Darkness Devours (Dark Angels 3)

He didn’t say anything to that. I guess there was nothing he actually could say. It was the truth, pure and basic.

He turned around and touched Logan’s forehead. The older man blinked several times, then swung around to face me.

“—come in here,” he said, his voice hinting at anger.

I blinked, then realized he was finishing the sentence he’d started when we first walked in. “Oh, sorry,” I said hastily. “Wrong bathroom.”

I unlocked the door and left. Azriel was two steps behind me.

“Now what?” I lightly rubbed my arms—there was a decided chill coming from his direction.

“Now we see what happens when he leaves.”

I half frowned, then remembered Ilianna’s warning. “Why would anyone go to the trouble of tampering with his mind if they were intending to kill him tonight?”

He shrugged. “Why would anyone fuck a man she does not entirely trust?”

For a moment, I could only stare at him. Then the anger rose, so swift and sharp I had to dig my nails into my clenched fists to resist the urge to smack him.

“Because,” I all but hissed, “despite all that is sane, I find myself wanting you.”

And with that, I stalked away from him. He didn’t follow. He didn’t need to. He was connected to my chi and he could find me whenever he wanted.

Still, I was grateful for the brief respite. Once I’d reached my table, I grabbed the wine bottle, filled a glass, and drank it swiftly. It didn’t do a whole lot for the fury boiling inside me, and I half wondered just how many bottles it would take before it did. Probably more than the bar had in stock.

After five minutes or so, Logan approached his table, looking a little green around the gills. Obviously, his enforced consumption of alcohol was not sitting well.

He picked up his jacket, said good-bye to the blonde sitting next to him, then staggered toward the exit. I picked up my purse and followed.

The air outside was cool and thick with the scent of the nearby ocean. I shivered a little as I trailed after Logan, and I wasn’t completely certain whether the cause was the chill in the air or the rising tide of my trepidation. Logan was taking more steps sideways than forward, but he was still moving at a decent pace, and in no time at all he’d passed from the bright protection of the venue’s entrance to the deeper street shadows.

The sense that something was about to happen grew. I scanned the streets around me, seeing nothing out of place. But in this darkness, would I?

And then it happened. A shot rang out.

Logan staggered and fell to his knees, just as a second shot sliced through the night. Something hit me from behind, and I found myself on the concrete, my heart racing and a fiercely warm body covering me.

“Azriel?”

“The second shot was aimed at us,” he said. “Stay here.”

His weight lifted from mine as he winked out of existence. I studied the buildings around me for a moment, then pushed to my feet. If someone was going to shoot me, then they could hit me as easily lying down as standing up.

“Mr. Logan?” I flared my nostrils, taking in the scents of the night.

Blood ran on it, thick and fresh.

He was dead. I knew he was dead, even though I couldn’t see a reaper waiting to claim his soul. Still, I had to check. I approached slowly, but stopped several feet away. Logan had twisted as he’d crumpled and his dead eyes were staring at me balefully. The bullet had entered his forehead and blasted its way through his head, leaving an exit wound bigger than my fist. Blood and bone and brain matter had splattered onto all the nearby surfaces.

Someone had wanted to make very sure that even in death, Logan’s mind couldn’t be read—which all but confirmed that someone had been aware that we’d been intending to speak to him. But how? And who?

Frowning, knowing they were questions I wasn’t likely to get answers to anytime soon, I took out my phone and rang the cops. I should have rung Uncle Rhoan, but I really wasn’t up to answering the questions that would undoubtedly follow.

Azriel reappeared as I hung up, his fierce expression suggesting things had not gone well.

“You didn’t find the shooter?”

“I did. He was stationed on top of the stadium roof, but by the time I got there, he’d thrown himself off it.”