Midnight's Paradox: The Cynn Cruors Bloodline Series, #6

By Isobelle Cate

An immortal searching for himself. A woman discovering that nothing is as it seems.

Three years after the raid on Dac Valerian's club, Dare You!, and the discovery of a secret, Blake finds himself in the streets and closes of Edinburgh in search of answers – still believing that he isn't worthy of being called a Cynn Cruor. Thing is, he didn't anticipate meeting a woman so beautiful in her simplicity that his Cynn Cruor instincts demand he protect and claim her as his own.

Mine.

Phoebe Ruth has read of the Cynn Cruors in her father's journal and believes that they are the ravings of a grief-stricken man after losing her mother years ago. A chance encounter with a stranger in Edinburgh Castle's Great Hall, being beset by thugs in the cemetery, and a cryptic note from a tourist crying for help, makes her realise that the Cynn Cruors world is real. So is the Cynn Cruor immortal, whose kisses burn a trail into her soul.

Whose touch ignites the fire she didn't realize she possessed.

And whose burden she'd willingly take as her own not realizing that their lives are inexplicably linked in more ways than one.

Blake and Phoebe must accept the truth of who they really are, if they want to have a future together in the middle of a war that can rip them apart.

***CONTENT WARNING: This story contains adult language and sexual situations and is intended for audiences 18+ ONLY. ***

Editorial Reviews
Cate does a great job with character development. All of her characters are continuously portrayed with accurate precision from the previous novels within this series. - Turning Another Page Book Review

This book was a refreshing take on the vampire/werewolf of being secret human protectors of us unknowing humans from evil forces...There's lots of hot action in this story with plenty of moments to keep you reading, making you want to see what happens next, and a few sexy scenes to make your pulse race. Another great book from this talented author, i'm looking forward to reading more books in this series. - Clare and Lou's Mad about Books

Readers' Reviews
This series is fantastic, had me gripped from page one I could not put any of these six books down, reading until the early hours, please tell me when the novella and book 7 release dates are, this author is awesome. -  Reviewer

OMG these books are so good. I cried through the ending. Can't wait to see what happens next. Wow. Poor Blake, I think he may be my fave so far out of all of these Immortals. - Reviewer

Even those readers who are not usually attracted to paranormal novels and vampire stories will find much to embrace in this tale, primarily because of the author's magic way with words – bringing us into the rarefied air of mythology and fantasy in the finest fashion. Solid reading, this. - Goodreads Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Isobelle Cate
• Release date: Jul 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386914778

Book preview

by Isobelle Cate

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

MIDNIGHT’S PARADOX

All rights reserved.

Copyright 2016 © Isobelle Cate

Second Edition

Copyright 2021 © Isobelle Cate

Edited by:

Jo Powers

Jennifer Stevens

Cover by JRA Stevens

Isobelle Cate has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1998, to be identified as Author of this Work.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

Paradox - /’paredaks/, noun

A person or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities

An immortal searching for himself. A woman discovering that nothing is as it seems.

Three years after the raid on Dac Valerian’s club, Dare You!, and the discovery of a secret, Blake finds himself in the streets and closes of Edinburgh in search of answers – still believing that he isn’t worthy of being called a Cynn Cruor. Thing is, he didn’t anticipate meeting a woman so beautiful in her simplicity that his Cynn Cruor instincts demand he protect and claim her as his own.

Mine.

Phoebe Ruth has read of the Cynn Cruors in her father’s journal and believes that they are the ravings of a grief-stricken man after losing her mother years ago. A chance encounter with a stranger in Edinburgh Castle’s Great Hall, being beset by thugs in the cemetery, and a cryptic note from a tourist crying for help, makes her realise that the Cynn Cruors world is real. So is the Cynn Cruor immortal, whose kisses burn a trail into her soul.

Whose touch ignites the fire she didn’t realize she possessed.

And whose burden she’d willingly take as her own not realizing that their lives are inexplicably linked in more ways than one.

Blake and Phoebe must accept the truth of who they really are, if they want to have a future together in the middle of a war that can rip them apart.

Contents

Author’s Note

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Cynn Cruor Bloodline Series:

Author’s Note

Blake and Phoebe’s story is set in Scotland and some of the characters’ dialogue will have a few words spelled according to the way the character speaks it. So I have made a glossary of some of the words you will come across in the story.

Adriserum – an adrenalin packed serum given to warriors during battle to make them heal quickly.

Argenterum – derived from the word, argentum, meaning silver. Developed by Zac McBain, the main component of this serum is the special silver the Cynn Cruors found in the Specus Argentum, La Nahuaterique, Honduras.

Cannae – can’t

Close – alleys that are locked at night

Dinnae – don’t

Heid - head

Isna – isn’t

Ken – know

Specus Argentum – the Silver Cave

Verra – very

Wynds – open alleys

For Fathers and Stepfathers everywhere.

PROLOGUE

––––––––

Edinburgh, Scotland 1859

Snow swirled in curtains of white, the flakes landing helter-skelter on the bare tree branches. It fell on the packed earth already covered in a blanket of white, and on the tear stained, reddened cheeks of an eleven year-old boy as he watched the men lower the simple wooden casket that contained the remains of his mother.

His curly hair was flattened and damp from the snowfall. His threadbare jacket stretched across his already broad back while his trousers looked a size too small for his legs. He did not wear an overcoat, no other buffer against the bitter cold. No matter: he did not feel the cold anyway. Did not know what it felt like to feel the ice numbing his fingers or his feet. When everyone was huddled in their coats and shawls, or sat close to the fire by the hearth, he was out playing in the freezing winter.

The winter cold had no hold over him. It was different inside when it enveloped him, like ice creeping and coating his heart’s beating surface, as insidious as when it slowly took hold of the loch in the deepest of winters.

So this is what freezing feels like....

The sound of the shovel thudding against the earth, before the staccato of soil and stone hitting the casket, brought the young boy to the present. The intoned words of the vicar hardly registered in his mind and that was when it hit him.

He was all alone.

His tear-stained face looked up at those of the vicar and some of the neighbours who had gone out of the way to accompany him to his own Calvary. His heart raced bringing the fear inside him to his eyes, making them wider and darker. His body shivered as the loss of the only family he knew hit him hard. His sole-holed shoes deepened the indentations on the snow as he turned in place. He searched their faces, as his breath came out in white puffs of anxiety. All of their faces reflected pity and sympathy, but no one had the visage of welcome that would allow him to enter their homes. Not even the vicar had a welcoming face. One by one they moved away, turning their backs to him. He wanted to scream. To beg. But he was a grown man of eleven years. His mother used to tell him he was going to be strong and invincible someday. He swallowed hard against the lump that clogged his throat. With strength he didn’t know he possessed, he tamped the fear down and heard it screaming inside his mind, as he entombed it inside its own box.

As the small crowd dispersed, his gaze locked on the figure of a huge man whose clothes were simple but elegantly cut. People didn’t appear to see him, but the young boy did, noticing the man also didn’t wear an overcoat, unfazed by the snow swirling around them. His head was bare, hair flattened against his side burns. He had a neatly trimmed moustache over a mouth that had a smile—a genuine smile that lit the sympathy showing in his midnight blue eyes. The man walked towards the young boy, who tilted his gaze to look at the kindest face he had seen in a very long time. He should be afraid, but he felt a sense of affinity with the stranger.

Master Blake Strachan, It wasn’t a question as it was more of a statement.

Blake could only nod, wondering how this man knew his name.

The man extended his hand. Blake didn’t respond.

The man’s mouth quirked to one side.

Well played, Master Blake.

Who are you? Blake’s voice sounded stuffy, but didn’t disguise the suspicion he felt.

My name is Finn Qualtrough, the stranger said. I’ve come to take you home.

I don’t have a home. Blake bent his head as he spoke, his voice almost unheard. The tears that fell from his eyes froze midway down his face.

You’re coming home with me.

Why should I do that? Blake’s eyes flew to Finn’s in alarm and wariness.

Finn smiled.

Because Blake Strachan, it’s time to take your rightful place as a Cynn Cruor.

CHAPTER ONE

––––––––

Edinburgh, Scotland

Present Day

Blake stood by the corner of High Street and Cockburn Street. Edinburgh was vastly different from the Edinburgh of his youth, one hundred fifty five years ago. He stood stock still, a lone figure in black jeans and an army surplus jacket. His clothes weren’t much to ward off the freezing cold. It was just...cool.

The sky was still dark. Snow fell in soft swirls down the Royal Mile, forming a line of white on each side of the long road leading up to the Edinburgh Castle. The lamplights that dotted the Mile cast an eerie glow that did not quite chase the stubborn shadows that remained in the alleys – closes—or on the roofs of the buildings and kirks.

Blake avoided Edinburgh like the plague. There were so many memories he’d rather do without. He and his mother had lived on the second floor of a tenement building in Grassmarket, a place of public executions, taverns with resident ghosts, and where alcoholism reigned. Where fathers sold their daughters in the streets so that could earn their keep, a time when innocence was lost by force of hardship. He was a street urchin then. His mother was too busy keeping a roof over their head and food in their bellies, but she knew without a doubt Blake would return at night, more often than not unscathed from his misadventures. The houses that lined the streets of his childhood were gone, replaced by rows upon rows of shops selling shortbread in tartan tins, scotch whiskey, scarves, kilts, and jewellery. Coffee shops dotted the landscape. Hotels and hostels jostled to make their presence known amid purveyors of worldwide cuisines. Even the residence of Deacon Brodie, the builder of Edinburgh’s gallows who became its eventual victim, succumbed to selling pastries, coffee, and tea. Blake visited the place that day hoping to find any semblance of the familiar. Except for the fireplace and the walls, everything had disappeared.

He hadn’t always been a wayward boy running up and down the closes and wynds in shoes that were too tight until they burst at the seams. He didn’t live in Old Town during the first years of his life. He had been born wealthy, living in a townhouse in New Town where food was always plenty and his clothes were clean and his shoes fit his feet. Until it no longer was and they had to leave the house he grew up in. What he didn’t like was his mother reduced to working as a washerwoman in the very house they had previously owned.

For Blake, it wasn’t difficult to adjust to his new surroundings. He had no love lost for those of his mother’s ilk when money was dwindling and they had to visit his aunt to ask help. Since his father left, he vowed to care for his mother, be the one to also find food to eat, and...

He ground his molars so hard he could have broken them. Thinking about his sire did that.

He went to his old haunts, memories rising like steam from the heated ground below his feet cloaking him in both fondness and nostalgia. He remembered the fruit vendors and pie sellers he’d befriended, who placed bets on him winning the shell game. They’d split the winnings and give him food at the same time. He remembered the group of pickpockets he’d caused mischief with, stealing from the hoi poloi and the unsuspecting passersby promenading along the High Street. Whenever he could, he’d pick the pocket of the pickpocket, returning the stolen objects to their rightful owners. One of the boys had finally caught up with what he’d done and would have beaten him into a pulp had it not been for Blake’s inhuman speed. None of the blows came in contact with him although Blake had been able to land a few of his own blows. Eventually the boys left him alone.

Then his mother fell ill.

Except for the street lamps that lighted the Royal Mile, no one stirred. Blake didn’t feel the cold as much as the mortals, but he turned the collar of his jacket up to cover his neck before making his way slowly toward Castle Hill. His heightened hearing immediately picked up the sound of footsteps of those who had gone long before, of those who had been accused of witchcraft and were hanged first before being burned. He felt the fear and anger of those falsely accused, as well as the fury and malevolence of those who deserved fire and noose. He immediately saw a young woman cringing to one side, her clothes tattered, her neck in a jaunty angle watching him with wary eyes. Blake could feel his own eyes change, as evil licked his skin.

I’m a creature of the night. He growled at the scared woman. Away with you and your evil, you fiend!

The woman’s look of fear disappeared. She stood, her neck still dislocated. Her mouth slowly widened to a smile that reached her earlobes before she cackled. Blake grinned and let his fangs descend. He faced the woman and snarled. She screeched in anger before disappearing.

Blake saw another shadow hovering a little above the ground. The soft swish of thick skirts grazed the ground as another woman appeared. This time, Blake felt her bewilderment and sadness. Her face was blotched and bloated. On her neck were the marks of the noose.

I only wanted to heal. I only wanted to help.

Blake’s incisors ascended and he straightened. Then rest in peace, my lady. Those who have wronged you are long gone.

The woman took a moment to look at him. Her face had the barest of smiles, as though showing Blake her gratitude for his compassion. She spoke.

Find peace yourself, good sir. To insist that you are evil is not for you to decide. For the sins of the father, do not belong to the son.

Blake stood frozen, inhaling harshly. His heart thudded, almost to a crescendo, but before he could ask her what she meant, she disappeared. In her place was the scent of roses and spring rain. He stared at the spot in thoughtful contemplation, his stare trailing before he faced ahead to resume his trek.

The sky was starting to pale, the heavens letting go of its dark blanket to make way for the sun. Blake stopped just inside the Esplanade and inhaled the freezing air, allowing the sharp cold to pierce his lungs. He walked to the left side of the huge courtyard, the snow crunching underneath his boots, and braced his hands on the ledge. Grassmarket lay below him. From his vantage point he saw the building he, his mother, and their old butler, Jamieson, used to live in. Now it was a more respectable place comprised of flats and Air BNB rentals.

His gaze drank in the city of his youth, still in the grip of slumber. He looked to the left catching the huge shadow of Arthur’s Seat, the mountain that lay by Holyrood Castle. Then he turned to the right and closed his eyes to wait for the sun.

He didn’t have to wait too long.

The slow rise of the sun from its bed on the horizon became the scene of a gentle tug of war between the blues of the night and the pale vanilla-orange of day. Blake arched his back and extending his arms, allowed himself to bask in whatever pale sunlight he could endure. He never thought he would miss the sun, until he found out he was a special breed of immortal warrior. As a child, he had taken it for granted, not knowing that the Kinaré gene was developing inside him. He never had any reason to fear the huge globule in the sky until Finn told him he was a Cynn Cruor. A warrior who would have no knowledge of the sun’s dangers to them or the moon’s effect on their libido until after they entered adolescence when their genetic disposition altered. The vampire and werewolf DNA would become dominant, as their human blood took a back seat. By the time they reached their late teens, they would have entered the final phase of their transformation. The Kinaré’s development would become complete and they could begin to fully explore their new found strengths. Gaining superhuman abilities also entailed sacrifice. Cynn Cruor immortals remained in the shadows and by the edge of the sun’s light. They could only catch a glimpse of the sunrise for only a brief moment.

Just like today.

As the Kinaré took over his mortal blood, Blake’s body slowly adjusted to the need to keep away from its glare. Never one to follow rules, he remained in the Esplanade. His gaze spanned the city wrapped in the grip of winter, the roofs powdered in white. His blood gently simmered, the freezing cold foiling its complete heat. He sucked in his breath, in awe of the beauty of the universal orb that would soon make its way to touch the roofs of the houses and sides of the buildings as though in silent benediction.

The sun winked on the edge of the horizon. A muscle ticked in Blake’s jaw, his skin prickling. His face tightened; still he refused to leave. Drawing a harsh breath, he remained for as long as he could, willing his eyes to look straight into the light before he roared and whizzed into the castle’s confines. He hissed, his fangs descending at the pain from the near burning of his retinas and the blisters on his skin. He stayed in the shadows, away from the CCTV, waiting for the pustules to subside and eventually disappear. Blake slid down to sit on the snow packed ground and closed his sore eyes, willing his fangs to retract.

Ahh, Strachan. You never learn, he muttered remembering the first time he nearly fried. It was a year after his mother’s death. He had already been told not to walk directly under the sun, but still decided to go on one dry sunny day. He left his bed, making his way to the ramparts of The Hamilton’s Faesten. Below him, the ground was grooved and gouged from horses’ hooves and the tips of the swords during practice the day before. At that time, Finn and Roarke had left on a mission for the Cynn Cruors, leaving Blake rudderless. Had it not been for his fellow Cynn Cruor brethren, Graeme Temple’s quick thinking, Blake would have had blisters he would never recover from. Only then did he begin to value the sun. From then on, Graeme became his mentor and best friend next to Finn, teaching him to walk in the day without getting scorched. Reminding him to stay in the shadows when the sun was high in the sky, and take refuge from the heat by walking on the shadier side of the street. Chilled autumn and deep winter were times when they could walk during the day under the sun, even for a twinkling of a moment - when the cold rains bathed the land or when the ground was stark white with snow, the air frozen enough to stabilize the simmering discomfort each warrior felt in their blood.

Blake heard someone coming from two hundred meters away jarring him away from his reverie. With inhuman speed, he passed through the arch that led to the castle’s grounds towards the Great Hall. No mortal or CCTV camera would be able to detect him. The blanket of snow and the wind that swirled about masked his presence. He really didn’t need to enter the edifice. The answers that he needed would not be found there. He could have jumped over the Esplanade to Grassmarket and be on his way, but during the time he had lived in Edinburgh, he had never been inside, had not been able to see the castle’s interiors himself.

He wasn’t allowed inside.

A stranger unto his own.

Once inside the Great Hall, Blake stayed in the shadows, but had to stop and look. Above him, the hammerbeam roof extended over the expanse while chandeliers hung suspended over the Great Hall. He walked towards the huge fireplace, the checkered floor surrounding it looking out of place against the plain concrete one. He remembered the times he and his mother had gone without fire in the hearth. The coal was meagre because the little money they had was spent on food. The kindness of neighbours was not as thick as the snow during winter and often Blake had to steal and fight for scraps so he and his mother could try and keep body and soul together. He had not felt the cold, but his mother did and the next best thing he could do was to embrace her, to rub her hands and feet, to warm them until she fell into a fitful sleep. He remembered watching over her, covering her with as many rags as they had in their hovel. While she was asleep, he would leave to find firewood and coal wherever and however he could. Blake couldn’t let his mother suffer from the cold.

He continued walking around and smiled when he saw the replica of a familiar sword. With inhuman agility, he removed the sword from its stand, careful not to cut through the hard plastic binding that held it in place. As soon as his hands closed around the handle and pommel of the sword, and the weight of the metal pressing down on his hands, memories of the Cynn Cruors swarmed him. He recalled the number of times his fellow warriors had swiped his feet off the ground, how Finn taught him to sense the presence of a Scatha Cruor, how to parry and decapitate the enemy. He remembered the feasts in the The Hamilton’s Great Hall where everyone felt the warmth and welcome of their leader and his wife, Deidré. It was a far cry from his life in the filthy streets of Edinburgh, of having to forage for food for his mother, of keeping her warm during the cold winters. It was a luxury to have his own bed in the Faesten when he had gotten used to sleeping on the floor of their tiny room in Grassmarket.

If only his mother had been able to experience a tad of what he had in the Faesten, the warmth of a home again, he would have wished her back to life.

He remembered Roarke joining in the conversations, weaving his way through the trestle tables talking with the rest of the warriors and Cynn mortals, his face creasing into a smile that never reached his eyes. When he had done his duty, he’d excuse himself from the gathering to lean by the wall. Blake remembered the extreme sadness that cloaked his future Dux and the way he seemed to look even older than his father.

He remembered the first time he met Graeme, who took over his mentoring when Finn had to go with Roarke to missions assigned by the Ancient Eald himself, and how the former Templar taught him to avoid direct sunlight. Later as Blake grew older, he gravitated more to Graeme becoming his partner in missions assigned by the Hamilton or when Roarke and Finn needed back-up. The friendship and camaraderie of the Cynn Cruors brethren was something he held on to during the first few years after his mother’s death.

As with any older Cynn Cruor, they were given responsibility for new recruits of Cynn Cruor boys, honing them to be the best of the immortal warriors in the service of The Ancients. Blake had been assigned several young men to train and taking responsibility for other young boys had helped him find direction in life. There were others like him whose parents had been killed by the Scatha Cruors and the knowledge that he wasn’t alone made it easier for him to carry his burden. The knowledge that Finn’s parents had also been killed during a mission gave him a deeper respect for the man. A smile hovered on his lips as the memories disappeared, then he stiffened.

Someone was in the Great Hall.

CHAPTER TWO

––––––––

Phoebe stomped her boots after stepping down the three steps into the corridor of the Great Hall. Puffs of white billowed around her face and she shivered underneath the red zipped-up fleece jacket with the castle’s logo embossed on the left breast. She wanted to check on something before she started her shift in the Whiskey and Finest Food Shop. Heavy snow had fallen the night before and knowing it might take her longer to get to work with the car, she left the house she shared with her father to take the earlier bus. As she took off her beanie to stuff it into her coat pocket, she halted mid-stride.

There was a man in the Great Hall. He wore an army surplus jacket and dark jeans. There was no denying that he was powerfully built, but not as huge as the gym rats that constantly pumped iron. No, he was well muscled, but not of the steroid kind. Her cheeks flamed as her gaze travelled down the denims that hugged his ass and powerful legs and Phoebe felt something stir inside her. Her blood warmed at the presence of the stranger helping her body thaw from the bitter cold outside. Her breath hitched and she suddenly felt languid. Her forehead puckered when she looked down at her body. She couldn’t understand why her breasts seemed to all of a sudden become heavy, as though waiting for someone to cup and fondle them. For a mouth to tease and graze them. Phoebe closed her eyes, giving in to the sensations that seemed to have taken hold of her. The sensual longing inside her was something she had never felt before and the heat it generated made her want to combust.

As though she wanted to lie down and wait for the stranger to come take her.

Holy shite. Who was he? Why did he have such an effect on her?

Phoebe clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp.

I’m getting turned on by a man’s back, arse, and legs!

She shook her head, mystified. Still, the official visiting hours were not until later, so the stranger had no business being in the hall. She was about to walk out of the building to call security, but something stopped her as she continued to track his movements. Her eyes rounded when he had taken the replica of the long sword from its stand and placed the blade flat on his palm before holding it away, twisting the sword from side to side to inspect the weapon. For a weapon so heavy, he held it with ease. The agility and swiftness of his swings left Phoebe in no doubt that the man was born to hold such a weapon, as though it belonged in his hands.

Her heart pounded hard. She needed to call Security, but if she did, by the time she returned with them, the intruder may have left. Wouldn’t it be better that he had left? Then that would mean he’d be lurking around the castle. The CCTV would pick him out, so no problem with that. But her conscience urged her not to do the right thing. What the...? If they found out she was in the same place and she didn’t raise the alarm, the crap she would be in.... hell, it would overshoot even the castle’s ramparts and she’d likely lose her job. How could a bloody simple decision be so complicated at the same time? A crease formed on her forehead. Safety first, that was what they had always been told.

And the sword?

The idea that the stranger might use the sword on her was as preposterous as it was possible.

She couldn’t wait for security to come, even if her mind screamed that she had to wait. He wasn’t going anywhere was he? Straightening her shoulders, she moved away from the door.

Excuse me, you’re not supposed to be here.

The man continued to inspect the sword as though he hadn’t heard her. Phoebe’s heart thudded in her ears. Was the man deaf? And seriously? It was folly to even take him on alone. Phoebe’s hand automatically reached for the non-existent radio on her waist. Shit. She should have gone to the staff room before checking. She hadn’t even taken a step back, before she was pinned to the wall. Shock reverberated through her, causing her heart to stop momentarily, the air from her lungs rushing out. Dazed and confused at first, fear clouded her vision