Page 18 of Heir of Ashes

“You never told me what happened here,” he said softly.

I hadn’t forgotten about it, not at all, but I’d just given in to the temptation to box the pain away into a tolerablebackground ache. Just for a few hours, I had told myself. It wasn’t a preternatural ability to do that. At least, I didn’t think it was. It was a skill from the days when pain was my daily companion. Back then, I had to learn how to live with it or let it consume me.

I learned to live with it, teaching myself how to push the pain to a back corner of my brain, compartmentalizing it, then closing it shut so I could concentrate on whatever the Scientists were doing at that moment. Depending on the intensity of the pain, I could almost block it completely. Of course, it could be dangerous—not feeling the pain could result on the body shutting down. It actually happened to me. Once reminded about the pain, that compartment exploded open—and it was like the injury had just happened, and all the pain came back with a vengeance. Now that Logan pulled my attention to my burning hand, the grip on that background meditation broke, the pain bombarded my senses, and I almost passed out from its suddenness.

Logan glanced at me once and began untying the ribbons one by one, sometimes having to unstick some of the cloth from the blisters. By the time he was done, he was swearing with such variety that it actually broke through the haze of pain.

“How did this happen?” he asked, his voice tight.

I swallowed bile twice before answering, “Back in the penthouse, I opened a door.” I caught his confused frown before understanding smoothed it away.

Without concern for appearances, I grabbed my ice water, fumbled with the plastic top, and stuck my hand inside, exhaling with the relief it brought me. Water sloshed over the top of the cup, but the relief was too great for any shame. Logan motioned to the waiter, ordered another drink, and started eating as if nothing had happened.

“Guess the door was warded, huh?” he asked, popping a French fry into his mouth, chewing slowly and thoughtfully.

“Yeah.”

“Couldn’t you, you know,” he twirled a fry in the air, “like, feel it?”

I shrugged. Water sloshed. “I wanted to make sure Remo Drammen wasn’t bluffing.”

Logan’s expression turned incredulous. I found myself blushing for the second time in less than five minutes.He must think me a dolt.But I had never in my life seen—or felt—a ward before. Needless to say, it seemed like Logan had. And hadn’t he known whose penthouse I had been in? Hadn’t he mentioned something about it? At the time, I had been preoccupied with PJ Tyler and the media and wasn’t really listening.

I eyed Logan suspiciously. “You know him.”

“Yes.”

“Personally.”

“Yes.”

“Old friends, casual acquaintances, family?” I prompted, and Logan scowled at me.

“Guess that’s a no, huh?” But if they’d crossed paths and he knew Remo’s defenses … I told myself it was none of my business and restrained my curiosity.

He popped another fry into his mouth and eyed me. “What did he want from you?”

Again, I shrugged my answer—sloshing more liquid—and he didn’t press for details.

The waiter brought another cold drink, politely refraining from staring at my hand inside the cup.

“Is your friend your lover?” I blurted before I could stop myself. This was so none of my business. But, again, what kind of man risked his life for someone else’s?

He looked at me with a blank expression, then understanding flashed in his eyes, and he smiled. God, did he think I was flirting with him? But misassumption aside, wow, what a killer smile. It just transformed him. I could see women and men alike throwing themselves in his path left and right, and by the way he held himself, his arrogance and confidence, he was well aware of the effect he had on them.

Not me, though. He was attractive, yes, but so had many other men been, ones less dangerous than him. I hadn’t stayed under the radar for so long by relaxing my guard, and I wasn’t going to start now.

He was still smiling, so I decided to set him straight. “I know it’s none of my business, but it’s just because, you know, you seem kind of”—frantic? desperate?—“possessive, the way you’re worried and angry, so sure about things.” I was on the verge of babbling, so I looked away—spilling more water on the tabletop—and tried not to look like a fool. Almost as an afterthought, I added, “Seems like an intimate relationship to me.”

He shook his head, took a bite of his cheeseburger, chewed a couple of times with deliberate slowness, then swallowed and said, “No, he’s my friend, but he used to be my mentor.”

An alpha werewolf? Maybe a very old one to warrant the PSS’s attention.

“What kind of experiments does the Society run on their subjects?” Logan asked after we finished our meals.

I frowned and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I had taken my hand out of the cold water, dried it with a couple of napkins that were currently littering the table along with the wet cloth strips. It likely reinforced Logan’s belief of me being a pig who never learned table manners, but I couldn’t dredge up any discomfiture. The pain was still there, pushedback to a tolerable level. I was aware I shouldn’t push my limits, but I needed a few more hours until my fast healing kicked in a bit more.

“It depends,” I answered evasively.