Desire Awakened (Aaron's Kiss #13) (8 page)

“I don’t love her.”

Aaron felt his beast surge with anger.

“But I do like her. She’s annoying and bossy
and has a mouth that makes me want to sit up and beg, but I don’t
love her. For now, that has to be enough.”

“It will be. For now,” said a new voice.
They all looked at Elizabeth, Mel’s grandmother, as she walked into
the room. “Lizzy will not go willingly, young man, nor will she be
grateful to you. She’s got a stubborn streak in her that I’ve only
encountered once before, and while I love him dearly, I don’t like
him much.”

Elizabeth looked at Aaron, who smiled. She
loved him. Grinning like a loon, he told her that he loved her
too.

“Tell me what I have to do. And if I have to
be converted…I’m not sure. There’s my son to think of, and my
sister. I can’t leave them, so that part of my day I can’t be with
them.”

“That won’t be an issue.” Elizabeth started
toward the bed and Logan with her. “You’ll have to feed her. Do you
know what that means?”

Her voice faded as they moved away. Aaron
stood and watched the two of them together and wondered what the
man was going to do when he found out he was nearly all the way to
being a vampire anyway.

~~~

Logan took a deep breath. He had to feed
her. Then…well, no one knew for sure, but he was willing to bet it
was a bit more involved than they’d said. He walked to the bed.
He’d been assured she was breathing, but he could barely see her
chest rise and fall. Touching her skin, he was amazed at how cold
it was. Aaron had told him that it was because her body had shut
down in order for it to heal. But she’d gone much deeper than
necessary and needed a kick start to come back.

Come back to him.

Aaron’s knife, a beautiful bejeweled thing,
was in Logan’s hands, courtesy of Zane. But before Logan could do
anything, that tightening sensation returned, followed by the
appearance of yet another beautiful woman.

“Are all super beings lovely, or are you
hiding some hideous face that I won’t be able to see until this is
over?” She laughed, and he flushed. “I’m terribly sorry. I’m shit
stupid scared I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.”

“I’m Morrigan, the Goddess of all Faeries.
Have you heard of me?” He nodded, but then shook his head. “Which
is it, child? I’m on a time thing here.”

“Heard of you, yes, know who you are, not so
much. And just for the record, come earlier if you want to play in
my park. I’ve got my mate to save.”

“So you do. But we have time, a little
anyway.” She sat down on nothing. He watched as she reached out her
hand and a glass of blood red wine—maybe it
was
blood
—appeared in it.

“It is wine. And before you ask, yes, I read
your mind. It’s why I’m here. You have questions that haven’t been
answered. I can answer them. All of them. But you have to give me
something in return for each question. A boon, if you may.”

Logan was tired of all the games and shit
going on that he wasn’t getting. He had only had sex with a woman
in an elevator and now he had to save her life. This was some major
fucked up crap.

“You didn’t just have sex with her. You
bonded. But that too was planned. You were supposed to meet her
some years ago, but wires got crossed and you had the little boy.
Great kid, by the way. But you didn’t connect.” She shifted on her
air chair and put her feet up. “So we arranged for you to meet in
the hospital.”

“You arranged for… My sister and son, you
had them nearly killed?” She shook her head. “Then what? If you had
anything to do with what happened to them, so help me, I’ll rip you
apart.”

“No, we didn’t. You were to meet in the
hospital under other circumstances. Mathew was to have fallen at
school, nothing major, but our Lizzy would have been there as well
when Andi went into labor. When the attempted murder occurred, we
simply moved it around so you’d be there together. The elevator
stopping was supposed to get you together, but Lizzy was drained
from healing the two of them and bit you.”

Logan sat down. “She healed them? I don’t
understand. My sister said she thought Lizzy gave her blood, but
Mathew said nothing.”

“And he wouldn’t have. She used her power to
heal him. Had she not, he would have lost both legs to the thigh.
The car that ran over him had hit him across both knees and
shattered both from there down. She completely healed his right leg
and set the other so his leg was broken but not shattered. Lizzy
thought it would be hard for him to get around if both were
broken.” She handed him a small device. “I will tell you what’s on
that before you look, but it’s of your sister’s injuries. Her
throat had been sliced from ear to ear. Lizzy gave her blood just
as your sister said. But she didn’t realize that both their bloods
were pouring out faster than it was going through Donna’s body.
Lizzy had to seal the carotid artery so that her blood would heal
the other wounds that were draining Donna as well.”

Logan put the small laptop thing on the bed.
He wasn’t sure if he could ever look at them, but knew that right
now he could not. He looked at Lizzy lying there so still. “She did
save their lives. Both of them.”

Morrigan nodded.

“All right. I need questions answered, but
I’m not going to give you my left arm or my family. Deal?”

“Deal. And because I owe Lizzy something, I
will not charge you for the first three questions. She will be
pissy enough when she finds out we’ve struck a bargain.”

He had a feeling he was going to be also. He
looked at the woman, then back at Lizzy. He wanted so much
information but knew that whatever this woman answered was going to
cost. If he saved Lizzy, she’d answer them for him. He looked at
Morrigan. “Will I become a vampire?” She only grinned. He wasn’t
sure what meaning was behind it.

“No. You are one.” Her grin widened.

He shook his head.

“You are everything that Lizzy is and more.
As she is a day walker, you are as well. She has the power to heal,
you do as well. Everything she is, you are also.”

She was trying to tell him something. He
knew it was right there, but he wasn’t getting it. Looking down at
Lizzy again, he thought about her healing his son. She’d healed his
son. “I can heal her.”

The woman applauded, that grin widening
further.

With more confidence, he said, “I can heal
her as she did Mathew. I don’t know how, but I can…the dragon told
me that all things are done better when they are done with free
will. That’s what the other lady said as well. I needed to make
Lizzy better, but it had to be freely given.”

“Would you like to know how to heal her,
Logan? I will tell you for a price.”

He shook his head and stood up.

“You will need to know how to heal her, will
you not?”

“Yes, I will.” Closing his eyes, he thought
of the king Shamus and of Aaron, her father. The door opened, and
both men stood there while Morrigan smiled.

“You learn fast. But you still have two
questions. Shall I bank them for you?” He nodded. “Then I will
leave you to your work.”

As soon as she was gone, Logan told them
what the woman had told him. Then he asked them how it worked.
Shamus walked to the bed and put Logan’s hand on Lizzy’s heart.
Then Aaron put his hand over both of theirs.

“Say it, Logan. And it must be freely
given.”

Nodding, he tried to think what to say.
Nothing was coming to mind until he looked at her face. “I, Logan
Burris, will you to live. You saved my family at great risk to your
own health. You’ve continued to watch over them even though all I
did was shove you away. Even when my household was under attack,
you still managed to save us again. I don’t love you, Elizabeth
MacManus, but I respect you. I may not ever love you, but I admire
you. I wish to spend the rest of my days seeing if I can come to
love you, so I beg for you to wake up and be pissed at me for doing
this.”

They all stood very still. Then Shamus
laughed, and Aaron joined him. After a few minutes of trying to be
mad at them, Logan laughed too. That had to be the worst proposal
he’d ever heard.

“Well,” Shamus said with a great deal of
laughter. “That was freely given, that’s for sure. You might want
to work on something a little more romantic for when she gets up.
Lizzy is a wonderful woman, but she can be a bit on the caustic
side.”

“And you can’t be?” Lizzy’s eyes fluttered
open as she spoke softly. She cleared her throat as she opened her
eyes fully and looked up at him and smiled.

Logan let go of the breath he hadn’t known
he was holding.

“You’re as ass and we both know it. Daddy,
tell him so.”

Logan leaned down and kissed her. When she
wrapped her arms around him, he forgot about the others in the room
and started to climb into the bed with her. A clearing of someone’s
throat had him stop just short of rolling on top of her.

“Would you please wait until I’m out of the
room?”

Logan smiled at Aaron, embarrassed.

“She is my daughter, you know, and the
thought of you two… I’m out of here. I’m glad you’re better, little
girl, but even I have to draw the line at this. Shamus, come
on.”

“But it’s just starting to get interesting.”
Aaron growled and Shamus turned to go after him but stopped.
“Lizzy, love, you should know that he’s as good at thwarting
Morrigan as you are. Nipped her right in the bud.” He was laughing
when he left the room, closing the door behind him.

Logan took her mouth again and rolled over
her to lie beside her. She looked pale, but he knew why now. Logan
touched her hair and curled it around his finger as he looked at
her. She started to roll away, but he pulled her back.

“What did she take from you?”

“Who?”

“Morrigan. What did you have to give her to
make me well again? Whatever it was, I can bargain for its
return.”

“She gave me three questions to ask, but I
only used one. When she offered to tell me how to heal you, I asked
for your dad and Shamus to help.” She turned to look at him. “She
told me that I am everything that you are. So I knew since you
healed Mathew, I could heal you.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

He realized she was right, he didn’t. But
he’d wanted to. “That’s a good point.”

“And another thing,” he continued, “I have
nowhere to live now. Someone burned down my house. They are saying
that it was set deliberately. Do you know anything about it?” She
turned away without a response, and he pulled her back. “You’re
going to have to keep me in the loop now. And there will be times
when I don’t want to know, but you have to tell me, okay?”

She nodded and rolled to her back. He
watched the emotions race across her face, and wondered if she knew
that he could read her. Frowning, he wondered if he could talk to
her through their minds as he had been told all mates could do.

“Yes. Just concentrate on me and the
connection will be there. You can read minds too if you’re gentle
enough. I used to be so horrible at it that I’d hurt people when I
did it. Then one day, Sam pushed back at me mentally only about
half of what I was doing to her at trampling through her mind. When
my mom yelled at her, she gave it all to my mother. After that, I
learned how to do it from Sam until I got better at it than she’d
been.”

“How many aunts do you have?” She laughed
and he smiled. “Do you know that I haven’t heard you do that nearly
enough? With my son, yes, but not with me.”

“I like your kid. He’s fun.”

He growled at her, leaned in, and nipped
gently at her shoulder.

“And he doesn’t hog the last of the
pancakes.”

“Those were delicious. You’ll have to make
them more often.” She looked away, but he pulled her back. “You
will stay with me, won’t you? Marry me too? I want you to be my
wife.”

“It’s not necessary that we marry, Logan.
We’re mated, that’s enough.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not.”

“We’ll live for a very long time and a
marriage isn’t necessary. Besides, I have everything I need
and—”

“It’s necessary to me.” He pulled her into
his arms to simply hold her. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Lizzy. More
than you can know, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, Logan. It was a lot to take
in.”

He rubbed her back and he felt her relax by
degrees. Soon she was limp over him and he felt himself drifting as
well. His last thought was that he had to find them a place to
live…and soon.

The house was completely gone. Everything
they had owned was either burnt or covered in soot and water. Lizzy
picked up a picture frame only to have it fall apart in her hands.
She looked up to see where Mathew was and saw him sitting on a
stone wall near where his bedroom had been. She looked at Logan,
who was talking to the insurance man, and walked over to talk to
Mathew.

“All my books are gone.”

She nodded and remembered what her dad had
told her about lending Mathew books.

“And my stuff. My sheets too, and they were
my favorite.”

“They were very soft. I would have loved
sheets like that.” He kicked at something near his foot. “We can
see if we can find you more sheets if you want.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything. She knew
some of the things in his room his mom had given him, and there had
been things like posters and banners to football games that he and
his dad had gone to together. Lizzy tried to think what it would be
like to lose all her things but couldn’t.

“Do you think we’ll build us another house
here?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“We could build closer to your mom and dad.
And it could be a littler house too. Your dad said I could use his
library any time I wanted, and he didn’t care if I ate at his desk
either.”