"Bucking the Chancellor’s orders seems like a great way to get sci-fied into so strange Catalystic experint and kickstart a worldwide apocalypse." I eye Logan warily. "No offense to your ’fuck everything’ attitude, but I’ve seen enough movies to know what happens when the special girl skips magic school."
He stares at for an uncomfortably long minute, his expression sowhere between confused and amused. His head tilts slightly.
"Strange. The glamour shouldn’t be affecting your brain."
I smack his shoulder, hard. "Asshole."
He chuckles.
But the light mont doesn’t last. His arms tighten around as his expression sobers.
"I’ll explain it to the Conclave. If you’re arrested, it’s the Conclave who loses out—you’ll be vulnerable to..."
A pause. Just the smallest hesitation.
"...dragons."
I narrow my eyes, turning to look at him over my shoulder. His pause wasn’t nothing. The little hiccup in his sentence wasn’t a slip of the tongue. In the grand sche of things, we haven’t known each other long...
But I know enough about Logan Everett to recognize when he’s deliberately redirecting.
"Dragons," I repeat flatly. "Just dragons? Because that tiny pause makes it sound like there’s sothing else I should be worried about. Sothing you’re not telling ."
Even as his expression shutters, his fingers trail absently along my arm like he’s not even aware he’s doing it.
"Since the videos are faked, it’s likely this girlfriend of Scott’s is working with soone who has a vested interest in having you in custody."
I slide off his lap, needing the physical distance to think clearly. His arms release with obvious reluctance.
"Okay, so Scott’s revenge-obsessed girlfriend is possibly in cahoots with... who, exactly? You know, don’t you?"
Logan stands, reaching for his discarded shirt, and doesn’t even bother to hide the deflection. "We should get moving. I don’t trust this location anymore."
"That’s not an answer."
"It’s not relevant right now."
"Bullshit." The word cos out sharp as hell, and I take a deep breath, trying to calm the spike of anxiety twinging in my chest.
Breathe deep.
Everything’s fine.
Don’t lose your shit.
Losing your shit makes bad things happen.
"It’s very clearly relevant."
He pauses while pulling his shirt over his head, the fabric halfway down his torso. For a second, I’m distracted by the glimpse of defined muscle, but I force my focus back to the issue.
"Nicole." He says my na like it’s a complete argunt. "Trust ."
"I do trust you, but trust goes both ways—son of a bitch. Is this another contract thing?"
He gives a lopsided grin.
"Charming with smiles isn’t going to get you out of this, Logan."
"Well, why ask questions you know the answer to?"
I groan and bury my face in my hands. These damn magical contracts are going to be the death of . Or Logan.
One of us is going down in a blaze of glory and righteous indignation.
Logan gently pulls my arms down, pressing a kiss against the top of my head. "Co on. We need to get out of here."
My thoughts whirl like a tornado, frustration bubbling through the cracks of my composure. "Why did you even bring here? You should have brought to the new place in the first place."
The sentence is... well, maybe it’s a little weird and jumbly, but I’m sure he understands what I an.
But I’m so fucking sick of reacting to things happening around , like a puppet on soone’s string.
"The ga’s changed, Nikki. Now get your ass moving."
Before I can respond, his hand connects with my backside in a playful smack.
I jump.
"Did you seriously just—"
"Yes, and I’ll do it again if you don’t start packing." There’s a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
I rub my ass, shooting him a glare. "You’re enjoying this."
"The part where we’re being hunted? Not particularly." He grabs a duffel bag from his dresser drawer—strange place to store it, but I guess you do what you need to in a hotel—and tosses it onto the bed. "The part where I get to order you around, though? Thoroughly."
"You know that’s twisted, right?"
"Says the woman who likes being tied up." He doesn’t even look at when he says it, just starts pulling out his clothes.
I grab a pillow and throw it at his head. It bounces off harmlessly, but the act itself is satisfying.
"Five minutes, Nicole."
I sit on the edge of the bed, crossing my arms. "I don’t have clothes. What do you expect to pack?"
"Condoms?"
A second pillow joins the first.
"Fine. As soon as we get to where we’re going, I’ll take you shopping."
I roll my eyes. "We’re hiding my identity, but you’re going to waltz around with in public, where caras are everywhere?"
"Of course not. We’ll shop online."
My mouth clicks shut. There isn’t much to say about that.
I rest my elbows on my legs and lean forward, pressing my hands together as I watch him. "So what are we going to do? Not the part where we hide, but the part where we fight back?"
I’m so damn tired of being a pinball, bouncing between crises, reacting to whatever new disaster decides to barrel into my life.
Logan doesn’t even pause as he shoves clothes into the duffel bag, his movents precise and practiced. "We’re dealing with multiple issues involving your safety."
"No shit."
He ignores my sarcasm with all the patience of a sainted wolf. "First, we’re looking into the hologram—who created it, what they want, why they’re trying to turn you against ."
Ah. With the whole ’being wanted for my ex-fiance’s murder’ issue, I’d forgotten her existence. Good to know one of us didn’t.
"Second, we’re investigating the dragons who kidnapped you. We still haven’t found them or determined who they’re working with. Or what they injected you with.
"Third, there’s the video and whoever is behind it. They’ve gone to considerable trouble to fra you."
"And fourth?" I ask when he pauses to grab sothing from the nightstand.
"We’re still waiting for DNA results from Scott’s investigation." He zips the duffel bag with a sharp tug. "The results might clear you entirely."
A humorless laugh escapes . Logan must be living in a dream world. "He was in my apartnt. I’m pretty sure the DNA’s going to be damning."
"We don’t know that for sure."
"Of course we do. Scott lived there. His DNA will be all over everything. And so is mine."
"is it so hard to have a little hope, Nikki?"
"You can keep the hope, I’ll remain pessimistic and disgruntled. It’s our signature charm. Opposites attract."
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