Pure Logic

  

  Pouvoir 1

  Pure Logic

  [Siren Classic ManLove: Contemporary, ManLove, Alternative, Fantasy, Paranormal, MM, HEA]

  Rico Arkman Tarok is on a mission. Crossing Europe while evading his brethren, family and the crāwan, he searches for the next piece of parchment that will lead to the soul globe which was hidden centuries ago.

  When Freddie di Moor helped a man being chased by crāwan, he didn’t expect to discover a pouvoir. Thought of as myth, he was surprised to learn that pouvoirs were actually real! And he liked Rico. The man was hot and focused, powerful, and his soul mate. At first, Freddie didn’t believe soul mates were a real thing, but he was quick to change his mind. Now he just has to get Rico to stop sending Freddie from the fights and trust him to have Rico’s back.

  Length: 49,500 words

  PURE LOGIC

  Pouvoir 1

  Jo Penn

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  Pure Logic

  Copyright © 2020 by Jo Penn

  ISBN: 978-1-64637-075-7

  First Publication: January 2020

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2020 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at legal@sirenbookstrand.com

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  “I looked around and thought about my life. I felt grateful. I noticed every detail. That is the key to time travel. You can only move if you are actually in the moment. You have to be where you are to get where you need to go.” – Amy Poehler

  I am grateful and joyful and cherish what I have. Love and writing and being able to share these with others. Jo Penn

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  I love writing and can be found most days in front of my computer. I live in a wonderful part of the world where sandy beaches are close, the sun shines and people love to get out and about.

  I spent years living in London, UK, working and travelling which provided so much inspiration through history, culture and life in general. I love to travel and have lots of plans to do so again in the future. In the meantime, I bring my worlds to life.

  The world of the paranormal mixed with love and action, how the men react and live, defend and care, captures my attention and has me wanting to fill pages with their adventures.

  For all titles by Jo Penn, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/jo-penn

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PURE LOGIC

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  PURE LOGIC

  Pouvoir 1

  JO PENN

  Copyright © 2020

  Chapter One

  Holding the wheel with one hand while turning a crumpled map with the other, Rico Arkman Tarok again tried to figure out the directions he’d downloaded and printed from the internet.

  Apparently, he was a useless navigator.

  Scrunching up the map and tossing it to the back of the Jeep felt good, but what was even better was spotting a sign for a fuel stop ahead. He could really do with a dozen coffees and food, not to mention the Jeep was over heating and low on gas. Stopping would also provide a few minutes for Rico to assess the strong sense he had of being followed.

  With no other motorists acting suspiciously and nothing out of the ordinary happening so far during the long drive, he could put the suspicion of being followed down to paranoia. Or possibly it was his worry that someone might have caught on to what he was up to.

  But then, Rico was not your average professor in pursuit of a monumental discovery. The strong sense of being followed was rising with each mile he covered and couldn’t be ignored.

  He had to keep moving to make it to the next hidden location.

  A mile up the road he pulled the Jeep into a service station and spent ten minutes filling up, cooling the engine, and doing a once-over to make sure there wouldn’t be any breakdowns in the middle of nowhere. He was a scientist, not a mechanic, so the engine was one mystery he couldn’t unravel without spending the time reading the manual and taking the engine apart piece by piece. There was no time for that right now.

  He headed into the diner and took a seat next to the window overlooking the Jeep and motorway. That sense was making him jumpy and on high alert.

  “What can I get you?” a waiter asked in Swedish.

  “Coffee, black.” He turned the dingy menu over and quickly perused. “Number five, thanks.”

  The food names sounded fairly repugnant, and he could only hope that did not mean the taste was. His thoughts turned to where he was headed and why. He was in a roadside diner in the middle of Sweden with nothing around for twenty miles. It’d taken a long time to get here, and he still had a long way to go.

  A long time ago, a damn long time, he’d been told of a peculiar item, one that was valuable to the pouvoir and believed lost to them forever. For centuries many searched using their special talents but without success. Not having the tracker or locator magic and unable to define air waves, Rico resorted to what he did have in abundance. Logic and science knowledge.

  Too bad he was useless with a map or he wouldn’t be an hour behind schedule after a wrong turn a hundred miles ago.

  The coffee was foul and burnt his mouth but it was needed. Skipping the last two nights of the usual four hours sleep required for him to be at full strength and alertness, Rico wanted the caffeine, and surprisingly, the food wasn’t all that bad. Not the best but not as bad as predicted.

  Unlike the myth that said men refused to ask for directions, Rico waited on the hood of his old Jeep with the crumpled map for a truck driver, thinking they would hopefully know the roads around here. He was rewarded with a damn thorough explanation of which roads to take, so by the time he was driving again, his spirits were lifted.

  He was close to locating the item. Rico could feel how close he was. This was what kept him going despite fatigue, being low in strength, and the growing concern over enemies closing in. This was his destiny, preconceived and designed well before he’d even hatched. It was the one thing he was determined about, and he could put everything else in his life aside to do what must be done—find the soul globe.

  He was not the only one after it. There was another globe, which, thankfully, was still in his kind’s possession, and needed to stay that way. The destruction either globe could do in the wrong hands was a terrible thought.

  The old story of the missing soul globe was told to Rico when he was ten years of age. Over the next five hundred years, he studied, researched, and plotted a course. Finding the globe was
not an easy task. The pouvoir who hid it, did so well, knowing others would come seeking the small sphere. Like a jigsaw puzzle needing to be put together to see the full picture, pieces of the map leading to the globe’s location were hidden throughout the world. Each piece was encrypted with magic as well as riddles and often, just to be more difficult, Rico had to research ancient spells, languages and history to crack the riddles and magic.

  When first beginning his mission, Rico never thought it would take him this long to find all the pieces and discover the soul globe’s hiding place. Perhaps it was naivety, perhaps arrogance that for years he held the belief of finding the globe and breaking the spells and riddles within a few years and returning to his kind, to his family, having done his duty.

  It wasn’t to be. Four hundred years of searching for the globe constantly and it was only now he neared the end of his journey. A journey that had taken him far from kin and brethren. Even his true self.

  He had to get the globe. If he didn’t succeed… He shuddered at the thought of what it could be used for in the wrong hands.

  Cruising down the highway with the music blaring and cold wind blowing in through the open window, he felt he was making good time despite leaving the university late on Friday night and the packers not turning up to ship his belongings to storage.

  This was it, the final stretch, and nothing was standing in his way, not even the well-meaning and overly protective members of his own kind or anyone else on the same hunt. There was no going back without the globe. He’d quit the university where he worked as a professor, sold the old brownstone he’d spent years renovating, and, the biggest task on his list, he’d evaded his own kind.

  Most who knew Rico never considered him the adventurous sort. They saw only the mild-natured individual who taught different sciences year after year at university and mediated on his kind’s matters when called upon.

  Popping a candy into his mouth, Rico crouched low behind the steering wheel to stop the cold air coming through the open window from blowing the wrapper away before he could tuck it into the little compartment, which was already full of rubbish. He’d just secured the wrapper when a set of headlights on high coming in the opposite direction blinded him momentarily.

  Squinting, his eyes adjusting after a moment with the aid of his supernaturally enhanced vision, Rico caught sight of a symbol on the license plate. Hell, these days you couldn’t go anywhere without coming across one of those, and it looked like he’d been right. That paranoid feeling he’d been experiencing since the drive began wasn’t paranoia at all. He was being followed by crāwans.

  The crāwan were an organization who had formed when the world was young. Their name and symbol of a crow remained the same. It was their purpose that changed as time did. In this era, the crāwan, remained in the shadows, similar to Rico’s own kind. They were on the boards of large corporations, had well-established fronts, and, just like most people, their lives extended beyond their cause. The members were multi species, having humans and supernaturals of different kinds pledging themselves.

  Right now, members of crāwan were coming up behind him in a truck. The crāwans in the car in front still had their headlights up high and were making a beeline straight toward Rico’s Jeep. He guessed they intended to force him off the road.

  Crāwans were his competitors for the soul globe, a device that could draw the soul from any creature, lock it inside, and release when commanded. Taking the soul would instantly kill the owner. Though the globe was capable of this, it was designed to find lost souls and move them on from this world. But taking the soul from a person or supernatural to the crāwan meant they could harness the energy, the life force, as well as kill.

  Gods, that globe in the wrong hands could be diabolically disastrous. It was why he’d worked so hard and long to find it.

  Crāwans were a secret sect, using others as puppets to fulfill their need for power and greed. They would never think twice about trampling innocents and using anyone to get what they wanted. To them, the globe was a source of unimaginable power and an advantage over their enemies. To his kind, it was a valuable resource in aiding others.

  Rico’s logic kicked in.

  The vehicle coming toward him would hit the Jeep on the front left fender, nudging him off the road with a good amount of force. His Jeep would end up in a ditch he wouldn’t get out of in a hurry. The crāwan would be on him in an instant, knock him out, the Jeep put in the big rig coming up fast behind him, and that would be it, a nice clean pickup. They wanted him alive to find the soul globe, he guessed. That could not happen.

  Rico’s senses also told him magic was being used, which meant he probably couldn’t teleport himself out of here.

  Giving it a go and finding he couldn’t, Rico considered the fastest and best way out of this deadly situation. He would take death over giving up the soul globe to crāwan, but first, he’d try to get away. Like Darkness had said, Rico didn’t like others making decisions for him.

  Taking in what was around, calculating speeds and distances, the placement, he hit the accelerator and pulled the wheel hard to the left. Narrowly missing the oncoming car, Rico was jolted around as the Jeep veered off the road, down a ditch, and went straight into the forest.

  Flicking off the headlights to make the chase more difficult for the bastards, he hoped to out-run them in the thick forest and used his supernatural heightened sight for greater visibility. The Jeep was far better equipped for a rocky jaunt in the wilderness than a car or truck, though if the creatures were loaded with magic and potions, they stood a chance.

  Rico was pissed off. He’d sacrificed and worked hard to find the soul globe, and these bastards thought they could jump in on the last part of the hunt to take it from him. Overloaded with greed and anger, they plotted and manipulated and took pleasure in ruining reputations of good businesses and people. As long as they got what they wanted, and didn’t attract the law, they didn’t care about how the deal was done. They had lawyers and politicians in their pocket in every country in the world. They had secret deals, secret assassinations, and well-placed members to keep anyone from looking into their business.

  Rico had known for a long time now that his kind and the other supernaturals needed to work together to bring down the crāwans. His kind were too far apart, two groups in different zones of the world. They didn’t coordinate or communicate often. Each day and night, small teams were out in the world protecting innocents, but to be truly effective, to be the powerhouse they truly were, they needed to come together once more, like in the old times a thousand years ago when they assembled at the pouvoir palace.

  If he made it out of this with the soul globe, Rico would tell them until they damn well listened.

  Hurtling through thick forest, he considered his options. There was no way he could keep the Jeep going with the amount of trees and distance between them and the foliage and ditches, which would trip him up in some way, so with quick thinking and resourcefulness, he kept a foot on the accelerator and directed the Jeep to where he knew a river to be.

  Having to tell the truck driver something, Rico came up with a story about going on a camping and fishing trip, wanting to stop at the big rivers along the way to Oslo. The van was following, truck rumbling in the distance, probably slogging its way through while trying not to get stuck anywhere, which was a smart idea. Trying to get it out of a bog would be a bitch. He hoped they got stuck.

  Seeing the river up ahead and realizing there was a long drop, he grabbed the map and other things lying about and hurriedly put them in his satchel, slung it over his neck, and physically threw himself from the Jeep.

  The fall resulted in numerous bruises, a shoulder dislocation, his ankle snapping, and a rock tearing across his back, but these physical ailments did not slow Rico down. The crāwan may have been able to use magic to stop him teleporting away while so close, but they couldn’t if he got distance between them. In this situation, he was willing to risk being tracke
d by his kind to get away.

  The Jeep went over the side of the river bank and plunged down into the water. Rico bolted low across the uneven ground. The pain was enough to make him howl but he stifled it as sweat beaded on his forehead. Losing his footing, the snapped ankle needing an hour or so to heal before this type of pressure should be placed on it, Rico ended up sliding and rolling down the side of the river bank to land in an undignified, not to mention painful, heap on a pile of jagged rocks.

  Ensuring his magical coverings were still on and blocking the pain from his mind as much as he could, Rico dragged himself back from the water and staying very low, practically crawled across the rocks and tree roots to a shallow crater beneath the withered carcass of an old tree. Here he lay in the mud and watched for the crāwan.

  Like a swarm of insects, they descended quickly. There were six of them. He caught most of their scents. They took in the scene, and he was pronounced dead.

  “If he were dead, the brethren would feel one of their kind passin’ to the next fucking life. A big disturbance that’d bring them rampaging down on this spot.” A big mortal crāwan snarled. “He ain’t dead. Get back to lookin’.”

  Persistent bastards, and right about the brethren feeling one of their kind dying.

  “We should have shot him.” A demon growled.

  “Should have? I said to shoot out the tires, and you said rammin’ would work better. You’re an idiot. Just find him.”

  Looked like Rico needed a new hiding place.

  Chapter Two

  Crāwan were invading their peaceful country retreat weekend. Five minutes ago, Freddie and those he was here with had heard a commotion in the forest nearby and splitting up, went to investigate. They’d seen the Jeep plunge into the river and a large truck with the symbol of the crāwan.