Soul Resurrected (Sons of Wrath, #2) (45 page)

“Nothing’s changed since this morning.”

She stroked his nape and Logan’s muscles relaxed.

Her locks tangled in his fingers as he gently pulled her head back, tilting her chin upward, and kissed her. Rough and needy. His tongue darted into her mouth in hopes he’d capture the taste that sent him drifting away to a world less complicated.

A growl rumbled in his throat and his free hand wandered her body. He gripped tighter to her hair, and the tension in his muscles burned with desperation for release—release only she’d been able to give him.

Take her.

Now.

He needed that touch, the exquisite high of being so deep inside her the world around him would fade. He wanted to fuck her right into oblivion, until she couldn’t utter a coherent word, except his name. He wanted her nails digging into his shoulders, those legs wrapped around his back, biting, squeezing, pain, pleasure, all of her.

Logan’s thoughts shattered into focus.

No
.

Not with anger and confusion. The frustrations had his mind scrambled, his body begging to fuck or fight. He didn’t want to make the mistake of combining the two desires into something that would leave Calla frightened.

Releasing the back of her head, he softened the kiss until he pulled away from her.

Her blue eyes asked a million questions he didn’t want to answer.

“Calla, do you know why you were chosen? Why you became an Alexi?”

Her lips tightened and her delicate frown lines appeared. “I carry the antibody.”

“Anything more? Anything you can remember about yourself? Your family?”

She shook her head. “No. Everything’s a void. Gone with the Mindslating.” The silence lingered for a moment before her warm hands gripped his face. “Logan, what happened earlier—it doesn’t change the fact that I want you.”

He lowered his gaze to the floor. Could he imagine himself telling her the memory that’d come to mind when he’d been inside of her? Could he watch the innocence, and whatever twisted admiration she had for him, morph into repulsion at the messed up shit he’d done in his life for something so fleeting as money?

That wasn’t even the worst. The violence was. The sick and demented things he’d have her do just to get him off.

His mind refused.

“Stop thinking. Look at me.” Her eyes found his. “Let it go.”

Damn her for using the same words he’d said earlier.

Those were the kind of words that would break him. They’d make him scoop her up into his arms and keep her forever. He couldn’t listen to it. Just couldn’t.

“I can’t.” He backed away and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

CHAPTER 35

Logan plodded down the staircase, his mind consumed with thoughts of Calla, only pausing when he noticed Zayne standing at the foot of the stairs.

“Gavin asked me to come get you,” he said. “Wants us in the catacombs.”

Logan slipped his gun into its holster. “What’s going on?”

“Xander caught a Sang. Turns out, it’s that Draven kid.”

Logan’s hands balled into fists as a black cloud of fury spread to every part of his body, inciting the urge to ram his fists into the little shit’s face and leave a bloody mangled mess.

Sweet and painful vengeance. Just the thing he needed to clear his head.

Logan hastened his pace to the door leading to the catacombs. It’d never been his favorite part of the house, only because, aside from the frigid cold the walls held, like a crypt, it reminded him too much of Obsidius and the stonewalls he’d chipped away at for fifty years of his life.

Not even the dark reminders of hell’s prison could keep him from standing face to face with the one who’d stabbed him and tried to rape Calla, though.

Calla
. Damn, he had to set that thought aside.

Deeper, Logan ventured with Zayne at his heels, the stairs only discernible in the flicker of torches brimming over sconces on the wall, until at last they met Gavin at the door to the holding cells.

“Xander caught him?” Zayne asked from behind. “And the kid’s still alive?”

Not for long.

“Surprisingly, yes,” Gavin said over his shoulder. “Xander’s been on my shit list twice this week.”

Gavin heaved a thick black iron door to the side, opening up the passage to a dark cellar filled with prison cells. Deep panting breaths echoed from one of the cells toward the end of the row. All three brothers came to a halt in front of the bars and peered inside.

The Alexi’s body hung upside down from a hook attached to the silver rope around his ankles. Blood fell into a collecting bowl beneath him. His mouth had been taped, his body bound in chains.

Logan’s eyes swept over him, looking for the source of his bleeding.

In the shadows, Xander sat crouched to the floor, scratching his dagger against the cement. “You know, the longer they hang, the more tender the meat.”

Gavin set his hands on his hips. “Please fucking tell me he’s alive.”

“He’s alive. I only sliced him to see it.” The stark glow of teeth showed the angel’s smile. “Not every day a dinosaur is brought out of the history books.”

“I’d much rather deal with the dinosaurs than the Sang.”

Xander rose to a stand and stepped forward toward Draven, who jerked at his approach, and gave a yank of the chain. “Diablis steel. Shit’s amazing. Holds just about any supe. Including Sang.”

“
Excluding
demons.” Gavin slipped inside the opening of the cell door and circled Draven’s body.

“No kidding?” Xander rubbed his chin. “Have to keep that in mind, eh?”

The tearing noise of the tape preceded a deep inhale and a cough.

“Fancy meeting you here again, dipshit.” Gavin said. “My senses tell me there’s some foul play in all of this.”

“I … I came back for her.”

Logan strode into the cell and grabbed the boy by his nape, bending his body to the side and twisting his face right way up before his own. The heat of possession had his teeth grinding, the urge to slice the little bastard into pieces twisting in his gut. “You stay the fuck away from her. Hear me?” He pulled his dagger from his hip holster. “My blade is just itching to give your nutsack a nice kiss goodnight.”

“Logan, I didn’t bring you down here so I could watch you torture the shit out of him.” Gavin said.

“Hey, I’m game.” Xander pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve got some tools in my quarters, and I’ll have Anna bring down some popcorn.”

Gavin’s eyes leveled on Logan’s. “Zeke. Remember?”

Logan threw the kid, allowing his body to swing upside down once more.

“Where can I find Ryke?” Gavin asked.

“Isn’t … your brother … fucking his sister?” Draven coughed and spat blood. “Ask the bitch … where he is.”

Logan drilled him in the gut, flopping his body around like a fish on a hook.

“Allow me?” Xander stepped forward, running a finger along his blade.

Gavin rolled his eyes. “At this point, I’m not even feeling merciful.”

Xander tore at the zipper on the kid’s pants and pushed them upward exposing a pair of browning white briefs. The dark angel grabbed hold of his nuts and propped the blade at his thigh.

“Oh, fuck! Fuck, no! Wait!” The kid wriggled.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” the angel said in a disturbingly whimsical voice.

“I like the way this one thinks.” Logan pointed at Xander.

“He fucks some chick!” Draven ground out. “I don’t know her name. Please, God. I’m telling the truth.”

“What makes you think there’s a god in the room?” Xander looked around mockingly.

“I’m telling the truth! Fuck, I’m begging you! Please!”

“Where is this
chick
?” Logan shifted and crossed his arms.

“I don’t know! I swear it.”

“Zayne.” Gavin gave a jerk of his head.

Zayne stepped inside, his blue eyes swirling to an icy shade. As a soul seer, the brother could rip open a victim and leave his guilt pooling on the floor. He crouched down to Draven’s eye level and nabbed the back of the boy’s head to steady him.

“He’s telling the truth.” He spoke in the creepy
Zayne
voice that carried daunting calm of a serial killer and put most humans on edge. “He doesn’t know.”

Draven took deep, heaving breaths.

“Can I still cut off his nuts?” Xander asked, gripping Draven’s thigh.

The kid’s eyes widened with horror.

“No,” Gavin said. “I want him guarded. Alive. No torture, hear? We may need him again.” He tugged at the chain. “Will this hold him?”

“Bastard ain’t going anywhere.” A smug smile lit Xander’s face. “Keeps ‘em from pulling that vanishing act.”

“What’s this hoarding bullshit all about, Gav?” His whole body tense, heat stirring in his blood at the thought of the little cocksucker being allowed to remain so close to Calla, Logan nodded toward the kid. “Kill him. We don’t need him again.”

“Not only is he a link to our brother, he also happens to be Sang. There’s much to be learned.”

“He’s
my
kill. Not Xander’s.” Logan cast a hard stare toward the angel. Aside from his own longing to crush the kid’s skull in the palm of his hands, ridding him would be a personal gift to Calla—another one of her nightmares pummeled to extinction.

“I found him.” Xander pointed the knife at his chest as he spoke. “I should get to kill him.”

“No one is killing him!” Gavin’s voice echoed down the hall and back. “Let’s go.”

Logan glared down at the Alexi for a moment. Had the shit said one word or so much as flinched, Logan might’ve had to
accidentally
break him in half.

Lucky for him, he kept his stare cast away and his mouth shut, and Logan left the cell behind Gavin.

“Can I at least cut an arm off? A finger?
Anything
?” Xander called from behind.

“You harm one hair and you’re dead!” Gavin called back.

The clang of what could only be Xander’s dagger hitting the concrete rang out and put a smile on Logan’s face as the thud of boots and swinging chains sounded their ascent up the stairs behind Gavin.

When Gavin’s pace suddenly came to a stop in the staircase in front of Logan, Logan damn near ran into the back of him, and Zayne into the back of him. Lifting his cell to his ear, Gavin stared off. “The fuck do you want?”

“I know where to find your brother.”

Logan recognized Marrick’s voice drifting through on the other end of Gavin’s phone. One meeting alone had branded the tone into his memory.

“Yeah, like you knew where to find Draven?” Gavin asked.

“Meet me at Rivard and Erskine. Midnight.”

Gavin barked a laugh. “I don’t think so.”

“Then, perhaps you’ll simply look for a woman by the name of Lyric. But know this, you harm her and I’ll call on every pack across the globe to hunt your asses. Once you’ve seen Zeke, we’ll talk after about a contract.”

“He better be alive or every one of your packs will suffer the pain of Wrath.” Whatever anger Gavin had built up inside of him bled through in his words.

Zayne growled. “Fucker hurts Zeke and some shit’s going down.”

“He’s been well cared for. She’s kept him alive after what’s been done to him. Rivard and Erskine. Midnight,” he repeated before the click.

Gavin flipped the phone closed. “This is a whole lotta bullshit. But right now, it’s the only bullshit we got.” He nodded at Zayne. “Have a ghoul guard Draven. Xander can come along for the ride.”

Logan raised a brow. “It’s an ambush, Gavin.”

“If left to your decision, what would you have us do?”

“Exactly what you’re thinking,” Logan said. “Let’s roll.”

CHAPTER 36

Calla’s duffle bag sat on the bed, still packed from her last attempt to escape. She tossed in a few extra items—a brush, some mouthwash, things that she wouldn’t really need, but for some reason felt compelled to grab—and lifted the bag onto her shoulder.

Her training had taught her that less was more. The fewer things she had to be accountable for, the better. All she’d really need was a weapon. Luckily, she’d grabbed a wrist-bow to replace the one she lost to the hunter, and picking it up, she fashioned it to her arm.

Time to go.

It’d crashed over her earlier—as if she’d awakened from a drug-induced high and suddenly felt the guilt of enjoying it. Logan could easily become her obsession. She’d felt it in the shower with him—the tug of her heart that made her so crazy with the need to heal him and keep him for herself.

The demons didn’t belong to anyone, Logan most of all. He was a rogue and, if Calla had learned anything while living in a compound with a group of emotionally destroyed, bloodthirsty males, rogues remained rogues for a reason.