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.

Chapter 23

“Welcome home, all of you.”

Kerestyan bowed his head as his Father’s amused voice echoed through the stone chamber. He’d fully expected to appear here, knowing the moment Odin asked if the winds were his, they were being summoned home.

Truthfully, he wasn’t surprised.

Raze had been right all along. Logan’s situation most certainly bore his Father’s signature. Kerestyan just wasn’t sure how elegantly the name had been written. The chances of Logan being a pawn on the immortal chessboard were slim at best. Never, in all the years of his existence, had he witnessed a match involving a human.

Vampires, werewolves and Paladins, yes.

But never a human.

Kerestyan smiled as Logan’s small, warm hand curled around his in a tender gesture that made his chest tighten. He turned his head to where she stood on his left and gazed down into her emerald eyes. While the distance hadn’t faded, something soft flickered deep behind them each time she stared up at him. He wouldn’t be so bold as to call what he saw love, but it was more than they had before her training began.