Dark Secrets: A Paranormal Romance Anthology

by Colleen Gleason

  By the time he noticed he’d sprouted a tail, he couldn’t think at all. The roiling pain and the expansion of his body took all his concentration. He needed to get bigger, but something was blocking him, holding him in. With a roar and a stretch, the thing around him shattered and he reared up, flapping the gigantic red wings that had sprouted from his back.

  Logan had no idea what he’d turned into, but if the taloned paws, spiked tail, and red scales were any indication, it was dragonlike and humungous. He practically filled the cavern they were in.

  Clumsily, he gathered Polina into his paws. His talon tore her dress, but he managed to cradle her and her familiar in his scaly red palms. He used his back legs to walk them out of there. At the opening, he stepped into the snow, the icy wind coursing over his scales. The sky held the bright pink and purple hues of a recently departed sun.

  The night sky invited him to be part of it as sure as if a hand reached out from the clouds to welcome him. He smiled, his lips drawing against unfamiliar fangs. She’d given him the air. The element surged in and out of his lungs, strengthening him. The night opened like a fast friend, and he spread his wings and flew.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Mortal Beloved

  Polina had doubted he could do it at first. Surely flying was something that took practice, especially while holding a dying woman in your hands. But Logan slipped into the sky like he was a piece of the night. He’d transformed into a beast that could be described as a red dragon, although caretakers usually had a decidedly more doggish appearance in the face, and he was no exception. Along with tufts of golden hair that grew out between his scales, dragonlike did not equate to dragon. He was beautiful, magical, and completely deadly.

  She smiled at the curve of his chest that merged into the long, graceful neck. The tips of his wings were barely visible in her peripheral vision. A flashback to King Kong came to her. She was Ann Darrow, clutched in the claws of her own personal monster.

  A raucous of howls and breaking bones came from below, and her stomach dropped as Logan descended. He landed on the edge of the clearing in front of Renegade Caverns. The lack of noise he produced, his large body gracefully slipping between the trees, was almost miraculous. He set her down at the base of a beech tree and sniffed her face. With Hildegard nestled in her arm, she placed a hand on the side of his giant leather nose.

  “Go save Silas. I won’t be able to help you. I’m sorry.” The nostrils snorted, blowing her hair back. Logan pulled away and silently coiled through the forest toward the Renegade Caverns clearing.

  At first, she resolved to stay where she was, but curiosity got the best of her. She pulled herself up on a tree trunk and limped toward the clearing, using the trees to prop herself up and cradling Hildegard in one arm. After what felt like miles but was surely much less, she could see the pack.

  Silas had already shifted and his black wolf lay like a sacrifice across the totem she’d seen Alex stand on yesterday night. The thick chains crisscrossed the wolf’s neck and chest, threading through openings in the sides of the carved wood. Silas’s black wolf seemed resolved to his fate, staring straight ahead and waiting peacefully for his end.

  Alex had already shifted as well. Polina assumed this had to do with the age and experience of the werewolf, because the younger wolves still writhed in agony under the full moon. The red alpha paced the clearing, waiting for the masses to finish shifting, the amulet hanging from his neck like a dog tag. Where was Logan?

  With a yelp, Alex’s body lifted from the ground and twisted in the air. The amulet glowed red, and Logan appeared, hovering over the clearing. He spit out Alex like a bitter pill, his dragonlike head and body shedding invisibility as if he’d been wearing the night as a cloak. Alex lowered his growling snarl. His ears flattened against the sides of his head.

  With a roar worthy of a massive reptilian beast, Logan’s talon sliced through the chains holding Silas. The black wolf came to life, squirmed from the totem. He charged into the woods behind the dragon. The other wolves gave Logan plenty of room as he positioned his spiked body between Alex and Silas.

  She couldn’t be sure, but she thought Alex’s wolfie features looked surprised. But then, there was no way the werewolf could have foreseen that Polina would have prepped Logan with the caretaker spell. A dark heart such as his wouldn’t expect or understand a spell based on true love.

  The amulet glowed again and Logan hopped back as if he’d been burned. Rearing, he took to the sky, flying straight up as Alex leapt and snapped and sparks flew from the amulet. But Logan’s dragon scales repelled the worst of the onslaught. He circled above them, coiling like a snake with its tail in a trap, and with the speed of a rattler’s bite, snapped jaws on the back of Alex’s neck. The amulet glowed again, but whatever Alex meant to do didn’t seem to happen. Logan’s teeth severed the chain and the amulet dropped to the dirt.

  Massive jaws flipped the red wolf deeper into the beast’s mouth. Logan shook Alex like a rag doll until his wolf body let out a loud snap and the red wolf yelped in pain. Had he broken the werewolf’s spine? It certainly looked that way. The alpha’s legs dangled listlessly from Logan’s teeth. And there was blood. Lots of it.

  With a flurry of flapping, Logan carried the wolf away and disappeared into the night sky. Silas didn’t waste a second. He scooped up the amulet in his jaws, then jumped on top of the carved pack totem. This must have had social significance among the pack because all the other wolves lowered their heads. No challengers approached Silas, but Alex had built his pack out of the weakest, most submissive pack members, whose alphas he’d murdered. As far as Polina could tell, the entire pack welcomed Silas’s leadership. With thirty werewolves bowing in a circle around him, Silas dropped the amulet between his paws, raised his head, and howled.

  Polina smiled weakly. She was so tired. Her pallor made the skin over her boney fingers seem to glow in the dark. She looked down at Hildegard in the crook of her arm and gasped. The owl hadn’t been conscious in hours but for the first time, Polina couldn’t detect a breath or a heartbeat.

  “No…No… Hildie!” She shook the bird gently. The owl didn’t respond.

  Polina ached to her bones, but she forced herself through the woods, hooking her free hand on the trees to help herself along. The house was just over a mile from the caverns, but what used to be a short stroll felt like a jungle trek. She pushed herself, desperate to get to her spell book and help Hildegard.

  When she reached Aurorean House, Nicodemus sailed down from the gables to meet her. “What has happened, my lady?” he asked.

  “Help me to the door,” she pleaded.

  The gargoyle scooped her up and bound to the front stoop.

  “Thank you.” She wriggled down and placed a hand on his cheek. “Good and faithful servant, guard the house well tonight. No one but Logan gets in.”

  “Logan? The human male?”

  “He is no longer human.”

  The gargoyle nodded his head. Polina navigated the house to her bedroom. She fell through the cheval mirror and stumbled to the center of her most magical space. Unable to conjure a bed, she collapsed on the floor of the room of reflection and looked up at the ceiling. She was a corpse, skeletal and nearly bald. Hildegard was featherless and motionless in her arms.

  Hot tears stung the corners of her eyes.

  “Please don’t die, Hildie. I’m not giving up on you. It’s going to be okay. Just stay with me.” Her hoarse throat felt red and swollen. She laid her head on the floor, too weak to do anything more and gave herself over to the darkness.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The Return

  High above Silver Sparrow mountain, Logan accepted that Alex was dead. The werewolf hadn’t moved or fought back in miles and his body hung limply from Logan’s bite. He’d succeeded in snapping the wolf’s neck, he was sure. He released the red wolf high over the mountain, Alex’s body falling into the woods below him. Let the forest have him. He’d be nothing but bo
nes in a matter of days.

  Logan circled back to the clearing, but Polina and the wolves were gone. Her scent was like a beacon to him now. The spicy sweetness that was Polina, a faint whisper when he was human, now was all encompassing, a lighthouse that drew him to her. It wasn’t just the smell. He could feel her nearby as if his heart was attached to hers by a rubber band. No, he had that wrong. It wasn’t his heart that was connected to hers; it was the piece of her soul trying to find its other half. With fascination, he focused on the small light that had taken root in his chest. Her immortal soul. The idea that he now housed a piece of her inside of him made him both swell with pride and internally recoil from the weight of the massive responsibility. Was he ready? Was he up to the task?

  He landed in the yard of Aurorean House. The pull in his chest told him she was inside, but there was no way he’d fit through the door in his dragon form. He paced, trying to relax, to change back to himself.

  A gargoyle from Polina’s north gable flapped its metal wings and soared to his feet. The twisted demon face pulled back its lips in a fanged smile that Logan would find creepy if everything about that night hadn’t been so strange already. Animated copper gargoyles. Polina had mentioned them once. After the werewolves and the shifting, he just rolled with it.

  “Master Logan,” the gargoyle said, “Nicodemus, at your service. The lady awaits your arrival inside. May I suggest you change into your human form first?”

  Logan wanted to say, No shit, Sherlock. All he could manage was a roar.

  “Concentrate on your heartbeat, sir. The heart is key.” Nicodemus worried his hands in front of his tarnished copper chest.

  Logan closed his eyes and focused. Lub dub, lub dub. He meditated on the sound, shifting his attention to the center of himself. His head pitched forward and the pain came again, only this time the change happened faster. His talons and tail retracted, red scales shed exposing human skin, and when he thought he couldn’t stand the snap of his bones breaking for one more second, he unfolded… completely naked.

  “Er, thanks,” he said to the gargoyle, sprinting for the entrance. He stopped short when he remembered something important. “Nicodemus, Polina’s wand is missing. Can you search for it?”

  “Until dawn.” The gargoyle bowed low and then motioned to his friends on the roof, who swooped down and followed him into the forest.

  Logan didn’t waste any time getting his naked self into the house. He was aching for a shower and needed to make sure Polina and Hildegard had recovered safely. There was a cold spot at the center of his chest and he rubbed the uncomfortable feeling as he made his way down the hall, searching for her.

  “Polina?” he called. When he reached her bedroom, he stepped up to the cheval mirror he’d gone through before. Of course she’d be in her room of reflections; she would need the power to heal herself. Tentatively, he reached toward the silver, breathing a sigh of relief as his hand passed through. The rest of his body followed.

  Inside the passageway to the heart of her sanctuary, a million tiny reflections surrounded him from every angle. He took a step forward and smacked into polished silver. Turning, he tried again. This time he moved three steps before bonking into the next mirror. “Okay,” he murmured. Holding out his hands, he skimmed the wall with his fingers, closed his eyes, and reached out with his other senses. He allowed the light behind his heart to move his body. He trusted it to guide him to her.

  It didn’t take long to find her this way, and he wondered if the mirrors had adjusted for him as they once had for her. When he opened his eyes, a stiff panic flooded through him. He rushed to the place she was crumpled on the floor and gathered her into his arms. Her skin was gray. Her lips blue.

  “Polina? Polina?” He shook her gently.

  Lowering his lips to her forehead, he began to tremble. Her skin was ice cold. He was afraid to check, but he was pretty sure the owl, tied to the crook of her arm with her bell sleeve, was dead. And what of Polina? He couldn’t find a pulse.

  “Come on. This isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” But even as he said the words he remembered Grateful. Rick had to reconnect her soul to her body after she was reincarnated because she could die and he couldn’t. The horror came to him all at once. Polina had given him her immortality, and now she was dying from whatever curse that fucking werewolf had placed on her and Hildegard before he’d boxed them up.

  He hugged Polina to his chest and rocked, tears flowing. He couldn’t accept this. Never. He didn’t care if every witch who ever made a caretaker had died in the process, he wouldn’t allow Polina to go. He’d reverse the process somehow. Give her back what he’d taken from her.

  And then it came to him. Rick had given Grateful back her power through blood and sex. Polina was in no shape for the latter, but maybe, just maybe, his blood would do the trick. He cradled her in his arms.

  “Polina, I need you to do something for me. You’ve got to wake up.”

  No reaction.

  He raised his wrist to his teeth and bit. It was physically painful but nothing compared to the cruel punishment his emotions were drilling into him at the moment. Blood bubbled to the surface, and he pressed it to her lips. When she didn’t open her mouth, he tugged her jaw down and tipped her in his arms. The blood pooled in her open mouth.

  “Swallow,” he begged her. “Just one swallow.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Witch

  Witches don’t die easily. Polina’s last thought as she passed over on the floor of the room of reflections was that, had she been human, she never would have made it this far. It was clear to her now that Alex had cursed Hildegard with a wasting disease. He knew the familiar would either die or drain Polina’s energy, rendering her as good as dead in his makeshift tomb. Only Polina had done something Alex hadn’t expected. When she had made Logan her caretaker, she’d given up her immortality. At that point, the wasting disease had spread from Hildegard to her.

  An hour ago, she may have still had the strength to cut Hildie loose and save herself, but she was too far gone for that now. By the time she realized she wasn’t just being dragged into death by Hildegard but had caught the curse and was dying herself, it was too late. Her only solace was that Hildegard would return to Hecate’s garden, the place all familiars came from, and Polina would be reincarnated. She’d return to Logan when her new incarnation reached adulthood. Rick would help him until then, she was sure. She’d be with Logan again, someday.

  With the image of her love firmly etched in her mind, she allowed herself to drift away. It was okay. She’d slide into the beyond and let the universe handle the particulars, her soul to join eternity. With her last breath, her soul filtered through her skin and hovered above her chest.

  Unexpectedly, a glorious taste filled her mouth, and in that flavor was the song of her soul. Her spirit sank back into her body, winding through her veins to dance with its newly discovered partner. Painfully, her heart contracted in response to the flow. She swallowed and swallowed again, gasping around the tide of blood down her throat.

  Strong arms cradled her body and their warmth infused her, seeping through her skin and sinking into bone.

  “That’s it. Drink.” Logan’s voice. But something was wrong. He sounded upset. Distraught. She tried to open her eyes but failed. “You’re okay. You’re safe. Just drink.”

  She did. She snuggled into his embrace, eventually raising her hand to hold his wrist to her mouth. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? As the vessel of her soul, Logan’s blood could heal her. It could break enchantments too. As she drank, the warmth permeated her stomach, then branched outward, worming its way through her arteries and veins, spreading to the tiny capillaries that fed her muscles and her skin.

  Her strength returned slowly, but it did return. Once she couldn’t hold another drop, she stopped drinking and opened her eyes. She gazed into the tear-stained face of the man who was both her love and her life.

  A shaky sigh of
relief broke his lips. “Thank the goddess.”

  “Hildegard?” she asked.

  He sat her up against his chest, and together they unwrapped Hildegard’s body. The bird looked dead, pale and almost featherless. But Polina had never given up on her friend and familiar, and she wouldn’t now. They were bound metaphysically, which meant if Polina was alive, some part of Hildegard must be too.

  Holding the bird out in her open palms, she uttered the healing enchantment she’d used on Logan. “Reinchide velecluse moribidatae vialanium.” She didn’t have her wand, but here, in the center of her element, it wasn’t strictly necessary. Drawing on the strength Logan had given her, Polina fed her owl everything she had to give.

  Blue light flowed from every reflective surface and plowed into the bird in her hands. Behind her, Logan turned his face from the force of the magic. The tiny body twitched, then twitched again. And then Hildegard’s head rolled. Polina stopped the spell and pulled her familiar closer.

  “Hildegard? Speak to me.”

  The tiny, bald bird blinked gigantic yellow eyes at her. “The things I go through for you. Do you know I was practically dead? And because of a werewolf I told you to get rid of weeks ago.” Her beak smacked her disapproval.

  “Glad to have you back, Hildie.” Polina hugged the bird against her chest.

  “All right, all right. Don’t smother me.” She flapped her featherless wings and went positively nowhere, then wiggled herself onto her own two feet. “I suppose you’ll be around more,” she said to Logan.

  “I plan on it,” he answered.

  “You can understand her?” Polina asked.

  Logan nodded. “She has a slight Scottish accent. Cute.”

  “I like him,” Hildie said, shaking her downy stub of a tail and looking at it forlornly. “Now what am I to do? I’m bald. I cannot fly without any feathers. You’ll have to carry me everywhere. Can you fix this?” she asked Polina.