Page 2 of Legacy of Temptation

Then he became a kid again when he tossed the skeletal core to the ground, hugged his stuffed lion, and darted away.

She let him romp as she strolled within a stone’s throw of the castle walls. Above, walking the battlements, Eli kept watch with a crossbow. She wished she could say that such tight security wasn’t necessary, but the Four Horsemen had made a lot of enemies over the course of their thousands of years of history…enemies who had suddenly been brought back to life and now wanted revenge.

Thanatos had said the whole thing was practically Druidic.

Druidic, maybe, butkarmic, definitely.

Still…it had been a long time since they’d been attacked at their home, and it was tempting to let things become a little more relaxed. Maybe after the baby was born, she’d talk to Thanatos about chilling out a bit when it came to security.

A gust of cold wind made her shiver and wish she’d brought a jacket. But she’d checked the weather and saw nothing but sun, warmth, and blue sky for the next two days.

“Miss Regan!” Eli gestured into the distance. “Looks like a storm is coming.”

Frowning, she looked across the tundra to the rugged mountains in the distance. Sure enough, a wicked black cloud billowed and seethed, rolling toward them as if Satan himself drove it.

“Logan? Come on. We need to go back inside.”

“Okay!” Logan stopped running andnockedanother arrow. “I just gotta get this apple.”

Lightning streaked across the sky, stretching impossibly far ahead of the roiling storm cloud that had now swallowed the northern hills. It throbbed angrily, seeming to double in size with each of her heartbeats. How had it gotten so close in a matter of seconds? A crack of thunder burst in her eardrums, and she clapped her hands over her ears as she ran toward Logan.

“Logan!” she screamed. “Come here! Run!”

He didn’t move a muscle. He stood atop a mossy mound, legs spread, his bow positioned how Thanatos had taught him, relaxed but ready.

Oh, but he was his father’s son.

And his mom was going to ground him for a week if he didn’t listen to her.

“Logan! Come here!”

The storm lunged closer, covering half the distance in a split second. A howling gust hit her like a train, knocking her backward and nearly off her feet.

Still, Logan stood steady as if daring the storm to mess with him. Then, slowly, tauntingly, he raised his weapon and fired a little arrow into the dark depths of the boiling thunderhead.

Lightning seared the sky and burned the ground in sizzling zaps. The storm roared as a gaping maw formed in the clouds and sped toward her son.

“Logan!”

Suddenly, a hellhound phased in from out of nowhere, dodging electric spears as it raced the storm to get to the boy. Churning clouds spawned claws of lightning and explosions of thunder that rocked the earth. Regan stumbled, already off-balance from her pregnancy. Desperate and screaming, she ran harder—

The ground shook under the force of a violent thunderclap, and Regan went down in a heap.

“No,” she gasped, half-crawling, half-scrabbling in a desperate attempt to find her footing.

Cujo dove on top of Logan, covering the child’s little body with his bison-sized one. He snarled at the storm, spitting drool, his massive fangs flashing.

Panting and stumbling, Regan finally made it to her feet. She was only a few yards from her son now—

A bolt of electricity seared her from the inside out. Pain and sharp, scorching heat streaked through every cell in her body. Her skin shriveled, and her teeth rattled, but nothing was as bad as the cramp in her belly.

No, please, not again.Not my baby.

Almost as if it was alive, the storm growled, a resonant, chilling sound that pierced even the ringing in her ears.Alive.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. Even as the doubt tumbled through her mind, the reality was right there, breathing on her with foul gusts that reeked of brimstone and bowels. “The storm is a demon.”

Half a dozen streams of lightning arched high before stabbing into the expanse of earth that separated her from Logan and Cujo. They raked the ground like claws, plowing deep furrows into the charred grass. Cujo spun toward the eye-searing bolts of light, and a split second later, he phased out of the storm’s path, taking Logan with him.

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