The Monster in the Closet (Monsters in the Dark Book 2) Read online

  The Monster in the Closet

  Monsters in the Dark, Volume Two

  Rebekah Lewis

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  More Books by Rebekah Lewis

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Rebekah Lewis

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  www.Rebekah-Lewis.com

  To the readers who stick with me when real life demands I step away from writing. To those same readers who know there are more stories to tell and are waiting when I can finally tell them.

  Thank you.

  Chapter 1

  "I'm late!" Phoebe shouted as she glanced at her phone. She'd thought she'd be able to do her own make-up, but that had been a mistake. She'd had to remove the carnage three times and start over. So much for online tutorial videos. Instead, she ended up doing a simple coppery-brown eyeshadow and mascara, foregoing the eyeliner. Some women had gift when it came to make-up, but her only talent was to screw things up. Now she was late to her favorite party of the year, one of the few she actually attended.

  Every Halloween night, her former sorority threw a fairytale themed costume party, and she was invited back as an alumna. This year was Beauty and the Beast, where the women were encouraged to dress like princesses and the men like monsters. Of course, everyone could wear whatever costume they wanted, but most partygoers did follow the theme. For weeks, Phoebe had been dying to go. Her boyfriend of three months needed more convincing. Adam hated costumes. Then again, he hated a lot of things.

  Like when she didn't wear make-up in public. It was why she'd been trying so damned hard. She shouldn't, she knew that, yet there she was. Trying to please a man who was perpetually unhappy. Sighing, she put the cosmetics back in the bag by the sink and hurried into the bedroom to finish dressing.

  She'd gone overboard on sexy lingerie, hoping Adam would enjoy peeling it off of her when they returned home. A lacy, cream colored thong and matching thigh-high stockings and garter belt, paired with an eggshell bustier that tied in the back like a corset and she looked like she belonged in a catalogue. Or a porno. Depended on how the party went!

  She tugged on a poofy petticoat to give her dress shape, and then stepped into glittery golden heels. Her gown had to be put on in two pieces, white with a layer of gold that sparkled and shimmered in the light. She had her dark hair half up in the back, and she couldn't wait to see the look on Adam's face when he saw her.

  Phoebe pulled the string to the closet light to turn it off, exited, and then started to close the door, but paused. In the back of the closet, a shape hovered like a shadow darker than the other shadows around it. She'd seen it a few times since moving in to this apartment a couple months ago. If she turned the light back on, nothing was ever there, and she couldn't figure out what was throwing that shadow to move it. She shrugged and closed the door, checking that it would stay shut. Blasted thing sometimes opened on its own, and then she would creep herself out thinking there was something watching her.

  "Just your mind playing tricks on you," she muttered and grabbed her handbag and phone. She texted Adam to remind him to leave work and go to the party. Poor thing cared more about accounts and finances at his company than fun.

  Where the hell was Adam? Phoebe shifted from foot to foot and tried to see over the heads of dozens of costumed partiers. Her shoes were amazing in looks, but not so much on the balls of her feet. She'd kill for some bedroom slippers. Adam hadn't arrived yet, and she was getting burned out on socializing. Her feet hurt, and she wore all this sexy stuff under her dress because she thought she would get some action tonight while she felt and looked like a princess, but apparently not.

  Sighing, she headed up to one of the rooms on the second floor where their coats were kept so she could achieve a bit of solitude. She closed the door and ambled over to the bed to sit and pulled her cell phone out of her clutch. Once the pressure was off her feet, she moaned with contentment. Phoebe didn't dare kick the shoes off though, or putting them back on would be ten times worse. Instead, she tried to call Adam, but it went straight to voicemail. "Where are you?" she all but snarled before she hung up. Then she checked her messages, and shocker there—nothing new.

  The squeak of a door came softly from her right and she gasped. The closet gaped open and she squinted, trying to determine if there was someone in there. Had she interrupted people making out, or worse, picking the pockets of the coats left on the bed?

  When the heater kicked on, she laughed at herself. It was just the house being an old house. There wasn't a monster lurking in the closet here or at her own apartment. Monsters didn't exist. Feeling foolish, Phoebe gathered her wits and exited the room. It was nice to have a moment to herself without people, but she wasn't up to continue pretending she was happy when she had no idea if Adam planned to show up. The rejection had effectively ruined the evening.

  Why couldn't she find someone who appreciated her? Who wanted to go places and do things? Who actually answered when she called? It didn't seem like too much to ask to be wanted, desired. To have the notion someone's world wouldn't be complete without her in it.

  Phoebe blinked back tears, collected her coat, and then headed down the stairs toward the front door. She said quick goodbyes and made a beeline to her car. Once inside, she let out the tears she'd been holding in and texted a brief break up message to Adam. She was done with his shit. It was time to live for herself. If he didn't want her, she was done waiting on him to change his mind. It was over between them, and she hoped he was mad when he saw the text.

  When she lifted her head, movement in the shadows caught her eye within the trees in front of the right side of her car. She squinted. A large animal stood in the shadows, obscured from full view. It had the shape of a stag, and she could faintly make out its antlers. Oh, to be wild and not worry about anything but what nature intended. Phoebe started the car and headlights illuminated the area where the stag had been.

  There was nothing there.

  Chapter 2

  Men. Who needed them? Phoebe entered her apartment and slammed the door shut behind her. Never more grateful to live on the ground floor than when her night had been shitty. First, she would change out of these clothes, then take a shower and down a quart of ice cream. Perhaps not in that order. She wiped her face. She'd had to pull over twice from crying so hard that mascara had burned her eyes.

  Phoebe sniffled and headed down the short hallway to the bathroom and quickly cleaned off the remnants of her make-up. She glanced at her reflection and cried harder. All that effort to look beautiful for that jerk and he didn't even show. He'd stood her up and couldn't call and tell her or give her a reason. Not even some bullshit excuse. Was he cheating on her, or was she just undesirable to him? He had always wanted to fix her. Cut your hair. Don't eat that cookie or you'll get fat. You should wear make-up more. Get your teeth whitened. Have you considered breast implants? Phoebe wrapped her arms around herself and fought back another wave of tears. Adam didn't deserve them.

  She froze as the th
uds of soft footsteps sounded from the other side of the wall between the bathroom and bedroom. "Adam?" She turned around, wiping at her nose with a tissue and tossing it in the wastebasket. "Is that you?" Maybe he had come to surprise her—and get his ass thrown out of her apartment. Jerk.

  She stepped into the hall and reached into the bedroom to flip the light switch. Phoebe peeked around the corner. "Adam?" The closet door stood wide open in an empty room when she knew she'd closed it before going to the party. Without thinking, she ran to the living room and grabbed her phone and keys. She didn't stop to lock the apartment, but fled straight to her car. Once she was inside, she slammed the lock down and then called the cops.

  They hadn't believed her. No sign of forced entry and nothing stolen, so they claimed the only way someone had gone in and opened her closet would be if they had a key. Phoebe had heard footsteps though, but she couldn't prove it. A female officer noticed she had a puffy face from crying and had asked if anything traumatic happened, so she told her about Adam not showing for the party and breaking up with him. Naturally, the conclusion was Adam had tried to scare her and the officer suggested Phoebe spend the night with a friend and change the locks in the morning.

  Sound advice, if that was what happened. She'd know if it'd been Adam. He had no problems yelling at her when he was dissatisfied. If he cared enough that she'd broken up with him via text message, she'd hear it from him. He wouldn't waste his time creeping around her apartment for entertainment.

  Defeated, Phoebe went back into her apartment, kicked off her shoes and headed to her bedroom. All she wanted to do was sleep. She glanced at her phone as she placed it on the charger. Noticing she had a text from Adam, she thumbed it open to her inbox and sorrow ripped at the tatters of her heart. He hadn't argued his case over their break up. He hadn't tried to reason with her. All he'd written was, "Ok." Two simple letters of acceptance, not even the entire word, was all Adam had spared for the end of their relationship.

  Not bothering with the lights, she started to strip out of her clothes. The top of the dress required a bit of effort to remove—way more than it had to put on—but she managed. Then she flung it at the hamper in the corner with a little more aggression than intended. The skirt came next, leaving her in her petticoat and lingerie, which she had worn for absolutely nothing.

  "I should go out and sleep with a random stranger to spite you, Adam. You prick." She worked the clasp on her necklace and removed it. Then her earrings, placing both on the dresser by her purse. "I'm a mess, and apparently I'm not attractive enough to keep a man, so who would want me?" Her reflection scowled back at her, or it would have if she could make out her features in the dark. The outline of the open closet door behind her was discernible though, so she glared at it. "And you," she accused. "Why won't you stay shut when I close you?"

  "Because then I cannot watch you. Let it be made clear that I want you, and will gladly take you up on your offer."

  She gawked at the mirror, unsure if her ears were deceiving her of if her mind had finally snapped. There shouldn't have been a response. For one, her tirade was to expel her frustration by having a conversation with herself. Perfectly normal, even if a little dumb. The masculine voice she heard, however, was not normal at all. In fact, after the police had searched every inch of her apartment and found nobody lurking, a man in her apartment shouldn't be there at all.

  All logical thoughts. Perfectly sound reasoning. Yet, there is a man in my closet…

  Spinning around, she squinted in the direction of the speaker. Whoever it was had a deep, husky voice and a strange accent. Definitely foreign. "Who's there?" She reached for the bedroom light by the dresser and flipped it on. She didn't see anyone, but the closet stretched farther back than she could see at this angle. Phoebe searched for a weapon, and grabbed a vase of red silk roses. It wouldn't do much, being made of plastic and fiber, but flinging it at an attacker would give her a head start at running away. "I'm warning you…"

  Tiptoeing toward the closet, she didn't know what to expect. The door opened inward so she pushed it with her toe until the knob hit the wall. No one was inside unless they were hiding behind her clothes. She went inside, kicking behind her dresses. The door slammed shut behind her. Screaming, she dropped the vase, which only thudded on the carpet at her feet. Phoebe reached up, fumbling for the cord to the light and yanked it when her hand connected with the string. Nothing happened. She yanked again to the same result.

  "Looking for this?" The man in the closet grabbed one of her hands in his and placed something into her palm. The lightbulb. He'd unscrewed the lightbulb and waited to ambush her when she came inside. But where had he hidden?

  Phoebe didn't ask that question. "Wh-what do you want?"

  He circled around her like a predatory cat about to pounce on its prey. She couldn't see anything, but his body heat singed her with awareness of him. His lack of response was more terrifying than knowing what to expect. Finally, he said, "Are you still wanting to sleep with a stranger to punish that fool who didn't deserve you." He ran a knuckle over her cheekbone and she flinched. "The one who made you cry… If you'd like, I could send one of my best to do him great harm. Would his parts as a trophy please you? That can be arranged."

  What was he—did he just offer to castrate Adam? "As much as he might deserve it, I do not condone violence." She straightened her backbone. She could sense he was taller than her five-foot-three.

  "A pity," he said from behind her. Suddenly she was jerked back against a hard, muscled chest. "About what you said before…"

  He thought he could hide in her closet and hold her to something she'd said in annoyance? Ha! "Listen, mister, I don't know who you are or how you got in here, but I will not be doing anything with you. The cops are still outside, so all I have to do is yell." Somehow, she had the feeling he wasn't there to force himself on her. That if he intended to hurt her, he would have done so. She couldn't explain where that instinct came from.

  "The men you called to seek me out are long gone, and you must not fear me harming you." His arms were around her, but he wasn't hurting her. He was…embracing her? "When we fuck, it will be when you offer yourself to me. You made your careless offer already, and if I wasn't bound by my good name, I could have taken you up on it." He released her.

  Phoebe turned to face him and backed away, against the wall the door would touch when opened completely. "You're delusional if you believe we're…fucking, as you so eloquently put it."

  The man chuckled and the warmth of his body suggested that he leaned in close. He brushed her hair out of her face and said, "I imagine you want to leave right now, don't you?"

  She didn't respond. She wanted him to leave. It was her closet, damn it.

  "I asked you a question. Do you want to leave?"

  This guy was weird as hell. "Yes, I want to. Why do you keep asking me that?" The air around her grew colder, but she had more important things to worry about than her heating system.

  "I am glad to hear that," the man said and stepped closer. She backed up though she couldn't possibly go farther with the wall behind her—except she did move away from him! One step. Two. Then three. The wall had vanished, and that was enough to finally scare her back to her senses. She shrieked and attempted to run forward, back to where her closet door should be, but the man leaned down, hefted her over his shoulder and kept walking in the direction he'd been herding her.

  Chapter 3

  "Put me down! Where are you taking me?" Phoebe pounded on his back only to realize the man was naked when her hand connected with a bare hip and buttock. Holy shit, there was a random naked man in my closet. How did the cops miss something like this? Why wasn't there any light? And why did it smell like…minerals? Sulfur maybe… Were they in a cave? More importantly, could she reach her closet if she headed back in the opposite direction?

  Her captor palmed her backside and gave it a stinging swat. Phoebe squealed with outrage, which only made him laugh. "Don't dish out w
hat you do not wish to receive." He turned a corner and though she couldn't see anything past the man's waist, a soft glow of light up ahead helped her eyes start adjusting to the dark. "I'm going to leave you with one of the newer females in our clan. She speaks your tongue and can help you acclimate. I must check on some matters, but when I return I trust that you will be prepared for the sacred rites."

  The who and what now? "Are you going to sacrifice me to a monster or something? I should warn you, it won't work. I'm not a virgin and I don't have much meat on my bones. I'll be turned down immediately." The light was closer now, but his flesh seemed to blend in with the darkness and shadow. She could barely make out his form until suddenly light surrounded them.

  A rumble like a growl vibrated through his chest as he slid her down before him. "This monster would eat you up the moment he had the chance," he teased in a wicked tone.

  Phoebe didn't bother with checking out their surroundings. She couldn't pull her gaze away from him. Whoever he was, whatever he was, looked like a figure from a fantasy world. In the gentle light, his skin appeared to be the color of gunmetal, his hair and eyes black as pitch. Two elongated, pointed ears poked out from his waist-length hair—one was pierced with a small onyx hoop. He had an impressive set of antlers on his head, reminding her of a Celtic god, Cernunnos. Only he wasn't furry anywhere—she looked down—and he didn't have hooves, thankfully. She gulped as she started to peruse up his body. He was naked as she'd already surmised, and he was pierced there too. He also sported a perfectly chiseled set of abs which she lingered over longer than she should. When Phoebe glanced up his face again, she couldn't help but marvel at how beautiful he was. Handsome and fierce, yes, but beautiful. What was he? The creature/man smiled, revealing teeth that seemed a little too sharp around the canines but not extremely so.