I grunted.
“Look, I'm not sure if someone from the clan tried to help back in Vegas. They're not very accepting of my presence. It's been an upward battle for a long time, an issue I've been working at.”
I didn't sense a lie. Plus, I could indeed feel the wolf within him. Then there was the fact that sooner or later I'd meet Archer, and then I'd know for sure.
I shrugged, then finished telling him about what had happened. About Lee, about what happened to my father, how at the end, the rejected and Sidhe had gathered to watch the punishment, how she belittled my kind for letting a human raise me. I didn't tell him about the bargain. For some reason, I didn't think it was a good idea. There wasn't enough trust yet between us.
Logan tapped a fingernail on the tabletop contemplatively. “Lee wouldn't have lied about what she told you. She can't. It's more than what anyone has ever known before. Archer would want to know that.”
I nodded once, my doubt not quite masked.
Logan took my hand in his uninjured one, held it for a moment. “Look, Roxanne, let me be honest with you here. If Archer had wanted to get rid of you, he'd have helped you meet a mysterious accident, just to prevent the exposure to the clan. He's capable of that, yes, and the fact that you are here, alive and well after spending nine years with the Society only tells me there's something missing, something big.” Logan exhaled long and silently, indicating a weariness I hadn't sensed before. “All I'm asking you is not to judge him until we talk to him, alright?”
It wasn't an unreasonable request, and I conceded the point.
After a silent moment, he got up, heated the soup again and brought me another huge mug. This time I drank it slowly and wished there were noodles or vegetables or chicken pieces in it.
We were quiet for a long time, both of us lost in our thoughts. Logan sat across from me, his hands—the right one still wrapped in the wet towel—curled around the cup of cold coffee while he stared, unfocused at it.
“When do we leave?”
He looked up, his eyes focusing as he did. He studied me for a moment. “You sure you're up to it?”
“Yes, I am,” I answered without any hesitation.
“You don't have to come. You can stay here until I return with Archer. After that, we'll help you with everything you need.”
I shook my head. If anything, accompanying him in this rescue mission was now necessary. “I go with you, I'll accept the help. You don't want me along, I'll move on my own from here. Maybe you're right about this Archer guy, but if you're wrong I'd rather he owe me than the other way around.”
Logan studied me carefully for a moment more, his expression unreadable. “Very well then, we're leaving in a few hours.”
I looked down at my mug and sipped the rest of the hot soup quietly. My bladder was beginning to protest again. A door opened and closed somewhere in the house and footsteps approached, stopping just a few feet behind my chair. Logan's eyes shifted to a point above and behind me, but I didn't have to turn to see who it was—I could smell the faint musky scent of Rafael's cologne, along with his sour disapproval filling the room like rancid gas. Logan excused himself and left, followed by Rafael's muffled steps on the hardwood.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Logan and Rafael stood in the hallway arguing with each other. Their voices were only a decibel above a whisper, but I heard Rafael's comment loud and clear. He wanted me to hear him.
“… Doug won't be coming for a few days. She can stay that long.”
His eyes shifted to me, took in my bare legs and smiled shark-like, his brown eyes cold. “You shouldn't come with us… As a matter of fact,” he added in a decisive tone, “you aren't. You will stay here, safe and sound, until we come back with Archer.”
“But Mom, I don't want to stay,” I whined.
“Honey, if you insist, I can tie you up inside a cage with nothing but a bowl for water and another for shit.” His smile grew at the narrowing of my eyes, and before I could slash at his face and make that smug smile permanent from ear to ear, Logan stepped in front of me and raised his hands up to Rafael.
“I told you, man, if she wants to come, then she will. Remember Rob and the swamps? Same goes here.”
Incredibly, Rafael backed off, with a hiss and tightening of lips. He turned his back on us and moved to one of the closed doors in the narrow hallway, opened and banged it shut behind him.
I gave Logan a tentative smile, curious about the story behind Rob and the swamps, but smart enough not to ask. You don't ask for answers that concern others unless you want to return the favor, so I just gave him a small smile to let him know I appreciated the support and went for the bathroom.
* * *
When I came out freshly showered and still wearing the same sweaty t-shirt, there was no one in the hallway. For that matter, I couldn't hear or sense anyone in the house either.
I went back to the room I had been occupying earlier, drying my hair with the towel I had found in the bathroom's closet. My hair was all tangled up; there had been no conditioner in the bathroom and I couldn't find a brush. I checked the nightstand drawers and found them all empty. At the sounds of soft footsteps approaching, I raised my head to find Logan just outside the room, carrying my duffle bag on his left arm.
“Can I come in?” he asked politely.
“Sure, it's your house,” I said, meeting him halfway through, relieving him of my duffle bag. After perching it on the bed, I extracted my purse and hairbrush from inside it.
“Let me.” He plucked the brush from my hand without waiting for an answer and sat on the edge of the bed across from the straight-back chair and waited.
I hesitated a second, but he didn't notice. Or chose not to.
I turned the back of the chair to him before I sat. There was no way that I was going to straddle it wearing only an oversized t-shirt.
When his hand brushed the nape of my neck, I stifled an involuntary shiver. He draped my hair over the back of the chair and began brushing it gently, disentangling the locks. The motion was soothing, a tender caress.
It was comfort he offered.
I don't remember my mother (or Elizabeth) ever brushing my hair. She taught me at a young age to depend only on myself and, now that I could look back from a different angle, I understood it was her way to ensure that I didn't find myself in a position where I had to wait for help—or favors—from others.
Maybe she thought I'd have a life in the PSS, like perhaps it would be more like a boarding school instead of the torture institution that it was.
“…For we were also a disciplinary school…”
Now that I could stand and look back at it objectively, I could see the holes, the way Elizabeth had kept herself detached. She'd brought me gifts, toys and dolls, the best food and clothes her salary could buy—and, since she was a geneticist, I always got the best. But had there ever been love? Had she ever brushed my hair with such tenderness? Sat me on her lap or hugged me just to comfort, just to touch? Had she ever shown concern at an injury, asked me the reason when I was upset? I tried, but at that moment, I couldn't think of even one memory.
Did she see me when I was growing up, really see me?
And here this man I hardly knew… This man—whose only emotions toward me were pity and a dollop of lust had shown me more tenderness I had ever seen before.
I was mortified when my throat constricted with tears.
Uncomfortable and confused with the direction of my thoughts and feelings, I took the brush from Logan after he was done and silently exchanged it with some clothes from my duffle, conscious of his eyes on me. I extricated the first item of clothing I found, a yellow and green jogging suit I didn't like and couldn't fathom why I had bought.
Behind me, Logan cleared his throat. “There's something I want you to have before we leave.” He waited for me to turn before he pulled out a dark, thin, rectangular wooden box from his pocket, extending his hand in offer.
I reached for it,
noticing the intricate carvings on the box. I paused half an inch from it, my eyes searching Logan's for any hint of what it was, what it meant, but found nothing but gentle kindness there.
“What is it?” I asked.
Logan pulled the side open, like a miniature drawer and revealed a thin bracelet, an oblong rock with a vibrant, electric blue color embedded in the middle. I felt it then, the slow hum of power emanating from it.
Something inside me felt it too.
The ripple I felt run down my spine wasn't fear, exactly. It wasn't anxiety. No, it was something akin to a thrill, excitement. Recognition.
Deep at the core of my being, where I had once pulled that invisible shield against the fire mage, past that bubbling rage, I felt that slumbering otherness stretch and open an eye, beginning to awaken. I didn't feel the stirrings of alarm I usually did when the rage inside me tried to claw its way to the surface. No, if that rage was a malevolence I tried to suppress, this thing now awakening inside me was its opposite. It was something different. More ancient and more primitive.
Though there were no alarm bells ringing, I recoiled at the strangeness of it. Because, during my entire existence, I had been the one to seek that slumbering otherness in the depth of my soul, never the other way around.
“Do you sense it?” Logan asked in wonder, picking up the bracelet so it dangled from where he held its edge with thumb and forefinger. Inside the electric blue stone, mist swirled, clearing every other second, showing a simple rock as clear as a warm sky in midsummer before misting over again. Like the clear sky before a tempest broke.
Logan touched the other edge, reverence showing in the brightness of his eyes, in the excited tone of his voice. “I've never seen anyone react to it before.” He looked at me then, his lips lifting upward in a gentle smile.
“What is it?” I murmured, mesmerized.
“We call it Arianna's bracelet. It's a boost of energy. Kinetic, to be specific. One push only, crafted by a person from another world, another era.” His eyes returned to it, his smile fading. “It was designed specifically for Archer, a gift from an ally in case…” He shook his head once, clearing it from whatever thoughts had clouded it. “I was going to take it for him in case Rafael didn't show up, but now that he did…” He extended both hands to me.
I took back a step and shook my head. Because I wanted it.
“Take it. In case something goes wrong and you need a way out.”
I shook my head again. “No, no. I don't think Archer would like that you gave me something that belongs to him. The fact that he still has it and hasn't used it proves that it's valued, if not outright cherished.”
“Then we'll call it even. If you use it at all, it means things have gone down badly and this was your ticket out, your get-out-of-jail-free card. Since you're going there to help us rescue him, it's only fair this one chance goes to you.”
For a moment, I did nothing. Then I reached for it, that thing inside me still watching curiously, drowsily. When I touched it, its weight heavier than I expected, that otherness inside lost interest, as if the bracelet with the quiet hum wasn't worth its notice. I wasn't sure if I was disappointed or relieved. The stone was embedded inside a ring of five cord-like wires braided together, forming without any apparent extensions or breaks in either leg of the bracelet. The hum was soft, a gentle lull.
“How do I use it?” I asked, noticing it was too big for my wrist.
Logan took it back, then fastened it high on my bicep. “You will it to.”
“But what does it do?”
“It's a kinetic boost. It propels.”
When he saw the confusion still there in my eyes, he added, “You think about something you need to happen and will it to work. It will obey your wish. Point it downward and you can leap over a high fence fast enough that you'll look like a blur. Or it can help you cover a wide expanse faster than the eye can track. You could say it acts like a tank of nitrogen, only faster, stronger.”
I looked down at it, the hem of my shirtsleeve brushing against it. The mist swirled and covered the vibrant blue stone, making it seem dull, a quiet, harmless beauty trinket, but the gentle hum remained steady, like docile lapping waves. Calming. Soothing.
“It's beautiful,” I said and glanced up. Found Logan watching me.
“A pretty bobble for a pretty lady,” he said, his eyes crinkling with a smile.
“I'd need a lot of sessions with a beauty surgeon to be as pretty as this,” I said with feeling, looking down in time to see the rock clear, the blue so electric, I think I felt a little static from it.
With a finger, Logan traced the band of the bracelet. “You don't need pretty bobbles and fancy clothes to look pretty. You're just beautiful the way you are.”
I startled, meeting his eyes, suddenly self-conscious. Unable to come up with a suitable reply for that, I awkwardly smiled at him, then turned around, uncomfortable with the sudden shift of his mood. I reached for the jogging suit I had left atop the open duffle and was surprised when I straightened and found myself enveloped in his warm arms from behind.
I stiffened like a brick wall, but all he did was hold me close to him. After a moment, he lowered his head to my shoulder, breathing in slowly, our cheeks touching. I relaxed back gradually and for a long time basked in the comfort of his warm body behind me, the coarseness of his cheek against mine, the scent of a citrusy cologne.
When he tugged me around, I went willingly, lacing my hand around his thick torso, and resting my head on his shoulder, breathing in his scent, taking comfort from it. He lowered his chin to the top of my head and sighed deeply, not taking advantage of the moment. How could he know so perfectly what I needed? How could someone I knew so little about understand me so much?
We stood like that for a long moment, taking comfort from the embrace. When his hands began roaming up and down, and he started kissing a path from my ear down to my neck, I told myself that was enough. I pulled back a little and made the mistake of looking up at the stormy grey eyes, and instead of backing away and letting go, my arms went up and around his neck out of their own volition, and I found myself pulling him down, closer and closer, until there was no space between his lips and mine. I was kissing him, and he was kissing me, and I was telling myself just one more time.
To carry it with me for the lonely times to come.
We kissed slowly at first, gently, warm lips to warm lips, before it deepened, and I found myself pouring all my needs and frustrations, regrets and whatever it was I felt for him into it. He must have sensed something because he raised his head a moment, his eyes registering confusion for a second and I don't know what he saw in my eyes, but it reassured him enough to resume kissing me again, his kisses just as urgent and passionate as mine.
For a moment there, I let go. I needed to be wanted by someone, to be a part of something, and, even if Logan's only emotion toward me was lust, for that moment it was enough for me—just to be held, to be needed, wanted.
But that moment wouldn't—couldn't—last forever.
I had too much pride, or morals, or standards to let what was happening go on when I knew there wouldn't be a tomorrow. Sure, he wanted me, I had no doubt about that, but I wouldn't be here now were it not for the circumstances surrounding us.
The fact is, out of a crowd, he wouldn't pick me. It could have been that self-esteem the PSS broke speaking, but something told me I was not his type, just a convenience fate threw his way.
So I broke the kiss and took a step back while I still could and, even though his arms were around me, holding me close, he let go. I felt a tug of disappointment and a flutter in my stomach… I had hoped—deep inside and in the foolish and dreamy part of me— that he wouldn't have let go so easily.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” he tried to soothe, but I just shook my head and then nodded like a moron.
“You will,” I began, but realized when his eyes darkened with frustration that we were both talking about different thin
gs. He meant physically, I meant emotionally.
“I promise you I won't.” He reached for me, but I took an evasive step back and out of his reach.
“I can't. I'm sorry.” I picked the discarded jumpsuit and fled to the bathroom. A moment later Logan stopped outside the closed door, two inches of wood all that separated us. I held my breath, but from this close I was sure he could hear the thunder of my heart loud and clear.
“You ok?” he asked softly, and for some foolish reason, my throat constricted again.
After half a minute of heavy silence he added, “I'm going now…” He hesitated, clearly wanting to say more, but just waited for a response.
Coward! That voice inside me shouted.
I thought about giving him the bullshit about it not being him line, but my lips just wouldn't move.
The truth, that I wouldn't—couldn't—handle a casual relationship was just a subtle request for more. And I didn't even want a relationship with a guy I didn't even know!
Or want a relationship, period.
So there I was, standing in that small bathroom in an apartment I had no idea where, clutching a bunched-up jumpsuit to my chest with my back to the door, afraid to utter a word, much less acknowledge the guy on the other side.
Coward!
I lowered my head in defeat.
“We leave in two hours… try to get some sleep.” Then he was moving away, his footsteps getting fainter and fainter, until the slamming of a door shut them out entirely.
That's when I took a long breath and exhaled through my mouth in a long hiss of frustration.
Coward!
“So, I didn't handle that very well,” I muttered under my breath.
Coward!
“It's not like I have a track of experience under my belt.” I tried to excuse myself, but now that I could breathe, I cringed at the way I'd reacted.
Maybe I should just go find him and tell him the truth, that I couldn't deal with a casual relationship, hop into bed and walk away the next day. A guy like him should be used with women wanting more from him. How would he handle that? Would he even catch a second meaning there?
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