“I said seventy.” It was close to a growl. How dare she doubt him?
“Okay, right, so you’re sure? No unfamiliar smells?” she asked
He reviewed the night in his head and shook his head. “No.”
“And no familiar ones that shouldn’t have been there at that time of night?”
Connell frowned as he replayed that night in his head. He hadn’t given her question much thought before.
He shook his head. “No, but I’m not sure anymore. It happened fast, whatever it was. I just saw a green light. Next thing I knew, I was waking up buck naked on the ground, my face in the dirt. I must have inhaled a sandbox worth of soil before I woke up.”
Both Logan’s brows rose at the buck naked, but other than that, she said nothing. Her eyes were on him, but she appeared lost in thought as she mulled over what he’d said.
Connell took advantage of the sprite’s inattention to study her. She was wearing a wine-red tank made out of some silky material that was fitted at her breasts, but floated around her with the breeze. Her dark blue jeans were tight, but they didn’t seem to constrain her movement. She’d still been able to knock him on his ass outside, despite the fact they looked painted on. And she was wearing black riding boots that were going to feature in some secret sexual fantasies for a long time to come.
He quashed the sudden impulse to run his fingers over the delicate features of her face. Logan looked too damn young for the thoughts he was having.
She only looks young. They all do. The imp was probably older than he was.
“And there was nothing on you?” she asked abruptly, snapping him to attention. “No residue of any kind? No marks?”
“No,” he said.
The most grievous injury of his life hadn’t left a scar.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” he hissed, hopping off the counter.
She did the same and said, “Come with me.” She led him back into the living room and gestured to a clear space between the couch and the stairs. “I need to examine you.”
Connell nodded and reached up with both hands to take off his coat. He whipped off his T-shirt in time to take in her wide, startled eyes.
5
Logan stared at Connell’s bare chest in amazement. She hoped her mouth was closed. His chest was sculpted like a fashion model in a magazine, but there was no pretty-boy softness to this man.
Even now, damaged as he was, he was dangerous. A predator. And weren’t injured predators always the most deadly? This man was lethal. Yet, he was standing there half-naked and gorgeous with his shirt in his hand.
“Why did you take your shirt off?” Her voice was weaker than she’d hoped it would be.
“You said you wanted to examine me,” he said, gesturing to his chest.
“I meant a closer examination of your aura…but I may as well look for marks you and your people might have missed,” Logan said with a shrug, trying her hardest to sound nonchalant.
She stepped up to him and peered closer at his abdominals. “It’s like it’s photoshopped. Is that a ten pack?” she said, poking one of the raised ridges before she could stop herself.
Connell didn’t answer the imp. Instead, he coughed as a sudden rush of blood left his head and headed south at breakneck speed. It was almost as if she’d shocked him with electricity at her touch, but she didn’t seem to notice.
And it was only a pinky, for Christ’s sake.
Logan finished staring at his chest like he was some sort of bug under a microscope and stepped around him to inspect his back. She poked at some old scars and asked him how he got each one. He told her about his time in the Special Forces, as well as the scars earned as an enforcer for the pack.
Most of the wounds he’d sustained weren’t severe enough for him to scar. A werewolf healed through the change to wolf and back. That meant most marks disappeared on his kind, but he’d had a more adventurous life than most. He was his father’s right hand, an alpha in his own right.
His father was Canus Primus, or chieftan, of the largest groups of Weres in North America and Europe. Douglas Maitland was responsible for the safety of his people and those of the neighboring families that had settled under the shelter of the Colorado Basin Pack. He depended on Connell and his men to put down any threats posed by rogue wolves and the few Otherkind stupid enough to tangle with them.
“What about this here?” Logan asked with a feather-light graze at the base of his spine.
He suppressed the shiver her touch incited. “What? There’s nothing there.”
Logan touched him again, tracing a small line. “It’s very thin. Only a nick really. It looks older than three months, but your kind heals fast. It’s hard to say how old it is. But the fact that it’s small is unexpected. Something like this ought to have disappeared on one of you by now.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen it. Do you have a mirror?” he asked, trying to twist around enough to see it.
“There’s one on the bathroom door,” she said, coming around to face him.
Her eyes lingered on his bare chest for a moment before she flicked them back up to his face. He wasn’t sure, but he thought she might have been smelling him too. It filled him with a rush of pride, and he couldn’t help teasing her. She’d led him a merry chase across half the globe. It was only fair.
“Should I take off my pants now?” he asked, voice neutral.
The color that stained her cheeks was a victory, the first he’d had in a long time.
But Logan only frowned and straightened up. “I think you should go to the bathroom and drop trou. Give yourself a good once-over. There’s a lot of damage to your aura, but no sign of what caused it. Check and see if you have any other unexplained marks. Doesn’t matter how small.”
Her tone was professional, but the blush on those cheeks wasn’t. Connell gave her a slow grin, feeling more alive than he had since this whole mess started. Actually, since before then.
“You don’t want to help?” he invited, leaning toward her. “You could take a closer look. Make sure I don’t miss anything. While you’re at it, you can convince yourself that nothing’s been airbrushed or cosmetically enhanced…”
Logan took in the flirtatious grin on Connell’s face and felt her face get even redder than it already was. None of Michel’s most practiced moves had ever turned her on as much as one smile from this man. He was carnal sin on two legs.
Except he prefers four.
Narrowing her eyes, she reminded herself how much she disliked Weres. She schooled her expression. “Something tells me you’re used to handling yourself just fine,” she said with a meaningful glance at his groin region.
Her voice was sweeter than sugar, but her insinuation didn’t put him off. Instead, his smile deepened, and she was suddenly in danger of not being able to catch her breath.
“Are you sure?” he teased.
“Bathroom’s up the stairs, first door on the right.” She pointed, all business.
Connell backed away with a long, lingering look. He was wearing that panty-melting smile when he turned and headed up the stairs.
“Don’t forget to check the soles of your feet too,” she called after him, her voice perfectly even. Once he was gone, Logan let out a long, hard breath. Damn, that man was hot.
She wished she had taken Michel up on one his many offers to take her to bed. Recent sex might have acted as a shield against Connell’s supercharged pheromones.
Well, you didn’t sleep with him, and there’s no point regretting that now.
Sighing, she dematerialized, heading outside for a quick trip to the air currents. It was better than a cold shower any day.
Connell stared at himself in the mirror for a long moment.
Logan. Her name was Logan. And she was a revelation. She smelled good. Really good. Like a summer storm or a crisp breeze blowing over fresh snow. It was heady stuff. A little weird too. Her scent seemed to change constantly. Yet, it stayed identifiabl
y hers.
He still missed his wolf, but for a few moments with her, he’d felt whole, complete.
Connell shook his head and stripped down. What was wrong with him? He was kidding himself—he wasn’t whole. Now that he wasn’t with Logan, he could feel the empty space in his head again. The longer he focused on it, the more broken he felt.
And Logan could see the damage—what he was missing. That was all wrong. Someone like her should only see him at his best. He sighed. He had better forget about taking the sprite to bed, at least for the moment. Once he got his wolf back, well, that was a different story.
The overhead lights were bright, which was a good thing. He stood under their glare and checked out his own backside with care. Other than his tattoo and an old mark from a nasty bullet wound, there was nothing. His ankles, feet, and soles were clear too. The only thing he couldn’t account for was the tiny scar Logan had found.
Craning his neck, he used the mirror and took a long look at the little line on his back. It was at the base of his spine where the sacral chakra was supposed to be. The mark was thin, almost surgical in its precision. And Logan was right. Something that small should have faded by now. But maybe the reason it hadn’t was due to the unpredictable nature of his healing ability since his attack. It might not have anything to do with his lost wolf.
He pulled on his clothes and went downstairs to search for the sprite, but Logan wasn’t there. Her scent was all over the house, but she was gone.
For a second, his heart seized. Forcing himself to relax, he stalked around the living room.
She just stepped out, he told himself. He didn’t think she would leave without telling him. She hadn’t technically agreed to help him, but her actions had implied as much. And she was a direct link to the most powerful forces on Earth. If she couldn’t help him, then he wasn’t going to get better.
Scanning outside through the living room windows, he resisted the urge to growl. The predator in him, the side that had nothing to do with his wolf, didn’t like that Logan wasn’t there. Connell wanted her with him at all times. He didn’t bother to analyze why the impulse was so strong. It was only natural after he’d chased her across two continents
Calm down. Logan was coming back. She wouldn’t ditch him now. But first, he would teach her a tiny lesson about ducking out on him without a word. He snorted to himself and went to finish the rest of her cookies in retaliation.
In the air, Logan whispered to her sisters. Like Serin, she could communicate over long distances when in her non-corporeal form. So could Gia and Diana for that matter, but their communication was limited—Gia’s by geography and Diana’s by the amount of time she spent in her medium. If Di was using fire to travel, she moved too fast to communicate with the rest of them.
Her sisters weren’t available to talk in real time, so she left an update—one the winds would carry to them. Summarizing what he’d told her, she conveyed her confusion about Connell’s state. But she didn’t mention the detail that had been nagging her since his explanation.
I’ve tracked you through four different countries. Logan sniffed. He’d just gotten lucky.
Four times.
Pushing away that thought, she descended with a thump outside the kitchen door. Connell was impatiently shifting around inside. She walked in and noted with irritation that every last one of her cookies was gone. Giving him a dirty look, she took her usual seat on top of the kitchen counter.
“Any other scars or marks I should know about?”
Connell gave her a crooked grin that threatened to melt her into a puddle on the floor. “Aside from my tattoo?”
“You have a tattoo?” she asked in surprise, flushing hot.
She had seen every inch of his chest and extremely muscular back. There had been no trace of ink there. Where was it?
It took special effort for a Were to keep a permanent mark on their skin for more than a few years. Their self-healing ability made any tattooing or branding temporary.
He leaned closer and put his hands on either side of her, trapping her against the counter. “You’ll see it eventually,” he murmured into her ear before he pushed away.
Feeling foolishly weak in the knees, she frowned. “Excuse me? Wasn’t I the enemy a few minutes ago?”
Connell shrugged. “More like twenty. Things change. Try to keep up,” he said in a gruff, sexy tone somewhere between a growl and purr.
Since when was a growl sexy?
Logan was irritated with him. She’d never gotten so hot and bothered around a man before. The new feeling of being off-balance was ticking her off.
She made her tone clipped and frosty. “I think it’s best for all concerned if you keep your pants on around me. I am the Air Elemental, after all. It gets quite chilly around me sometimes. Sensitive bits tend to suffer in the cold.”
Connell’s grin only grew broader, and he made a show of scenting the air as if he was smelling her. And enjoying it. Ugh. Her threats didn’t seem to faze him at all. She decided it was time to get back to business.
“I need to examine the area where your wolf was taken. You should give me the exact coordinates. In the meantime, you should return to your people. When I have something, I’ll find you.”
His flirtatious swagger disappeared in a blink. “No. No way. There’s no chance in the seven hells I’m letting you out of my sight until I get my wolf back. Besides, I should be there to show you what happened. I’m not going to cool my heels with the pack and wait while you investigate,” he growled.
Logan paused for a moment “I see,” she said softly.
“What do you see?” he bit back.
She shifted to the bowl, intending to replace the cookies he’d eaten by baking more, but it was empty. He had eaten all the raw cookie dough. With pursed lips, she slammed the empty bowl down on the counter.
Connell’s eyes glinted, and she had the sense he was laughing at her. Feeling a little vindictive, she said, “I’m guessing things aren’t too comfortable at home just now. Pack hierarchy is determined by strength. Your position must have been compromised when your wolf went walkabout, and some of your underlings are probably getting ideas.”
Connell visibly bristled with irritation, but he ignored her comment. “It took me a long time to find you, girl. I’m not letting you go anywhere without me.”
Logan sighed. He was going to make things as difficult as possible.
Of course he is, he’s a Were. His tight, sculpted abs had made her forget that fact for a moment.
“Look, I work alone. Frankly, I can make it there and back a lot faster without you tagging along.”
He took a step closer, invading her personal space to tower over her. “Not gonna happen,” he snapped, reaching out to grab her arm.
Logan laughed at him, an unexpected sound of unadulterated delight. “How are you going to stop me?”
She was gone with a sudden fresh breeze, disappearing from under his grip before he realized his mistake. The wind whipped around in the little kitchen. He tried to track her by scent, but she seemed to be everywhere.
Shit. He had to stop giving in to the impulse to manhandle her. He couldn’t do this alone. Losing his wolf wasn’t like taking down some rogue Weres, or searching for terrorists in the desert with his old Special Forces team. There wasn’t an enemy to fight, at least not yet.
Connell needed someone with access to magic. High-level magic. And there was no way he could trust a top-tier witch to help him. One of their kind would either waste his time or stab him in the back if it benefited them somehow. This was his best and possibly only chance.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’m used to working alone too,” he shouted to the empty air. “I respect that. But I still think it’s best if we travel together, so I can show you everything. It’s pack territory. You'd have to stop and make a formal request from the chief to visit in any case.”
“And since he’s your father, you think you should be there to smooth things over?
”
Connell spun around. The imp had rematerialized behind him on the other side of the kitchen island. His sense of smell hadn’t been able to differentiate her scent from the traces she’d left in the room. She spent a lot of time here, enough to mark the place.
Or maybe his keen sense of smell was failing now—unless Elementals were too subtle to be pinned down.
He told himself that was what it was. It had to be some super defense mechanism against his kind. They were the Supernaturals’ police force right? It was why she knew he was the chief’s son and next in line to lead the pack.
Connell swallowed down the defensiveness he felt and decided the truth would serve him best. “Something like that. Not to mention the fact the pack thinks you’re the enemy. We got word that those witches had been stripped just after my wolf was taken. They all think it was you or one of your kind.”
Logan sighed. “Of course they think that. I would too if I were them. But even if that’s the case, I’d soon set them straight. If you insist on being there, you could join me once you catch up after I check your location in the woods. In my personal experience, it’s generally easier to ask for forgiveness than permission anyway. I can get there in a fraction of the time. All you have to do is tell me where to look.”
Connell wanted to howl in frustration. He ran his hands through his hair, tugging it back, an old sign that he was nearing the end of his tether. But getting angry and exerting his dominance was not going to get him anywhere this time.
“I would appreciate it if you stayed with me until we get my wolf back. You were almost impossible to track the first time. If you disappear on me—if something gets in your way—I’ll have to start all over. So…” He trailed off, choking on the words.
“So what?” Logan asked, that damn eyebrow reaching for the sky.
“So please stay with me,” he said quietly, his voice cracking on the please.
It wasn’t a word he used very often, and it showed.
The Elementals Collection Page 34