Burned (Keeper of the Flame) (10 page)

“Logan‒”

“No, listen. I want you to kiss me, and I
don’t want to influence you to do it.” He leans in, lips brushing
my cheek as he whispers in my ear. “No tricks, no spells, no mind
control. Just you and me‒and how badly we want each other.”

He closes the rest of the gap between us,
arms tight around me and lips trailing down my neck.

I arch back, letting him continue his kisses
across my collarbone. He’s not influencing me, I can tell. And I
still can’t form the words to tell him to stop.

“I want you,” Logan says thickly. His hands
find their way under my shirt, hiking it up so it rises over my
stomach, and then higher. “Willow.”

When I press against him, I can feel the heat
from his jeans, the hardness there. I want him, too. I want my
hands all over him.

One of Logan’s hands reaches behind me,
cupping my butt. I freeze. Ryan’s card is in there. I can’t let him
find that just in case I need it. I press my palms on Logan’s
chest.

“No, Logan. I can’t do this.”

He looks at me, eyes cloudy with desire. I’m
still throbbing with need, but this isn’t right. I’m not supposed
to be here. His grip loosens and I step back.

I hit the wall and stay there a minute. He
props his hand next to my head, looking at his shoes. His breathing
is heavy and I wait while he composes himself. When he looks up,
his expression is pained.

“Okay,” he says, straightening. “It’s your
call. I can be patient. Maybe we should have breakfast.”

I nod. Breakfast is good. Normal.

He walks to the kitchen and I follow. Inside,
the windows are tall and wide, lighting the space and giving us a
nice view of a well-manicured lawn and healthy hedges. There’s a
wide island with stools lined on one side, and a table in a nook.
It’s loaded with a spread of food that makes my stomach rumble.

Logan laughs and gestures to a chair. “Have a
seat.”

“You made all this?” I ask, surprised. I
settle in a chair that gives me a view of the outside, a place I
hope I’ll see before this day is over.

He sits across from me. “I was up early.”

“I didn’t know you were so…domestic.”

This makes him smile. He pours orange juice
in my glass. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know, Willow. I hope
you’ll take the time to find out.”

I ignore the comment. The only thing I want
to find is a way out of his house. But I hate that something this
simple, this normal, intrigued me for a minute. That there might be
something good, or at least ordinary and comforting, about
Logan.

We scoop food onto our plates and I silently
plot when I’m going to be able to try to reach Ryan again. If I
can’t, I have to find a way out of here by myself, and that’s not
going to be easy. Unless Logan will give me some space.

I clear my throat. “I’d like to see the
journals again. From the library. And my mother’s book.”

His eyes narrow. “What for?”

“So I can learn more about the spell and the
curse. I don’t want to…work toward something if I don’t know what
it is.”

He spears a piece of cantaloupe and points
his fork at me. “You don’t really have a choice. You’re doing this
spell for me.”

He pops the fruit into his mouth as I frown.
Just as I thought he might be a halfway decent human being, he
reminds me he’s not. He’s a monster.

I clench my hand hard on the fork and stab
the fluffy scrambled eggs, which are surprisingly good considering
they’re made by a vampire. “Still,” I say, keeping my voice even,
“I’m going to need to see the books to do the spell.”

“You’re a little unpredictable, so that might
not be a good idea.” He nods when I stare at him. “I can see the
wheels turning in your head. You’re plotting how to get out of here
right now. Maybe we should wait on the spell book.”

I have a better chance of getting out of here
from the library than from his bedroom, so I have to keep
trying.

“Maybe I…” I shrug, biting into my toast.

“Maybe you what?”

“Maybe I could take a shower and get cleaned
up, and it’ll give you time to figure out what I’m supposed to do
here all day.”

“A shower.” He grins. “That sounds like a
great idea.”

“Alone,” I say.

“Not quite as much fun.” But then he shrugs,
giving in, and I’m hit with another flicker of surprise. “You’re
welcome to use the shower whenever you’re ready.”

“Thanks.”

It’ll be the perfect opportunity to try to
reach Ryan again. When I’m behind a closed door, pretending to take
a long, warm shower. Alone.

I stand, eager to make my next move.

“You don’t want any more breakfast?” He stops
with his fork halfway to his mouth. He gestures to the seat I just
vacated. “You should have more. You need your energy if you want to
go over those spells.”

He’s going to let me see the books? I sit at
the table again. Might as well humor him until I can get what I
want.

~ ~ ~

Upstairs in Logan’s bathroom, I turn on the
shower, both heads in the large space spraying hot water. There are
towels folded on the counter and some of the toiletries he’d
retrieved from my bag at the hotel.

If Logan weren’t such a lunatic, I’d be dying
of happiness in his house right now. The breakfast was wonderful,
the house gorgeous, and the shower bigger than the entire bathroom
back at the motel.

But instead of getting in, I sit on a nearby
stool and pull Ryan’s card out of my pocket. It’s crinkled from the
last time I used it, and I close my eyes, trying to focus my
energy. I have no idea where Ryan is now, so I picture his car
again. I find it parked along Main Street, and appear in the
passenger seat once more.

He’s not in here with me. I spin around in
the seat, looking at a dozen stores around me. Where is he? I can’t
just go wandering around‒other people might see me. It’ll look like
a ghost is traveling the downtown streets.

My eyes freeze on the library. He could be in
there.

I blow out a breath and focus on the
building, picturing myself inside, in the back room where I set the
book on fire. And all the sudden I’m there.

And it’s dark.

There’s only dim light coming from the front
of the building. I listen for sounds as I walk in that direction
but don’t hear anything. When I find the desk at front, no one is
there. The door is closed and it doesn’t look like anyone has been
in all day.

Maybe Cheyenne doesn’t open the library on
Sundays. Or maybe she’s helping Ryan find me.

I bring myself back to the bathroom. I can’t
check every single store on Main Street. And if I picture Ryan
instead of his truck, I might show up across the booth from him in
a very busy diner or something. That wouldn’t be good.

With a sigh, I strip off my clothes and get
into the shower. The water burns on a few cuts and scrapes I have
from running through the forest, but it feels heavenly. I take my
time scrubbing my hair and soaking up the heat. I try not to think
of how Logan’s been in this same shower. How his eyes are so hungry
when they meet mine. And how it’s such a bad idea for me to be
around him when part of me wants to kill him and part of me wants
to ravish him.

When I step out, I wrap a towel around my
head and one around my body. I leave the bathroom, prepared to find
my bag and get some fresh clothes when I see Logan standing just
inside the doorway.

I yank in a breath, clasping my hand at the
top of the towel over my chest. “What are you doing in here?”

“You were taking a long time. I wanted to
make sure everything was okay.”

“You mean, you wanted to make sure I wasn’t
trying to escape.”

His smile is dangerous. “Maybe that’s part of
it. You…” He shakes his head, eyes raking my body. They sweep all
the way down my legs before shooting back up to my eyes. “You don’t
make it easy for me to keep my distance.”

I harden my jaw. “Try.”

He doesn’t. Instead, he strolls forward. I
hold my ground and this seems to amuse him. “I don’t want to,” he
says, voice low and deep.

“Logan.” I hold out a hand, pressing it
against his chest in an effort to get him to stop. “You said you
wouldn’t do anything‒you wouldn’t influence me.”

“I’m not,” he murmurs, curling his fingers
around my wrist. He brings my fingertips to his lips, kissing each
one. “Take off your towel.”

My heart shoots straight into my ribcage, and
my stomach clenches. “Logan.”

“I meant this,” he says, unwinding the towel
from my head. He tosses it on the bed.

My hair is long and wavy, spilling over my
shoulders and dripping water down my shoulders.

He smiles. “That’s better.”

He runs his fingers through the ends and my
knees shake. He’s barely even touching me and I can hardly stand
up. My body throbs with need, hands aching to grab him and take
everything.

Logan steps back and I exhale.

“I told you I can be patient.” He walks to
the door. “So I will. Why don’t you finish up and meet me
downstairs?”

I make myself nod, and watch as he leaves the
room. I curl my fingers around the towel still on my body and
swallow. I was practically ready to throw myself at him. And he was
right, he wasn’t doing anything.

Just standing there, dark hair, sexy, all
man. And my knees quiver.

Frowning at myself, I get dressed quickly and
tell myself to keep calm. I have a plan. And as soon as Logan will
let me carry it out, I will.

Logan waits for me at the bottom of the
stairs. When he sees me, he says, “Let’s go for a walk.”

Not in my plans. I need to be alone so I can
find Ryan. But I don’t want Logan to get suspicious, so I smile and
nod.

“Good.”

He takes my hand before I can stop him and
guides me to the kitchen. We exit through a side door made of
glass‒a great place to escape if I need to‒and walk to the
gardens.

“My great-great-grandparents built this
place,” Logan says, strolling next to me with easy strides. “They
were in love, so I hear. So deep in love, in fact, that when my
great-great-grandfather, the first Meyer in Shadow Hill was injured
in war, my great-great-grandmother did a spell to save him. She was
a witch.” He looks over with a smile. “Like you.”

“What did the spell do?” I can’t fathom that
much power. Sometimes it’s all I can do to get through the day
without setting anything on fire.

“It brought him back from the dead,” Logan
says. He turns us toward the trees on the side of the property, my
hand still firm and warm in his. “But not without
consequences.”

“He became a vampire.”

Logan glances over with a slight nod. “He
became a vampire. If that’s what you want to call it.”

“What would you call it?” I ask.

“It’s complicated.” He stops, curls his arm
around my waist and turns his lips to my neck. “If you want to know
if we…bite…” I shiver when his mouth touches just below my earlobe.
“The answer is yes. If you want to know if we can be out in the
sunlight.” He tips his gaze to the sky, which is only partially
clouded over. “The answer is yes.”

“Garlic?” I ask quietly when he kisses my
neck again.

“You mean is it lethal? No. But good on
pizza, which I’m making for an early dinner.”

“I don’t…” I push at his chest. “I can’t
concentrate when you do that.”

“That’s the point.” But he steps away. “Do
you want to go back?”

I nod. He takes my hand again and leads me to
the house. Inside, he says, “We can look at those books now.”

I release my breath, grateful. But when we
get to the library, he doesn’t leave me alone. He lingers, pacing
by the window with his hands behind his back. It’s hard to focus. I
don’t know what else to do besides somehow conjure fire, which I’m
not sure I know how to do without getting upset, or get Logan out
of here so I can try to find Ryan again.

“You don’t have to wait in here with me,” I
say, my voice sounding loud and awkward in the large room.

He strolls over, hands behind his back, and
ignores my comment. He stops at a shelf near the table I’m sitting
at and pulls down an old book. “Try this one.”

I take it from him, pushing the Book of
Shadows aside. I have no idea how I’m supposed to hunt down some
old spell that cursed Logan’s bloodline and all the other
paranormal bloodlines in this town, so I might as well start with
history.

For a while, I can hear Logan walking back
and forth behind me as I read, but then I get so lost in the
journal, I tune it out.

Once Logan’s great-great-grandmother, Ruby,
did the spell that turned her husband into a vampire, she was
shunned by the witch community. The vampires were also pitted as
immediate enemies against the other paranormal groups already
living in the area. Werewolves.

I think about Cheyenne and wonder if Logan
knows who she really is. Or what Ryan really is. But I’m afraid to
mention it to Logan, even to get answers. I don’t want to clue him
in that I might have outside help.

After Ruby was ostracized by her kind, all
the witches including my ancestor Selena, she gave into the dark
side and became a vampire like her husband.

I look up and find Logan leaning against the
same shelf, watching me.

“What happened?” I ask. He angles his head.
“With your great-great grandparents? Are they…still alive?”

He shakes his head.

“So you…your kind…” I fumble with my question
and look down at the journal. “You can’t live forever? Is that just
a myth?”

He pushes away from the shelf and sits in the
chair across from me. “It’s not just a myth. But that’s not how
things are now. Not after the curse.” He rubs a hand along his jaw,
eyes thoughtful. “Our abilities…the benefits of being what we are,
they’re dulled. In some respects even non-existent.”