She narrowed her gaze then, refusing to be pulled into his little game. It was bad enough that he should say such a thing in front of Tiffany Preston. Soon, the entire school would think of Logan Wright as not only an anti-social freak, but a whore to boot. She wasn’t going to add to the bitch’s ammunition by hanging around long enough to say something damning herself.
With that thought, she spun on her heel and began to walk away.
“Wait.”
It was one word, and it wasn’t spoken loudly. It wasn’t even really an order. He’d simply said it – almost pleaded it. And yet Logan’s limbs felt heavy and uncooperative and her mind suddenly simply wanted her body to… stop.
She came to a halt and felt him draw closer behind her.
“You look a little pale,” he said. “I have an extra drink here,” he told her, his tone just as soft, just as placating.
She turned to face him.
He had handed a bottle of some kind of red soda to every girl there, and was holding the last bottle out toward Logan. He smiled an easy, charming smile and held the bottle up for her to see. “Lots of vitamins and minerals and anti-oxidants,” he said, as if reading the label. Then he lowered the bottle and pinned her with those eyes, taking one last step to close the gap between them.
The girls had all grown quiet.
Logan could hear her own heart beating. It felt overworked. She was lost in that gaze. She could smell the leather of his jacket, some kind of faint cologne, the scent of pumpkin spice and cinnamon and wood smoke…. He smelled like an autumn night. Fitting.
It was making her so dizzy.
Without knowing what she was doing, she took the bottle from his hand. He let it go with a smile that said, “Good girl….”
It took more effort than she really wanted to expend, but she managed to pull her eyes off of his and read the label. Pomegranate flavored energy drink.
Pomegranates. She wanted to laugh, it was so ridiculous. Hades and Persephone and the food of the dead. Ridiculous, indeed. Then again….
She looked back up at him. His pupils had expanded and she could see the very tips of elongated fangs behind his lips. He was so gorgeous. So breathtakingly beautiful! She wanted to give in to him. Drink the juice.
Kiss him.
Become his bride and die and go away from this world forever.
“Sam, we really are running late….” Tiffany’s voice trailed off a little, as if she were unsure of what to say next. Or even what to think.
Logan was grateful for the interruption. It pulled her out of the eddy of her desires just long enough to insert the tiniest amount of logic into the ever-closing gap between her – and Sam Hain. Lord of the Dead.
“I have to go. Thank you for the drink, but no thank you. I’m allergic to pomegranates.” She shoved the bottle back into his hand and his look darkened, even as his smile grew. He knew she was lying.
Clever girl, came the unbidden thought into her mind.
“So be it, my love,” he whispered, just before she stepped back away from him. Sam winked at her then, and turned to face the others.
Logan had officially been dismissed. He was giving her an out. But why?
A head start, Logan. Run, run, as fast as you can…. Laughter, deep and low echoed against the walls of her mind and Logan thought she might go mad. She hurried out of the gymnasium and down to her brother’s truck, not even noticing that Dominic Maldovan had witnessed the entire exchange from where he and his band had been setting up on the stage.
She never heard the young guitarist calling her name as he followed her out of the school. She got into the truck, started it up, and pulled out of the lot as if the devil were on her heels.
Chapter Seven
Sam waited a second and then turned to watch her go. Tiffany Preston stood beside him, gently but insistently pulling on his arm and a part of him simply wanted to break her hand where it touched his bicep. The rest of him was focused on the fleeing figure of the young woman he would make his bride.
Logan was afraid of him.
She should be, he thought. She had every good reason to be. And yet, a very big part of him was bothered by the idea. He was going to take her with him into his world. She would be with him forever. He didn’t want her to fear him for all eternity.
At the reminder of her eternal companionship, he temporarily closed his eyes and savored the thought. An end to his insubstantial self, an end to the loneliness and nothingness. She held the key to all of it.
But if she was afraid of him, she would fight him. And knowing what he now knew of Logan Wright and the strength that made up her core, he knew that fight would last entirely too long.
Something edged at his consciousness and Sam’s eyes flew open in time to see Dominic Maldovan racing after Logan as she exited the building and sped across the parking lot.
That one again, he thought grimly. He lowered his head and glared at the young man through the tops of his stark blue eyes.
“Sam, don’t let her get to you. She has a body that won’t quit and a brain that won’t start.” Beside him, Tiffany had given up on being patient and now followed his gaze to the gymnasium doors. Assuming he was thinking of Logan, she’d gone on the offensive.
He turned to face her and she shrugged, smiling a helpless smile. He grinned slowly at her, flashing those perfect white teeth of his. She must have seen something unsettling flicker in his blue eyes because she blinked.
Then she mentally shook herself and he effortlessly entered her mind. She was actively worried about his interest in Logan Wright. She couldn’t understand it. He almost laughed out loud at the idea. She was jealous and terrified of the girl at the same time and was absolutely unaware of it.
Logan Wright was out of her league. Logan was both beautiful and intelligent and cared little for the appearance she put forth to her peers. This nonchalant disregard for something Tiffany struggled so hard to create every day was off-putting enough for the young cheerleader. What made it worse was the fact that Logan was exponentially more beautiful than she was. Without even trying.
Sam tried to hide his smirk as Tiffany focused hard on the male subjugation that she’d had so much practice with. “Let’s get out of here and I’ll make sure you forget all about Miss Rude and Inbred,” she said.
Sam’s icy gaze flicked across her face, to her shoulders, and then down the length of her body. Tiffany couldn’t stop the blush that rushed up her neck and across her face. He read the thoughts that followed.
A blush? Seriously? she thought. Bad form, Tiff. You don’t blush. Get a grip.
He was undoing her and he couldn’t help but take pleasure in that fact. “You really don’t like Logan Wright, do you?” he asked softly.
Tiffany blinked at him, a touch taken aback by the directness of the question. “Well….” She forced her smile back then, and shrugged nonchalantly. “Let’s just say I know that the real reason she’s always lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory for her.”
Sam’s smile broadened just a little. The truth was, she knew just the opposite. But Tiffany Preston was a good liar.
He hated liars.
Again, she must have seen something in his eyes that she didn’t like. She frowned, but quickly covered it up, shrugging and giggling to conceal her sudden nervousness. “I seriously wouldn’t complain if I never had to look at her again, so long as I lived,” she added flippantly.
Sam’s hunger spiked as the thought rumbled through his head. He allowed his pupils to expand and Tiffany helplessly found herself lost in the growing darkness of his gaze.
“I think we can arrange that,” he told her, and took her hand in his.
*****
If there was anything in the multiverse that Logan Wright truly understood, it was the realm of fantasy. She had existed there, in mind if not body, for the last decade of her life. So, when it came to comprehending what Sam Hain was all about and what he had planned for Logan and her world, she was all t
oo aware of the implications. When he let her go, it was only so that he could catch up later – a cat playing with a mouse. A wolf and its prey.
She had created him, hadn’t she? So she knew what he was thinking. She knew, all too well, what he wanted and what lengths he would go to in order to achieve his single-minded goal.
Never in her existence had she regretted the creations she’d penned in her hours of pained solitude. She had always been grateful for the werewolf, the mage, the warlock and the devil. The millionaire, the biker, the vampire, the rake.
Always.
Until now.
Because she realized, as she navigated the mostly empty streets of her small town and glanced nervously in the rear view mirror, that she had created them too well. She’d done too good a job. They were all very powerful. They were always the winners in her little stories. Her heroines never really got away.
Why?
At the moment, she wasn’t sure it mattered. At the moment, the important thing – the thing that was really killing her – was that the men she wrote about were inescapable, insurmountable foes that always managed to get their way in the end.
If Sam was the culmination of them all, as he appeared to be – if Sam Hain, the Lord of the Dead, was truly born of her word and of her mind – then Logan Wright didn’t stand a chance against him. No matter how fast she ran from him, he would catch up. No matter where she tried to hide, he would find her.
And this was what dogged her, relentlessly, as she turned a final corner and at last found herself on the street that led to the hospital. It took her a few minutes to find an open parking space. As she slowly pulled through one of the aisles, she passed Katelyn’s baby blue Beetle and experienced a rush of relief. She parked and then hurried through the double doors that led to the lobby.
After checking that a visit from a friend would be allowed, Logan passed the nurse’s station and headed down the long hallway to Meagan’s room. Halfway there, she realized that the slumped figure in a chair outside of Meagan’s door was Meagan’s father.
Sleeping?
Logan approached him and stood in front of his chair. His breathing was the slow and steady rhythm of someone deeply asleep.
“Mr. Stone?”
He didn’t move. He didn’t wake up, and his breathing did not change. Now a new worry blossomed within Logan. “Mr. Stone?” She repeated, this time a little louder.
Still no response.
Logan considered going to the nurse’s station, but when she heard Meagan’s voice raised from beyond the door, she changed her mind. She reached for the knob to find the door locked. That was strange. She didn’t think any of these doors even possessed locks.
“Logan!” Meagan called her from the other side. Her voice sounded very tired and actually cracked a little under the effort of calling out.
“She can’t help you, witch.”
Logan’s eyes widened. That was Katelyn! Only, it didn’t sound exactly like her. She was hissing her words; her tone was laced with a malice that was utterly unlike her.
Logan yanked on the knob again, trying harder to twist it open. And then Meagan called out across the room once more. Her hoarse voice chanted something that Logan didn’t understand, in some language she couldn’t comprehend, and the knob clicked open under Logan’s grip.
Logan jerked the door open and rushed inside. Mrs. Stone was asleep in a large recliner against one wall, just as her husband had been asleep in the chair in the hall. Meagan was still in bed, a breathing tube under her nose and a blood pressure cuff wrapped securely around her upper arm. But she looked tired and weak and the only reason she was sitting up at all was because the bed had been raised beneath her. She looked up at Logan, her wide, violet eyes expressing nothing short of unspoken terror.
Despite her obvious fear, the machines behind Meagan registered normal breathing, normal blood pressure and a normal pulse rate. It was bizarre in the extreme, but Logan had no time to dwell on it.
Katelyn Shanks was standing at the foot of the bed, her blonde hair looking slightly unkempt and mussed. Her makeup was a tad smeared and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her color was decidedly pale, her lips cracked. She wore the same clothes she’d worn the day before.
“Katie?” Logan addressed her, confusion and concern warring with each other inside of her mind.
“Butt out, Logan. You’ll get what you want out of this, believe me. Now just let me have what I want,” Katelyn sneered, her gaze returning to Meagan. She tried to come around the bed toward her raven-haired friend, but something seemed to be stopping her. She looked as if she’d actually come up against some kind of wall. Her expression darkened dangerously.
“Let it down, Meagan. You can’t keep up the fight forever.”
“Kate, what the hell is going on?” Logan moved toward her, but Meagan’s hand came up, palm-out, and Logan stopped in her tracks.
“Don’t go near her, Logan,” Meagan whispered. “She’s under his spell.”
Katelyn’s gaze flicked from Meagan to Logan and back again. She gritted her teeth. “Give me the stupid necklace, Meagan. That’s all he wants!”
“Logan, get Mr. Lehrer,” Meagan whispered, her strength clearly waning. “Please!” she pleaded, her eyes watering with unshed tears. “We need his help!”
Logan looked from Meagan to Katelyn and back again. She didn’t fully comprehend the scene before her, but she grasped enough of its significance to realize that Meagan had something Katelyn wanted – and that Katelyn wanted it so that she could give it to Sam Hain. There was absolutely no doubt in Logan’s mind about that.
“He” was Sam.
It’s the necklace, she realized, catching the glint of silver under the folds of Meagan’s hospital gown. That’s what Sam wants. He sent Katelyn to get it. He must not be able to take it from her himself. And that meant that it possessed some sort of power against the Lord of the Dead. Which, in turn, meant that Logan could not allow Katelyn to have it. Not under any circumstances.
Meagan was clearly growing weak with the effort of keeping her friend at bay. Time was growing short.
Logan reached for the cell phone in her pocket only to find that it wasn’t there. Then she remembered throwing it into the passenger’s side of Taylor’s truck.
Crap!
She spun around and threw the door open, passing Meagan’s be-spelled father as she ran down the hall toward the nurse’s station and the stairwell beyond it.
*****
Dietrich Lehrer shut his car door and hurried toward the front entrance of the hospital. He was patently worried. First, Meagan had clearly botched the spell to keep Samhain where he belonged, despite the fact that Dietrich had been certain she was ready to go it alone. She’d been his assistant for the last three Octobers and had proven her ability to perform the rites. Nevertheless, inexplicably, she’d failed – and the Lord of the Dead had shown up at the high school in the guise of a new student named Sam Hain.
To make matters worse, people were going missing all over town; three students and two adults in two days. He had no doubts as to who was at fault in those disappearances.
And that morning, when Lehrer had attempted to perform a scry on the few students he had witnessed interacting with Sam Hain in some capacity, their images had been blocked from him.
It was the Death Lord’s doing, he knew. He had no idea how it was happening or where the old god was getting all of his new magic from, but somehow, Sam Hain had become too powerful.
An hour ago, Dietrich had done a reading with his fellow grove members, attempting to get a handle on the situation. They were trying desperately to figure out a way to fix it all. However, what they had divined was not promising. If their readings were at all correct, the Death Lord’s purpose here in this world was dark, indeed. And the young and innocent Logan Wright was stuck in the middle of it all.
Lehrer pushed through the revolving glass doors and headed toward the stairs, bypassing the elevator for a f
aster route. He was rounding out the second level and coming to the third when someone rushed around the banister and ran head-long into him.
The air was temporarily knocked from his lungs with a painful whoosh, but he retained enough of his senses to steady the person who’d run into him as she toppled backward from the impact.
“Logan!” he exclaimed when he had a good look at her.
She grabbed the banister and stared up at him, a disbelieving expression on her face. “Mr. Lehrer?”
“What on earth are you doing here?” he asked, and then he straightened and shook his head, realizing that he knew full well what she was doing there. Meagan was one of her closest friends. “Never mind – I’m sorry I asked, I –”
“Mr. Lehrer, Meagan needs your help! Katelyn is up in her room right now and she did something to Meagan’s parents and she’s trying to take the necklace from Meagan and Meagan can’t hold her off much longer!”
Dietrich stared at Logan for a moment, processing everything she’d just said. And then he came to his senses and began taking the stairs up two at a time. Logan was right behind him.
They came out of the stairwell and entered the hall, their mad-dash run drawing unwanted attention from patients, orderlies, and nurses as they made their way to Meagan’s room. Dietrich noticed the nurses behind their station beginning to stand, one of them reaching for the phone as they went by. He hadn’t wanted to cast anything over anyone innocent tonight, but they gave him little choice.
He muttered a few short, choice incantations and the nurses sat back down and attended to whatever tasks they had been previously dealing with. A glance behind him confirmed that Logan had both heard his incantations and noticed the abrupt change in the nurses’ behavior. He would have to explain everything to her later. Right now, there was no time.
They neared Meagan’s door and he saw her father slumped in the chair to one side. The spell was instantly recognizable and he was fairly sure it was Meagan who had cast it – not Katelyn. She had most likely sent it out as soon as Katelyn had attacked her so that her parents would not unwittingly get involved in something that could kill them.
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