I chuckle, shaking my head, and walk over to sit on the cot, sighing now because I am so tired. So, so tired.
“What do you want, Logan?” I ask, smiling at Lync who reaches through the bars to me, whining pitifully.
Ignoring Logan, I go to my knees and do the same, my fingers just barely brushing Lync’s. The contact is small, but it seems to put him at ease enough that I hear him sigh and let out a purring rumble.
“What I tell you now can never leave these cells, Hannah,” he starts, the way he says it suggesting he can’t trust me but has no choice.
I want to tell him he’s right, I’d sell him down the river in a fucking heartbeat, but I am not disloyal. I may lie, but I never betray those I make vows to. Never.
I just need to decide whether I can make a vow to Logan or if I want to.
“Like I give a shit. You either spit it out or let me go, your choice, but I am not, I repeat, not, getting involved in something that could get me killed,” I say, meaning it.
I don’t care who needs what, I am not dying for a pack of assholes who don’t give a shit about me. Just about the only person alive who cares about me now is Lync, and the bastard is a nut job. Must be why he hasn’t wised up yet.
Letting my hand drop when holding it out becomes too much work I sit back and lean my head against the wall, my left hand clutching the bars beside me.
Logan sighs, retaking his seat, and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his eyes so somber I feel my pulse skitter.
“Barbie Kendall went missing a week ago. Prissy went over to her house and found the place turned over with no sight of Barbie to be seen. We checked it out from top to bottom, but as I already said, there was nothing. No scent but hers, and no clue as to who may have taken her or why. We’ve been waiting on a call, a note, something, but so far we have nothing.”
“Oh God,” I say on a breath, remembering the little blonde bombshell with the dirty mouth.
We may not like each other, correction she may be friends with Mika and hate me, but I like her just fine. I respect her honesty, something I envy because it’s a luxury I can’t afford all the time, and even more, I like that she isn’t a weak female who waits for males to fix everything.
She’s independent, strong, and happy, something I want to be when I grow up and the Blue Fairy makes me a real girl.
“Is…was this another attack?” I ask when he stays silent, his anger reaching me as a tiny part of my sense of smell returns.
“We think so. The house had that scent, the masked scent that we’ve been trying to track, and they came in from the east again.”
Which is what I have been thinking ever since I started following the attacks. I may not be as smart as others, but I am no dummy, and even I can see there’s a pattern there. I just can’t figure it out.
“So the attacks haven’t really stopped then.”
“They have. We haven’t had any assaults, killings, or boundary breaks, so yeah, they have stopped. In a way.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound that way to me,” I snort, leaning my head back.
“This is a really delicate situation, Hannah. Barbie is gone. Her house didn’t scent of fear, but that doesn’t make sense because they tore it apart. It’s obvious she struggled.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If she struggled—shit, that female is too stubborn to get scared,” I mutter, grinning ruefully when Logan smirks.
“She’s a firecracker.”
Jealousy assaults me, hitting me right where it hurts, my vagina, and I sniff out a curse and keep myself in check, using the techniques I taught myself years ago to keep my arousal at bay.
Stupid heat. He either needs to leave or let me go, or we’re both screwed. Once my golden junk starts singing, I will violate him if he’s near.
Biology. Whore.
“So what is it you think I can help with?” I ask, picking at my nail where the pink polish is staring to chip.
“I want you to try and hear her.”
“Are you insane?! I haven’t used this ability in so long I almost hyperventilated when it came back. I have no idea what to do, or how to control it, and you think I can just randomly connect with a female who is likely miles away by now? That’s a little much, Logan.”
“I don’t have anything else! I’ve been all over this place no less than fifteen to twenty miles in every direction. I even shifted and ran up to the border, trying to catch a break, but I have nothing. As it stands, I have mere days, a week or two at most, before the Kendalls start banging on Nick’s door demanding answers,” he says in a voice laced with frustration and fear.
I pause, my eyes narrowing on him when it becomes clear.
“You didn’t tell them, did you? That family doesn’t know their young is missing!” I accuse, my temper rising because I would want to know.
If that was my kid, I would rip this bitch apart, and you better believe if my Alpha kept it from me, he wouldn’t be safe either.
Logan grimaces and looks away, shaking his head tiredly.
“The council is already so far up Nick’s ass he can’t breathe without feeling them, and after the tension from the pack just two months ago, I convinced him to keep it quiet until I found her,” he admits.
“So it’s your ass riding on this. If you fail, which you have, our Alpha gets his neck in a noose. So to speak,” I muse, my smile holding nothing that resembles amusement.
I’m pissed off and disgusted and afraid, very afraid. The pack has been holding itself together with tape and gum for months, the unpopular elite banding together to make things hard for Nick, who refuses to make laws in their favor.
It’s been hard on the male, and while I am not his favorite person, I am loyal. I always have been—even when it got me hurt. He’s my Alpha, my leader, the one thing in this world that I didn’t allow my family to corrupt in me, and I will bleed for him, as is right.
Shit.
“You will owe me for every single injury I endure, even if it’s mental, and Logan, you better believe I’m collecting when this is over, only I don’t want your money,” I tell him, smiling darkly because I know exactly what I want now, and I don’t think he’s going to like it.
“Name it and it’s yours,” he vows, his face so sincere I almost feel guilty.
Almost.
“Mate me, Fated.”
Chapter Seven
Logan
I blink, not quite believing my ears and stare at Hannah, who is grinning at me, a self-satisfied smile curving her lips.
“What?” I bark, my throat going dry when she smiles, the expression lighting up her face.
She is so beautiful in this moment with her eyes shining and her mouth tilted in a smile that lights her whole face and chases away the shadows I see there, the fatigue.
Hannah isn’t ugly. In fact, if I were going to be honest, I would say that Hannah is the most beautiful female I have ever seen. Her eyes are a blue that remind me of Caribbean waters, her hair is a fall of black silky curls that gleam in the light with luster and body.
When it’s not flat ironed or styled to within an inch, it is wavy and gorgeous and makes her seem younger than her thirty-three years. She is simply…beautiful. And yet I have never met someone who is this ugly on the inside.
And that is what both annoys me and turns me on about her. She is perfection on the surface, but a mass of imperfection once you go skin deep. I hate that. I hate that nature chose her for me and we couldn’t be any more opposite in our views.
Blinking again, to clear my head, I glare at her and growl.
“Repeat! I didn’t quite hear you.”
She giggles, shakes her head and looks over at Lync who has gone quiet and seems entranced with the conversation. Eerie bastard.
“I said mate me, my Fated. You want me to stick my head out and offer myself up for harm, then you give me some guarantee that I will come out of this okay. The minute I walk out of these doors, I am dead meat. No! Don’t freak
ing argue with something I know more about than you. They will come for me. If not Blain and Brig, then someone from the elite. I may as well paint the bulls eye on my fucking forehead myself!” she snarls, standing up to pace the tiny cell.
“Hannah, this is ludicrous. I don’t even—”
“Know. You don’t know. Because you all look down on us, elite.” She sneers, curling her fingers mockingly. “You look down on us, thinking we have these great lives and we’re spoiled and self-centered and assholes, but you don’t know any of the rest. You look at me, and you see a nasty person, well fine. I am a nasty person, and I don’t care if anyone likes it. But I am a person who deserves life as much as the next shifter. I disgraced my family—”
“By your own choice! You knew what they’d do if they discovered your ability. If you shamed them. If you knew what was going to happen, why do it?” I yell, my frustration mounting when she gives me a dead look and sniffs, avoiding my eyes.
“Because I had no choice,” she answers so softly I almost don’t hear her.
“I don’t get it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She sighs, shrugging me off. “What matters now is that I am in trouble, whether you believe that or not, and I refuse to play the martyr just to make you happy. If you want my help, and that is no guarantee either because I don’t know if I can do this, you need to give me reassurance.”
“I promise to protect you,” I grate through my teeth, my wolf and his yapping making my head ache.
He likes the idea of mating Hannah. He wants her. He always has. With the arousal that comes upon me so frequently, he wants her so badly that he can still remember the clasp of her sex even now.
She laughs darkly, rolling her eyes, as if my word means nothing to her, and lowers herself to the cot tiredly.
“Forgive me for not believing you but,” she spreads her hands, “I don’t. Your idea of protecting me is locking me away in here and coming down to goad me every chance you get. Your idea of protection left me alone in a hotel in Whitefish the morning after we slept together. You have no idea what happened after that, so you don’t even know, or want to know, what your actions made me face.”
“It was years ago! What happened? You had to do a walk of shame because I ripped your dress a little and Daddy’s princess doesn’t do honesty? Give me a break, Hannah.” I snort, pinching at the bridge f my nose.
“Whatever. I won’t even bother if that’s your stance,” she mutters, lips firming. “Just let me out and I am gone.”
“I can’t do that!”
“Because you need something, and you want to use me. Again. Big surprise, Logan. Even if I could do this, and that is a big even, I won’t risk my life just to save someone else’s. That may piss you off. You can think I’m selfish and mean spirited or whatever your sanctimonious attitude is towards me, but I don’t care. I don’t want to be harmed or die so you can get your friend back. You don’t care, that’s fine. I’m so used to it after years of knowing you that I should expect it by now. I care. I care about me,” she says, emphasizing her claim with a hand to her chest.
“Goddammit, nothing will happen to you! I’ll protect you.”
“Yeah, until you get what you want, and then I get to saunter off into a happily ever after.” She laughs derisively. “They’ll follow me. My window will be closed by then.”
“What window? Look Hannah, it can’t be all that bad. Your family members are not monsters. I refuse to believe your father would harm you. Shifter males don’t harm their young-”
“Whatever. Be a blind fool, I don’t care. I’m not doing one goddamned thing until I know you will protect me with your life, and if the only way to get that guarantee is to mate you, I’ll do it. Just don’t think for a minute I will change my mind because I won’t. You want to use me, go ahead, but I will use you too.”
I snarl, feeling my temper rise and slam a fist into the wall beside her cell, my knuckles splitting open when the force punches a hole through the plaster.
Here the walls are standard, no reinforcing needed because no female would usually hit a wall. On Lync’s side I’d have broken my hand on a titanium plate under the brick.
“I don’t want you! Mating is for life, and despite what some modern pairs believe, I don’t adhere to the divorce laws Nick passed. In my family, mated is mated,” I say, giving her an out.
I bet the spoiled brat thinks she can mate and divorce at the blink of an eye.
“I’m no different. Despite what you may think, Logan, I don’t disbelieve Fating or bonding.”
“You didn’t believe it when you were with Bear.”
“I did. I just didn’t want to leave a male who loved me for one who despised me,” she says ruefully, giving me pause.
For a second, I think I see hurt cloud her blue eyes, but a blink later I see nothing but mockery, disdain, and Hannah’s own brand of humor staring back at me.
“This is getting us nowhere. I won’t mate you.”
She shrugs, removing a thin metal file from her back pocket and starts filing her nails slowly, as if she hasn’t got a care in the world. I’d get angrier, but it has no effect on Hannah. My temper never has.
“Then you can go out there and find your friend without me.”
I don’t say anything, just turn on my heel and stalk away, my anger so great I know I’d do or say something unforgivable if I stayed. I hear Hannah laugh, goading me when I slam the metal door and take the stairs two at a time.
Somehow, someway, I will get that female to do what I need her to. Even if I have to stoop to her level.
# # # #
Hannah
“Stop judging me, Demented. I had no choice!” I say to Lync, who is still staring at me after an hour of pretending to file my nails down while trying to calm my breathing and pretend my feelings aren’t hurt.
What, you think I feel good having to demand that a male mate me? You think I like having to force someone who hates me to spend the rest of his long life with me?
I don’t. I may not be a good person, but I have feelings and pride. That pride is currently powdered dust beneath Logan Kilter’s boot, my ego having taken a severe knock thanks to the horror I saw on his face.
God, he didn’t even bother to hide how appalling he finds the idea of being with me.
“Pain?”
“No. No pain. Just survival.” I sigh, tossing the file onto my cot and looking back at Lync.
He tilts his head, his hairy face holding an expression I want to believe is curiosity and not pity and waits silently for me to answer him. I don’t want to and not because I’m some histrionically inclined female who is dying inside or anything.
I feel nothing!
I just don’t have anything more to say.
What is there to say?
For me to have a life outside these cells, I need to have a chance, and the only chance I see myself having is to be protected by a male who is respected and feared by my father and his friends. Logan Kilter may not be my biggest fan, but I cannot fault his strength in our pack and he is strong.
He demands respect, wields power, and has many friends who support him and make him a force. If he wasn’t such good friends with Bear, he would still be third string in his own right, a position that would afford me guaranteed protection.
My father may be insane, but even he wouldn’t dare harm a hair on Logan Kilter’s head, and that includes a female he is mated to. I can’t call myself his mate in any form, not after the way he just looked at me, so yeah, if I were his female, I’d be okay.
I could stay in the pack, the only home I have ever known, and I wouldn’t have to fear being hurt. I won’t have to run away and live among humans or like some wild animal in the wilds up North.
I could stay. Maybe one day be friends with Bear again. Have…something.
Now that I am disowned, I am free, and I want that freedom. I want to live to enjoy that freedom, even if it is with Logan Kilter.
“Love.”<
br />
“Yeah buddy, I love you too,” I say distractedly, waving Lync off when he starts growling.
I need to get out of here. I know Logan, and that male won’t agree to anything I just put on the table. He’ll leave me down here, try to wait me out, and then lose his temper and dump me outside without a thought.
Not that I think anyone will come at me immediately or right outside the Alpha’s home, but there are many places between here and freedom where they can hurt me.
So yeah, I need to escape, I think, eying the hole in the wall where Logan punched it, my mind working.
“Your walls don’t crumble like this one,” I say to Lync, pointing at the hole.
He peers at it, inspects the hole and sniffs the air.
“Blood.”
“Yeah, yeah. Blood. I know, okay. Your wall?” I ask again, pointing to his cell and then the hole with my hands raised in question.
Lync rises, walks one pace and then slams his huge hand into the wall, not even making a peep when he pulls it back without any damage to the structure.
“Hhhmm, it seems the Alpha only reinforced your walls, buddy. No way are you getting out of that cell any time soon. I guess that means I have to leave you behind. Oh well, I can’t be noble all the time,” I mumble, walking over to the cell door, where the metal meets the wall, to inspect it.
I see thick concrete and bars that are thick enough I won’t be able to budge them, not even if I was at full strength, which I’m not because I haven’t healed fully yet.
But I see possibility. With a little perseverance and pain, I can do something about the door. At least budge it enough to squeeze through a gap and get out.
Sighing, I look over at the flimsy nail file and then down at my hands where my manicure is all but ruined anyway. I smile, call on my wolf, and watch as the pink nails lengthen and thicken, losing the girly appearance I usually strive for before coming out like sharp, thick claws.
Lync snorts when he sees the partial shift and watches when I lift a hand to the wall and dig in, ignoring the pain when flesh strains against flesh.
Greyriver Shifters Page 31
