by Shannon West
Logan pulled off with a plop and wiped his mouth. “That’s it; wake up now, baby,” Logan, chuckling as he added another finger to the two already in Luke’s ass, concentrated on licking Luke’s cock clean of every drop of cum. It didn’t take long—maybe a few seconds—until Luke was begging him to stop. Right after he came, Luke was always so sensitive he hated any kind of touch.
Taking mercy on him, Logan left his cock alone for moment and fished out the lube from the bedside drawer again. He coated his hard shaft until it gleamed in the morning sunlight coming through the window. When he was done, he lay down beside Luke and pulled him over on top of him. “Ride me, darlin’.”
Luke was still trembling with reaction, but he straddled Logan’s hips as Logan cupped his ass with his hands and slowly lowered him over his shaft.
As he sank down on top of Logan, impaling himself, Logan groaned, one hand fondling Luke’s cock. Luke moved over him, grinding into him and when Logan came only a few minutes later, his release both surprised him with its power and shook him to his core. It never ceased to amaze him how fast Luke could get him going, and he never seemed to have much control around him. He’d known for a long time that Luke was important to him, but somehow the intensity of his feelings, the strength of his love for this man, had slipped up on him. It was a little like watching a snowstorm—he had seen the flakes falling, but he hadn’t realized how fast they’d been adding up until everything was already completely covered by it. He had no hope of digging his way out of this and didn’t want to anyway.
They drowsed for a while longer in bed, kissing and fondling each other, but hunger finally drove them from it, and they went downstairs to the small dining room to meet up with Perry and Jake. They’d eaten breakfast, and then agreed to go back up to their rooms to get their things together so they could leave, Logan anxious to get out of Atlanta. Though he had pretended not to notice, he was increasingly aware all morning of Luke’s growing agitation too.
Perry and Jake had even been acting oddly at breakfast. Jake, in particular, pushed his eggs around his plate instead of eating them and drank way too many cups of black coffee. He kept glancing around the dining room as if waiting for someone to come in. Perry had eaten very little and had almost nothing to say for himself. Logan decided it was past time for them to get the hell out of this town, and sent them to their room to get ready to leave.
When Logan had finally packed up everything, he turned and held out his arms to Luke who was standing by the window, looking out at the street. “Come here.”
Looking surprised, Luke still came over to him and let Logan wrap him up in his arms. “Tell me what’s going on with you.”
“I-I don’t know. Something’s wrong… I feel like we need to get out of here. Now.”
Since that night at the underground fight club, there had been a tension in the air that was almost palpable. The very air was oily with it, thick and hard to breathe. The source…that’s what Jackson had called it. Had Jackson really stumbled onto whatever was the wellspring of the changes in them? It seemed unlikely, even impossible. Unless it had been waiting for them here all along, luring them to it.
Why had Logan chosen Atlanta as a rendezvous in the first place? He didn’t know it particularly well, or have any ties there, yet it had sprung into his mind almost immediately, and the cabin had really been all Perry’s idea. He’d suggested it before Logan could think of a good reason why not. And even so, he’d sent half the team to Atlanta to meet up with them there later.
Nashville was an even larger city, and he’d visited there more often. Why hadn’t he chosen that? Or was there no real reason for Atlanta at all really? Was it just a random choice, because it was a large city where they could get lost, and he was just jumping at shadows? Was he caught up in Jackson’s insanity too?
Gathering up the bags, while Luke took charge of Rio, Logan walked down the hallway and waited outside Perry and Jake’s room while Luke knocked. They came out right away with their own recently purchased duffle bags, and Logan led the way to the elevators.
“Where are we headed?” Perry asked as they stood waiting for it to arrive. “Any ideas about what to do now?”
“Not really,” Logan replied. “Right now, I just think it’s important to get out of this city. We can make more plans when we put some distance between us and Atlanta. For now, I guess we’ll head north. Or west again. There’s still a lot of country out there to explore—with more wide-open spaces.”
Perry shrugged and the others were just as quiet—much quieter than usual, and it was making Logan nervous. Rio, too, apparently, because he kept up that low-level, nervous whimpering as they went down in the elevator. After settling with the hotel at the front desk, using up almost the last of Logan’s cash, they made their way to the parking deck adjacent to their downtown hotel. It was a Sunday, and at this hour of the morning, they had the place pretty much to themselves, with not a lot of other traffic coming and going. Logan strode ahead of the others, anxious to get packed up and get out of town, but he glanced back and saw Jake dragging far behind them, his face white and strained. Perry had stopped beside him and was leaning in to talk to him. They both looked nervous and anxious.
“Jake, Perry, get a move on it! What’s the matter with you two?” Logan opened the door of the truck and threw the bags he was carrying in the bed of the truck, turning to look at his friends. Luke turned to go back to them, but Rio, usually well-behaved, especially with Luke, suddenly jerked away and ran toward Logan instead. Logan greeted him and put a hand on his collar and reached behind the seat. He kept a tire iron there, and though he wasn’t sure why he felt he needed it, he wanted it close at hand in case he did. At least until they got out of this parking deck. He wiped his increasingly sweaty palms against his jeans on his thighs and that’s when he heard it. Cars coming fast, a loud squeal of tires. Then a flash of movement to his right, the black sedan coming from below them on the parking deck and going way too fast, careening recklessly around the corners.
Luke was too far away to reach, but Logan grabbed Rio and threw the dog inside the cab to keep him safe, gripping the tire iron and turning to face whatever was coming. Two cars screeched to a stop in front of him, between him and the others, and almost before he could react, the doors on both sedans burst open and men poured out, brandishing handguns. He heard yelling and saw a burst of brilliance on the other side of the car, saw sparks flying and smelled the ozone in the air. Luke must be trying to fight off his attackers.
Logan charged into the fight like the soldier he used to be, but with the moves he’d learned in all the bar fights he’d been in after his military training. He kicked one man in the nuts and swung the tire iron as hard as he could, thudding into one of the men’s heads with such force that it broke his skull open with a sickening crack, and the man dropped to the concrete floor, not moving. He smashed backward into another coming up behind him and turned to ram his fist into a third man’s throat. Leaving him choking out blood on the ground, he turned and three more converged on him at once, throwing their combined weight on him to take him down. He felt the sting of a needle in his neck and then another one, as he struggled to get his knees under him. Shots were fired, muffled by silencers, and Logan felt bullets thudding into his head. Someone sank their fingers into his hair and brutally jerked his head back to put a bullet directly into his brain.
They let him go and jumped back, but still Logan tried to rise, greatly hampered by the fact he couldn’t seem to make his arms and legs obey him anymore. He could hear Rio’s frantic barking and yelping. Somewhere Luke and the others were shouting, and Logan curled into himself, pain brutalizing his senses. As if from a distance, he faintly heard Luke crying out his name over and over, and he managed to get his head up, too groggy and damaged to focus. He thought he saw him being forced into the car beside him, but when Logan reached out a hand out to him, it met only emptiness. He tried again to rise, but the movement only sent him spiraling down
into utter darkness.
****
He surged toward the light like a deep-sea diver striving for the surface, and felt a wet tongue on his cheeks. He blinked a few times to clear the film from his eyes. There was a heavy weight on his chest and he couldn’t quite comprehend what the problem was. He dragged in a gasping, wet breath and realized Rio was lying sprawled on his chest, alternately whimpering and licking his face as the old dog tried to wake him up.
Absently, he patted the Lab’s head, as the memory of what happened rushed back in to try to overwhelm him. He had a few bad moments as he struggled to sit up, his head pounding with the knowledge that they had taken Luke and the others. He patted Rio again as he lunged at him and finally got him settled down a bit.
He looked down at himself and saw that he was covered in blood, great gouts of it staining his shirt and splashed down onto his jeans and shoes. He had actually been lying in a puddle of it.
“Why is it always me they try to kill, huh, boy? Just my damn luck.” Rio licked his face again and Logan sighed. “Well, at least they didn’t get you.” He pulled him over in his lap and buried his face in his soft fur as his hands searched over him, looking for wounds. He didn’t find any and mostly succeeded in getting the dog almost as bloody as he was. The parking lot was still deserted, and both black sedans were long gone. Even the bodies of the men he’d killed were missing.
But where was Luke? The question was screaming inside his head, even though he already knew the answer. They had forced him into one of their cars, along with Perry and Jake. He didn’t even know if they were still alive. A memory of Luke calling out to him came back and he sagged a little in relief. He’d been alive when they put him in the car at least, maybe sedated or drugged up like he was, but alive. And as long as that was true, Logan’s own heart could keep beating. There were scorch marks on the concrete deck as well as on the ceiling and walls. More evidence that Luke had fought back. He figured they must have used drugs on him and the others to be able to sedate them enough to get them inside their cars.
“How long have I been here like this, boy?” Logan wondered out loud, struggling to get to his feet. His head was killing him and he remembered the shots to his head as well as the one directly to his temple. He felt for it. The hole was there, but already scabbing over, and he couldn’t feel any exit wounds. Could they have healed up so soon? Or were all the bullets still rattling around inside his skull? Considering how much lead was in his body by now, he would no doubt set off metal detectors at the airport if he ever tried to fly again. Going into a courthouse would probably be out of the question too.
Every time something like this happened to him, it was easier and easier to believe he really was immortal. The shots he’d taken to the head this time were real and he couldn’t explain any of them away as drug-induced hallucinations. Just like in Alabama, he’d been shot and left for dead, but he didn’t—maybe couldn’t—die.
He staggered to his feet and shook his head, trying to relieve some of the grogginess. Putting a hand to his neck, he remembered the pinpricks he’d felt and wondered what they’d shot him up with. It would have had to have been something strong—maybe even animal tranquilizers, like Ketamine or some bastardized mixture of that with Valium and Ativan.
The question was who had done it? Could it be the Institute again? Had they somehow tracked them to Atlanta? Or was it someone much closer? Had those been Dread’s men and was he behind this shit? Logan believed he was. Hadn’t Jackson warned them? Be careful. You have to give it what it wants or it will come after you. And to Luke, he’d said, “You know, don’t you? It spoke to you last night. It took you over. I think it has plans for you.”
A chill ran through him and he shuddered hard. Plans for Luke. What kind of plans did Dread or whatever it was Jackson was talking about have for him? Logan’s hands closed into fists and he wanted badly to hurt someone. To kill them, rip them apart and destroy them all for taking what was his. His breath was coming in short gasps and the icy cold feeling was returning, fury sweeping over him like a freezing blast of air, and this time, he couldn’t hold it back. He could barely draw in a breath, even the air around his head so frigid he could feel his face becoming numb. Ice had begun taking him over, and soon it would consume him completely. And that was good because it would numb some of this pain he was feeling in his heart.
He began to feel the ice shards under his skin, crystalizing his blood and stiffening his muscles, but in the midst of the transformation, he felt a wet nose touch his hand. He drew back violently, ready to knock the old dog away from him and then he looked down into Rio’s eyes. He was gazing back up at Logan so trustingly. Logan lowered his hand, cupping Rio’s face instead and Rio turned his head and licked his wrist. Thank God, his sanity returned, and he realized what he’d almost done. He fell down beside Rio and hugged him fiercely, whispering frantically to him about how sorry he was and kissing his shaggy head over and over again. He told him how much he loved him, and as he did, he felt the ice receding, drawing back until he could breathe again. When it was finally gone, he cried into Rio’s fur. When he felt like he could stand again, he got to his feet. Moving like an old man, he helped Rio get in his truck.
He found it odd that no one had come to the parking deck while all the shooting and shouting that had been going on, either in the middle of the attack or afterward, but when he got to the entrance, he found it blocked with orange cones. The exit was clear, so he drove out onto the street, half surprised to see people going about their day when he felt like the whole world should have come to a stop and taken notice that Luke was missing. He was almost sure those men had been sent by Dread, but the question was why? What did he want with Luke and Jake and Perry and where had he taken them? Was he holding them at the club? Logan had never felt so helpless before, even back in Alabama when the mercenaries had buried him six feet under in the woods. At least then, Luke had been close by, and Logan had known he could get to him.
One thing was certain. He needed to know that Rio was safe before he confronted Dread and his men, because if the confrontation went anything like it had with Kowalski and his group, then the club on Ponce de Leon was about to become ground zero, and he didn’t want Rio hurt in the fallout. He drove to the northern suburbs of town, looking for a La Quinta Inn, because most of them accepted pets. After changing out of his bloody clothes in the parking lot and stuffing them down in his duffle bag, he rented a room for the night and took Rio upstairs. After getting him settled in the room with his bowl of water and some dry food, he went to the small desk in the room and took a seat. He opened his wallet to find a card that had been there since Albuquerque.
The card read James Williams, Independent Trucking, with a cell phone number. James and his wife Kay had given Logan and Luke a ride to Albuquerque a few weeks back, and Logan had helped to heal their little dog, Esmerelda. James and Kay had both used the word “miracle” a lot, but that word made Logan extremely uncomfortable. All he remembered was feeling compelled to pick up the little cancer-ridden dog and put her in his lap. He had sat back in the seat with her and felt an overwhelming sense of…the only word that came close was pity. He felt so damn sad about her pain and the fact her little life was coming to an end, and he remembered wanting to fix it in some way.
A soft glow had started to appear around Logan, only tiny at first, but then it seemed to swell outward. It radiated down Logan’s arm and into his hand, then began to cover the little dog’s body. But the idea that he had effected any change in her was ludicrous. He had been the agent maybe, but nothing more. The real healing power had come from—somewhere else. Logan wasn’t sure of the source. Maybe from Kay herself. It had been Kay’s love and devotion to Esmerelda that he had somehow tapped into, perhaps, then channeled and directed it toward the thing that had been killing her dog. He’d only been the conduit. Anyway, he’d never been able to convince either James or Kay that he wasn’t a healer, and when he refused their offer of cash, James ha
d pressed his business card in his hand. “If you ever need me, just give me a call. Anytime, day or night. Anywhere. I’ll help you if I can.” It was a lot to offer and Logan now had a lot to ask of him. But James and Kay had really loved that little dog, Esmerelda. He knew they’d be good to Rio if he didn’t make it back for him.
After staring down at the card for a long moment, he wrote a note addressed to “Hotel Manager,” and left the business card beside it, along with Rio’s leash and a bag containing his food and treats. The note read—If you’re reading this letter, that means I couldn’t come back for my dog. His name is Rio and he’s a good, brave dog and deserves your help. Please contact the number on this card and tell the man who answers that Logan and Luke need him to come get their dog, Rio. Tell him we know he and Kay will be good to him. Thank you. P.S. Rio likes the treats in the red bag, but only give him a couple of them every night after he eats. He also really enjoys bacon.
He left the note propped up on the desk. Logan stayed with Rio for a few hours so he could get used to the room, then he gave Rio a long hug, whispering in his ear. “Free puppies make the best dogs. Always remember that, okay?”
He whispered some other things in his ear too, personal things, just between him and Rio, and then sent up a prayer that James and Kay would come for him soon so he wouldn’t be alone. He left the room and went down to his truck. If things went the way he planned, he’d be back for Rio before morning. If not…then at least he knew his dog would be okay.
It was only about twenty miles back into midtown and the club. But he got in a little traffic, so it took him well over an hour to reach the parking lot where they’d left the truck a couple of nights before. Still, it was too early to have any chance of getting into the club. He decided to sit in the truck and try to catch a nap. It felt like a long time since he’d made love to Luke in bed that morning. His heart ached at the thought, but he ruthlessly pushed it down deep inside him and laid his head back on the seat to close his eyes.