Page 42 of Legacy of Temptation

Logan had only been waiting in Kynan’s office for a few seconds when the guy entered through the hidden rear entrance.

“Hey, Logan. Sorry I’m late.” He sank into his desk chair and threw his head back as he took a deep breath. He blew it out and sat up to face Logan. “I have about a million fires to put out. The world is going crazy.”

“It’s about to get crazier.”

“I heard. Lilith grabbed you last night.” He gave Logan a concerned look, his dark brows framing serious eyes. “You okay?”

“I’m disgusted that I’m related to that monster, but otherwise, I’m fine.” He rolled adecipulaacross Kynan’s desk. “And we need to upgrade our weapons.”

Kynan caught the little marble before it fell to the floor. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that the soul traps failed. She’s too powerful for them. Didn’t you say StryTech was working on stronger ones?”

“Stryke said they should be able to increase the strength of the existing ones by about ten percent next year.”

Ten percent? Ten percent of shit was still shit. “That’s not good enough. We’ve been waiting for containers that’ll work against beings as strong as fallen angels for a decade.” He became aware that he was pacing and making a lie out of being fine. He was a giant ball of stress, and it occurred to him that the only time he wasn’t stressed about Lilith was when he was with Eva.

Who he couldn’t be with because of Lilith.

“Fuck me,” he muttered as he sank into a chair across from his boss. “Raika has traps strong enough to hold any demon or fallen angel, so they obviously exist.”

“Raika operates under Heaven’s mandate, not ours, The Aegis’s, or any human government or organization. The traps she uses are Divine,” Kynan pointed out. “Made in Heaven. We lowly humans don’t have access to them, and Stryke hasn’t figured out how to reverse engineer them. Ifhecan’t do it, it can’t be done.”

Ah, the great and mighty Stryke, trillionaire recluse, tech genius, asshole extraordinaire.

“But I promise, we’re going to direct every available resource at finding Lilith and putting an end to her before she causes any more trouble. We’ll be working closely with your family. Have they told Reaver about these new developments?”

“I don’t know. I think my dad put out a summons, but Reaver hasn’t answered. Dad was even desperate enough to call for Harvester.”

Ky leaned back in his seat. “Wow. Thatisdesperate.”

Harvester had been the Horsemen’s evil Watcher back when they’d had Watchers, and she was still a fallen angel. Her relationship with the Horsemen had been antagonistic, and even though she’d chilled out since regaining her wings and mating Reaver, mending relationships had been a glacial process.

To Logan, she’d always been his cool grandma, blood kin or not.

“Yeah. Cara has her hellhounds out looking for Lilith, and the Horsemen are gathering intelligence inside Sheoul. But I had an idea about how we could help.”

Ky nodded. “Shoot.”

“What if someone in IT could use Lilith’s DNA to track her? You know, like the devices StryTech made for cops to track humans.”

Those were nifty little things that detected human skin cells and scent like bloodhounds did. Since introducing the devices, police organizations around the world had seen their arrest and solved-crime rates skyrocket.

“Can’t hurt to talk to Cyan and see if it’s possible. I assume you’re willing to donate the DNA sample?”

“Yup.”

“Excellent. Let me know how it goes.” Kynan stood, a clear dismissal. As Logan pushed to his feet, he added, “The exchange with The Aegis seems to be going well. Have you heard any complaints or problems?”

“Nah. A couple of our people and theirs have butted heads, but it’s nothing we can’t handle.” He looked down at his comms to check the time. After he gave some blood, maybe he’d see if he could get Eva assigned to him for a training session. He hadn’t seen her yet today, and they’d left things in a weird place last night.

He couldn’t even imagine what she must be thinking.

He sent in a request for a schedule change for Eva as he left the office, and when the confirmation came through while he was getting his blood drawn for the DNA sample, he swore he filled the vial in two heartbeats.

Eva had a headache, a hangover, and a lot of regrets.

She’d practically attacked Logan last night. Then she’d seen him attack another woman but in a completely different way.

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