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Eva,
I’m out looking for Draven. I’ll be back by two, and we’ll leave for Limos’s place. See you soon,
Logan
P.S. If Cujo shows up, ignore him. Move slowly. No eye contact. Don’t talk to him. And definitely don’t touch him. He knows people in the house are off-limits, but let’s not test him.
Great. She really hoped the beast didn’t show up without Logan. She’d never been very comfortable around dogs, and the idea of coming face-to-face with a giant, evil dog made her flesh crawl.
She ate quickly and then hurried out to the kitchen to drop off the dishes. As she turned back to the bedroom, a low, serrated growl turned her marrow to water.
Oh, God.
Very slowly, she angled her body toward the living room. And there, crouched on the enormous dog bed, was a pitch-black beast the size of an SUV. Its gaping maw full of sharp teeth could swallow her whole, all the way to her waist. Drool dripped from its jaws onto its massive, clawed feet.
Frozen to the floor by terror, she averted her gaze.
I exorcise you, spiritus diabolica!
The hellhound snarled, and she felt a hot breath against the back of her neck.
I exorcise you, spiritus diabolica! Oh, please, please go away.
Cujo stepped around her, his flaming crimson eyes boring into her as if daring her to look at him. He sniffed her face, and she nearly gagged at the stench of his breath.
Then, suddenly, he disappeared.
Relief sapped her strength, and she sank heavily onto the couch. She just needed a minute for her heartrate to return to normal. Up until now, it had been pretty easy to forget that Logan wasn’t an ordinary guy, and this wasn’t an ordinary situation.
Coming face-to-face with one of Hell’s most vicious creatures was a hardcore reminder that she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. She glanced around, needing to be grounded in something normal. Anything.
That bow and quiver of arrows hanging from pegs on the wall were pretty unremarkable. Exquisitely crafted but otherwise normal.
So was the stuffed lion on the shelf. Although the contrast of a deadly weapon and a child’s toy next to each other was odd. Seemed fitting for Logan, though. He was a warrior, confident and powerful. And yet, he had a funny, tender side and a fierce love for those in his inner circle.
It made her wonder about his childhood, especially because everything she’d learned about his parents had been less than complimentary. A father who was responsible for thousands of years of atrocities and the murders of countless Aegi. A mother who betrayed The Aegis and facilitated the deaths of her colleagues. How could two people like that raise someone like Logan?
Shaking her head, she pulled herself together and got moving. She showered, dressed in a casual blue-and-turquoise sundress and jeweled sandals, and then, as she rummaged through her things for her comms device Logan had confiscated, he showed up.
His boot treads were light across the concrete floor and throw rugs, and she tossed her tote aside onto the bed as he stepped through the bedroom doorway. Holy…wow. He’d stolen her breath from the moment she’d seen him and every time after, including now.
At well over six feet of lean muscle, he was so damn hot in tan cargos and a black button-down that her nipples tingled in an echo of how he’d taken them in his mouth last night.
“Hey.” She tried to play it cool as if she didn’t feel any morning-after awkwardness. “I don’t suppose you know where my comms unit is?”
“Sorry,” he said. “DART kept it. But if you need to contact someone, you can use mine.”
Of course, she could use his. All conversations would be recorded. She hated the truth of that, and she hated that by bringing up DART, Logan had dropped them back into the real world so abruptly.
“Thank you. I need to call my parents later. And thank you for breakfast.” She gestured through the doorway to the living room. “I met Cujo when I took the dishes to the kitchen.”
“Really.” One blond eyebrow arched. “Well, you’re still here and in one piece, so I guess everything went all right.”
“I don’t think he likes me, but I’m still alive, so I guess that’s a win.” She fidgeted with her pinky ring, needing some way to diffuse the nervous energy eating at her like acid. “Anything on Draven?”
“Not much. Someone claimed to have seen him at a club in Perth, but if he was there, he took off before Mace and I arrived.”
Damn. “Did you at least get some sleep? You didn’t come back to bed.”
