And then she jerked suddenly when one of the thorns pierced her forefinger. She blinked and looked down to see blood welling from the tiny wound.
“Whoa, you okay?”
Logan looked up as Dominic Maldovan strode two final steps toward her, closing the distance between them. She said nothing as he gently grasped her hand and lifted it to examine her bleeding finger.
“Let me get this for you,” he said softly as he pulled a white handkerchief from the inside pocket of his leather jacket and wrapped it around her forefinger. Then his green eyes cut to hers and the expression on his handsome face became somewhat sheepish.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come to visit you in the hospital,” he said.
Logan blinked. “You are?” What was that? Tell him it’s okay! Or tell him that you didn’t notice!
He slowly released her hand and then glanced over his shoulder as if to make certain they were alone. The hallway was clearing out; the bell for class would ring any second now. They were fairly secluded there, against her locker, no one within ear shot.
“My mother died of cervical cancer when I was eleven. Her last days in the hospital were horrible,” he told her, his tone still very quiet. “I hated the way she was always so cold, no matter how many blankets we tried to pull over her. My father didn’t notice the smell in the room – but I did.” He paused here, and looked down. Several long moments passed as he composed himself in the dawning, drawing silence.
Logan didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. She’d been wrong.
“My God, Dom…. I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head and straightened, offering her a sudden lopsided smile. “No, I’m sorry.” He shrugged. “You’d think I’d be over it by now.” He laughed softly. It was an uncommonly attractive gesture. He was so tall and so strong and he had already proven himself against the darkest and most dangerous forces known, and unknown, to man. Yet here he was, baring himself to her with a crooked grin and green, sparkling eyes.
She wanted to kiss him then.
Instead, she changed the subject. “Thank you for the flowers.” She held up the box in her hand and smiled gently. “How’d you know it was my birthday?”
“I’ve known your birthday since the fourth grade.”
He gazed steadily down at her, his eyes suddenly immense, bottomless pools. There were unspoken secrets there, somewhere beneath the inky, black surface of his expanding irises, and they held her in their thrall. She wanted to know what they were.
She was drowning in them.
The school and its background noises and hollow echoes faded away around her; there was only Dominic and his searching gaze and his hopeful expression. “Logan,” he said softly.
She blinked, unable to answer.
He swallowed and slowly raised his hand to cup her cheek. The touch was so tender, so warm and unexpected, Logan’s entire body went numb and cold and hot all at once. Her body was a living vessel for a heart that beat so fast, it burned in her chest, and blood that was liquid lava in her veins, and a head that felt like a balloon on her shoulders.
“Logan, may I kiss you?”
The world tilted out from beneath her; she didn’t know how she remained standing. But she did, and as he drew nearer, gently holding her face between both hands, her breathing came in short, quick anticipation.
She closed her eyes as he did and she felt his breath caress her lips. She caught the hint of licorice or wintergreen and then her phone rang.
Her eyes flew open and she found herself staring into his. He had stopped, frozen in place a mere hair’s breadth away from her lips. But he didn’t release her. He simply gazed steadily into her eyes.
It wasn’t until the third ring that Logan finally wrenched a few dry, cracking words from her throat. “I –” She faltered and tried again. “I should get that.”
It was another ring before Dominic slowly pulled back, his hands just as slowly leaving her face. She felt instantly bereft, as if the cold raced in to occupy the space around her where he had just been.
With an iron will, Logan tore her eyes from his, reached into her backpack, and extracted the evil phone. Her mother’s number glowed back at her.
It was so perfectly wrong, it was nearly beautiful. Like a choreographed dance of bad fortune. Someone, somewhere was really outdoing themselves just then.
Logan flicked the phone open and placed it to her ear, hating herself and technology in that moment. She listened through the rush of blood in her ears and barely heard what her mother was saying on the other end of the line. Something about picking up medication on the way to the hospital. Logan nodded, even though her mother couldn’t see her. Aloud she said, “Fine.” Then she hung up, feeling suddenly numb.
“Everything okay?” Dominic asked.
Logan stared down at her phone and then up at him. “No,” she said. She had no idea why she said it. She hadn’t meant to be so honest. And more surprising was that she kept talking – she kept telling him the truth. “No, everything hasn’t been okay for a long time, Dom. My brother is really sick. My family is falling apart. And right now, my mom needs me to pick up some meds at the pharmacy and meet them at the hospital.” She slid her phone into her backpack, knowing that this was it with Dominic. This was goodbye. There was no way he was going to like her after she told him all of this.
“And I know you hate hospitals, so I won’t say anymore. I’ll just go, and we can call it good. I’m sorry,” she said, speaking so softly now that it was nearly a whisper. It was as loud as she could go without sobbing.
She tried to brush past him then, noticing for the first time in full minutes that she and Dominic were not alone in the hall. The warning bell had yet to ring; there were still students mulling about, and more than a few of them were watching her.
Dominic’s hand gently grasped her elbow, stilling her retreat. “Hey,” he said, his brow furrowed, his gaze narrowed. “Don’t do this to me.”
Logan blinked, confused. “What?” she asked, trying to keep her voice down so that the other students wouldn’t hear her.
But Dominic didn’t seem to care about the other students. He raised his voice anyway, his tone one of stark frustration. “Don’t shut me out like this. Not now.” He pulled her back against the lockers behind her and pinned her there, one hand now a firm grip on her arm, the other braced against the locker door behind her.
“After everything we’ve been through together, you think that I’m just going to let you go? Just because you have a messed up family?” he asked her. He wasn’t yelling – not quite. But his tone was harsh and more than a little hurt and his eyes were fierce where they caught and held hers.
“Logan, listen to me.” He lowered his voice and leaned in, trapping her beneath him. “I’m sorry that I’ve never had the guts to tell you this before, believe me. But after what we’ve gone through in the last few days, not a thing scares me anymore and that’s the truth,” he told her, his entire being now radiating an intensity that was lighting Logan’s blood on fire.
If students were still watching, she didn’t care. Her entire world had become Dominic Maldovan and his eyes and his voice and his body, which was terribly close at that moment.
“I care about you, Logan.” His gaze flicked from her eyes to her lips and back again. His voice lowered once more, now becoming a whisper. “I have for years. If you think something like this is going to push me away, you’re wrong.” He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Logan had never felt so shocked, so confused. She heard what Dom was saying and she could understand him well enough, but she wasn’t sure she trusted herself to believe what she was hearing.
Dominic cared about her. He really cared. About her? Of all of the girls he could have… he wanted her? She shook her head. Just a little. She opened her mouth to say something, but realized she had no clue what to tell him. So, she shook her head again and said, “Dom, I don’t know what to say.”
�
��Tell me that you’ll give us a chance, Logan. Don’t shut me out. That’s all I ask.”
Logan hesitated and Dominic waited, his gaze piercing and steady. He wasn’t going to let her go until she agreed. That realization thrummed through her like magic.
“Okay,” she finally breathed. “I won’t shut you out.” She offered him the smallest of smiles, but it was from her heart.
He returned the smile, his grip on her arm lessening up as relief flooded his handsome features. “Let me give you a ride to the hospital?”
“But you hate hospitals,” she whispered.
“I don’t care, Logan. I’ll go for you.”
Logan blinked, once more at a loss for words. So, instead, she nodded.
The warning bell rang, and the two of them glanced around to see that the hallway had mostly cleared out.
His smile broadened. “Okay, then,” he said. He leaned in, slowly, with the obvious intent of trying to kiss her yet again – but a throat being cleared at the end of the hall brought him up short.
Dominic gritted his teeth and clearly tried to hide his mounting irritation. He straightened and he and Logan turned to face Mr. Lehrer, who was watching them with mixed emotion. Part of his expression was bemused. But there was a troubled aspect to his eyes.
“I need to speak with you both,” he said, coming nearer. “In my office, as soon as possible.” He paused, shoving his hands into the pockets of his corduroy sports coat. “I’m sorry,” he added, as if it were an afterthought. Then he turned and strode down the hall toward his classroom.
“What do you think that’s all about?” Dominic asked softly, his expression troubled. He obviously hadn’t liked the look on Mr. Lehrer’s face either. It was foreboding.
Dom turned to look down at her. She was hugging herself and suddenly aware of it under his scrutiny. “I don’t like seeing you afraid,” he told her softly. He reached out and took her hand in his, slowly sliding his fingers over her wrist and her palm until he intertwined them with hers and squeezed gently. “I’ve been wanting to do this since the fourth grade.”
Logan looked down at their hands, feeling bewildered. But she didn’t pull away. Not all the Samhains in the multiverse could have made her pull her hand out of his in that moment. It felt too good.
It fit.
*****
When Logan and Dominic came into the classroom hand in hand, it was to find Mr. Lehrer leaning on the edge of his desk and Meagan Stone sitting on one of the desks closest to him. Both of them glanced up as the pair entered and, though Meagan looked slightly pleased at seeing their hands linked, it was obvious that neither of them was surprised.
“Please have a seat,” Mr. Lehrer instructed calmly.
I really don’t like the look on his face, Logan thought warily. She could tell he was starkly worried, troubled, and even a touch angry. So she looked away, her gaze sliding from his to a poster hanging on the wall. It was a photographic shot of Stone Henge beneath a full moon. The moon cast a bluish light over the scene, reminding Logan of her dreams.
“I’m afraid I have some troubling news,” Lehrer said after she and Dom had taken seats beside each other.
“Don’t tell us Sam’s not dead,” Dominic said, a half smile on his face. He had obviously been joking, trying to lighten the dark mood of the classroom.
However, when Mr. Lehrer didn’t reply and he and Meagan exchanged worried glances, Dominic’s green eyes widened. “Oh holy mother.” He leaned forward in his seat. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he exclaimed softly.
“I’m afraid not,” Lehrer continued.
Logan’s fingers and toes began to tingle. She felt and heard a building roar in her eardrums. The world was slipping slightly. “He’s… he’s not dead?” She wasn’t sure she’d said it out loud. It seemed she had, but her voice sounded as if it were coming from far away.
“He was never dead, Logan,” Lehrer explained.
Logan fought off an encroaching faint. It wasn’t like her to faint. She didn’t do that kind of thing. Why did she feel like doing so now?
“Logan?”
In her waning, peripheral vision, she saw Dominic stand and vault over his desk. Then he was lowering to one knee beside her. “Logan, you okay?”
“Yes,” Logan managed. Her vision had tunneled a little, but she closed her eyes and breathed in through her nose. Out through her mouth. Then she did it again. “Yes.”
“Logan,” Mr. Lehrer was beside her now too, and he leaned on her desk and peered down into her gold eyes. “I don’t want to have to tell you all of this, but since it’s you he’s after, I have no choice.” He seemed to be watching her carefully, waiting for any further signs that she would check out of her conscious state.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, though she felt anything but. “Go on.”
Dominic grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently. It helped. In fact, it helped a lot.
“Very well.” Lehrer pulled up a desk that was near hers and sat on its edge. Meagan had already stood up from the desk she’d been occupying and now she came to kneel beside Logan as well.
“Logan, by now you know all about me being a witch,” Meagan said. “Mr. Lehrer is our grove leader. But there are other members in the group, and one of them is what we call a Seer,” she explained, speaking quickly but quietly.
“This morning, as we met to discuss what had happened with Sam Hain, the Seer had a vision,” Lehrer continued. “It wasn’t good.”
“Where is he?” Dominic asked. He said it as if it was all he wanted to know.
“We don’t know,” Lehrer said. “We barely know why things didn’t return to normal. At first, it was suggested that Meagan hadn’t completed the spell properly.” With that, he glanced at her and her cheeks reddened. “But I was there and I heard each and every word she spoke. She faltered in a few places, through no fault of her own, but she finished it and she finished it right. That wasn’t it.”
“Then what was it?” Dominic asked.
“It’s the moon,” Logan said then, before Mr. Lehrer could reply. The interruption caused a brief pause of silence to fill the room. Logan looked up at the poster on the wall, and then she met her history teacher’s gaze.
Lehrer straightened his glasses and nodded. “Yes. We believe it is the blue moon.”
“It’s holding the door open for him,” Logan went on, recalling once more the full, blue-colored moon from her dreams with Sam. It was always there, hanging prominent and stark against Sam’s sable skies. It had been tinted blue for a reason. It was symbolic. It was special; sacred to Sam Hain.
Again, Lehrer nodded, more slowly this time. He was watching Logan so carefully now, his expression one of keen interest and troubled wariness. “Logan, I know how shocking this must be for you to hear,” he told her. “I can’t imagine how frightened you must feel.”
No, you can’t, thought Logan, because what frightened her most was something that she could never admit to her history teacher or to her friends, and most of all, to Dominic. What scared her more than anything else was that Sam Hain was tempting to her. He had a hold on her that defied description. He offered her an escape from this world – and an existence elsewhere. Somewhere beautiful and safe and warm and far away from everything that could ever harm her.
That’s what frightened Logan. The enticement. The persuasion. She was afraid that if Sam ever got her alone again, she would give in to him. Just as she had done before. And this time, there might not be anyone around to save her life.
She looked up from the desk that she had been staring at and peered into Dominic’s jade green eyes. His grip on her hand tightened. She had more to live for now than she had before. Maybe it would make her stronger.
“I don’t understand,” Dominic said, not taking his eyes off of Logan. “There have been blue moons in October hundreds of times, if not thousands. What the hell makes this time different?”
“It could be one of several things,” Lehrer explained. “F
or one, Samhain has never been given solid form before. Something in Logan’s writing literally gave the Lord of the Dead life. That’s a powerful transformation and it might have been the first domino in a series of changes that affect the way the portal to Samhain’s world works.”
Oh, that just makes me feel fantastic, thought Logan. I’ve created a monster.
“Something else to consider is that it’s possible that no one has ever…” He cleared his throat and shot Meagan a guilty, nervous glance. “That no one has ever misspoken on the first part of the spell. Until now.”
“That can’t be true,” Logan said quickly, defending her friend. “Druids have been around for thousands of years and let’s face it – no one gives a perfect speech. I’m sure witches have messed up before. It isn’t Meagan’s fault.”
Meagan was blushing furiously now, but she had yet to come to her own defense. Instead, she shrugged. “Thanks Logan. But since there aren’t enough records to know for sure, it’s possible that Mr. Lehrer is right.”
“It matters little anyway,” Lehrer sighed. “Whatever the cause that has created this flux in our worlds, the effect is the same. Samhain is still out there somewhere,” he said. He glanced at Logan and she met his gaze. “And I think we can safely assume that when he can, he will come after Logan.”
“You honestly have no idea where he might be?” Dominic asked again, tearing his gaze from Logan’s to spear Mr. Lehrer with it. He was getting really angry; Logan could see it in the stiffness of his back beneath that leather jacket, and the tight way he clipped his words when speaking. His grip on her hand had also become slightly painful.
Lehrer took a deep breath and shook his head. “Not really. But I can tell you this much. Meagan’s spell threw a wrench into his plans. It hit him where it hurt, sapping his power and strength. Most likely, his spirit left the form it inhabited the way a human would flee from a burning building. But it wasn’t destroyed. He would probably want to take on solid form as soon as possible after that.”
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