Logan, page 21
Logan circled back to the clearing, but Polina and the wolves were gone. Her scent was like a beacon to him now. The spicy sweetness that was Polina, a faint whisper when he was human, now was all encompassing, a lighthouse that drew him to her. It wasn’t just the smell. He could feel her nearby as if his heart was attached to hers by a rubber band. No, he had that wrong. It wasn’t his heart that was connected to hers; it was the piece of her soul trying to find its other half. With fascination, he focused on the small light that had taken root in his chest. Her immortal soul. The idea that he now housed a piece of her inside of him made him both swell with pride and internally recoil from the weight of the massive responsibility. Was he ready? Was he up to the task?
He landed in the yard of Aurorean House. The pull in his chest told him she was inside, but there was no way he’d fit through the door in his dragon form. He paced, trying to relax, to change back to himself.
A gargoyle from Polina’s north gable flapped its metal wings and soared to his feet. The twisted demon face pulled back its lips in a fanged smile that Logan would find creepy if everything about that night hadn’t been so strange already. Animated copper gargoyles. Polina had mentioned them once. After the werewolves and the shifting, he just rolled with it.
“Master Logan,” the gargoyle said, “Nicodemus, at your service. The lady awaits your arrival inside. May I suggest you change into your human form first?”
Logan wanted to say, No shit, Sherlock. All he could manage was a roar.
“Concentrate on your heartbeat, sir. The heart is key.” Nicodemus worried his hands in front of his tarnished copper chest.
Logan closed his eyes and focused. Lub dub, lub dub. He meditated on the sound, shifting his attention to the center of himself. His head pitched forward and the pain came again, only this time the change happened faster. His talons and tail retracted, red scales shed exposing human skin, and when he thought he couldn’t stand the snap of his bones breaking for one more second, he unfolded… completely naked.
“Er, thanks,” he said to the gargoyle, sprinting for the entrance. He stopped short when he remembered something important. “Nicodemus, Polina’s wand is missing. Can you search for it?”
“Until dawn.” The gargoyle bowed low and then motioned to his friends on the roof, who swooped down and followed him into the forest.
Logan didn’t waste any time getting his naked self into the house. He was aching for a shower and needed to make sure Polina and Hildegard had recovered safely. There was a cold spot at the center of his chest and he rubbed the uncomfortable feeling as he made his way down the hall, searching for her.
“Polina?” he called. When he reached her bedroom, he stepped up to the cheval mirror he’d gone through before. Of course she’d be in her room of reflections; she would need the power to heal herself. Tentatively, he reached toward the silver, breathing a sigh of relief as his hand passed through. The rest of his body followed.
Inside the passageway to the heart of her sanctuary, a million tiny reflections surrounded him from every angle. He took a step forward and smacked into polished silver. Turning, he tried again. This time he moved three steps before bonking into the next mirror. “Okay,” he murmured. Holding out his hands, he skimmed the wall with his fingers, closed his eyes, and reached out with his other senses. He allowed the light behind his heart to move his body. He trusted it to guide him to her.
It didn’t take long to find her this way, and he wondered if the mirrors had adjusted for him as they once had for her. When he opened his eyes, a stiff panic flooded through him. He rushed to the place she was crumpled on the floor and gathered her into his arms. Her skin was gray. Her lips blue.
“Polina? Polina?” He shook her gently.
Lowering his lips to her forehead, he began to tremble. Her skin was ice cold. He was afraid to check, but he was pretty sure the owl, tied to the crook of her arm with her bell sleeve, was dead. And what of Polina? He couldn’t find a pulse.
“Come on. This isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” But even as he said the words he remembered Grateful. Rick had to reconnect her soul to her body after she was reincarnated because she could die and he couldn’t. The horror came to him all at once. Polina had given him her immortality, and now she was dying from whatever curse that fucking werewolf had placed on her and Hildegard before he’d boxed them up.
He hugged Polina to his chest and rocked, tears flowing. He couldn’t accept this. Never. He didn’t care if every witch who ever made a caretaker had died in the process, he wouldn’t allow Polina to go. He’d reverse the process somehow. Give her back what he’d taken from her.
And then it came to him. Rick had given Grateful back her power through blood and sex. Polina was in no shape for the latter, but maybe, just maybe, his blood would do the trick. He cradled her in his arms.
“Polina, I need you to do something for me. You’ve got to wake up.”
No reaction.
He raised his wrist to his teeth and bit. It was physically painful but nothing compared to the cruel punishment his emotions were drilling into him at the moment. Blood bubbled to the surface, and he pressed it to her lips. When she didn’t open her mouth, he tugged her jaw down and tipped her in his arms. The blood pooled in her open mouth.
“Swallow,” he begged her. “Just one swallow.”
50
Witch
Witches don’t die easily. Polina’s last thought as she passed over on the floor of the room of reflections was that, had she been human, she never would have made it this far. It was clear to her now that Alex had cursed Hildegard with a wasting disease. He knew the familiar would either die or drain Polina’s energy, rendering her as good as dead in his makeshift tomb. Only Polina had done something Alex hadn’t expected. When she had made Logan her caretaker, she’d given up her immortality. At that point, the wasting disease had spread from Hildegard to her.
An hour ago, she may have still had the strength to cut Hildie loose and save herself, but she was too far gone for that now. By the time she realized she wasn’t just being dragged into death by Hildegard but had caught the curse and was dying herself, it was too late. Her only solace was that Hildegard would return to Hecate’s garden, the place all familiars came from, and Polina would be reincarnated. She’d return to Logan when her new incarnation reached adulthood. Rick would help him until then, she was sure. She’d be with Logan again, someday.
With the image of her love firmly etched in her mind, she allowed herself to drift away. It was okay. She’d slide into the beyond and let the universe handle the particulars, her soul to join eternity. With her last breath, her soul filtered through her skin and hovered above her chest.
Unexpectedly, a glorious taste filled her mouth, and in that flavor was the song of her soul. Her spirit sank back into her body, winding through her veins to dance with its newly discovered partner. Painfully, her heart contracted in response to the flow. She swallowed and swallowed again, gasping around the tide of blood down her throat.
Strong arms cradled her body and their warmth infused her, seeping through her skin and sinking into bone.
“That’s it. Drink.” Logan’s voice. But something was wrong. He sounded upset. Distraught. She tried to open her eyes but failed. “You’re okay. You’re safe. Just drink.”
She did. She snuggled into his embrace, eventually raising her hand to hold his wrist to her mouth. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? As the vessel of her soul, Logan’s blood could heal her. It could break enchantments too. As she drank, the warmth permeated her stomach, then branched outward, worming its way through her arteries and veins, spreading to the tiny capillaries that fed her muscles and her skin.
Her strength returned slowly, but it did return. Once she couldn’t hold another drop, she stopped drinking and opened her eyes. She gazed into the tear-stained face of the man who was both her love and her life.
A shaky sigh of relief broke his lips. “Thank the goddess.”
“Hildegard?” she asked.
He sat her up against his chest, and together they unwrapped Hildegard’s body. The bird looked dead, pale and almost featherless. But Polina had never given up on her friend and familiar, and she wouldn’t now. They were bound metaphysically, which meant if Polina was alive, some part of Hildegard must be too.
Holding the bird out in her open palms, she uttered the healing enchantment she’d used on Logan. “Reinchide velecluse moribidatae vialanium.” She didn’t have her wand, but here, in the center of her element, it wasn’t strictly necessary. Drawing on the strength Logan had given her, Polina fed her owl everything she had to give.
Blue light flowed from every reflective surface and plowed into the bird in her hands. Behind her, Logan turned his face from the force of the magic. The tiny body twitched, then twitched again. And then Hildegard’s head rolled. Polina stopped the spell and pulled her familiar closer.
“Hildegard? Speak to me.”
The tiny, bald bird blinked gigantic yellow eyes at her. “The things I go through for you. Do you know I was practically dead? And because of a werewolf I told you to get rid of weeks ago.” Her beak smacked her disapproval.
“Glad to have you back, Hildie.” Polina hugged the bird against her chest.
“All right, all right. Don’t smother me.” She flapped her featherless wings and went positively nowhere, then wiggled herself onto her own two feet. “I suppose you’ll be around more,” she said to Logan.
“I plan on it,” he answered.
“You can understand her?” Polina asked.
Logan nodded. “She has a slight Scottish accent. Cute.”
“I like him,” Hildie said, shaking her downy stub of a tail and looking at it forlornly. “Now what am I to do? I’m bald. I cannot fly without any feathers. You’ll have to carry me everywhere. Can you fix this?” she asked Polina.
Polina frowned. “I can try. I’m sure you will recover, but it will take time. All of us need to rest and get stronger.”
“What am I supposed to do until then? I can’t have anyone see me like this. What about Poe?” She whispered the last as if her love affair with the raven was some well-kept secret.
Polina shrugged. “I could knit you a sweater?”
Hildegard looked positively disdainful.
“Come on, old girl. Let’s see if I can recover my wand and help you out.” She stood with the bird in the crook of her arm.
“Uh, Polina?” Logan said, pointing in the general area of his nakedness.
“Hmm? What, dear?”
“I’m naked.”
“I see no problem with this.”
Logan placed his hands on his hips and growled his disapproval.
“Oh!” Polina took a step backward. “All right, if it means that much to you.” She snapped her fingers and sweats and a T-shirt appeared on the floor.
He pulled them on. “That’s it? A stern look and you give in?”
“You didn’t see your eyes,” Polina said, sliding an arm around his waist and coaxing him toward the looking glass entrance. “I’m afraid, as of today, you officially wear your heart on your sleeve. It’s become very easy to tell when you’re angry.”
51
Guests
As it happened, Nicodemus hadn’t found Polina’s wand before sunrise. Luckily, someone else had. No sooner had the sun broken the horizon than Silas plodded from the shelter of the branches, wearing cut-off shorts that couldn’t possibly be his and a dragon amulet. In his teeth was Polina’s wand. Logan held the door open for him, and Polina motioned for him to take a seat at the table. Silas returned her wand, and Polina pulled him into a quick hug.
“Thank the goddess you’re safe,” she said.
“I want to thank you two for stopping Alex. If you hadn’t, I’m not sure if the supernatural community would ever recover.”
“Agreed,” Polina said, gripping her wand with both hands. “What do you plan to do with the amulet?”
“It will be returned to the Siberian dragon fae. It’s where it belongs.”
Logan cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you tell me you were alpha of your pack? All this time and you never let me know.”
Silas lowered his eyes and ran his fingers over the table. “For your safety, Logan. The Fireborn wolves are the oldest and most established pack in the country. We rule the werewolf presence in North America. The man who was killed and stuffed in your dumpster was my decoy. He attended all werewolf events as me, just in case. He gave his life for me, but once he was dead, Alex knew the truth.”
“How?”
“My pack didn’t acknowledge him as their alpha. The connection between alpha and pack is metaphysical. If he’d killed me, they would have to bow down to him, no questions asked. It would have been possible for one of my siblings to challenge him for the position, but as long as he had the amulet, the effort would be fruitless.”
With one hand rubbing circles over Polina’s back, Logan narrowed his eyes on Silas. “Well, now you’ve told us, so I hope you know you can trust me.”
Silas’s eyes shifted between him and Polina. “And you, me. But I need to ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“What did you do with Alex’s body?”
Logan shook his head. “I broke his spine and dropped him on the side of the mountain. He’s dead.”
“Has to be,” Silas said. “If he wasn’t, his pack wouldn’t have reverted to me as their alpha.”
“My sous-chef, Jonah, was working for him. I think he was the one who actually committed the murder.”
“Don’t worry. Wherever he is, Jonah will find himself with new priorities. Polina, can I have your permission to recover the body from your property? It’s a pack thing. There are traditions we follow.”
“Yes. As long as you need.”
Silas nodded. “Then my work here is done. Something tells me you two will want to celebrate your new relationship.”
Logan grinned, noticing Polina’s cheeks redden. He opened the door to let Silas out, only to find Grateful and Rick on the other side.
“Oh thank the goddess! Are you all right?” Grateful eyed the shattered glass Polina had swept to one side of the kitchen. “We got your message and came as quickly as we could.” Grateful pulled Logan into a hug and then wrapped her arms around Silas.
Grateful’s raven familiar swooped through the door, barely evading their heads. “Hildegard? Oh my dear Hildie. What happened to you? Are you well?”
“Don’t look at me, Poe. I’m hideous!”
“No, of course you aren’t. You are as beautiful as a newborn chick.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes.” He cuddled against her on her kitchen perch. “A specimen to behold.”
Hildie rested her head on his black shoulder. “You are a terrible liar, but the feathers will grow back.”
Poe didn’t say a word, but the look he gave Logan portrayed something along the lines of thank the goddess.
Logan scratched the side of his head. The others were still staring at the two birds with various expressions of mild amusement. “Refreshing when love overcomes adversity.”
The others mumbled their agreement.
Polina took a deep breath and put on her most genuine smile. “Well, come on in. I’ll put on a pot of tea, and we’ll catch you up on the happenings of last night.”
Grateful stared at Logan, her eyebrows sinking over narrowed eyes. She reached out and poked her fingers directly into the area of his T-shirt that covered the brand-new scythe-shaped scar on his chest. “Yes. I think you both have some explaining to do.”
Polina lifted a teapot from the top of the stove and plunged it under the faucet.
“You may want to fill that pot,” Silas said, eyes fixating on the window. There were six men standing in the front yard, each of them disheveled and wearing hastily obtained apparel. “It looks like my backup from the Lycanthropic Society finally decided to stop by.”
Polina placed the full teapot on the burner and lit the fire underneath. “Welcome them in. I only want to have to tell this story once.”
52
Balance
Once the story was told and told again, all parties agreed the young werewolves would be split up and adopted by the remaining alpha families and given more appropriate living arrangements. Silas bid them farewell and ushered the werewolf alphas to Renegade Caverns to lead Alex’s remaining pack members from Polina’s realm.
“I’m sorry things went the way they did, but I’m happy for both of you,” Grateful said, kissing them both on the cheek. “We would have been here earlier but we were in Sedona visiting a Native American healer about Lucas.”
“Whatever for?” Polina asked.
“I wanted her to tell me if he is normal,” Grateful said.
“What did she say?” Logan asked tentatively.
“She said his potential is unlimited even if it is unnamed.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means the woman is five hundred dollars richer for telling us our child will grow up,” Rick said through a wry grin.
“Rick!” Grateful nudged him with her elbow but smiled sweetly as if part of her agreed.
“I’m sure you’ll love him just the same, no matter,” Polina said.
Grateful nodded. They said their goodbyes and departed, along with Poe and Hildegard. The latter had recovered enough, after a few rounds of Polina’s healing magic, to go hunting with Poe’s help.
“That kid’s definitely a warlock,” Polina said once the door was closed behind them.
“Definitely,” Logan agreed.
She turned to him and laughed.
“What now?” Logan asked.
