Soul Resurrected (Sons of Wrath, #2) (48 page)

Xander followed at his heels.

Logan’s eyes adjusted to the darkness as he searched the ground level. His pulse raced at the sight of her duffle bag sitting at the foot of a staircase, and he bolted up them, bursting through the door at the top.

Pasty white chunks of flesh dotted the cement around a much larger, hardly human mass, all smothered in blood; its bald head bore a gaping hole.

Logan’s heart galloped, his eyes flickered back and forth and his fingernails dug into his clenched palm. He stepped past the creature and stalked toward the corner. Piled on the floor, lay ravaged human bodies. Drained. His lip curled.

At a shout from the level above, Logan scrambled away and up the stairs. He slammed through a door, cranking it right off the hinges.

Xander struggled in a bear-hug grasp provided by the bounty hunter.

Logan charged toward the hunter and hit it like a linebacker, knocking Xander free, sending the hunter flying through the air. Concrete cracked beneath its slammed impact, creating a crater of shattered cement.

Diving atop him, Logan straddled the hunter, and Xander shot in from the right, sliding his arms beneath its raised head.

The hunter writhed beneath Logan’s hold, snapped a limb free, and its blow to Logan’s chest hurled him across the room.

He smashed into the wall.

Drywall crumbled all around him.

Shaking off the stars, Logan narrowed his eyes on the beast across from him.

Xander yanked at its neck. His fingers probed beneath the black shell covering its face, as though looking for some kind of weak spot. Like armor, once breached, the bounty hunter could be killed—the difficulty was in removing the carapace.

As the beast swiped his claws through the air toward Xander, Logan shot to his feet and barreled toward them once more. The hunter’s body thrashed when he leaped onto its midsection, more so when he lodged his fingers beneath a groove in the mask that separated the neck from the head. Logan plucked his dagger from his boot, and as he jabbed the blade into the skinny crevice, the escalated wild bucking between his thighs made for a difficult ride.

The carapace finally cracked, and Logan rammed his fingers inside. A sticky wet substance dribbled down his hand and wrist, and his muscles trembled with the effort of tugging.

As a ripping sound accompanied the dislodging of the armor, the hunter roared. Soft yellow flesh surrounding black beady eyes stared back at Logan. Parts of its face had been torn away with the mask, and black blood trickled downward, pooling in the grooves left behind and the opened orifice the screams rang out from.

Xander pulled back on its crown, exposing its neck, and Logan raised his dagger, but paused.

“He won’t tell you anything, Logan. Kill him.”

Still, something inside of Logan hesitated. The hunter was his only link to where he might find Calla.

Black spray shot into Logan’s face as Xander’s dagger sliced across the hunter’s throat.

Logan’s heart seized, and he clutched the sickness churning in his stomach. “No!” He stared down at the small glimmer of life fading from the beast’s eyes. “Fuck! She’s gone. She’s fucking gone.”

* * *

Grunting awoke Calla.

Sharp pain tugged at her thigh, like a powerful vacuum, tingling with each pull.

She opened her eyes.

Through a blurry veil of tears, the purple of her room faded in and out like a flashing light. Every muscle in her body burned alongside her fight to remain conscious.

Her head lolled to the side. A rusted bike lock encased in dirty plastic bound her arms to the bedposts. She yanked at the binds. No give. Against the weakness in her neck, she forced her head to the side.

Her breath hitched.

Sprawled naked on the bed, with her hands and legs bound, she watched with horror as Draven’s head bobbed at her thigh. Moans and caresses to her leg made her stomach lurch.

An outcry died in her throat at the slurping and tug of her vein.

“Your taste … so exquisite …” His words vibrated against her skin, fangs still lodged in her flesh. He, too, seemed naked, from what she could see of him, as he crouched between her splayed thighs. “Can’t … stop … so good.”

She jerked at the brush of his cold fingertips against her exposed sex. The edges of her view closed in. Fading. The room swayed. “Draven … please.” Her voice arrived weak, slurred. Shadows crawled across the ceiling. She gasped with the contraction in her lungs as she struggled for breath. “Draven …”

“Can’t … the taste.”

A brief moment of blackness claimed her before she forced her eyes open again.

Lifted from her flesh and face smeared in blood, Draven beat his hands against his head before her lids fluttered closed once more.

“Calla?” He clambered to beside her and stroked her face. “Oh, no, Calla. Wake up.”

Her lids protested, heavy, calling her to sleep as darkness reached for her. Much as she concentrated on the present, she could sense the shadows swarming over her.

“Calla! I’m going to save you. Stay still. You’ll be fine, okay? Don’t you worry.”

Draven’s words drifted like a bottled message out to sea. In them, held something important, but the comfort of oblivion held too much allure.

A sharp piercing pain hit her neck. Liquid ice seemed to crystalize in her veins. She stiffened at the sensation as it spread throughout her body, and with a cry, arched up off the bed.

Shadows on the wall peeled away as distorted faces that smiled wickedly.

The beating of her heart pounded in her ears—the sound of her own blood rushing through her veins.

Sinking.

She fell deeper into a black spiral, until at last, it swallowed her.

* * *

Logan burst through his bedroom door. Faint citrus scent hit his nose and he breathed it in to every fiber of his body.

“
Fuck
!” His voice bellowed in the dark, empty room.

He drilled his fist into the wall, withdrawing his bloody hand from the gaping hole left behind. Tiny vibrations wracked his body and a cold, clammy sensation had him wavering on his feet.

He stalked to his bed, lifted the sheets to his face and inhaled, holding them against him as if it was Calla who lay in his arms.

He and Xander had scoured the building and the surrounding abandoned shitholes looking for her. No Calla. As if she’d up and disappeared.

Or something more cunning than a bounty hunter had taken her.

In that case?
Dead, motherfucker
. He wouldn’t even give the son of a bitch the mercy of a quick kill. The bastard had just scored its ass a first class ticket to Logan’s house of pain.

He’d only stopped the search when Xander convinced him to come home, to be there in case she came back to him. Home—the place didn’t feel right without her.

A frigid spike pierced his heart and he clutched his chest, knowing damn well what caused the trauma—the unrelenting ache of a bonded male.

“Would you kill for me?” The woman’s voice bit into his conscious.

He turned to face her. “What?”

“You’d kill for me, right?” Her fingertip trailed down his arm and she kissed his shoulder. “Feel that? We’re bonded, lover. You’re my protector.”

“Never call me lover again.” He turned back to his side, away from her.

She chuckled. “You play hard to get. Your father was the same way.” Another kiss fell against his arm. “When the time comes, I trust your instincts.”

“Are you anticipating trouble?”

“The shadow of trouble always lurks behind sinners like me.” Another chuckle. “You will understand. One day, you will.”

Logan forced himself to close his eyes, but only visions of the bounty hunter or one of those pasty bastards hurting Calla infiltrated his thoughts.

Nothing could be worse than being at the torturing hands of a bounty hunter, though, and Logan’d personally watched the beastly fuck die. ‘Sides that, Calla had escaped it once—proving that she possessed the survival skills most females lacked. If the past few days had shown him anything about her, it was that under all the sweet and shyness she carted around like mask, she was a fighter, fierce and determined.

Though, much as he tried to convince himself she’d be okay out there, his racing thoughts brought little comfort.

Motherfucker
.

He should’ve reveled in the fact that his brother Zeke had been brought home safe—messed up as all hell, but safe. Instead, the agony of loss slowly consumed him from the inside, tearing him apart.

Not my mate
, he told himself, as he clutched his batterfucked skull. Two days ago, he’d have left her to die.

Logan strode from the bed. After a peek outside his door, he snuck down the hall to Zayne’s room.

A hard knock, and Zayne answered the door, his pupils dilated.

Damn, did Logan want to look like that?
No
.

Either that, though, or visions of Calla being tortured running through his mind all night. “Hey … I need something.”

His brother cocked a brow, as if somewhere deep inside of the zombie a soul still lived. He jerked his head, permitting entry.

Christ, if Logan considered his own room dark, it didn’t compare to Zayne’s. Every corner screamed death and mourning. Pictures of Shey stood on every open space, illuminated by candles.

The need for air tugged at Logan’s lungs, as if he’d suffocate in all the darkness and grief. “Quick.”

Zayne rummaged through a bag beneath his bed. He returned to Logan, hand outstretched, holding a vial and syringe. “A couple cc’s at a time, my man. Or you might never come back.”

“How many do you take?”

A crooked grin stretched across his face. Brother was creepy as hell, like he could see everything. Knew everything. “I’m searching for the point of no return.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “You’re gonna see some fucked up things. Shit’s a lot harder than the street stuff. Just know, none of it’s real. Even if it
feels
real.”

After heading back to his own room and shutting himself inside, Logan sat at the edge of the bed. The cat leapt beside him and purred. It pushed in for a petting, but only allowed a single stroke of its fur before it pounced back to the floor and slipped beneath the bed. Looking back to the vial, Logan shook it to agitate the black fluid inside.

He never imagined he’d have that shit flowing through his veins again, but too much of Calla resided inside of him—he needed something to smother the images or risk falling prey to them.

Dipping the needle into the vial, he drew up two cc’s of the fluid into the syringe and tapped the outside of it. Logan balled his hand into a tight fist until a vein protruded from his arm and jabbed the needle into it without flinching.

Warmth spread through his body. The room morphed.

His eyes grew heavy.

He lay back on the bed.

CHAPTER 38

Cold. So cold. Shivering, Calla opened her eyes and peered down to find blankets covering her body. Every muscle burned, and her head pounded as though her brain might explode through her skull at any moment.

Nausea tickled her stomach, and forcing herself to take shallow breaths to keep from puking, she rolled her head to the side.

The remnants of daylight radiated from behind the shades of the window. How long had she slept?

Another chill shot through her spine, and she tugged at the resistance of her arms and legs. Still tied. She wanted to curl into herself, to ward off the invasion of her sudden malady. Alexi didn’t get sick.

Floating circles filled her eyes and even the faint glow filtering in burned her sockets.

Sharp agony struck Calla’s stomach, as if she’d been sliced open and left to bleed out.

Draven’s face blocked her view of the ceiling. “Calla? Oh, thank fuck, you’re alive!” He lifted her head in an embrace.

“What happened?” Intense heat flared in her throat, rasping her voice. “Did I sleep?”

“You’ve been asleep for the last day.” He tipped his head and smiled as he stroked her hair. “I thought I’d lost you. You went comatose.”

Calla glanced away from him. The glow behind the shade had begun to fade, but despite the dimming light, everything arrived in perfect clarity.

Her gaze trailed the ceiling. The faint glisten of a spider web caught her eye, and she somehow sensed the vibrations inside her chest cavity while a trapped fly scrambled to get free as her hearing captured the scraping of its body against the threads. A moldy scent tickled her nose. Even the scratch of the sheets against her skin left her writhing beneath the blankets. Calla swallowed dryness to ease the swelling in her throat and sunk into the pillow. “Oh, God, what’s happening?”

“It’s alright, Calla. You’ll be alright.” Draven leaned forward, kissed her cheek.