by D. G. Swank
She whispered into my ear, “I’m going to distract the guard so we can go inside. You’ll have to sneak in after me. I’ll be back at the next shift change, which is in five hours. You must be quiet. If they find out I brought you here…”
“What’s in that room, Lisa?” I whispered softly, which was difficult since I was so short of breath.
“Something you’ll want to see with your own eyes. Now unglamour me.”
Releasing her hand, I did as she asked and her body glimmered into view. She gave me a small smile and whispered, “We all need something good.”
Before I had a chance to ask her what she meant, she was walking down the hall toward the guard.
“Lisa,” he called out in surprise. “I thought you were done for the night.”
“I wanted to see him one last time,” she answered.
“He’s actually doing better from what I can tell,” the guard said as he grabbed the key ring attached to his belt with a retractable cord.
“You know how I get attached to my patients,” Lisa said in a lighthearted tone.
“And you know Donall doesn’t like it,” the guard said under his breath.
“Then he doesn’t understand a healer’s true purpose.”
The guard didn’t answer, just opened the door to let Lisa in, only he stood in the doorway after Lisa went inside, blocking my entrance. I wondered if this was protocol, since a guard often did the same in my room, but either way it made things difficult. While the glamour hid me, I was still physically present. He’d feel it if I tried to whisk past him. I could make small things change shape temporarily, and I could make a person believe one of my glamours wholeheartedly enough for their mind to accept the physical shape as real, but there were limitations to my power.
Now I needed to get past the guard, to see gods-only-knew-what, and I didn’t dare try to slip past him. I needed him to move.
“Noah,” I heard Lisa say, “can you get his glass of water? I’m worried about him getting dehydrated.”
The guard stepped out of the room to pick up a plastic cup from his cart in the hallway. As soon as the space was clear, I slipped into the room and huddled in the back corner. The room was furnished like my first one had been, a metal-frame bed and nothing else. There was a metal pail in the corner, and its purpose came to light when I realized there was no bathroom attached. Lisa was huddled over a large figure in the bed, and for a split second I wondered if she wanted me to help whomever it was to escape.
Then her words came back to me.
We all need something good.
I covered my mouth with both my hands to help stifle my gasp.
“What was that?” Noah asked as he handed Lisa the cup.
She sat up and took the water. “You know this old building makes noises.”
He shook his head. “This place is creepy as shit. Why’s Donall hiding out in an old hospital instead of taking his rightful place in the magical community?”
“It is not for us to question our lordship,” Lisa said in a tone that reminded me of a rote prayer—said from memory but not with true feeling.
“Yeah, I know, but he has the book.”
“And the woman hasn’t read from it yet,” she said.
“He needs to make her,” the guard said in a growl.
“He’s nearly killed her several times. Making her obviously isn’t the way to do it.”
“You leave her the fuck alone,” I heard a familiar voice say in a threatening tone. I froze. I’d already guessed who was being kept in here—the shape on the cot and Lisa’s cryptic message had clued me in—but this confirmed it.
Lisa jumped to her feet. “Let’s leave before we get him stirred up again.”
“He hasn’t drunk the water yet,” the guard said.
She set it on the mattress. “Let’s give our guest a test. If he can behave with the cup of water, then he’ll receive more liberties.”
“Fuck you,” Logan snarled.
“A small amount of cooperation brings small concessions, Logan. Just think on that.” Lisa’s back was to me, but I heard her soft voice. She turned around and pushed the guard out the room and closed the door behind them as Logan shouted obscenities at them both.
I remained frozen in the corner, my heart breaking. From the sight of him, Logan Gillespie hadn’t been a cooperative prisoner either. His face was covered in bruises, both new and old. His left eye was partially swollen shut and his bottom lip was fat and had a split on one side, but it was the fact that he was tied to the bed frame—his wrists to the headboard and his ankles to the footrail—that broke me. I released a tiny sob.
He immediately froze, turning his head so he could listen more closely. “Who’s there?”
With the guard just outside the door, we were in a precarious position, but I needed to talk to him. I needed him to see me. Hoping it would be enough, I put up a soundproofing glamour.
“Logan,” I whispered.
His eyes widened, and looked up at the ceiling. “Why do you do this to me? Why do you make me listen to her cries?”
My breath stuck in my chest. Is that what they had done to him? Why?
I dropped my glamour, needing him to know I was safe, but stayed in the opposite corner.
Tears filled his eyes. “Either I’m hallucinating or they finally killed you and you’re a ghost.”
I shook my head, trying to find my voice, but the burning lump in my throat made it impossible to speak even if my brain could figure out which words to stream together. Instead, I rushed to him, dropping onto my knees beside the low cot, and collapsed onto his chest. The cup of water spilled all over us, but I didn’t care.
He released a low grunt, and I realized it was more than just his face that had been injured.
“Rowan?” he whispered, his voice cracking. “Oh sweet Jesus, is it really you?”
I pulled back and took his battered face in my hands, sobbing. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said, jerking against his restraints. “But you have to be quiet, or they’ll come in and find you.”
“They can’t hear us right now,” I said. “I put up a sound barrier.”
He nodded as though he was used to hearing that things like that could be done. I suppose he was. “I’ll get us out of this. Untie me.”
Why hadn’t I done that first? I reached up to his restraints, making quick work of getting one arm untied and then the other.
As soon as both arms were free, he sat up and scooped me into his arms.
I tried to wiggle free. “Let me untie your legs, Logan.”
“Just give me a minute, Ro.” He buried his face into the nape of my neck and breathed in. “You smell good.”
My chest burned with shame. “I was a good girl. So I received a reward. A shower.”
How had I been so stupid? I’d been so certain I was their only prisoner, but of course they’d taken him. Donall had seen into my head—he knew Logan meant something to me.
Logan jolted, then squeezed me a little tighter. “Did you read the book for him?”
“You know about the book?”
“I don’t totally understand what’s going on, but I know that Donall has some book full of bad shit and he thinks you can tell him what it really says.”
“That’s the gist of it,” I said, the words muffled as I pressed my face deeper into his chest. I wrapped my arms around him, in disbelief that he was actually here. That he was more or less okay. “I thought you were dead,” I said, starting to cry again. “I thought they’d killed you.”
His arms tightened around me, and he spoke into my ear, making my hair flutter from his breath. “I’m here, Rowan. I’m here.”
He held me, rocking me gently as I cried. Then I remembered I still hadn’t untied his feet. I pulled free and started to work on the knots. He leaned over to work on the other restraint, but he released a low grunt of pain.
“Let me do it,” I said, pushing his hands away so I could u
ntie that side too. As soon as I freed him, he pushed his legs over the edge of the bed and tried to stand, but he immediately started to fall.
I got underneath him, taking as much of his weight as I could, then lowered him to the cot. “Logan.”
“I’m okay. I’ll get us out of this. I swear to you.”
“Shh,” I said, sitting beside him and leaning in. “Let’s just sit here for a minute.”
We sat there like that, arms and legs touching, until he finally said, sounding broken, “I don’t think I can walk out of here right now. They broke my leg.”
Startled, I sat upright, then glanced down at the scrubs he was wearing.
“You can’t see it, and that witch did something to partially heal it, but it gives out when I put weight on it.”
Tears flooded my eyes again. “I’m sorry.”
He wrapped his arms around me. “I am too. I swore to you I’d get you out.”
I shook my head. “You’ve seen me since we’ve been here?”
“Once,” he said, his voice broken. “Right after we got here. I told them I wasn’t doing shit until I knew you were safe. You weren’t safe, but you were alive.”
“Lisa said I was out for two days.”
“You were unconscious. Donall said he’d free us both if I could convince you to read the book.”
“Why does he think you could convince me to do it?”
He hesitated, his arms slightly tensing. “I told them I was your boyfriend.”
It was my turn to tense. “Why?”
“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. They would have killed me in the woods, but I told them I was your boyfriend and suggested you might be more cooperative if they kept me around. I was desperate to stay with you.”
I gave him a smile. “It’s okay. You did what you needed to do to survive.”
“I didn’t do it to survive, Rowan. I did it to save you.”
I couldn’t believe what he’d told me…except maybe I could. Logan was a police officer. My smile spread. “I guess it’s your job to protect people.”
He studied me for a moment. Then his eyes lit up with understanding. “I didn’t do this as part of my job. I was off duty,” he teased. “Remember?”
“You did it for me?” I asked in disbelief.
“That and…” A mischievous look filled his eyes. “I figured I’d throw the boyfriend label out there and hope it came true. Like in The Secret.”
My mouth dropped open. “How can you be joking at a time like this?”
He turned more serious. “Who said I was joking?”
I lifted my hand to his cheek in wonder and followed my instinct. I kissed him. It was soft and tentative, as though testing uncharted waters. He joined me, just as tentative, as though he couldn’t believe I was here, kissing him.
He lifted me as though I weighed next to nothing, settling my legs over his.
“Your leg,” I protested.
“My leg is fine,” he said, or I think that was what he said, since his words were muffled as he kissed me.
And then it hit me that we were kissing in what was essentially a jail cell. Logan was broken and battered, and he was being held against his will, all because of me. They might kill him because of me. “I’m sorry.”
He lifted his face and placed his hand against my cheek. “What the hell do you have to be sorry for?”
“You’re here because of me.”
“I’m here because that psychopath kidnapped us both. Don’t you dare take ownership of that.”
I leaned my cheek against his shoulder, letting his words sink in. “I’m not sure how to get us out of this.”
He held me close, wrapping his arms around me as if he feared I might float away. “You’re not alone, Rowan. I’m in this with you.”
“They haven’t told me that you’re here,” I said. “They let me believe that you’re dead.”
“I know,” he said, his voice breaking.
“How do you know?” Then I remembered what he’d said when I first called out to him.
Why do you do this to me? Why do you make me listen to her cries?
“They make you listen?” A wave of embarrassment sucked my breath. What had he heard me say?
To my amazement, Logan knew where my mind had gone. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Rowan. You are so incredibly strong.”
I shook my head against his chest. “No. I’m not.”
“He’s trying to break you, both body and spirit.”
“He tried to reason with me yesterday.”
“He’s hoping to brainwash you. He wants you for more than just the book. He wants you on his side.”
“Why would he want that?” I asked in disbelief. “My magic is considered the lowest of the low. Trash.”
He grabbed my chin and tilted my face up to see him, his eyes hard. “Don’t you ever compare yourself as trash again.”
I gasped, unsure what to say. I realized we’d never even explicitly discussed magic, yet he was taking this all in stride.
“You are amazing.” He kissed my cheek. “Beautiful.” He placed another kiss on my chin. “Perfect.”
His mouth covered mine, and this kiss had more heat, his tongue parting my lips and claiming me.
I wrapped my arms around his neck as I lost myself in the kiss. I’d been kissed before, plenty, but never like this, never by a man who couldn’t get enough.
When he lifted his head, I was breathless and desperate for more. “Nothing about you is trash, Rowan Whelan.”
I found myself nodding, because when Logan looked at me like that, I almost believed it.
“How did you get in here?” he asked, then made a face. “Maybe I should have asked that sooner.”
I shook my head, still overcome with emotion. “No. Uh… Lisa. The healer. I asked about you the other day, but she didn’t answer—well…the guard was listening. But after Donall put me in a nicer room, Lisa told me she’d come for me in two hours. I thought she was going to help me escape, but she gave me you.”
I lifted my mouth to his and kissed him again.
“I take it she’s coming back to get you. When she does her morning round with me.”
I nodded.
“Then I get a few more hours with you.” He leaned back, grunting as he did so, and pulled me with him. He put my back to the wall so his was exposed to the door. The gesture wasn’t lost on me. Even now, he was protecting me.
He wrapped me in his arms, pressing my cheek to his chest, and I found myself burrowing into him.
“Go to sleep, Ro,” he murmured. “Get some rest. You need your strength to face Donall.”
Logan’s words must have cast their own kind of magic, because I slid into a dreamless slumber.
Chapter Eleven
Logan woke before I did, gently shaking my arm. “Rowan. Someone’s coming.”
For a split second, I thought I was having a delicious dream, and then stark reality came crashing in.
“Can you…hide?” he asked.
“You mean make myself invisible?” I asked.
He hesitated and sounded unsure when he said, “Yeah.”
It was a good idea, one that I might have come up with in about five seconds. But based on the proximity of the voices outside that door, it would have been about four seconds too late.
Logan pushed me to the end of the bed a split second before my glamour took effect. He’d clearly picked up on the whole I could be felt but not seen thing. The door opened, and Lisa walked into the room with the same guard on her heels.
I got to my feet at the foot of the bed, lowering one foot to the floor and then another, moving agonizingly slow to avoid making any noise.
The guard startled when he saw the untied ropes. “How the fuck did you get untied?”
“I wanted to get some sleep,” Logan said casually. “A little hard to do when you’re stretched out on a rack.”
The guard moved closer to Logan, getting dangerously close to me in the
process, but Logan saved me again. He jumped to his feet on the opposite end of the bed. The guard was on him in an instant, jerking him back down.
It took everything in me not to plead for mercy for him, but not only would I likely make things worse for Logan, I’d put Lisa in danger too.
“Don’t be too rough with him, Noah,” Lisa said, worrying her lip. “Donall wants him in better shape.”
Noah growled, clearly wishing to demonstrate his authority. “Lie down.”
“He needs to eat,” Lisa said softly.
“He can wait.”
Lisa must have decided not to press her luck. “Just be gentle. We don’t want to upset Donall.” She moved toward the open door, then added, “It looks like he’s feeling better, so I’m going to check on my other patient.”
“Will you tell her something?” Logan called after her.
“You’re not telling anyone shit,” Noah ground out, pushing him down. “I’d love nothing more than to bash in your teeth.”
Logan put up a show of fighting him off, but I could tell he was holding back. He was trying to buy me time to get out of the room.
Even now, he was thinking of me.
“You know I can’t tell her anything,” Lisa said quietly. “She doesn’t even know you’re alive.”
“I just want her to know that I’m worried about her.”
A sad smile lifted her lips. “I think she knows.”
I’d been so caught up in the exchange, I’d forgotten it was my opportunity to escape. Lisa was already walking out the door, so I grabbed her arm in a panic.
Startled, she sucked in a breath, then shifted in the doorway to make room for me. She’d turned to the side as if to watch the guard tie Logan down. “Fighting only makes things more difficult,” she said. “You need to accept your circumstances and help us achieve the greater good.” Logan just grunted as she shut the door and headed toward the stairs.
When we reached the stairwell, I let go, but she reached out and blindly grabbed my arm. “Don’t let go,” she said, her tone uncharacteristically harsh. “I need to know I can trust you not to run.”
Funny, running hadn’t occurred to me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to escape—I’d thought of little else—but I wouldn’t dream of leaving Logan behind, and I wasn’t foolish enough to run without some sort of plan. Nevertheless, I could hide and slink around while invisible. I could find an escape route. All it would take was jerking out of her reach and running…