by D. N. Hoxa
“Thanks,” was all he said. Not even a smile. “Any luck on finding anything about those things?”
Ugh. I hadn’t even thought to look. I took my phone and unlocked it. Thankfully, the battery was almost full after having charged it at the cafe. “I don’t even know what to search for. Can’t really type demonic dog that doesn’t die on Google.”
Logan came to sit next to me on the bed. His hair looked darker now that it was wet, and paired with the look in his eyes that almost shone yellow, he was a sight better left unseen for now. So I moved my eyes away.
“Try Anubis,” he said. “I read something in the library about the god who looks like a black dog. Might be worth a shot.”
I happily obliged. It only took Google two seconds to show me everything it knew.
Anubis was the god of the dead. Seemed fitting. But he also didn’t exactly look like the creatures who’d attacked us. He had the body of a man and the head of a jackal, which was closer to those creatures than a dog. Just to see the drawn picture on the screen made me shiver.
“Whoever took the high priests sent them after us,” Logan said.
“Because we’re trying to find Nana,” I said in wonder. “But how the hell would he know?”
As soon as I asked the question, I squeezed my eyes shut as the answer hit me right in the face.
“He saw you at Gwendolyn Love’s Enclave,” Logan said, and I nodded.
“He must have, though I couldn’t see him. Just his silhouette.”
“What interests me more is where he found those creatures and how good his control over them is,” Logan said.
“What if he made them?” I wondered out loud. “If he’s using Egyptian runes…I don’t know. They say pretty much everything is possible with them—for a price.”
“What kind of price would someone have to pay to make a living creature?”
I turned the screen of my phone off and sighed. This wasn’t helping me. It was just freaking me out more.
“I almost feel like they weren’t alive, just shells. It would explain why they didn’t die. I cut one’s stomach completely, and all its insides fell on my feet.” Hopefully the goo would come off my poor sneakers in the wash.
“It’s possible. I’ve asked my friends in Washington about it. If someone knows something, they’ll find out.”
I nodded. The more information we had, the better off we’d be. If we knew what to expect, it wouldn’t be so bad. “At least they can’t get to us here.”
“We should rest,” Logan said, but he made no attempt to stand up. In fact, he was looking at me like he was expecting me to ask him to stay. But I couldn’t do that.
“Right. You can take any room. I’ll keep watch for a few hours then wake you up. If the MM comes, we need to run.”
Still, he didn’t move.
“Look at me,” he said, and like a fool, I raised my head and met his eyes. I wasn’t wearing my eye patch and suddenly, I felt naked. I didn’t like people looking at my eye. It reminded me of what I’d lost—so much more than just half my vision—and when I’d lost it. Avery and I used to joke and say we were soul mates. Well, it had felt like I lost a part of my soul that night, and it still did.
“Logan, it’s late,” I said, a lame attempt to get him to come to his senses. But his eyes burned with fire different than the flames that engulfed his hands when he used his magic.
“I don’t care.” He put his hands around my hips and pulled me until I was face-to-face with him.
And what did I do? I just let him.
“I do. We need to rest. We have no idea what will happen tomorrow.”
He brought his hand to my face again. His fingers touched my cheek ever so lightly, just a ghost of a touch, and then he ran them over my wet hair. I was paralyzed, couldn’t even imagine moving away. Had I been deprived of intimacy for such a long time that I found it impossible to say no to a man, or was it just Logan?
A look at his eyes and I knew that it was just him. I’d never been much of a hugger, but right now, I couldn’t think of anything better than to be in his arms. Everything I thought I knew was falling apart, and I had no idea what to expect of the next day, even the next hour, and he seemed to be the only constant. An anchor, keeping me grounded.
“Tomorrow, someone else might try to kill us, and if we don’t survive that, we’ll never be here again.” He put his hand on my thigh. He burned me, though he wasn’t using his magic.
I should have pushed him away, called to the rational part of my mind. I should have made him leave, but I was just so tired of doing what I didn’t want to do.
“What else?” I asked, looking at his hand as it moved down to my knee, then up again. “You said you didn’t find me just amusing. What else do you find me?”
He didn’t even need to think about it. “Brave. Impulsive. Very passionate.” His other hand slowly touched my chin and pulled my head up so I would look at him. “Your humor is decent, though it could use a little work.”
I laughed. “If my humor is only decent, how come you either smile or laugh every time I tell a joke?” I wasn’t exactly sure if that was true, but I figured it was worth a shot.
“Yep. Smart, too,” he said, and leaned closer to me, slowly.
My heart almost beat out of my chest. I grabbed his hand that was still holding my chin up, and I squeezed. “Logan, this isn’t going to end well.” We were doomed from the very beginning, and he knew it.
Instead of stopping, he put one arm around my waist and pulled me right on his lap. One second I was on the bed, and the next, he was everywhere, and I could do nothing but look at him in awe. It wasn’t fair how he moved. It wasn’t fair that my body refused to cooperate.
“It’s going to end exactly like it should,” he said and pulled me close to his body. His arms were secured around my waist, and it didn’t feel like he was going to let go anytime soon. It messed with my head even more. I looked down at his face, just inches away from mine, his swollen-looking lips whispering words of magic unknown to the world, but I understood them perfectly. His eyes shone yellow with a low burning fire, the heat slipping into my skin, sneaking right into my chest.
“We shouldn’t do this. When this is over, one of us is probably going to kill the other.” I wished he’d hear me. I wished I’d hear myself.
“Ruby, you’re going to kill me right now if you don’t kiss me.”
That was all it took to make my pathetic excuse of self-control disappear completely. My eyes closed even before I realized what I was doing, and I brought my lips to his.
I don’t know if it was the fact that he was a Pyro as I’d never kissed a Pyro before, but our lips touched and my mind exploded, spreading heat through every inch of me, consuming me completely. His hands moved to my head, and he held me in place as he breathed in deeply, searing this moment in my mind forever. My arms wrapped around his neck and I slid closer to him, needing to feel him against every part of me. And when he pried my lips open and kissed me again, I felt like I’d never been truly kissed before. My legs wrapped around his hips and my feet locked, all thought of holding back gone now. I wanted to be pressed against him every second. I needed his lips as much as I needed to breathe. He kissed me like he meant to devour me completely, like he wanted to quench a thirst he knew he couldn’t quench, almost violently, and I did the same. I held onto him like he was the life I’d always wanted to live and explored his back with my hands under his shirt, his smooth skin, his hard muscles. God, how I wished I had the patience to pull away just so I could take his clothes off. His erection in between my legs made me yearn in ways I never had before, but I didn’t question it. I just wanted my skin against his, everywhere, all at once, and I didn’t care who found us. If my time had come, this was the most magnificent way to die I could think of.
I didn’t even notice when he moved, only felt it when my back hit the soft bed. He fell on top of me and a moan escaped my lips, one he devoured the next second with his hungry mo
uth. His hands moved up and down my body, leaving trails of fire on my skin, making me wish I hadn’t bothered to put on those stupid clothes. And when his hand found a way under my shirt, I cried out. He growled as he kissed my jaw, my neck, moving against me in a slow, steady rhythm, driving me insane.
I pulled the tight shirt up his back, desperate to take it off him completely.
“Fuck, you’re delicious,” Logan whispered, bringing his lips up to mine again. “So fucking delicious, Ruby.”
“Take it off,” I demanded. His shirt was in the way—and mine, too. But when he tried to pull away to take off his shirt, I couldn’t let him. Couldn’t figure out how to unwrap my arms from around his neck. Just a second longer, just another kiss.
And…my phone chimed.
Who cared who it was? Nothing could even come close to what I was feeling right now, and I never wanted it to end.
But what if it was the hacker?
What if he’d found the people in the picture?
My heart lay still for a long second, and my body followed suit.
Logan noticed. He stopped kissing me. I opened my eye and saw his, mad with desire, almost like he’d gone completely insane.
We both had.
My God, I couldn’t believe it. I’d lost myself completely, had forgotten who I was, what I’d gone through. When you cared for someone, when someone changed the rhythm of your heartbeat, it was no longer about you. Nothing was about you, and that was the most dangerous thing in the world.
Because people left. People died. We lost them all the time.
And I already knew that Logan was lost to me. He would be a stranger and enemy the moment we found Nana. I knew that, and yet here I was lying down, wide open to his affection, not thinking about what it was going to be like when it ended. How much it was going to hurt.
Yes, we lost people all the time, and I would lose Logan, too. It would hurt but not as much if I didn’t have all of him in the first place.
“It’s the hacker,” I said when I found my voice, dry and scratchy. “Let me up.”
Logan’s brows narrowed, and his eyes suddenly lost the fire and turned desperate.
“Ruby,” he breathed, but I couldn’t. How could I jump when I knew I was going to hit the ground hard, headfirst?
“Please, Logan. Just let me up,” I begged. Apparently I had no self-control when it came to him, and who knew what I’d do if he pressed? He couldn’t do that to me. I couldn’t allow myself to lose another person, or I was going to lose myself, too.
Logan stood up. Two seconds, and I already missed the heat of his body, which showed exactly how dangerous what we’d done was. I couldn’t do this to myself. I was putting a stop to it right now, no matter how much it hurt.
I refused to look up at him and instead looked at the phone. It was the hacker, but I wasn’t nearly as happy to see what he’d sent as I thought I would be.
“He’s found information on all of them, except two. He sent over addresses, too,” I said, trying to at least sound excited.
“Great,” Logan said, his voice completely devoid of emotion.
“We can go speak to them tomorrow,” I said, going through the four addresses the hacker had sent. The two men he had found nothing on were complete strangers to me, too, and the address of Christopher Ford was missing as well. But I wasn’t going to need him if I could get to the others.
“We will,” he said coldly.
I put the phone down and looked up at him. I felt sorry for the confusion, the sadness I saw in his eyes, but he had to know that it was better this way. You can’t lose what you never had, right?
“You can go rest. I’ll keep watch,” I said in half a voice.
Finally, he stretched his lips into a smile that made my stomach turn. “You go to sleep. I’ll wake you,” he said and walked out the door without looking back.
Tears in my eye. “Goodnight, Logan,” I said and covered my eyes with my hand. I wasn’t going to cry now. It was done.
“Goodnight, Ruby,” he called from the hallway.
I lay down and closed my eyes, desperate to escape into sleep. If someone decided to barge in, the Guard would wake me, anyway.
14
Logan woke me up at five in the morning so he could get some rest, too. We left Nana’s Enclave at nine a.m., both of us surprised that nobody had come looking for us. Both of us were too shy to even look the other in the eye, although I suspected Logan was more angry than shy. Which in turn made me angry, too. The way we’d ended things the night before was still fresh in my mind. I remembered the reason why it had ended like that just as clearly as I remembered his lips on mine. His body against mine. The way he’d said my name, like I was the only woman he’d ever craved.
Very distracting, which was why I was trying really hard not to think about it. Once we left the Enclave, we kept our heads down and walked fast to the east, until we were a good distance away. I didn’t notice anyone watching us suspiciously, but one could never be too sure. Though we were walking side by side, wearing the same clothes as the day before, only clean, and with the same goal in our minds, it felt different to be with him now. Almost like someone had stolen our connection, and it probably had something to do with the fact that neither of us would speak.
We had our list of names and addresses from Virtual Disease X. Logan had wired him the other half of the money, and now we were going to go knocking on all their doors until someone could tell us what the hell was going on. One of them had to know who this kidnapping, Egyptian-rune-using asshole was. It was obvious that all the people in that picture were targets. One of them was going to tell me who they’d wronged in the past, who would want to hurt all of them at the same time, and why. And then, I was going to set a trap for that asshole. It would be easy, hopefully, once I knew what he really was after.
“I’ve been thinking about who this guy could be,” I said to Logan, determined to break the ice because I couldn’t stand to spend the entire day avoiding looking at him and not speaking at all. We weren’t dead, and only the dead didn’t speak. “He’s powerful, that much is clear, and knowledgeable enough to use Egyptian runes for spells. He’s probably very old.”
“Whoever he is, he’s better than the high priests of this city,” Logan said with a dry tone.
“Not necessarily better, but smarter. He knew how to catch them by surprise, at least.”
“No magian is a true high priest of magic if he can be caught by surprise,” he said, and it almost sounded like he was reciting a written law.
I tried to joke. “Let me guess—you were never caught by surprise.” I rolled my eye, too, so he could see my good one and know that I was being sarcastic.
It didn’t bother him, though. “Oh, I have. Just recently, in fact.”
Right. “You mean the dog creatures last night.” A shiver washed down my back, and I almost leaned away when I remembered two big black jaws snapping right in front of my face. Hopefully we’d never run into those monsters again.
“I mean you,” said Logan calmly.
My mouth opened to speak, but I couldn’t make myself say anything. Because I knew what he meant. I had never attacked him except in Gwendolyn’s Enclave when we first met.
Suddenly, I no longer wanted to speak.
“Have you thought about what you’re going to say to these people?” Logan asked after a while.
Thankful for the change in subject, I nodded.
“I’m going to tell them what’s happened and ask about their time in the Enclave. What they did and who their enemies were,” I said reluctantly. It wasn’t the best of plans, but I would have to start somewhere.
The first person we were going to see was Miranda Giorgio, who lived in the West End. Two others lived on the other side of the River and another in New York. That’s if the addresses the hacker found were correct. The only way to know would be to go to them. I’d try calling, but that would give them a chance to escape if they didn’t want to talk to me
, and I couldn’t give them that option. The West End was close enough, but for the others we were going to have to find a ride. Maybe even rent a car. Hopefully Miranda Giorgio would tell us everything we needed to know, and we wouldn’t have to waste the day.
“What makes you so sure they’ll tell you?” Logan asked. He did have a point.
“I’ll beat it out of them,” I said with a shrug. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ll try talking to them first, but if they refuse to share, I’m going to introduce them to my babies.” I showed him my wrists and the four gold-colored chakris around them.
“How do you not cut yourself with them?” Logan asked.
I grinned. “I’ve had these for more than five years now. I’m used to turning them from sharp to round and back every time I pull them on and off my wrists. I’ve bled from them far too many times, and my body remembers the pain all too well. I no longer even have to think about it.”
When Nana gave the chakris to me, I almost cried. It was the most perfect birthday gift an eighteen year old like me could have asked for. It took me some time to learn how to use them, but Nana was a pretty great teacher. Especially since she made me wear a blindfold every time I trained with them. When she let me go without it, I sucked balls because I wasn’t used to using sight to aim. I’d had two eyes then, and Avery cheering for me, telling me what a badass I was, and how much ass I was going to kick ass one day. Good times.
“Well, your plan sucks,” Logan said after a minute. “So I’ll do the talking.” It was so final, I was tempted to say yes, master, and lower my head.
“No, you won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t like talking, for one. And people don’t like talking to you.”
“You seem to be just fine in that department.”
How dare he?
“Remember Hailey? She didn’t even want to look at you before I made you pretend to be a horse for her,” I reminded him.
“She was a kid! Kids don’t generally like to talk to strangers. She didn’t want to talk to you, either. You basically forced her.”
