Eternal Seduction (35 page)

As much as he wanted to, and his beast wanted to, Kerestyan couldn’t argue her logic. If he laid eyes on Craig before Logan was safely in his arms again, he would lose control. Then the city, all of its inhabitants, as well as the Veil, would be in grave danger.

“If you had let me finish,” Drake said as he stepped into the closet. “I was going to say, but something tells me it’s not a good idea. It goes back to the whole people running around on fire theory.”

When the door clicked into place, Kerestyan turned to his brother. Perhaps he’d been wrong to believe he couldn’t benefit from Odin’s guidance anymore. “Thank you. I would’ve never thought to ask Drake.”

“I know. Most people never do unless they want someone dead. I don’t care what the rumors say, Drake’s good people.”

Kerestyan moved to stand in front of the closet and folded his arms behind his back. For the fourth time since he’d met Logan, time was his enemy. However, he was willing to wager the next ten minutes…would be the longest ten minutes he’d ever known.

***

Logan winced as she opened her eyes and pain wrapped burning fingers around her skull. Although the lights in the room were dim, she squinted against them anyway, wishing someone would plunge her back into the darkness.

In the darkness her body didn’t ache, her ears didn’t ring…and the only person standing around her was Kerestyan. No words passed between his soft lips. He just stood there next to her, proud and regal, as if somehow he always had been.

She only wished he was here with her now.

She sucked in a sharp breath and groaned as angry shouts cut through the chiming bells in her ears. As the words became more than loud, unintelligible growls, the fog clouding her eyes lifted, revealing all ten of her attackers standing around what appeared to be a rather nice living room.

But she wasn’t standing. She sat on a hard wooden chair, her upright position only maintained by the chains wrapped around her shoulders and chest, binding her to the tall ladder back. And they weren’t even cool, menacing chains; they were the thin, silver links used to keep a small dog in his yard. She scrunched up her face at the offense, realizing how stupid the action was the minute the cartilage forming the bridge of her nose crunched.

The bastards had broken her nose. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, the orbit of her left eye, a handful of ribs, a few fingers, her right arm…and her left leg.

She knew her body had already gone to work healing her internal injuries because her mouth wasn’t full of blood anymore, but she didn’t dare expend any more power than she involuntarily had. The last thing she wanted was to grow fangs and put herself on a twelve hour timetable with death.

Honestly, she’d had more than her share of deadlines over the last two weeks. All of which, strangely enough, seemed to shove her towards the sickle wielding Grim Reaper himself.

She looked up from her restraints as Frank’s angry voice filled her throbbing ears. “I don’t fuckin’ think this is a good idea any more, Craig. The bitch is awake. She’s gonna tell him where we are! He’s gonna kill all of us.”

If only.
If it were that easy to use telepathy, which she wasn’t nearly old enough to do yet, she’d have done it back in the subway and saved herself the disrespect of being bound to a chair with doggie chains.

Craig, or Shaggy as she preferred, flipped Frank the New York one-finger salute. “She’s not gonna tell him anything. And if she does,” he tapped a finger against his temple, “I’ll know. Calm the fuck down.” He turned and smiled at her. “She’s gonna tell us where his Lordship sleeps.”

Even though it hurt in ways she couldn’t begin to find words for, Logan laughed the most amused sound she could muster. “I wouldn’t tell you what I ate for breakfast, let alone where Kerestyan sleeps. Go fuck yourself, Shaggy.” She inclined her pounding head towards the tall, slimy-tongued blond, who stood only a few feet away. “And take Scooby Doo with you.”

Heavy applause and hearty laughter thundered through the room, causing the bell symphony to perform a frantic encore in Logan’s ears. She squeezed her eyes closed tight, trying to stave off the tide of nausea rising inside her.

“Now that was a great line,” a deep voice laughed.

Logan opened her eyes just in time to see Drake step out of a dark doorway across from where she sat. Half of his face scrunched up as he sucked a breath through his teeth. “Wow. They really did a number on you.”

Relief pounded a fast rhythm through every inch of Logan’s broken body. She had no clue how Drake had found her, no idea how he’d stepped out of a dark room, but she’d buy him as much beer as he could possibly drink if he took her back to Kerestyan.

She opened her mouth to tell him those exact words but stopped when she realized the room had gone silent. Disbelief and horror marked ten wide-eyed faces. Ten mouths gaped open, forty limbs trembled, and if their bodies still worked, she was sure ten pairs of pants would have turned dark yellow right in front of her very sober eyes.

When Logan slid her gaze back to Drake, he flashed a lopsided grin. “They all know who I am, and they also know what that means. You see,” he crossed his scarred arms over his chest and scanned the room, “I have a bit of a reputation in New York, among other places, for killing supernatural creatures the ‘powers that be’ don’t believe deserve to live any more. But someone thinks our fair Logan here…definitely deserves to keep breathing. So unless I hear any objections, I’m gonna take her, and we’re gonna leave.” He paused for no more than three seconds. “No?” He laughed. “I didn’t think so.”

With nothing more than the wave of Drake’s large hand, the chains binding Logan to the chair fell, tinkling against the hardwood floor. She fought to stay upright and did her best to smile up at him.

“Thanks for the save.”

“Sure thing.” He took a step forward, but stopped short when the tip of a blade punched through his neck, barely to the left of his Adam’s apple. A red glow flashed behind his blue eyes as every shadow in the room gained some kind of tangible substance. The black patches under the chairs and furniture writhed and mottled, reminding her instantly of Stefan’s wall.

Drake raised a finger and stared down at it for a second before he pushed the blade out the way it came in. He turned around to face Shaggy, whose eyes were glued to the boot knife lying on the floor. “You must be the brains of this operation.” He cast a glance over his shoulder at her. “This the leader?”

She nodded, watching as the wound in his neck disappeared under a shimmer of bronzed skin. “He’s the one who did all the talking.”

“Good enough.”

All at once, the shadows in the room came to life and wrapped around Craig, muffling his terrified screams.

“Oh, you think that’s bad?” Drake laughed at the dark cocoon. “Wait till you see where they take you.” He turned around and smiled at her again as the shadows vanished behind him. “Let’s try this again.”

She whimpered as he gently scooped her up, and then carefully adjusted her over his arms so her head could rest against his shoulder. “Can you take me to Kerestyan?”

He chuckled. “Considering he’s the guy who’s gonna put my house in Chicago on a Budweiser route, nothing would make me happier.” He turned and walked towards the dark room he’d entered through but paused and gave the nine Fledglings one last look. “None of you saw this. You never saw Logan, you never saw me, and you aren’t sure what happened to Craig. He said he was going out for some Necks, but never came back. New York doesn’t seem to be the place for you. You need a change of scenery. Atlanta sounds good. You’ll leave first thing tomorrow night.”

Logan tipped her head back to look up at Drake. “That’s how mental manipulation is done?”

“Yup. Well, I didn’t have to say the words out loud. I did that for your benefit, so you could hear with your own ears why they won’t be coming after you again.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded. “Not a problem. Close your eyes, keep them open. Whichever you choose – it’s about to get dark.”

She opted to keep her eyes open as Drake stepped through the doorway and her world plunged into darkness yet again. Staring straight ahead, she watched as the shadows cracked like a door, opening to a handsome face and an incredible pair of blue eyes.

There was no better sight than Kerestyan’s gorgeous smile. No better feel than his strong arms as they wrapped tight around her broken body. She buried her face into the side of his neck as tears stung her eyes. She’d been waiting for this moment, but hadn’t realized just how much she needed him until now.

There was nothing to wax poetic about.

No poems about love wrote themselves in her mind.

She needed him the way she needed oxygen. No more, no less.

His warm lips seared her ear. “I’m sorry I wasn’t the one who saved you, but we didn’t know where you were. I thought I lost you…”

Even though ever fiber of her body protested the movement, she leaned back and smiled at him. “It’s okay.” She tilted her head and brushed her lips across his. “I didn’t know where I was either.”

His chest rumbled against hers, making her body ache in an entirely different way before he pressed a kiss to her lips. A soft, breath stealing kiss that wrapped a warm, fuzzy blanket around the animal inside her and for the first time in a long time, made her feel whole.

“Break it up you horny teenagers. Bones needs her bones fixed.”

When Odin’s happy voice filled the air and Kerestyan broke from her mouth, Logan coughed out a laugh. He always seemed to interrupt at the precise moment something good was happening. “We were having a moment, Odin.”

“Yeah, I’ll write Kodak about it tomorrow,” he grumbled. “Kerestyan, lie her on the desk,
alone
. Raze, do your voodoo.”

“I’m so going to Hell,” a whisky, feminine voice laughed.

Logan smiled as Kerestyan gently placed her on top of what she assumed was the desk Odin mentioned, then sat down next to her but refused to relinquish her hand. “Not very good at following directions, are you, Lord Vampire?”

He smiled down at her. “Not when they come from my brother.”

What if they come from his sister?
Anger shot through Logan’s veins in response to the thought just as a woman with crazy colored hair and purple eyes appeared next to Kerestyan.

“Hi, Logan. I’m Raze, Kerestyan’s Head of Enforcement. Don’t mind me,” she slipped her warm hands under Logan’s sweater, “I’m just going to heal you. It won’t take long.” Before she even finished the sentence, a spire of heat shot through Logan’s body, leaving her feeling not only good, but a little tingly.

“Wow,” Logan breathed. “That was fast.”

Raze laughed rather loud. “Yeah, that’s what Odin said.”

“Hey! That doesn’t make me sound very good.”

“That’s fucking priceless. The next time you make my big ass walk out of a closet, don’t be surprised if I hand you a bottle of little blue pills.”

Ignoring the closet and little blue pill comment, which she had to admit were funny, Logan focused on Kerestyan. “We need to talk about Trinity. Did you—”

“Damn it,” he growled. “I forgot to inform her. I’m sorry. I’ll do it now.”

Logan jumped off the desk and glared at him. “No! Don’t you tell your lying bitch of a sister anything. Larry told her about me months ago, Kerestyan. She even told him she held me over the toilet while I puked my way through withdrawal!”

“She what?” Kerestyan and Odin barked, in unison.

“I don’t know how she did it,” Logan said. “But she set us up so we’d be in the alley at the same time. I also think she had something to do with Shaggy and his cronies kicking my ass. He had a picture on his cell phone of us standing outside the convenience store the night we met. Well, not his cell phone,” she corrected. “It belonged to some guy named Frank.”

Kerestyan rounded the desk and moved to stand in front of her, his face pale twisted with more anger than she’d ever seen. He took both of her hands in his. “Are you confident in the words you speak?”

She nodded. “I’m more than confident. I don’t think Larry realized what he was saying, but as soon as he mentioned Trinity helping me through withdrawal everything started to add up. That’s why I was down in the subway. I was on my way here to tell you what she’d done.”

He frowned. “Why didn’t you wait and come with Larry?”

“Because he wasn’t going to your penthouse, he was on his way to the Estate.”

He looked as confused as she felt. “We’re in my office at the Estate right now, Logan. Larry never arrived for Court.”

“Oh.” She cast a glance around the large room, which looked no different than what she’d expect to find in his penthouse. “I thought we were in one of the other rooms in your home.” She eyed the dark mahogany desk and black leather chairs. “When you find a style you like, you really stick with it, don’t you?”

“Good God you are such a Nelek already,” Raze laughed. “The woman’s in the middle of a crisis and she stops to make an offhanded comment about her surroundings.” She shook her head and blinked a few times. “It’s gotta be the blood, which is exactly why I’m leaving now.” She jabbed a polished black fingernail in Kerestyan’s direction, which Logan immediately wanted to tear off. “I told you this had Lord Evil’s bloody signature all over it. Next time, listen to me.” Then,
without
the wind’s assistance, she disappeared.

Logan stared at the now empty space. “Can everybody in this room disappear but me?”

“Yup,” Drake said with a smile. “It was a pleasure saving you, Logan, but I’m gonna check out. I have to go to Detroit in the morning and kill some people. Good luck all.” He exited stage closet.

She gazed back up at Kerestyan, whose blue eyes were narrowed and thoughtful. She could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know about you two,” Odin laughed, “but I’m gonna go kick me some six thousand year old Nelek ass.” He frowned as a gust of cold wind whipped across the room. “Kerestyan, is that yours?” His blacked out eyes went wide. “Oh shit!”

Less than a second later, the icy winds of oblivion claimed her and Kerestyan, too.