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The gray realm.
It was a place he was all too familiar with and he had to give it to her, the little lady had spunk. Anyone who escaped purgatory in one piece was strong. He’d never met the hellhound Logan Wingers, but his woman had guts.
His eyes hardened when he spied a second pack of blood demons hunkered down near the bed-and-breakfast they’d just left. When he felt the unmistakable shift in the air that spelled real trouble, his insides twisted.
Lilith’s crew.
Just fucking great. His Harley was nowhere near where he needed the damn thing to be. He was in the middle of a large crowd of innocents and this little bit of woman had the very bowels of Hell on her trail.
A new scent drifted up his nostrils. Lilith’s pack hounds were here somewhere and their human disguise would be hard to penetrate. Those guys were pros.
Priest straightened and dropped his hand from her cheek, sliding his hand down until he was able to draw her delicate fist into his large palm. Damned if he was gonna let the queen bitch of hell get to Kira Dove. Strong white teeth flashed as he smiled and looked down at her.
“You ready to rock and roll?”
Huge eyes stared up at him, their dark depths hiding a hell of a lot more than pain and fear. There was strength there, determination and—he smiled—a fuck you attitude.
She nodded and whispered, “Let’s do this.”
Kira let the stranger slip his arm around her shoulders and turn her down the alley between the coffee shop and a bank. A cool wind slipped in behind them and she fought the urge to break into a run and to not stop until she was as far away as she could get from the danger she sensed.
And it was dangerous. There was no doubt about that. She felt it like an ache in her bones, and as her hands once more rested upon her belly, she tried to stifle the fear that filled her. Even now, life grew inside her. She felt it stir—felt the whisper of life—and Kira knew she would do whatever she had to in order to give her child a chance to live.
A child she’d created with Logan.
His name was like a whisper in her mind and as she and the stranger, Priest, emerged from behind the building, she pushed the pain that accompanied it away—she didn’t want to think about Logan or what he was going through. Where he was.
She couldn’t, because if she dwelled on it too much, she’d break, and there was no way she could falter. Not now.
“This way,” Priest nodded ahead.
Kira fell into step beside him as his arm fell from her shoulders. The mantle of cold, lethal warrior slipped over Priest as easily as water over ice, and she recognized the same kind of strength in him that lived inside Logan.
I will return to you, my love.
The whispered words echoed in her brain before she could stop them, and instead of dismissing them outright as a sign of weakness, she let them settle for a moment. She let them resonate and fill the empty well inside her. Logan’s dark eyes swam before her, eyes that glistened with love, desire, and need. They gave her strength. Hope.
The emotions burned in her chest so hard she gasped—and then she pushed them away. Kira wouldn’t think about Logan again until she held him in her arms. Until she could look in his eyes and know she was home. From this moment forward, her survival and that of her unborn child was all she would focus on.
She reached for the charmed dagger Logan had given her as her gaze swept the half-filled parking lot behind the buildings. Beyond the old cracked asphalt ran a railroad line, but from the looks of it, it hadn’t been used in years. Tall weeds and heavy brush lined the rusted rails and she saw glistening water in the distance. A small river ran through the town, and forest covered the landscape on the other side.
The forest was thick and silent, but a shiver rolled over Kira as she gazed into the multicolored stand of trees. The autumn colors were near blinding in the early morning sun, and though the warmth of reds and gold and oranges were abundant, the shadows that surrounded the trees were eerie. Mist rolled near the edge like long plumes of smoke and she shuddered, remembering the gray realm. Remembering what mist and f
og could hide.
Something didn’t look right.
“Shit,” the man beside her uttered harshly.
Kira glanced up at him but his eyes were trained to where hers had just been. His brows furrowed, accenting the cold depths in his eyes, and she knew this wasn’t a man to be crossed.
“We can’t go that way. The trees are filled with Askula demons.”
Kira had no idea what the hell Askula were, but she didn’t like the sound of it or the feeling she got when she stared into the forest.
He glanced down at her, skimmed over the dagger in her hand, and nodded to his left. The parking lot ended behind the bank, and beyond that was the main street with a children’s playground on the other side. “We’ll go that way.”
Goosebumps rose on the back of her neck and Kira took off, Priest falling in behind her. Her heart beat rapidly, filling her body with adrenaline, and her legs flew over the concrete.
