Soul Resurrected (Sons of Wrath, #2) (56 page)

The tormentor inside the cage stomped toward an arsenal of weapons hanging from the wall. After choosing a scythe, it headed back to the table where Calla lay sprawled.

He leveled the blade at her belly.

A few gasps rose from the crowd before all went quiet.

Bullhead lifted the scythe up over his head.

Gavin gave a nod.

“Stop!” Logan’s voice thundered in the pause. “I challenge you! For her.” Logan’s black hoodie still covered his face.

Paused Bullhead seemed to scan the crowd as if searching for approval.

“I win, she walks away with me.” Logan pointed to Calla. “You don’t lay another fucking hand on her.”

The quiet of the crowd persisted as Ryke stood and motioned everyone else to sit, leaving only him and Logan facing one another. “Reveal yourself, oh, brave and gallant one.” Sarcasm slid off his tongue.

Logan peeled back his hoodie.

“What a treat. It seems we have the whole fam-damily here, folks. I’d wanted to send you a box of bloody remains, but this is so much more romantic.” Ryke grinned. “Let’s say you lose. Your brothers agree not to seek retribution for your ass-beating. They will accept the loss and move on. In addition, not only do I get to finish what we started here, but you will forego any and all ties to this woman.
She
will belong to
me
. My own personal fuck toy, how’s that?”

Images of ripping Ryke’s gullet out and chewing it in front of him roared through Logan’s mind. He swallowed the lump blocking his throat.

“Ooh! Seems I’ve hit a soft spot! Look at that red glow in his eyes.” Smugness dominated Ryke’s smile. “Are you in?”

The tip of Logan’s fang pierced his lip.
Keep it under control
. “Yes. I’m in.”

Ryke’s grin stretched wider. “Then, let the games begin.” At the wave of his hand toward the cage, Bullhead stabbed a dagger into Calla’s shoulder.

Logan lurched forward. “
No
!” He stormed toward the cage entrance. Curling his fingers around the bars, he ripped the door from its hinges. Red filtered into his visions as he rushed inside.

Kill the fucker
.

Two large nephilim grabbed the underside of Calla’s arms, while one shoved Logan back toward the cement table.

He barged forward, but halted in his tracks when hit from behind. A heave sent the nephilim in front of him flying backward, and Logan spun, ducking in time to dodge the sweep of an axe. Blood pumping, muscles flexing, he beckoned the tormentor. “C’mon, you sissy fuck. Come get me.”

Bullhead charged and gave a hefty swing of his weapon.

Logan ducked and delivered a powerful blow to the Bullhead’s ribs. He gripped the weapon with his other hand, yanking the Bullhead toward him, and slammed the tormentor to the ground, busting a hairline crack in the concrete.

Crouching beside the beast, Logan rammed his arm at its throat as he leaned forward to whisper, “What do you say we give this crowd a show they’ll never forget?”

Vision flickering red, Logan smashed his fist into the Bullhead skull. Pound after pound to its head, while a purplish blood sprayed outward through the mask. Swirling heat moved through Logan’s body as his brand of pain took hold, begging him to kill the fucker slowly, just like every one of the tormentor’s victims would’ve endured.

Logan nabbed the dagger at his ankle and slammed it into the beast’s shoulder. To the encouragement of a howl, he twisted against the muscle and bone, round and round until he’d created a gaping hole. “For Calla,” he said past clenched teeth.

Bullhead rammed his good arm into Logan’s throat.

Logan coughed back the choking sensation, and gave the hilt another twist.

Both males trembled with each opposing force. Blade lodged in its shoulder, arm still pressed into the beast’s neck, Logan braced his muscles and bore down harder.

Releasing the dagger, Logan clutched its head with both hands, and a quick jerk snapped the beast’s neck. The satisfying crack, followed by the immediate release of its grip at his throat, told Logan he’d sent the bastard’s soul packing, and a fine mist of spray flew up in his face as he tore the head from its limp body.

Logan wiped the blood from his face as he scanned the horde outside the cage until sound filtered back into his hearing.

Growls, screaming, the ear-splitting cries of death—madness had broken free.

Bodies bumped in to one another beyond the bars, thrashing, punching. Supes in the crowd had been stirred into motion, too.

Somewhere in the fold were his brothers.

And Calla.

He continued his sweep, stopping as his gaze landed on one of the many narrow walkways—where Gavin held Calla in his arms, his attention locked on Ryke just a few feet away.

Anger boiled and exploded in Logan’s veins.

He bulleted from the cage and toward the nephilim.

A sharp sting pierced the back of his neck. He reached back a hand, grabbed fabric, and yanked it forward. A pale, white body slammed against the floor, fangs bared. Logan drew a fist back, but a hand snatched at Logan’s neck from behind and jerked him back. Stomping his boot on the Sang lying on the floor, he grappled for the one on his back and flipped the other fucker round to face him. Dagger drawn, Logan carved a nice chasm up the belly of the one he held at arm’s length. Viscera poured from the wound and the shuddering beast hit cement. Scooping low, he dragged his blade across the throat of the Sang beneath his foot. Dead. Boom, boom, boom. All of them. In a matter of seconds.

He glanced up as Ryke pulled a dagger. The blade’s tip flickered orange—the distinctive shade of the toxic metal that’d ended Logan’s life once.

“I was just telling your brother, here, that your best decision is to release the girl. You see, she belongs to me.” Ryke tilted his dagger-hand slightly, revealing thin bands at his wrist. “Her soul is mine. I die. She dies. You take her, I plunge the dagger into my own heart.”

“Come, now, Ryke. You value yourself far too much to take your own life.” Gavin’s voice remained cool, as always.

Logan inched his way across the floor to beside Gavin, who shifted Calla in his arms, exposing something wrapped tight enough around her neck to bite into her throat. Logan slipped a finger beneath one of the threads.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” Ryke’s voice carried on the air with a cold chill, that shit-eating grin on the nephilim’s face taunting Logan’s delicate kill-switch. “She’s tied and bound to me, for as long as I decide to keep the whore.” As Ryke’s hand balled into a fist, a gasp escaped Calla.

Logan gnashed his teeth, a growl rumbling in his chest. “We had a deal.” Thoughts circled his head in a merry-go-round of confusing bullshit. Threads at Ryke’s wrist attached to her throat. How? What were in the threads?

“Admit that you’re fucked. Your brother fucked my sister, and now I’m fucking you … and soon, I’ll be fucking your woman.”

Logan kept his gaze on the threads at Ryke’s wrist, ignoring the nephilim’s goading words as he puzzled a way to free Calla.

“So, the big cage fighter’s just going to stand there?” Ryke said, his tone dripping with derision. “Like a pussy?”

Every word moved through Logan’s body like a jolt of electricity.

“Don’t let him rile you,” Gavin muttered beside him.

The threads. The threads bound her to him. Goddamn, if supes didn’t have a million different ways they could be bound, but a nephilim would only be interested in one thing. A soul. Logan’s eyebrows winged up.

“Ding, ding, ding!” Ryke stroked his hand over the bracelet. “Each thread is a soul I own. A soul I’m bound to. You kill me, her soul is cast into Stygius alongside mine.” A grin took up the width of his face. “Surely, you wouldn’t wish that on someone you
love
.”

No
. Fists clenched, Logan’s mind raced faster than ever.

“Leave her, and I’ll let her live,” Ryke said.

A breeze brushed past Logan.

In less than a second, it materialized into Draven, standing face-to-face with Ryke.

“
No
!” Logan lurched forward.

Blood sprayed across Logan’s face.

With a flash of a silver dagger, Ryke’s head fell to the floor.

His body collapsed in a heap, and the clang of a dagger rang out as Draven stumbled backward.

The back of Draven’s jacket peaked outward, the surrounding fabric darkening in a spreading circle. As Draven spun around, the hilt of Ryke’s Demortis-tipped dagger came into view, protruding from his heart.

Spindles of blackness climbed Draven’s body, crawling from his feet to his legs and up over his torso. His eyes grew wide as the blackness consumed him before he dropped to the ground. Dead.

Logan swung back to Calla, her limpness in Gavin’s arms stirring up a storm in his chest.

No. No.
“
No
!” A bellow of rage and agony ripped through his core. As the echoing roar lessened, the steady thump of blood pounded a mocking rhythm against his skull, and an ache intensified behind his ribs.

Breaths withering, he fell to his knees and outstretched his trembling arms to Gavin. As his brother gently placed Calla’s lifeless form against Logan’s chest, her long hair draped over his bicep, her head rested against his heart.

His muscles quaked and numbness spread through him in a devouring frenzy. His breathing, so erratic, threatened to take him under, as if the air had thickened to a suffocating smog.

Calla. My Calla
.

Logan tipped his head back and clutched her tightly, rocking back and forth as another roar nearly cracked his chest.

The mist in his eyes distorted her face as he peered down at her. So pale. So peaceful.

He drew her to him, held her ear to his lips and whispered, “Calla? Wake up. Open your eyes and look at me.”

Not even a flutter affected her lashes.

No breath hit his face.

No beating heart.

Only silence.

Maddening, deafening silence and numbness.

Overpowering numbness blanketed his body, as the glow of sunlight that had warmed his soul faded into a small speck that Logan so desperately clung to.

Did her chest move? Her lips twitch?

Against his shoulder, he wiped the tears and concentrated on any sign of life. His body felt light, as if he’d float away from everything.
Snip
. The cables of steel that kept him grounded suddenly left him feeling lost.

“You told me to find you in darkness.” His voice choked up as he spoke. “I’m trying, baby. Reach back for me.”

He stroked a hand down her face. His thumb gently caressed her lip. Carefully, he lifted her and pressed his lips to hers. The softness of her flesh remained, but without the warmth of hope.

A forced exhale stifled the agony threatening to pull him under the waves of desolation. Logan kissed her tenderly and broke away to feather her soft cheek against his.

The ache in his heart only intensified but, somehow, through it, a thought struck, and his eyes widened with the urgency piercing the pit of his stomach. “Sabelle!” Gavin’s eyes sported a shine as Logan’s gaze shot upward. “Call her, Gavin. She can save her.”

His brother rubbed his skull. “I’ll see, Logan. But her soul is bound. The chances—” Whatever expression Logan had on his face must’ve been enough. Without another word, Gavin pulled a cell from his pocket and walked away.

“Calla. Please.” Logan’s fingers tangled in her hair as he rocked her. “Please, baby, don’t leave me. You’re all I have. And I can’t …” Tears choked his words and he swallowed them back. “I can’t breathe right now.”

Chanting echoed inside his head. Logan frowned as the words, dull at first, pulled together into sharp clarity.

A prayer.

To a god not even his human half believed in, Logan joined it and prayed for his female, bowing his head against her temple as he swayed with her and spoke the words he’d memorized. The words of his cellmate, which had at one time seemed useless, suddenly represented the tiniest light.

“Let’s go.” Gavin’s voice snapped Logan out of his grief. “She’ll have a look at her, but we have to hurry.” He removed his coat and draped it over Calla’s body.

Logan wrapped her in it and clambered to his feet.

Gavin’s arm shot out and steadied him as he slipped. “Got her?”

An unfounded sense of possession consumed him and he yanked his arm free from Gavin’s grip. “Yeah, I got her.” With her face mashed against his neck, her blonde strands entwined in his fingers, his head spun as the need to get to Sabelle hastened his pace.

Zayne cleared a path, kicking dead supes out of the way.

Maddox raced ahead of him, presumably to fetch the vehicle.

Logan paused beside his towering brother, Ferno, and gave an upward glance. “Light this shit up.”