“The short, round shit who saved you.”
A violent shudder racked her frame and this time she did look up. Her dark eyes were shadowed with pain, fear, and confusion. Her gaunt cheeks were sunken, her lips colorless, and the cut above her mouth—though on the mend—looked raw against her pale flesh.
“I thought you saved me.”
“No.” He knelt down so that their eyes were level with each other. She would have looked away but he grabbed her chin and held her still. He needed to do this right. Needed to make her understand. “To be honest, you saved yourself, because you were brave enough to listen and react in a situation where most humans would freak the fuck out.” He couldn’t help himself and slid his hand along her delicate jaw. Damn but she was cold. Her eyes hung like luminescent jewels and in that moment Logan thought that he could stare into them for hours.
Kira tried to move her head but his grip was too strong, so she closed her eyes instead and whispered, “Don’t look at me.” A single solitary tear wove its way down from the corner of her eye and Logan dried it with a gentle swipe of his mouth. Christ, a week ago, “gentle” and Logan Winters were not something most people would put together.
He didn’t do “gentle.” He was as hard-assed as they came, but for her he’d damn well try.
“Open your eyes,” he commanded. She kept them squeezed tight. “Kira, open your eyes.” Logan threw in a dose of compulsion, and wariness looked back at him as she did his bidding. The harsh color of her bleached hair only served to emphasize how pale she was. “Why don’t you want me to look at you?”
“I don’t look anything like . . . like what I did back there.” She paused. “Back in the gray realm. There I was perfect, but here,” she shook her head, “here, I’m broken. A ghost of what I was . . . of what I want to be.” She laughed bitterly. “How ironic is that? The only way I can be the person I want to be is if I’m dead.”
She fingered the damaged skin at her wrist and he drew her hand into his. “We all have scars, Kira. Some are visible, but the most painful ones are hidden. Don’t be embarrassed to show your weakness. You’re alive and that kind of strength trumps the shit out of whatever this represents.” His fingers traced the scars at her wrist and she shuddered violently beneath his touch.
She opened her mouth to say something but then closed it.
“I’m not crazy about the blond hair, but hey,” he grinned at her, “we can fix that, right?”
Her bottom lip trembled—he felt her weakening—and without pause, Logan scooped Kira into his arms, holding her close to his chest as he kicked open the door to the bathroom.
“Logan, please put me down.” Her words ended on a sob and something broke inside of him at the sound.
His arms tightened and he dropped his head, inhaling the scent of her—the one that was still full of sunlight and honey and something else. Something he’d not experienced in centuries. Promise. He used his booted toe to start the water running in the bath.
“What are you doing?” She whispered.
Logan stared down into her eyes. Bill had told him a lot of shit he’d not wanted to hear. Stuff about duty and the League. About fate and consequence. He’d made it clear that Kira needed to survive, and that Logan was the key.
Holding her felt like all kinds of right, and for the first time in hundreds of years Logan knew he was where he was supposed to be. He had no idea where this road was going to take him. Didn’t even care about Bill’s so-called prophecy. He tried not to think about the child that would figure into all of this. Kira’s child. His child.
Instead he nuzzled her neck. Inhaled her scent and took it deep into his lungs. He would do the only thing he could to save her. He would claim her as his own and kill anyone who would dare to take her from him.
“Logan?” Her voice was soft, hesitant.
He drew in a ragged breath. “I’m going to do my damnedest to make your ghosts disappear.”
Chapter Fourteen
KIRA SHIVERED EVEN as the room filled with hot steam from the bat
h. She closed her eyes and rested her head on Logan. Beneath her fingers his heart beat heavy against his chest. It vibrated, singing a song that held her entranced—a melody that for a time chased all her demons away.
He was strength and security. A lifeline to hope and promise. She should be scared as hell, and yet . . . she wasn’t. In his arms there was some kind of contentment, which was so strange, considering she barely knew him.
I’ve known him for fifteen years. The words whispered through her mind and she knew them as the truth. Logan Winters had been a silent companion to her for all those years at the Institute. She’d found strength in his memory—in the very idea of him. He’d rescued her when she was ten and she supposed she’d always thought he’d come for her again.
And he had.
For years she’d felt as if she were living in slow motion. As if the days and weeks and months had blurred into one long string of abuse, confusion, and fear. And yet in the space of a few hours her world had tilted off center and settled into a place she’d never expected.
It was a world where the savior and the beast were one in the same. A world where the monsters from her nightmares were real. A world where the things that hadn’t yet come to pass were very much a possibility.
And the child. The small boy with fiery eyes and dark curls. Where did he figure in all of this?
“I’m so tired,” she said softly.