“You’re what’s wrong with me, you crazy bitch!” Connell growled, hyper aware of how damn cute his mortal enemy was.
She was in a word—adorable. Finally up close to her, he could see all the details he had missed before. She was definitely Asian, but mixed, a little over five feet tall.
Despite her diminutive size, she was perfectly proportioned. She had creamy skin that looked smoother than silk. Her eyes were the color of honey. As he’d thought in the club, her hair was black, but it had a streak of blue. It was longer too. The gossamer strands were an asymmetrical curtain that fell below her shoulders.
He’d never been attracted to petite women before, preferring ones he could stand next to without feeling monstrous.
Ironic, that.
However, this woman could probably drive a fist clear through his head, no matter how much she resembled a fragile doll.
Logan stared down at the Were a moment longer. She’d sensed him only moments before. She wasn’t sure how he’d almost gotten the drop on her, and it was pissing her off. But she’d worry about that later, once she’d dealt with him. And whatever it was that had brought him to her.
He was just all wrong, despite the fact he was all right. He had wavy, dark brown hair and light green eyes that almost seemed to glow in the dim light. A Were’s eyes were supposed to glow yellow like a wolf, but only when they were agitated—certainly not green. His face had well-defined cheekbones and a straight Roman nose.
And he was to-die-for gorgeous.
Underneath her, his body rippled as he attempted to get up, highlighting his heavily muscled frame. Her uninvited guest had to be at least six-foot-four. This guy could go through the door of the safe house if he wanted to.
But there was something terribly wrong with him. She could see it in his aura. The natural red and gold was jagged with a sickly green edge, as if something had taken a bite out of it. She hopped off him and retreated a few steps, cocking her head to one side to give him a thorough once-over. Something majorly bad had gone down.
“What happened to you?” she asked with a frown.
“As if you don’t know, you crazy…” he started, pointing at her as he got up.
“Don’t call me a bitch again if you want to keep that finger,” she warned. “What happened to you? Your aura looks like it went through a blender.”
The stranger blinked, surprised. For some reason, her concern confused him. That only lasted a second before his mouth hardened into a flat line. “If you didn’t do this to me, one of the others like you did.”
Logan studied him in silence. In addition to being ridiculously hot, the Were was damaged. It was clear to her now. He’d lost his second form. But none of them had hit a Were this year. As far as she knew, none of their kind had been stripped since she’d become an Elemental.
She and her sisters made damn sure they kept each other informed about that sort of thing. Not to mention the fact that action against Weres was largely unnecessary. Other shifters were a different story. But werewolves were pretty good at policing their own. The pack system was an archaic patriarchy that thrived on an overdose of testosterone, but at least it did a decent job of taking care of its own problems. After a fashion…
Logan had been raised by two very strong women. Whenever she had had to deal with any Weres, she practically choked on the alpha-male vibes. Give me a black witch any day.
“What are you staring at?” the stranger spat at her.
Scowling, she crossed her arms. “None of us stripped a Were.”
“Yes, you did. You did it in Somerset. Don’t try to deny it,” he yelled at her, his temper still hot.
Logan narrowed her eyes. “Those were witches. And they had it coming. They broke the covenant, and a child died because of it. A second kid came this close,” she said flatly, holding her thumb and index finger a hairsbreadth apart.
The Were froze. He actually appeared to be digesting the new information. Maybe the stripping had removed some of the stupid that came with the urge to get on all fours and howl at the moon.
“No Elemental came after you,” she continued. “If we had, you would be normal. Just plain old vanilla human. But this…” she said, her gesture encompassing him. “This is wrong. You’re in pieces.” She was unable to resist squinting at his aura again, although it felt like she was peeking under his skirts, so to speak.
The edges of his mostly red aura were screaming. The sickly green was edged in a hint of yellow. It must be driving him mad. She didn’t know how he was still on his feet, let alone upright with the wherewithal to get in her face.
Her observation seemed to offend him. “I can’t shift anymore,” he growled. “Not for months. One of your kind took my wolf. I’m here to make you give it back,” he finished, stepping up to tower threateningly over her.
When she didn’t blink, he reached out, putting his massive hands on her shoulders in a tight grip. Logan looked at his hands and suppressed a smile.
It was time to teach this dog a new trick.
Connell tried to drag the Elemental toward him, but she didn’t budge. Instead, she glanced at his hands. For a second, he could have sworn amusement flashed across her face. Then she was gone—wind whipping him in the face so hard it stung.
Fuck!
He turned around in a circle, scanning the air and the land around him. God, he couldn’t lose her now. He needed to get his wolf back. Not having the extra other in his head was tearing him apart. The empty space inside him was like a crawling emptiness. Sometimes, it was in his head. Other times, it was in his heart.
I can’t believe I lost her.
He’d had her in his hands, and then poof. At this point, she could be anywhere. A strangled sigh escaped from deep in his chest. It sounded pathetic and broken, even to him. He checked the house to make sure she wasn’t there, and then he walked back out to his rented jeep. Damn it, he was going to have to start tracking her all over again.
“Hey, what’s your name?”
Stunned, Connell tripped. Pivoting on his heel, he turned to see the sprite standing on a huge boulder in the distance. He was so damn surprised to see her that he lost his tongue. He just stared at her like an idiot.
Apparently, she agreed. “I can’t keep calling you tall, dark, and stupid, now can I? What…is…your…name?” she repeated, over-enunciating each word.
He was too relieved to get upset over the fact she was talking to him as if he were slow. “Connell Maitland.”
The imp turned away and started addressing the air around her, “He says he’s one of the Maitlands. American accent, so one of the Colorado ones. Yeah. It’s severe. I haven’t seen anything like it. It’s like his wolf was torn out of him somehow. He thinks we did it. Hold on a sec—” Her words broke off as Connell started to run toward her.
A gust of strong air slammed him down to the ground before he cleared the rise.
“Stay there,” the sprite ordered in a glacial tone.
Frigid as the wind, he thought as he regained his footing. Hell, everything about her should be ice-cold. Instead, he felt like he was burning up around her. It was disconcerting. So was the hard edge in her voice. That kind of steel shouldn’t be coming out of such a tiny, doll-like girl.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s fine. He’s on a leash,” the imp said a touch smugly.
Connell growled low in his throat. At least that hadn’t changed. Prey the world over would still react instinctively in fear at that sound.
But the imp didn’t even blink. And she had heard him. She just hadn’t cared. She kept on talking like some gossipy housewife on the phone. Except she was addressing no one.
“Who the bloody hell are you talking to? Invisible fairies? Can anyone even hear you?” he asked incredulously.
The Elemental ignored him and kept talking. “Yeah,” she said with a tiny sigh. “I’ll look into it. No, don’t worry. One hundred percent. I promise.”
The imp hopped off the rock and started toward him. �
��Come inside. I need to examine you.”
“You know what’s wrong with me. You did this,” he said, but the accusatory note in his voice was weakening.
The imp rolled her eyes before giving him a clinical once-over. “If we had stripped you, you wouldn’t be hurting. You can come inside and let me examine you, or you can get back into your jeep and drive away with your tail tucked between your legs. Your call.”
Connell narrowed his eyes. Her voice was so bloody calm. It made him want to hit something. He snarled instead.
“Too soon for tail jokes?”
When he didn’t say anything, she shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ve got stuff in the oven.”
She walked ahead of him and headed toward the house. He stood there, trying to get his temper under control, but the imp didn’t wait. She was walking inside before he’d made up his mind.
What the hell was going on? One of their kind had done this to him. At least, that was what he’d believed since he’d heard about the Burgess clan. Even his father had believed only an Elemental could be responsible. No one else could have done this. If a witch had stripped him of his power, he’d be dead, not hunting down an imp in Provence.
Stealing magic was a violent act. Even he, the future chief of the Colorado Basin Pack, wouldn’t have survived an attack from a witch powerful enough to strip him.
He stepped back onto the porch. There was a big crack in the solid oak door where it had hit him. It was a good thing he still had some of his supernatural strength—not as much as before, but some. Otherwise, he’d have broken some bones with that hit. Quite a few bones if he was entirely human.
What if it was true? Would he be vanilla right now if the imp had done this?
Don’t trust her.
He wanted to…a lot. It was a strong instinctive impulse that he had to fight as he stepped inside the house.
The room he entered was a small living room. It was cozy with comfortable furniture in warm earth tones. The walls were white with an ancient hardwood floor that had been polished by both care and age. Off to the side, a door was open to a makeshift gymnasium with exercise mats and a set of free weights. But more interestingly, the walls were covered with an assortment of knives and wicked-looking swords.
What the hell? Did the imp not register him as a threat? She had just left an arsenal in easy reach for him.
Fuck, this is so insulting.
He stomped through the door. The next room was an informal dining room with a long wooden table and six chairs. But no tiny Asian sprite.
Growling under his breath, Connell walked through a door on the other side of the table. He found himself in a modern and airy kitchen. It was another incongruously warm and welcoming place. The whole damn house was like something out of a freaking sitcom from the fifties, one set in rural France.
The imp didn’t even bother to turn to face him as she put something in the oven.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” he muttered.
He could be holding one of her own swords at this moment. Did she not have any sense of self-preservation? No caution at all?
He sighed and leaned against the counter. The kitchen smelled great, like melted cheese. The smell was coming from a quiche cooling on the rack. He glanced at the bowl next to her. Dinner was ready, but dessert was still in preparation.
The imp bustled here and there. He watched her without a word, trying not to be annoyed at how non-threatening she found him. No one else he’d ever come up against had turned their back to him. Of course, none of them could disappear into thin air either.
Minutes passed, and a new smell began to fill the air. “Are you making cookies?”
Connell had spent months tracking the imp, and now she was playing Suzy Homemaker, baking cookies. Was this really happening? Everything felt surreal. He watched her bend down to open the oven, half-expecting her to start glowing or sparkling like a cartoon fairy.
“Chocolate chip and walnut,” she replied, setting down a baking sheet.
A dozen large, gooey cookies were on the rectangular sheet. Connell’s stomach rumbled audibly, but he ignored it.
The imp lifted a brow. “Do you want one?”
“No,” he said curtly.
His stomach growled again, and he closed his eyes in irritation. He’d had a huge lunch at a nearby inn, but he was used to four large meals a day, at least half of which he ate communally with the pack.
Connell took a deep breath. “I don’t believe you didn’t do this. Or one of the others like you. If it had been a witch, I’d be dead right now.”
The imp cocked her head and stared at him with that same unnerving calm from before. He shifted, suddenly more warm than angry.
Why did she have to be so damn cute? He didn’t even like Asian girls. He went for tall, busty blondes like Riley.
Don’t waste time thinking about that mess, he reminded himself.
“I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” she said, still studying him. “And I can’t tell what’s wrong with you yet, so I’m not ruling anything out. Witches included. How long have you been this way? Start at the beginning.”
Her tone made it a command. He wanted to shake his head in disbelief. The imp looked like jailbait, and yet she issued orders like a general. She had the innate authority to back it up too. Connell was an alpha, but he wanted to bow down to her. It was unnerving.
“How old are you?” he asked suspiciously.
“How old do I look?”
The answer was so cheeky that he wanted to grab her. But putting his hands on her was a bad idea.
When he didn’t answer, she dropped her shoulders. “Start at the beginning,” she repeated, a trace more gently this time.
Frustrated, he ran his fingers through his hair until it stood on end. Could he trust her? Did he even have a choice?
“If you want me to help, you have to explain what happened to you.”
He stepped to her aggressively, eyes flashing green fire. “I didn’t come all this way to chat, little girl. I came here so you could fix me. Even if you didn’t do it—if an Elemental didn’t strip my wolf away—you can put it back. You have that power. It’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Connell expected her to warily back away. But the imp stood her ground and met his stare. Her eyes were kinder than he expected, filled with sympathy.
He hated it.
“That isn’t what we do. Elementals aren’t healers. We’re soldiers. I can’t fix you, not yet. I don’t even know how this happened. You have to tell me. And it’s Logan, not little girl.”
Connell blinked. “Like the airport?”
Logan scowled at him. And like everything else about her, it was adorable. Shit. He was not attracted to cute.
“Like the Wolverine,” Logan snapped with a ferocious frown on her face.
Still adorable.
Connell flared his nostrils. What the hell was he supposed to do now? There was no trace of a lie in her scent. And despite losing his wolf, he could still tell when others lied to him. Like Riley. And he knew from first-hand experience what a skilled liar she was.
Logan had to be telling the truth. And if she wasn’t, he didn’t have another alternative. The witches his pack contacted after his attack hadn’t known how to help him. The healer his father had found had taken one look and said it was beyond his skill. He had nothing to lose by telling Logan what little he knew.
“I don’t know how it happened. Whatever it was, I was out for most of it,” he said, reaching for the quiche at the end of the counter. It was ham and tomato, conveniently cut into quarters. He inhaled one piece and reached for another.
“Help yourself, why don’t you?” she said in a neutral tone as he bit into the second piece.
“I’ve tracked you through four different countries. I’m hungry,” he growled.
The thick wedge was good. So was the dirty look Logan was giving him. It made him feel alive again.
“You know you’re replacing that
, right?” she asked, her hand on her hip.
He didn’t answer in favor of plowing through the third piece of quiche. Generously, he left the last quarter for her. He was reaching for the cookies when the imp took a mixing spoon and smacked his hand. Hard. Smiling, he grabbed the cookie anyway.
Logan’s face was flushed red now. His smile grew wider. Connell was suddenly enjoying himself. She tapped her foot, waiting for him to finish the cookie with crossed arms. When she uncrossed them and started drumming her fingers on the counter, he started talking.
“Three months ago, I was taking a night run in the woods outside the family compound. You know where it is?”
The Elementals supposedly kept tabs on his kind. They knew where all the major concentrations of Supes lived. She nodded once, and he continued.
“I was alone,” he said, not bothering to mention why. Most of the pack ran in pairs or groups, but Connell often ran alone when pack politics and family obligations got to be too much. He’d been running alone a lot in the last few years.
“Go on,” she said, reaching for the last piece of quiche before hopping on the counter.
Following her lead, he sat on the marble counter he’d been leaning on. “I was about twenty miles from the pack house in the densest part of the woods. There was nothing unusual. No strange sounds other than those of the forest. No one was near. I would have smelled them. All I remember was a bright light. It was a little greenish in color. And then I was out. I woke up the next day in human form. And it was gone. I couldn’t change back. My wolf was gone,” he finished, dropping his head into his hands.
He couldn’t meet her eyes. If he saw pity in them, he’d go ballistic.
“Are you sure you would have noticed anyone nearby if you were running?” she asked. “Your kind moves faster than normal wolves. What do you clock out at? Forty-five or fifty mph?”
“Seventy,” he said, looking up to see her skeptical smile.
“Like cheetah speed?” she asked.
Most werewolves only ran ten or twenty miles faster than normal wolves. Seventy mph was unheard of, but he’d always been advanced.
The Elementals Collection Page 33
