loathing, though. If I ever wanted to get out of here, I needed a sound mind and clear focus. Wasting my mental energy on self-pity would get me nowhere.

  My abductors never hurt me physically. I got fed regularly. If I could keep my sanity intact, I reasoned, I could last here long enough to find a way to get out.

  Because I diligently counted days, I knew that I’d been here for exactly five weeks and three days. Every one of those days was a mirror image of another—breakfast, lunch, sponge bath from a bucket of warm water, and a mind-blowing orgasm in front of them before dinner.

  I was hardly ever able to come during sex before. Yet, here I was, writhing on that cross, burning with lust, coming on the vibrator in the stranger’s hand every single time they took me to that room.

  And now, I was looking forward to doing it all over again tonight.

  How could I be enjoying any of this? I needed to get out of here before I’d completely succumbed to the depravity of this place.

  As the sound of their footsteps moved closer, I wiped my sweaty palms on the sides of the dreary cotton dress they made me wear, and jumped to my feet.

  Normally, there were three of them at night, wearing grey uniforms, their faces covered behind masks with only a pair of narrow slits for their eyes. Incredibly strong and coldly impassive, they acted more like automatons than people.

  The group of thirteen in the white room never wore masks or uniforms. All male, without exception, they were young and stunningly attractive. The one in the middle normally had a loose robe on—the flowing material glaringly white against his dark skin. I’d caught him gesturing what appeared to be orders. By the way the rest of them obeyed, I figured he was the one in authority.

  None of them showed any kind of emotion while watching me come. Frozen, motionless, they resembled beautiful statues, further confusing me about the actual purpose of it all.

  One night, I managed a glance at them through the haze of arousal, right before an orgasm was ripped from me. I saw the thirteen pairs of eyes light up bright red. The glow flared and ebbed, terrifying me, then they lowered their eyelids and threw their heads back as if in a silent prayer.

  I screamed as horror cut through the pleasure of my climax.

  After that, they’d made me wear a velvet blindfold whenever I entered the white room, but the memory of the blood-red eyes in their eerily beautiful faces still kept me up at night. Later, I also noticed the eyes of the uniformed guards flash white-blue on more than one occasion. And by now, I had developed a strong suspicion that they were not really people at all.

  The sound of their footsteps halted. The cell door slid open with a swishing noise, and two guards walked in.

  Instead of a third uniformed guard, however, a man stepped into my cell.

  My heart skipped in shock.

  Wearing a charcoal grey suit and a navy-blue tie, he was average-looking, with neatly styled, receding blond hair.

  “Miss Jones?” he asked, with a slight European accent.

  German?

  After five weeks of a surreal universe of concrete walls, grey armour suits, and bizarrely handsome men with hungry stares, the wool-suited figure of the man in my cell did not belong here. His sudden appearance was jarring.

  My legs gave in from my astonishment, sending me back to the mattress.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Steffen Keller.” He threw a nervous glance at the guards behind him. “Nice to meet you, Miss Jones.”

  “Kitty.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Everyone calls me Kitty, you may as well. You’re not one of
them,” I stated the obvious. “What are you doing here? Did you come to take me home?”

  He gave me no reason to believe he was on my side, but the fact that he looked different from the ones who imprisoned me made hope rise in me.

  I jumped to my feet again, determined not to let him exit the cell without me.

  “You will go home, Miss Jones. Eventually.” He crossed his arms in front of him, and I noticed a grey file folder in his hands.

  “When?”

  “Technically, you’re free as of this moment. However—”

  “I’m free? As of right now?” I pushed past him to the door to test his claim. The guards moved towards each other to block my way. Their shoulder armour clanked together.

  Frustrated, I slammed my fists in their chest plates. Neither of them moved an inch.

  I spun on my heel to face the liar in the suit.

  “They obviously haven’t been informed about that.” I flipped my thumb at the guards behind me and stretched up to my full height—all five feet and one half of an inch. The half of an inch was important if you had not that many to go around in the first place.

  “Well. For one, it’s a long way from here to your home in . . .” He glanced inside his folder quickly. “Seattle, in The United States. We will need some time to arrange for appropriate transportation for you.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Canada. Yukon Territory.”

  That was a long way from home.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to stay here for the time being.”

  “How long?”

  “A few days, I imagine. It depends on the results of your assessment by the team of professionals. Our hosts here . . .” He gestured towards the guards.

  “Hosts?” I nearly screamed. Just calling them that had to be criminal.

  “Please, calm down.” A note of steel warning in his voice forced me to pause.

  Afraid he’d leave if I made a scene, I counted my breaths to stop my lashing out at him. The effort proved almost painful.

  “Fine. Who are they?” I tipped my chin at the armour suits behind me. “And who are you?” It was becoming obvious Keller must be in some form of collusion with my abductors.

  He inhaled deeply, rubbing his forehead.

  “You have to excuse me, Miss . . . um, Kitty. This is the first time I’ve had to do something like this . . .”

  “Like what? Setting a person free? Visiting a captive? Talking to a woman? You’ll need to explain more than that.” I crossed my arms, struggling to control the anger and anxiety rising in me again. “Why can’t I leave right now?”

  He shifted uneasily and rubbed some perspiration from his forehead, mumbling, “I told them it was best to wait,” under his breath.

  “Wait for what?”

  “For the team to get here. With a bunch of professional counselors in tow. I’m not qualified to do this.” He waved his hand in my direction, clear irritation in his expression. “Can I get a chair in here? Something to sit on?” he threw back to the guards by the door.

  I noted, not without some surprise, that one of the guards immediately left the room, only to promptly return with a metal chair.

  Keller sat, stretching his legs in front of him. “Your situation is not normal. Women taken by this particular group don’t, usually, get to leave.”

  “You mean I was supposed to stay here forever?” I balled my hands into fists to prevent them from shaking as dread trembled through me.

  “Things have changed.” He waved me off. “Everyone is being released. All you’ll have to do is to remain quiet about what happened to you here.”

  “Why would I?” I snapped. “Kidnapping and forceful confinement are serious crimes. So is sexual assault. Those responsible will have to be punished.”

  “You’re not capable to bring any punishment on their heads, Kitty.”

  “The police—”

  “—know nothing about them and never will. Trust me. The best thing in your situation is to stick with the plan of your release, get back to your life, and never speak about this place or the creatures who populate it.”

  Creatures?

  “Why should I believe anything you’re saying?”

  “I hold an official position with the Priory of Grimien.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “And you never would have, under normal circumstances. The Priory is a secret organization. It was created with a sole purpose to gain and keep control of the . . . um, individuals who took you.”

  “Well, you’ve been doing a poor job of controlling them then. How are they getting away with all of this?” My voice rose, as my patience thinned. “Who are they?”

  He drew in a deep breath.

  “They are . . . not from this world, Kitty.”

  “What?”

  “Surely, you’ve noticed some unusual things about them during your time here.”

  “You mean besides them being perverts who like to watch?” I scoffed.

  “Believe me, they can do far more harmful things than watching.” His gaze shifted back to the guards again. “They’ve been part of our world for over a millennium, and they had wreaked havoc during their early centuries on Earth, before we found a reliable way to control them.”

  “Who are they?” I insisted.

  “Demons.” He leaned to me from his chair, his voice low. “In flesh and blood.”

  Was he out of his mind?

  I shrunk back, all the way to the wall, worried for my own safety now, being one on one with a clearly insane man who seemed to honestly believe in demons.

  ‘Surely, you’ve noticed some unusual things about them.’

  Their eyes.

  The blood-red glow I’d witnessed once. The flashing blue lights I’d noticed on more than one occasion. Could there be a more sane, normal explanation to that?

  “You don’t have to believe me, Kitty. Actually, it is irrelevant if you do or don’t.” Mister Keller leaned back in his chair. “All I want from you is your cooperation in keeping their existence a secret from the general population.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  I definitely need to get to the closest police station as soon as I’m able, to let the proper authorities sort this mess out.

  “Because, really, you don’t have a choice. What good would it do for you to go public with your disclosure? No one would believe you. If you insist, you would be likely declared insane.”

  “There is plenty of evidence of their existence. This place—”

  “Is a private property with no complaints against it. I guarantee you will never be able to obtain so much as a search warrant for it. The Priory would make sure of it.”

  “Why would any human organization cover up the crimes of these . . . demons?”

  “This should not be of your concern. You will be provided a suitable compensation, appropriate counseling, and means to return to normal life as soon as possible. From this point on, our organization will guarantee your protection from the demons here.”

  “How?”

  “The Priory agreed to go forward with a more agreeable alternative to our previous arrangement with them, which was suggested by their Councils. By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have any particular affection for one of your guards?”

  “What? God, no!”

  “Good.” He turned to leave. “I’ll leave you rest then. Needless to say, there won’t be any more . . . um, nightly sessions.”

  “Wait!” I jumped to my feet, spurred by a bout of panic. “I’m free—so I want to leave now.”

  “There is no suitable accommodation anywhere in the vicinity for you. You’ll have to remain here for the time being—”

  “No.” I caught up with him at the door and got hold of his sleeve.

  I was afraid that once the door closed behind him, it would be as if he’d never come here at all. Everything would go back to the way it was. Still essentially a prisoner, I had nothing but his empty promise of freedo
m at this point.

  “They assured us that your mental state was sound enough to handle this news, Kitty. That you’re stable.” His voice sounded accusing. He became visibly more uncomfortable the longer I held on to his sleeve. “You are being released. It’s good news, isn’t it?” He tugged at his arm in an effort to pry the fabric from my clenching fingers.

  “Do they know I’m free?” I gestured at the silent figures by the door.

  “Absolutely. They’ll leave with me, and no one will bother you tonight. Or any night, for that matter.” He made another unsuccessful attempt to free his sleeve from my grip. “The door to your cell will remain unlocked. And you’re free to move around the facility.”

  “I want to go outside.” The sudden opportunity to see the open sky made my head spin. “Yes, I want to go for a walk.”

  “Now?”

  “Right now.”

  “Um, I’m sure a quick walk outside could be arranged.” Mister Keller threw a desperate look towards the guards as if asking them for assistance.

  “I will inquire.” The deep, rough voice came from inside one of the helmets so unexpectedly that I gasped in shock.

  I had never heard them speak. Ever. Hearing one of them now had a similar effect to suddenly discovering that the walls could talk.

  “There you go.” Obvious relief spread over Keller’s face. “I assure you, Kitty, as of this moment, you’re simply a visitor here not a captive. A guest, if you will. You’re free to move around as you please, order whatever food you like, we . . . they will do their best to accommodate you. And, as I said, there will be no more of what they call feedings.”

  “Feedings?”

  “Er, the nightly sessions.”

  Why feedings? It made no sense. As far as I could tell, no one actually ate in the white room while I was there.

  “Good night, Kitty.” Mister Keller finally freed himself from me and stepped out of the cell.

  “But—”

  “Whatever questions you may still have will be answered by your counselors.” He hurried down the hallway.

  The door remained open for a few moments. I could run after him, grab him again, demand more answers, more proof. Deep inside, however, I understood that he wouldn’t give me more information than he was prepared to give. The most likely result of my outburst would be me being subdued and locked up in my cell again.