Logan, page 11
“I am the mother of night,” the stranger said.
“Have ye seen me husband?”
The woman pointed toward the pen. Ronin was there, frozen as a statue, hand still held high as if holding a torch that wasn’t there. The sheep ran to and fro in terror.
“Ronin!” Polina rushed toward him, scaling the fence to reach him. She shook his shoulder. “Husband. Wake, husband.” But Ronin did not even blink, such was his stupor.
The woman curled her thin mouth into an expression that couldn’t be confused with a smile. “He will not wake. He will remain thus until you’ve made your choice.”
Polina pivoted to face the woman. “Choice?” She patted Ronin’s cheeks and shook him again. His skin was cold, too cold. “What choice?”
“Six years heretofore, I answered your prayer and saved Ronin from death.”
Polina shook her head. “I did not pray to thee.”
“Not by my true name, but I could hardly hold your ignorance against you. Still, you called and I answered. Ronin lives because of my intervention.”
“What do ye want? Payment? A sacrifice?”
The dogs circled faster. “Of sorts. You, Polina, have my blood in your veins. It is time for you to embrace what you are and become like me.”
She shook her head violently. “What are ye? I know nothin’ of you.”
“Yes, you do. Look deep inside yourself. Like me, you are a sorceress of the dead, a witch, an immortal. Accept your duty and you will have the power to free your husband from my spell.”
Polina’s eyes filled with tears. The woman was obviously the evil spirit she’d feared. But what choice did she have? If she didn’t succumb to the witch, Ronin would die.
“Tell me what I must do.”
“Come here, child.”
Polina dropped her torch in the mud where it extinguished itself. On trembling legs, she approached the woman, who met her halfway, passing through the pen’s wooden barrier like a ghost. Polina wept with fear.
The spirit paused, her eyes focusing on Polina’s abdomen. “This is unfortunate. An immortal being cannot carry a child.”
Polina clutched her stomach protectively.
The woman tipped her dark head. “But this one will not live.” She shook her head. “The babe is ill. She will not survive another month.”
“A lass?” Polina asked, looking at her hands still gripping her abdomen.
“Yes, daughter. She is not meant to be born. Choose to join me and at least you will have your husband. Deny your rightful place and lose both.”
“But I… I cannot.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Be wise, daughter. You know what you are. Your potions heal. You are never ill. Your presence can make a flower bloom. You are never cold. You are a witch, Polina, a Hecate. A daughter of the night. Accept it and take what is yours.” She pointed at Ronin.
Polina raised her eyes to the woman whose glow rivaled the torch she’d dropped. Swallowing hard, she gave one curt nod.
The spirit smiled, looking genuinely pleased. She reached above her head, closed her fist, and pulled. There was a tearing sound. Confused, Polina focused on where her hand had been but saw only a distant star.
“Eat this,” the spirit ordered, extending her fist and opening her hand. In the woman’s palm was a piece of the night. Black. Foggy.
Polina grasped it with the tips of her fingers. It vibrated in her grip like a living thing, like a bee held by the wings. But as she brought it to her mouth, the strangest sensation flooded her. She was not afraid. The woman was right; deep inside, hidden somewhere out of sight, she had known she was something more. There was a reason she hadn’t caught the plague. She was different.
She wrapped her lips around the slice of darkness in her fingers and swallowed. The texture was of cooked pear, but it tasted of rare wild game. When she pulled her fingers away from her lips, they were red with blood. “What’s happening to me?” Polina asked, pitching forward from the pain that had blossomed in her innards.
“You’re expanding,” the woman said. “Don’t fight it.”
Fight it? Polina simply wanted to survive it. She fell to her knees, cradling her stomach and wishing for death. The night spun. The stars circled in her vision even with her eyes closed. The scent of wet foliage filled her nostrils. Another wave of pain brought cold. Her entire body plunged into a frozen loch without moving an inch. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Her muscles tightened as tendrils of ice branched from her stomach and infected her limbs. But when she thought for sure that she would die, the pain stopped.
She raised her head. Had the sun risen? No. The moon was its same waxing self. Only, Polina could see in the dark. Every blade of grass, the hair on each of the hounds, the slither of a snake winding over the woman’s feet—Polina could see it all. She breathed deeply and got to her feet. Everything around her was connected, held together by invisible string, all part of the same tapestry. The stuff she was made of didn’t end at her skin. She continued on into eternity.
“Come, my daughter.”
Polina staggered to the woman’s side. “Ronin?” she asked.
“Face him, extend your hand, and call to him.”
She did as the woman directed. Ronin’s eyes fluttered. “Polina?” he said.
“I am here, my love. Come to me.”
“What is wrong with your skin?”
She looked down at herself. Her skin was indeed glowing in the dark; the light shone through her clothing. “Nothing is wrong, Ronin. I have become. I am a witch. I am a sorceress of the dead.”
Ronin stepped forward, pulling his dagger from his hip. “What have you done with my wife?”
“I am your wife,” she pleaded.
He rushed her, thrusting his dagger into her stomach. “Where is my wife!” he yelled.
Her lips parted in a silent scream as she spread her arms and looked down at the dagger protruding from her stomach. Ronin backed away. Slowly, agonizingly, Polina wrapped her hands around the hilt and pulled the knife from her flesh. The pain abated as soon as it was free of her flesh. She handed it back to Ronin. “I am your wife.”
He staggered then, shaking his head. She caught him before he could fall and started guiding him inside.
“Wait, daughter,” the woman said. “I have a gift for you.”
The earth under her feet began to quake, and to her horror, spit out a large book. The symbols on the front were unfamiliar but somehow she understood them. Elemental Alchemy.
“Practice. The knowledge will come to you in time.”
Polina nodded. The woman disappeared.
Step by step, she dragged the massive man back inside as he mumbled, “My wife is not a witch.”
21
The Penthouse
As the mirror finished its story, Logan turned toward Polina. “After all of that, after losing your…” He couldn’t even say baby. The thought was too horrible. “Ronin didn’t believe it was you. He tried to kill you.”
“Yes,” Polina said.
Logan was conflicted over what he saw. On the one hand, he’d wanted to jump into the mirror and shake Ronin, to force him to listen to reason. On the other hand, he wanted to kill the already dead Ronin. Mine. From the moment Polina had appeared at his door, he’d considered her his. It didn’t matter that the man had lived over four hundred years ago. Just seeing him raised Logan’s hackles.
“What happened next? Did he come around?” he asked.
“We needed each other to survive. In time, he accepted our circumstances, although he would never accept what I was. We lived out our lives as a brother and sister might. I loved him dearly. He tolerated me. Still, he would not accept a cure from me when he contracted smallpox in 1585. By then, he was old and I hadn’t changed at all. He died in the fall, and I buried him on our land.”
“Polina…” Logan’s face betrayed his sympathy for her.
“Ronin made his choice. I could have cured him, but he refused me. Some part of him believed I was wicked to the very end. So, you see, when I left you in the kitchen that night, it was because I know what happens when a human and a witch fall in love. The human dies, and the witch is never the same.”
“I understand why you left, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
“It doesn’t?” Polina scoffed. She leaned her elbows on the table. “What way can it be?”
Logan took her hands in his and kissed her fingers. “First difference is, I know what you are, and I don’t think you’re wicked.”
“Do you think you could trust me after what happened with Tabetha?”
“I trusted you enough to invite you inside.”
She laughed. “I’m not a vampire. It doesn’t matter.”
“No. After Tabetha, Grateful placed a protective enchantment around my apartment. Nothing supernatural can come in without an invitation. It’s why I didn’t invite you in the first night you came to my balcony. When I carried you through the door tonight, I was letting you in.”
“Oh, Logan.” She pressed her fingers into her lips. “Thank you.”
“Trust is built over time. We’ll never know if this is real unless we give it a chance. I’ll take a chance on a witch if you take a chance on a human.”
“Take it day by day and see where it leads?”
“Exactly.”
She searched his face, the pull of the positivity potion driving her toward him. “I don’t think I have a choice. You asked me what changed, why I came here tonight. It’s like someone has tethered me to you. The longer I’m away, the tighter the tether becomes until I can’t stand the tension. I have to be near you. Can you feel it? This thing, drawing us together?”
He nodded, swallowed hard.
She rose from her chair and walked around the table to stand in front of him. Hiking her skirt up, she straddled his lap. Logan inhaled through his teeth with a hiss. He was instantly hard. If he made it through the evening without coming in his pants, it would be a miracle. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her breasts grazing his chest. He closed his eyes in an attempt to try to keep it together.
“Make love to me, Logan.”
“We should wait,” he murmured. “Shooting stars burn out fast.” He couldn’t risk it with her. He wasn’t sure what was happening between them, but he had the sense it was gravely important. It would take will power, but in the long run it would pay off.
“You don’t understand. I’ve got this hunger in me,” she pleaded softly in his ear. “I won’t be able to function unless it gets fed. I can hardly hold a thought. Please.”
He lifted both hands to cup the sides of her face and searched her eyes for any hint of uncertainty. There was none. Fuck will power. Just this once, Logan was going to have dessert first.
22
First Time
Polina could feel the moment the wall came down between them. Logan had been holding back, fighting the attraction. She sensed he was afraid of it, afraid of her. The remnants of Tabetha’s folly, she assumed. But she had almost a century of pent-up sexual need and after the appetizer she’d experienced on the sofa, she was ready for the meal.
Sure, what Logan said about shooting stars and taking things slow might be true. She didn’t know. Frankly, she couldn’t focus long enough to consider it. The fire deep within was blazing out of control and all her blood and thoughts had settled low, like a two-ton weight of need between her legs.
His kiss was harder this time, wanting. Her teeth tapped his as their tongues maneuvered for position. Fingers dug into her hair and tugged gently at the roots, the slight pain a counterpoint to the pleasure, salt against sweetness, a sharp edge, an intensity that made her pull him in tighter.
He stood then and guided her through the penthouse, into his bedroom. She had a moment to admire the upholstered headboard and pale gray comforter before he lowered her to her feet.
“Hold that thought,” he said. Leaving her, he moved to a closet and pulled out three thick white candles, still in their plastic wrappers. “I keep these for emergencies. I’m designating your pleasure as one worthy of their use.” He smiled and unwrapped them, arranging them on the nightstands and the dresser. “Matches,” he said, opening and closing his drawers.
“Incindia,” she whispered, and the three blazed to life.
He straightened, turned from the flame. “Handy.”
She shrugged.
“Um, I just realized…” He pointed to his drawer.
She narrowed her eyes.
“It’s been over a year.” His cheeks blazed red. “Birth control.”
A smile broke out across her face. “I’m immortal. I can’t get pregnant or carry disease. But thank you for your concern.”
He inhaled sharply. “I am the luckiest man alive.”
She stepped in closer and reached for the drawstring on his athletic pants. With one tug, they fell from his hips. The bulge behind his briefs made her take pause before she shimmied out of her skirt.
“How do I do this?” He ran his fingers along the front of her corset. His voice broke.
“It ties in the back.” She turned on her heel to give him access.
His breath quickened as he loosened the laces. She pulled the corset over her head, along with the peasant blouse. Her wand dropped from its holster and she leaned over to pick it up, teetering on her thigh-high boots. Logan grabbed her hips and pressed himself against her as she scooped it up and placed it on the dresser. And then he was kissing her back, between her shoulder blades, and down each individual vertebrae.
Her breath caught.
“These boots are sexy as hell,” he whispered. He groaned, took the back of her cotton briefs in his teeth, and slid them from her body.
She stepped out of them and then turned to face him, wearing nothing but her tall boots. He looked up at her from his place kneeling on the floor, as if she were his whole world, his own personal goddess. And didn’t that just make her wet? It had been a long time since anyone looked at her like that.
He grabbed her hips and pulled her forward. Worshipping one hip, then the other, his mouth moved lower. Would he dare kiss her there?
He did, licking up her center and sending her through the roof, the sensation so intense she thought she might pitch over the edge. He seemed to sense her pleasure. Shifting his torso, he hooked one of her legs over his shoulder. She braced herself, digging her fingers in his hair. His tongue picked up the pace. His mouth alternated between sucking and flicking her most delicate flesh. The warm, wet flutter tipped her over the edge, almost immediately. She fell forward, bracing herself on his shoulders, unable to support her own weight as the pleasure rocked her.
He laughed softly, scooping her up and laying her out on the bed. She watched him remove the rest of his clothing, his erection punching out from his body in a way that sent her flying again. He parted her knees with his hands and prowled to hover over her.
“Tell me if this hurts. I’ll go slow,” he whispered, pressing himself against her.
She wrapped her fingers around the base of his neck and pulled him to her. He kissed her as he entered her, and it did hurt, just a little. But the pain didn’t come close to the pleasure. She raised her hips to meet his.
All she could think, through endless sensation, through ecstasy and skin on skin, was he fit. Logan fit her. Every part of her. They came together in one soul-shattering moment. She was still wearing her boots.
After a moment, he pulled back and helped her out of them.
When he tucked her into his bed and curled around her, nuzzling into her neck, she realized she’d vastly underestimated how this encounter would change her. As she slipped into sleep, it was clear the positivity potion had given her exactly what it had promised, and the thing she’d feared most of all.
She was falling in love with Logan.
23
Breakfast
Polina woke to the smell of bacon. She reached over to Logan’s side of the bed, still rumpled and warm but empty. He must be making her breakfast. She pulled his pillow to her nose. His scent permeated the cotton. She couldn’t help but smile.
Her body was blissfully sore, arms and legs aching from a late night of lovemaking. They’d done it more times than she could count, in ways she’d never imagined possible. She had no regrets. Logan turned out to be a careful and sensitive lover, unselfish, a man worthy of her affections. She hoped to the goddess that she was worthy of his.
In between lovemaking, they’d talked about everything: childhoods, education, hobbies. She’d spent the better part of an hour answering his questions about her time living in England and France, her trip to the New World on a pirate ship, and life among the colonial settlers. He’d told her about culinary school and motorcycles—he hadn’t ridden one since he totaled his bike the day she’d saved him. She’d grilled him about the human concept of heaven and being a medium. And through it all, until the second sleep had overcome her, she unraveled Logan like a ball of twine and then rewrapped him carefully around her heart.
Climbing out of bed, she discovered that he’d left a T-shirt on the corner of the bed for her. The words “Imagine Dragons” scrolled in white letters across the chest. She pulled it over her head. In the process, she caught a glance at herself in the mirror above the dresser. Ruined makeup. Knotted hair. This would not do. Reaching for her wand, she focused and said, “Renova.” A swirl of sparkling pink energy started at her toes and spiraled up her body and over her head. When it dissipated, her red hair fell in perfectly formed curls to her shoulders. Her face held a hint of light makeup, perfectly applied. Her teeth were brushed, and she smelled slightly of lychee fruit, bright and sweet. She hurried from the room.
Logan was standing at the stove, wearing nothing but a pair of gray cotton shorts. His hair stuck up in the back and out one side, all sandy-blond sexiness. She’d mussed it with her fingers. For a moment, she held perfectly still, watching him crack eggs into a bowl of dry ingredients and whisk the concoction with a fork. Wires hung from his ears, and he sang something under his breath, dancing to the beat. He almost dropped the bowl when he noticed her out of the corner of his eye. He tugged an earbud from his ear.
