Free Logan: Her Warlock Protector Book 3 by Hazel Hunter Page B

Hampden might still have some stray Christmas decorations that were up, but a hubcap Christmas tree wasn’t something he could hide behind. Still, everything within him was still on fire, raging against what he’d seen.
    He was here.
    That bastard who’d murdered Adam was living next door to his…no, not his, not judging by the death glares she’d sent him .
    The only thing Logan could hope was that Darren Castle wasn’t dumb enough to strike her when neighbors had seen her enter into his apartment. As for her own place, Logan would hope until then that her familiar, that cunning weasel, would be able to help her as well. He’d return at night with spells and incantations of his own to help fortify a barrier so secure that no cleric the Knight could bargain with would be able to bring down the walls. Still, it tore at him to leave her, to have to keep up what respectability he had left.  
    Caitlin was his in a way that even he couldn’t quite understand. The thought of that monster slitting her throat or decapitating her as he had Logan’s best friend and lieutenant made him boil with anger. Darren would pay—pay for his myriad of crimes against the Corps, other witches, and now for stalking Caitlin and playing to her sympathies. He just had to make her see that she was mistaken and that things didn’t look like how she assumed. No, losing his temper wasn’t the smartest thing, but nothing had been more visceral for him than seeing that murdering bastard smiling back at him on the porch.
    Sitting down on the bed of his hotel room, trying to get Jonathan on the phone, Logan was afraid he’d blown his chance to save her, driven her directly into that man’s arms. No, not a man, a monster.
    Finally, after six rings, Jonathan answered his cell phone:
    “Logan, you’re supposed to be working closely to bring Ms. Monroe in. Where are we on this plan?”
    He gritted his teeth and refrained from shouting at his leader. While they were friends, even he understood the necessity of keeping up the lines of command. He resented it as well as Jonathan’s focus on the war and what they needed to win it. Of course, as commandant, the lives of every witch and warlock were on his head, even the ones who had not yet been located for protection. The novices and uninitiated, especially, needed his calm head leading the Corps to survive, even if they didn’t know that yet.
    “ He’s here. I need reinforcements and I need them now, Jonathan.”
    “Who?”
    “Darren Castle. He’s the Knight casing everything. I don’t know if it’s fate or if their clerics somehow foresaw I’d be assigned, but he’s been on surveillance longer than I. He’s her goddamn neighbor!”
    “Castle’s here?”
    “He’s next door to her, probably plotting the easiest way to slit her throat after torturing her.”
    “You left her?”
    “I lost control of my emotions. There was a scene in front of the neighbors, and she was going to call the cops. I know he won’t strike before night fall because of witnesses. The Templars want to stay secretive even more than we do. But one of their most proficient assassins is on this case. I don’t know how they know about her.”
    A long measured sigh was his only answer on the other end for a while. Then Jonathan spoke.  
    “I can send you Charles and Montgomery, but they’re in D.C. currently with that coven. There’s been trouble there too so it might be a day or two. You get to Caitlin and you protect her. She could be our lynchpin.”
    Logan swallowed and reminded himself to be contrite with his leader. “You’d have to use force to keep me away. I just needed to avoid arrest. I’ll be on this. Darren won’t win again.”
    “Good. If I had to have someone up against him, even after Adam… Look, this isn’t about vengeance. This is about saving the newest potential initiate. You don’t go for blood, you save her. Is that understood, General?”
    Logan nodded and squeezed the phone