Burned (Keeper of the Flame Book 1)

by Lila Kane

  I turn to face him. “What do you mean you can’t be hurt?”

  “I mean vampires literally cannot hurt us without being in pain themselves. Which makes it a lot harder for them to kill us.”

  “But…” I think back to the forest yesterday and the incident outside the diner after I met Logan. “He hit you. And kicked you.”

  Ryan scowls. “Yeah. It probably hurt him worse, though. And that’s probably the worst he could have done. It was nothing.”

  My mind reels with the information. No wonder the shifters and witches had a sort of alliance. No wonder Ryan kept insisting I wait for him before going around Logan.

  “You could have told me this before,” I say.

  He squeezes my hand and gives a low laugh. “Sure. In all our free time together.”

  He’s right. We’ve barely known each other a week. But circumstances brought us together fast. We had to rely on each other and trust each other.

  “That makes it sound like you’re obligated to help me,” I say.

  He doesn’t speak for a moment, taking a slow curve as the road narrows. I see Logan’s house through the trees in the distance.

  “It sounds bad when you say it like that. I want to help you. Just like I wanted to help your mom.”

  I look away when he mentions her. She’s meeting us there with Cheyenne today and I don’t know what to expect from her. I still don’t know if I want to have anything to do with her, which makes it that much harder to work with her.

  Ryan turns down the long drive to Logan’s house. We wind around a few trees and park directly behind Cheyenne’s car. They’re waiting for us.

  Myra opens the front door. She leans against the jamb and folds her arms.

  Ryan grabs my hand before I can get out. “Be careful.”

  I’m not afraid of Myra, but now I have a better understanding of where Ryan’s coming from. It’s ingrained in him to protect witches and he’s just doing his duty.

  I nod and get out. Ryan meets me around the other side as Cheyenne steps from her car as well.

  “We want to talk,” Ryan says to Myra, keeping his stance by the car.

  “All of you?” Myra asks, lifting a brow. She gestures to the house. “You might as well come in.”

  Ryan captures my hand and shakes his head. “We can talk from here.”

  Myra laughs, but it quickly turns into a cough. “Fine. What do you want?”

  “A deal,” I say quickly.

  Cheyenne glances at me but lets me do the talking.

  “You give us my Book of Shadows‒”

  “And mine,” Faye cuts in with a nod.

  “And hers,” I add. “And then we’ll help you.”

  The longer Myra doesn’t say anything, the tenser Ryan gets next to me. His grip tightens on my hand and he turns his lips to my ear. “She doesn’t know what to do‒just try to negotiate with her. She trusts you.”

  I nod.

  “Myra, we have spells,” I say. “We can do healing spells and figure out how to help you.”

  Myra smiles. “I see what you’re doing.”

  She walks from the door and strolls down the steps. Ryan automatically steps in front of me and Cheyenne joins him on the other side.

  “We didn’t come for a fight,” Cheyenne says.

  “Does it look like I’m trying to fight?” Myra laughs again. “You want something from me, so don’t act like I invited you here to attack you. I’m interested in a deal, sure, but I want to see Logan first.”

  Of course. We expected this.

  “We can bring you to him,” I tell her.

  Ryan whips a glance in my direction.

  “What?” I ask. “It’s only fair. We’ll take her to him and then negotiate.”

  Cheyenne touches his shoulder from the other side. “It’s the best way to do this.”

  He scowls at her and then nods his head toward the truck. “Willow, can we talk a minute?”

  I follow him to the other side of the truck, shielding my eyes against the glare of the sun. Before he can open his mouth, I say, “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “You do?”

  “You’re thinking the usual.”

  “Which is?”

  I smile, trying to calm his nerves some. “This is dangerous, we shouldn’t make deals with vampires, and Logan should stay where he is. Does that cover it all?”

  He lifts his eyebrows. “You think this is funny.”

  “Funny?” I angle my head, considering this. “I don’t know if I’d say funny, but definitely amusing.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Not technically‒”

  “I don’t want to argue about this, Willow. I want you to be careful. We don’t know Myra, but given that she’s Logan’s sister and a vampire, I’d say there’s not much we can trust.”

  I reach out and settle my hands on his shoulders. His expression softens. “It’s okay, Ryan. Myra isn’t going to hurt us. She would have done it already.”

  “You don’t remember her trying to strangle you?”

  “Yeah, okay, there is that. But it wasn’t because she wants to hurt me, it’s because we broke into her house and wouldn’t tell her where Logan was. She was feeling defensive. I get it.”

  He takes my hands from his shoulders and holds them in his. His thumbs brush my knuckles. I still see the worry in his frown, but he nods. “You’re too understanding, but I’m trying to see your side. Can you just…not waltz into that cave when we get there?”

  My lips twitch. “Waltz?”

  “Yeah, waltz in there and start negotiating with Logan and let him charm you in‒”

  “Charm me?”

  “Charm you. Don’t let him charm you or manipulate you into anything. The fact still remains that if he wanted to handle this situation in a different way, he could have. Instead, he chose to kidnap you.”

  “I can’t argue that.”

  His lips curve in a full smile. “I’m sorry, what was that? You’re not going to argue with me?”

  I laugh and kiss his cheek. “Don’t get used to it, it’s only temporary.”

  He keeps my hand in his as we walk to the other side of the truck again.

  “We’ll take you to Logan,” I tell Myra.

  Myra nods as though she expected as much. “Good.”

  #

  The forest floor is wet when we walk around the hotel and to the back. I know the path to the cave well now and I take the lead.

  Myra is right behind me and I imagine Cheyenne’s following up behind her so she can keep an eye on the vampire.

  “How did you get Logan out here?” Myra asks.

  Her breathing sounds labored and I slow my strides to accommodate her. Logan would kill me if something happened to her when he was stuck in the cave.

  I don’t tell Myra I tricked Logan. But that’s how I got him out here. I told him I could find Selena’s Book of Shadows in the cave when there was nothing in there but amethyst‒a crystal that weakens a vampire’s powers, and apparently causes a fair amount of pain as well.

  “I saw my ancestor, Selena, in a vision.” I fall into step with Myra. Ryan’s close by my other side but he keeps silent as we walk in the cool morning.

  “And she told you to come here?” Myra glances around, her wide blue eyes taking in the forest and the back of the hotel.

  “Yes.”

  “She was trying to help you stop Logan,” Myra concludes.

  We walk around a large tree and my shoes crunch on fallen leaves and branches. The closer we get, the more I can feel Logan. It’s muted now, and must be vanishing because we haven’t had as much contact in the last twenty-four hours, but I can still feel him.

  “It’s probably not going to make a difference,” I tell Myra, “but we got off on the wrong foot. Your brother wasn’t up front about what was going on and I did what I had to do.”

  She presses her lips together, but doesn’t say anything.

  I stop by the familiar boulder a
nd take a breath. “We’re here.”

  “Where?” Myra asks.

  “He’s inside the cave.”

  Cheyenne gives me a look. I know she can tell how Myra’s feeling. I wonder if she can sense my feelings, too.

  So far, my mother’s been quiet, but when I finally look at her, she’s smiling at me. A sympathetic smile like she understands I had to do what I had to do to deal with Logan.

  I swallow and look away. “Let’s just…” I sigh and step to the large rock. “Let’s do this.”

  Ryan and Cheyenne help me roll the rock away. Sunlight streams across the opening, but beyond the magical border is darkness.

  Myra steps forward. “Logan?”

  “You can’t go in there,” I say.

  She purses her lips, looking my way. “Sorry, witch, you can’t tell me what to do.”

  “Hey,” Ryan starts.

  “It’s fine.” I lift my chin and tell Myra, “I’m not forbidding you to go in there. I’m suggesting you don’t considering it’s full of amethyst and once you go in, you can’t come out.”

  “She’s right,” a voice says from the opening.

  Logan stands just beyond the entrance to the cave, hand propped against the stone wall. His cheeks are taut, but he’s playing it off like he isn’t in pain.

  “Logan,” Myra gasps.

  He holds up a hand. “Stay out there.”

  Myra turns to me. “Get him out of there.”

  “Hell, no,” Ryan says. “This is a compromise. You can’t start making demands‒”

  “Get him out of there!” Myra yells, starting toward me.

  Ryan steps in her path, but it’s Logan who speaks up. “Myra, sweetheart, you need to calm down. This is just a misunderstanding.”

  Her chest is heaving when she looks over at him. I’ve heard him speak to her like this before. Like a completely different person. Like someone who cares. He spoke to me like that once, too, when I told him about the boy I had accidentally set on fire. He can be kind when he wants to.

  “You’re trapped in a cave, Logan.” Myra looks to me, eyes pleading. “Let him out. Please.”

  My heart twists. I glance at my mom. I expect her to shake her head. To tell me no like Ryan keeps doing. Instead, she inclines her head. “Talk to him. Work it out.”

  Ryan sighs next to me, but I nod. She’s right. We need to work it out.

  “We want to make a deal,” I tell Logan.

  He straightens, considering this. I expect a joke or a flat-out refusal. But he doesn’t do either. He steps back and gestures to the cave. “Come on in.”

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