Fated Hearts (Echoes of Darkness Prequel)

36

Ava

I f this is what being dead feels like, I’m not mad at it. An earthy, woodsy smell envelops me, and I no longer feel that gaping pit of sadness in the center of my chest. I feel whole. Complete. At utter peace with myself and the world.

Huh, would you look at that? I think I’m in Heaven. At least it feels like it.

My eyes pop open, and I blink a few times, the bright light slanting through the windows, blinding me momentarily. The wall in front of me is made of glass and offers a breathtaking view of the sprawling pine forest and the snowed mountain peaks in the distance.

It takes a few seconds before I can make out the room I’m in. I lift my head and realize I’m lying on a king-sized bed in a large bedroom, but I can’t move. I’m tangled in between Logan’s arms and legs. He’s holding me like he’s afraid I might disappear into thin air, his full lips parted slightly in relaxed slumber.

Swallowing hard, I bring my hand to the center of my chest and run it over the spot where Clayton stabbed me with the silver knife. The memory of the excruciating pain folds my lungs in two. But I can’t feel anything aside from the skin being slightly raised. My eyebrows pull together, and I bring my fingers to my right cheek where I should have a nasty cut, but again…there’s nothing aside from a line of slightly puckered skin.

How is this even possible? Well, I guess if I’m dead, then I shouldn’t have any wounds, right? But what is Logan doing here if I’m dead? Does that mean he is, too?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

A sinking feeling of desperation and then a sob, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Logan’s eyes fly open. “Ava, what’s wrong, baby? What happened?” His voice is gravelly and rough from sleep. He disentangles himself from me, pushes up on his elbows, and frantically searches the room.

“Y-you’re dead. You’re not s-supposed t-to b-be d-dead. I know I died, but I hoped that you would save yourself somehow.”

He pulls me into his arms with a deep sigh of relief and kisses my forehead. “None of us are dead.”

Sniffling, I saw my lower lip between my teeth. “We’re not?”

“No, baby.” He chases my tears with the pad of his thumb, wiping at my cheeks gently.

“Oh,” I whisper. I take a deep breath and let it out through my nose. “But, how? I don’t understand. He carved me up, and I don’t feel any pain.”

“After you blacked out, Kaiden arrived and killed the witch. Then Malik healed you. It took a long time for them to break through the wards the witch put around the cabin. Longer than we expected.”

“Malik healed me?”

“Yeah, I told you about his healing abilities.”

“Oh….so, is it over?”

“It is. The witch is dead, and we imprisoned the rogue.”

“Okay…that’s good,” I mumble. The sense of relief filling my veins gives me whiplash, though. I need a little more time to come to the terms that it’s finally over. We’re safe. Both of us. Thank God, baby Jesus, and every other deity out there. The tension in my muscles leaves bit by bit as I inhale a lungful of calming air, but then I remember the concert, and I jackknife into a sitting position, startling Logan. “Fuck! Chloe! I need to let her know I’m okay. She’s probably freaked out of her mind.”

Logan pulls me back into his embrace. “She doesn’t know the rogue took you. I asked our hacker to message Chloe pretending to be you. He told her you spent the night with me.”

My brain is too scrambled to think of the implications of that. At least she knows I’m safe. Still, I probably have at least a hundred messages from her. “Where are we?”

“At my house. We’re in my bedroom.”

Looking again toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, I say, “The view is stunning. I love it.”

“I know. Me too,” he says, but his burning gaze fixates on my face. Cheesy, lovely man. “God, Ava. I have never been more scared in my entire life. I thought I lost you.” His voice breaks while tremors wrack his body. My wolf and the mating bond are purring beneath my ribs at our close proximity. The desire I feel for him gets a new meaning when the euphoria that I’m alive in Logan’s arms registers. It makes my clit throb, hard. It also doesn’t help that Logan is only wearing a pair of boxers, his glorious, taut muscles on display, rendering me stupid.

For a moment, I consider jumping his bones, but then I remember how we left things before Clayton kidnapped me, so I say instead, “Listen, Logan…about the whole Jude situation—” I don’t get to finish the sentence because Logan traps me under his massive frame, with my wrists pinned above my head as he settles in between my legs. He thrusts his hard-as-steel erection over my aching clit. Instantly, I’m made aware of the fact that I’m not wearing anything underneath his T-shirt.

“W-what are y-you doing?” I stutter out. “We should talk.”

His half-lidded gaze is molten gold as his right hand lowers, fists my T-shirt, and yanks it off me, discarding it on the floor in tatters, while his other hand keeps me bound against the bed.

“Reminding you who you belong to,” Logan growls before he dips and licks at the seam of my lips. He pushes down his boxers. The moment his velvety skin meets my soaked slit, my eyes roll in the back of my head. The mind-numbing friction he creates as he slides his cock up and down over my clit is almost too much to bear. I can’t stop the loud moans that escape my mouth.

He lowers his face to mine. We are practically sharing the same breath as he nips my lower lip until he draws blood. A guttural sound of pleasure leaves his chest when he pushes his tongue into my mouth, gliding it against mine expertly. “Your pussy is dripping all over my cock, baby,” he rasps into my mind.

My pulse skyrockets with every thrust of Logan’s hips, the friction between our bodies, and the way he feasts on my mouth, bringing me to the brink of orgasm.

“Were you this wet when he kissed you? Did your pussy beg for his cock like it begs for mine?” Alarm bells go off in my head at Logan’s clipped tone. I know I should say something…anything, but I’m about to break at the seams, and all words are lost to me. All of a sudden, Logan stops thrusting, his lips no longer touching mine.

I let out a frustrated whimper. “No, Logan! I was about to come.”

Before I can answer his question, I’m flipped on my belly with a heavy hand between my shoulder blades, pinning me to the bed.

“Jesus, Ava…when I saw him kissing you, I wanted to kill him, to shift and tear him to pieces and then bathe in his blood. You don’t know how much that hurt me…seeing you with someone else. It fucking destroyed me.”

“I’m sorry, Logan,” I cry out. His raging emotions travel through our mating bond, and I feel his turmoil as if it were my own.

“Do you feel anything for him?”

“No, I—”

“Did your pussy get wet when he kissed you?”

“No, Logan. I don’t feel anything for him. He kissed me. I didn’t kiss him back—”

“Were you going to fuck him that night your heart stopped?”

“Y-yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it before going to the hotel?” he roars.

Tears stream down my face, wetting the pillow under my smooshed face. “I-I didn’t think it was important…I never felt anything for Jude.”

“Did you fuck him?”

“No, I swear…We only kissed once, that’s all, and it was months ago.”

Logan lets out a shuddering breath at my words. Then he plunges two thick fingers inside my drenched pussy, massaging them expertly against my G-spot, making my eyes roll in the back of my head. “Who do you belong to, Ava?”

“Y-you, Logan.”

“Who owns this pussy?”

“You! Only you!”

“Mmm. That’s my good girl,” he breathes gravelly in my ear, his voice drenched in sex, his breath fanning over the side of my neck, eliciting tingles all the way down to my toes. A guttural moan leaves Logan as he sucks his fingers clean before his mouth crashes to mine. He pushes the fat head of his cock at my entrance and slams to the hilt, his balls slapping against my pussy. I only get a few seconds to adjust to his impressive length before he starts fucking me hard.

Pleasure entwines with pain, and Logan doesn’t let up. He hammers into me like he’s possessed, swallowing with his lips and tongue the loud moans coming out of my mouth, the front of his body fused with my back. Just as I’m about to crest and fall over the edge, Logan stops, denying me another orgasm. I cry out his name in frustration as tears blur my vision and roll down my cheeks. Clearly, he isn’t done punishing me, but I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

I feel empty as he pulls out of me. With equal parts of irritation and curiosity, I crane my neck a little more to the side to gauge his next move. Honestly, with the raw pain that filtered through our bond, I expect him to walk away. What I’m not prepared for is the moment he palms his cock before he starts pumping his hand furiously over his shaft. I lick my lips at thebead of precum dripping down my ass, hungry for him, the eroticism of this moment sucking all the air from my lungs.

He looks like a sex god, jaw slack, taut muscles, and bulging veins while he bites into his lower lip, his eyes at half-mast, watching me. His expression smolders as he comes with my name on his lips. Thick ropes of cum jut out and paint my lower back and ass cheeks as his heated gaze travels the length of my body in a slow, sensual perusal, setting my blood on fire.

“Fuck, baby, you look so hot covered in my cum,” he growls, wipes up his cum with his hand, and pushes it into my pussy with two of his fingers. He continues to move them inside me, slow and maddening, keeping me just out of reach of the high I’m so desperate for.

I push back on his hand, seeking more friction, and he purrs, “Is there something you need?”

“Fuck me! Please, Logan, please, I need you!” I snap my eyes shut, unable to take the assault on my senses anymore. I need to come like I need my next breath.

Suddenly, Logan flips me onto my back. “Open your eyes, baby. Give me those beautiful greens.” His tone is soft now.

With a loud sniff, I open them. Our gazes hook and snare. My breath catches in my throat at the mix of adulation, lust, and tenderness brimming in his. He has me caged against the mattress, his lips a hair’s-breadth away from mine.

Logan’s cock twitches against my slit, making me whimper loudly. This time, he enters me slowly as if trying to savor every single point of new, delicious contact. An inferno blazes through me at the way his thumb circles my engorged clit, with the perfect amount of pressure. His eyes never leave mine, and our connection runs deeper than ever before; our pleasure intensified tenfold by the way we feel everything the other does through our mating bond. Our chests move in unison, heart to heart, beating at the same maddening rhythm.

“You own me, Ava. Every piece of me. Every piece of my heart. I love you, and I can’t live without you.”

His words bounce between us and sear into my soul while breathing life into my lungs at the same time. “I love you too, Logan. So much it hurts,” I say earnestly, and we lose ourselves in each other’s rapture, my admission pushing us both over the edge into an abyss of ecstasy.