Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

“ U ntil me?” Jill found herself asking.

“Yes,” Logan murmured as he ran his fingertips along her jaw.

“Meaning?” Jill asked, barely resisting the urge to lean into his touch.

“You’re destroying me, Angel,” Logan said, his gaze softening as he watched her.

“Is that why you changed me?” Jill asked, needing to know if he did it as part of his plan or…

She needed to know.

“Does it matter?” Logan asked, running his fingertips down her chin before he slid his fingertips back along her jaw.

“I need to know where I fit into all of this,” Jill said, reaching up to cover his hand with hers.

“You don’t,” Logan said softly.

“But I did at one time,” Jill said, watching him reluctantly nod.

“Yes, you did,” Logan admitted with a heavy sigh as he dropped his hands away.

“How?” Jill asked as she began toying with one of the buttons on his shirt.

“I planned on using you as leverage to get what I wanted,” he said, watching her absently trace a button with her fingertip.

“How exactly were you going to do that when you had no idea who I was that night in the bar?” Jill asked as she looked up to find him watching her.

“That night in the bar you were just an incredibly beautiful woman who took me by surprise in an alleyway with a well-placed dagger,” Logan drawled, making her lips twitch.

“My brother taught me well,” Jill said, absently tracing the button one last time before she gently worked it through the hole.

“Yes, he did,” Logan said as she moved on to the next button.

“How did I become part of your revenge after that night?” Jill asked as she freed the button before moving onto the next one.

“The compound.”

Absently nodding, Jill thought about all those late nights that she’d spent outside his cell as she took her time unbuttoning his shirt. When she spotted him sitting in that cell the first time, she almost did a double take, but she knew better despite what her father and Madison believed. He was a vampire in a Sentinel cell and no matter how much he intrigued her, she knew how dangerous the situation was.

For the first few weeks, she ignored him, well aware that he watched her every move as she made her way to Joshua’s cell every night. Then, one day, she just couldn’t resist teasing him a little and then she did it every time she visited her brother. It made her nightly visits with Joshua somewhat bearable, but…

Watching her brother get swallowed whole by his transition had left her feeling helpless, knowing that there wasn’t anything that she could do to help him. So, every night she came downstairs and sat outside his cell. Some nights she simply sat there, needing to be close to her brother, telling herself that he just needed time and other nights, she sat outside his cell and reminisced about her favorite memories with him, hoping that it would be enough to draw him out.

It never was, but she refused to give up on her brother. When he started throwing his trays on the floor and refusing to eat, she started making his favorite meals, hoping to entice him into eating something, but nothing worked. She kept coming even when he growled in warning, kept talking to him, kept hoping beyond hope that her brother was still in there somewhere until one night, she’d made the mistake of letting Marc come with her.

If she’d known the Sentinel doctor was going to be there, she never would have brought their little brother with her. Watching the Sentinels storm Joshua’s cell so that the doctor could take a sample of his blood had taken her by surprise, but watching Joshua’s reaction…

That terrified her.

She’d barely managed to drag their little brother away before the screams started. By the time they made it to the elevator, Marc had been trembling. It took her over an hour to calm him down and the promise to play hide-and-seek with him to get his mind off everything. Before she managed to get the words out of her mouth, he was racing for the door as she resigned herself to the soul-crushing night ahead.

Thanks to their brother Chris, Marc was insanely good at hiding. He took hide-and-seek seriously, a little too seriously for her peace of mind, which usually ended with her tearing the house apart and begging him to come out before she gave up and called in reinforcements. She hated calling in reinforcements, mostly because of that smug smile that Marc got on his face whenever she was forced to do it, but he didn’t leave her with a choice.

God, she still remembered the first time that she’d played hide-and-seek with him. If she’d known that Chris had gotten to him first, she would have suggested playing something else. As soon as she counted to twenty, she’d realized her mistake too late. It ended with her tearing the house apart along with her grandmother and the priests who lived with them as she frantically sent text messages to her father and Madison while she did her best not to panic.

She’d been on the verge of a nervous breakdown when her father strolled into the house ten minutes later. He simply sighed heavily as he made his way upstairs. A minute later, he was opening the hallway closet door and pulling Marc out from behind the extra blankets on the top shelf that he’d somehow managed to hide behind. She still remembered that smug smile on his face when their father threw him over his shoulder.

After that, she took it as a challenge, which, unfortunately, never ended well for her, but it was the one thing that she knew would help get his mind off everything that was going on. When she couldn’t find Marc in the living quarters that they’d been given in the compound, Jill made her way downstairs and began searching the dining hall and training rooms before she made her way into the living room when she heard the voice that had starred in every single one of her nightmares since she was a little girl.

Praying that she was wrong, Jill turned around and felt her stomach drop when she saw him featured on the ten o’clock news. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there before Marc found her and-

“Christ, you’re destroying me, Angel,” came the soft whisper as she felt his fingertips trace her jaw in a gentle caress that drew her attention back to Logan to find him watching her through silver eyes.

“And you’re stalling,” Jill said, forcing herself to focus back on his shirt buttons as she slowly exhaled, reminding herself that night at the compound was a lifetime ago, one that no longer mattered.

There was a slight pause before Logan said, “I wanted you,” making her go still.

Swallowing hard, Jill forced herself to focus on his buttons as she asked, “And now?”

“You really have no idea, do you?” Logan murmured as he ran his fingertips over her jaw one last time before he dropped his hands away and placed them on her thighs.

“Tell me,” Jill said, dropping her hands to the next button and worked it free as she watched his gaze soften.

“You make me weak, Angel,” Logan said as she worked the last button free.

“How?” Jill asked, keeping her gaze locked with his as she grabbed hold of his shirt and slowly pulled it free.

“You make me want to forget everything,” Logan admitted as her gaze dropped to his chest.

“Would that really be so bad?” Jill asked, releasing her hold on his shirt so that she could run her fingertips over his chest as she took in tanned skin over a perfectly sculpted chest and abs, looking for any trace of the red patches that had covered his skin for the past month.

“Giving up my revenge?” Logan asked as she watched his muscles shift beneath her touch.

“Yes,” Jill said as she met his gaze.

“And what would I do instead, Angel?” Logan asked, reaching up to push a strand of her long, dark hair behind her ear.

“What was the plan after you finally finished with your revenge?” Jill asked, trying to wrap her mind around what she was seeing. She hadn’t been a hundred percent sure that her blood would heal him, but now that she knew, Jill found herself wondering about something else.

“World domination,” Logan drawled, making her lips twitch.

“That does sound like a fun hobby,” Jill murmured in agreement as her gaze shifted to his neck and found herself wondering if she was really going to be able to do this. “You never told me what the plan was,” she reminded him as she forced herself to meet his gaze.

“To make the asshole pay for what he did,” Logan said coldly.

Nodding absently, Jill dropped her gaze to watch her fingertips glide over his skin, wondering why touching him felt like the most natural thing in the world. She’d never felt comfortable being this close to a man before, never mind touching him, but with Logan…

She should hate him.

This was the man who marked her and ruined her life and here she was sitting on his lap, absently tracing circles on his chest instead of putting the stake that she had hidden beneath the couch to good use. There was something seriously wrong with her, Jill thought, running her fingertips down his chest as she found herself wondering why she felt safe in his arms.

“I have a theory,” Jill said, taking her time drawing a figure eight on his chest as she debated her next move. They could keep playing this game or she could finally end it. It would mean taking a loss, but she’d finally have her answers. It was something that she normally didn’t like doing because it was risky.

“Are you going to share with the rest of the class?” Logan asked, making her lips twitch.

“That depends on what you’ll give me if I’m right,” Jill said as she thought about everything that she’d learned in the last few hours.

“That would depend on what you’ll give me if you’re wrong,” Logan said as she went back to drawing circles on his chest.

“What do you want?” Jill asked only to go still when Logan said, “Another taste.”

Since that worked for her, Jill said, “Deal.”

“I’m ready to be enthralled, Angel,” Logan drawled as she met his curious gaze.

“That will make this easier,” Jill murmured, making his lips twitch as she watched him for a moment, debating where to start only to decide that night at the bar was the perfect place to start. “You came to the bar that night because of my family,” Jill began, pausing as she ran her fingertips down his chest, making sure to look bored while she waited to see if he would take the bait.

“More or less,” Logan murmured, forcing her to bite back a smile.

“When you didn’t get what you came for, you switched tactics and waited for an opportunity for your men to grab Izzy outside the compound only to have everything go to hell, hurting Joshua in the process,” Jill said, meeting his gaze as she sat there, praying that she wasn’t wrong and-

“Your brother never should have been hurt, Angel,” Logan said softly, reaching up to run his fingertips along her jaw as she did her best to ignore just how relieved she was and forced herself to stay focused.

“You let yourself get captured so that you could get your hands on Tattletale ,” Jill said, watching Logan sigh as he dropped his hand away.

“And you were doing so well, Angel,” Logan said with a sad shake of his head.

“Unless you fill in the blanks, I’ll just assume that I’m right,” Jill said with a heartfelt sigh and a helpless shrug as she waited for him to take the bait.

She watched the slight narrowing of his eyes as he considered her for a moment. “Tell me something,” Logan drawled, pausing to shift beneath her to get more comfortable. “Does anyone actually fall for this trick?”

Blinking innocently, Jill asked, “What trick would that be exactly?” knowing better than to admit defeat.

“The one where you pretend to know something in order to trick me into correcting you and telling you what you want to know,” Logan said, forcing her to bite her lip to stop herself from smiling.

“Is that what I’m doing?” Jill murmured, watching as her fingertips moved over his ribs where a large red patch of skin used to be and found herself once again wondering what else her blood did.

“Would you like me to take pity on you?” Logan asked as her gaze flickered to his neck.

“It would make this easier,” Jill said as she traced the muscles covering his torso.

“I needed Izzy to use Tattletale to break into the Sentinel’s servers and find out everything they’d learned about Pierce over the years. There wasn’t much, but it managed to find an address for a brownstone located less than a mile away from here,” Logan began, making her go still.

“It turned out to be a safe house that hadn’t been used in years, which meant that I had to give Pierce a reason to use it,” Logan said as she slowly looked up. “I took everything from him, destroyed his alliances, made sure that he couldn’t get his hands on an Alpha, drained his accounts, leaving him with no choice but to run and-”

“Come back here.”