by Sara Summers
Logan’s eyes grew wide.
“Wow.” He said. “So Kyle is the guy who…” he trailed off, not wanting to finish by suggesting that I was keeping in contact with my mom’s rapist.
I shook my head.
“No, I have no idea who my biological father is. My mom never wanted to know. Kyle was my mom’s soulmate after she saved a wolf and became a shifter. So he’s my dad, kind of. If my mom hadn’t died, he would’ve raised me with her.
“When she passed on, he almost went rabid—that’s what we call it when the animal inside a shifter takes over, destroying their humanity. He left me with Ty and Leah, like my mom wanted, and disappeared for a while until he got himself back under control. He’s been on the brink of becoming rabid for years, so he never stays long when he comes to visit. He was supposed to come visit me tomorrow, I need to call and tell him not to.” I explained.
“Okay, you were right. That’s a little weird.” Logan teased me.
“You said you wouldn’t judge me.” I protested.
“I’m not judging, just stating the truth. My family is weird too.” He yawned. “My dad has been cheating on my mom almost since they got married, but she stays married to him for who knows what reason. My mom refuses to be around my dad, and my brother can’t stand to be in the same room with either of our parents.”
Logan took a bite of his sandwich and watched my eyes grow almost as large as my sandwich-full cheeks.
I swallowed.
“Your dad is cheating on your mom?”
That was a completely foreign concept to me. I came from a place where people had one soulmate that they loved more than anything on the planet, and even if they weren’t happy with each other, they knew they were soulmates. They wouldn’t cheat on each other.
Even if they had wanted to cheat, there was no one to cheat with because everyone else had a soulmate they were at least loyal to if they weren’t in love.
“Yep.” Logan nodded.
The idea of someone actually cheating on the person they were married to made me feel ill.
I put my sandwich down on the paper it had been wrapped in.
“Like, he’s sleeping with another woman?” The sandwich in my mouth started tasting very gross.
“Emma, don’t overthink it.” Logan warned. “It’s been going on for a long time. My mom knows and chooses to stay married to him even though she doesn’t want to be around him.”
“That’s horrible.” I tried to swallow my nausea when I realized that Logan had probably slept with another woman. “Oh gosh.” I held my hand to my mouth and stood, rushing into the bathroom.
Nine
I closed the door and dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, trying my hardest not to puke.
“Are you okay? What happened?” Logan knocked on the door.
My natural inclination was to yell at him, so I didn’t respond.
“I’m coming in.” He warned.
I turned and kicked out my foot, holding the door closed.
“I’m fine.” I said weakly.
“Unlock the door, Emma.” Logan didn’t sound like he was messing around.
I couldn’t handle all of this change in human form; I needed to shift.
Fanning my face, I tried to stop myself from panicking. I’d always had an open mind about my soulmate. I’d love him if he was tall or short, thick or thin, light or dark. I didn’t care about the physical, I didn’t care about what he liked to do for fun. I cared that he was my soulmate, and that I was the one he had been waiting to find and wanted more than anything.
I’d even tried to be okay with the fact that he was human. But the image of my soulmate in bed with another woman? Loving another woman? When he should’ve spend his life waiting for the day he would sweep me into his arms and tell me that he’d waited his whole life to meet me?
That was something I couldn’t handle, at least not with my human mind. I needed to shift, I needed to run.
But I was surrounded by city.
“I just need a few minutes.” I said, panic rising in my chest.
Not only was my soulmate completely human with no desire to even find out if he could shift, he had also been with other women.
“Open the door.” He said, his voice louder and more forceful. If he’d been a male shifter I would’ve opened the door or had to duck while the guy kicked it in.
He wasn’t a shifter, though, and that much was apparent to me. Even the most timid and sweet male shifters wouldn’t just stand on the other side of the door and hope that their female would open it.
I closed my eyes and dropped my back to the floor, still holding the door closed with my foot. I desperately wanted to ask him how many women he’d been with, but at the same time, I wanted nothing to do with the answer.
“How many girls have you slept with?” I asked, pushing away my fear. I had to know the answer.
Logan didn’t say anything for a long moment.
“It doesn’t matter.” He finally said.
I closed my eyes. Whatever I was thinking, his answer said the truth was worse.
“It matters to me.” I moved my foot away from the door and slowly stood up. My heart was sinking, but my nausea was gone.
“Emma,” he actually looked scared when I opened the door.
“I’m going to the forest.” I stepped past him, hurrying toward the door. I had to shift or I was going to lose my mind.
“Please don’t.” he caught up to me, taking my hand. “I didn’t love them, okay? I was young and stupid and I didn’t know that you existed. It’s been more than two years since I was with anyone.”
“What do you want from me?” I met his eyes desperately. “I’m a wolf, Logan! I’ve waited my whole life for you and I’m not programmed to share. Just thinking about you being with someone else makes me feel sick.”
“I want what we had yesterday. On the airplane, in the car, in your room. We were happy then. That’s what I want, okay? I just want to be with you. You don’t have to share me, I’m all yours Emma. I can’t change the past, but I’ll never want anyone other than you. You’re my soulmate.” He held out his hands. “What do you want from me?”
What did I want? I wanted him to be a shifter. I wanted him to see the world through the eyes of a wolf. I wanted to run through the forest together, to howl at the moon together, to be part of a pack, together.
I wanted him to have waited his whole life to meet me, to love me.
But if I told him that, I knew I would lose him.
So I told him part of the truth, lying to Logan as easily as I’d lied to Amanda who did my nails.
“I want to be the most important thing in your world. I want you to care about me, to want to spend all your time with me, to love me. I want you to see me for who I am and not try to change me into what your mom wants for me. I want the relationship that soulmates have, not a human marriage.” I paused.
It was half of the truth, and I hoped the Creator didn’t condemn me for only telling my soulmate half of the truth.
“I want you to be honest with me about everything. About your plans for the future and where you want to be, about what you expect me to do and be. I don’t want to be the clueless dumpster girl anymore. I should’ve asked you what I was getting myself into before I came here.”
“Yeah, and I should’ve explained it better.” Logan agreed. “I’m going to cancel the pictures my mom wants us to take, we can do it another day. We’ll have a few extra hours to get to know each other before the party, and after it I’m all yours.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
“There’s one condition, though.” He held up a finger.
“What?” I folded my arms. I’d already changed the way I looked for him, if he wanted me to change anything else, leaving would be more than just an option.
“You let me kiss you.” Logan said. I could tell he was a little hesitant.
I already knew I’d hurt him when I told him not to touch me. If I turned
him down again, it would be a huge blow to our already-fragile relationship.
But with the images in my mind of him in bed with another woman, kissing him was the last thing I wanted to do.
Still, he was my soulmate. I at least had to let him try to make me forget about the other women he’d been with, and kissing was one way to start with that.
“Kissing relaxes you, that’s been proven with science. If we kiss before we continue this conversation, we’ll both be more level-headed.” He reasoned.
I would’ve said yes without his science. However unsure I was about the situation, I was still sure that he was my soulmate.
“Alright.” I nodded, unfolding my arms. “You can kiss me.”
Logan stepped closer, placing one of his hands on my hips and the other on the side of my face, touching the cotie on my neck. When he touched me, his emotions rushed through me so quickly that it just about knocked the wind out of me.
I felt the hurricane that was whirling around inside him and my breath hitched. He was worried but hopeful, scared but excited, and he wanted me. More than anything, he wanted me.
And I loved that.
When he lowered his mouth toward mine, I lifted my lips to meet him. My hands rested on his chest, and I loved the feel of his muscles under my hands.
He pulled his lips away after a soft, quick kiss. He was unsure of what I wanted, and he didn’t want to push me any further than he already had.
I wasn’t ready for the kiss to be over, though. If he didn’t know what I wanted, I had to make it completely clear.
I wanted him.
My soulmate.
The missing piece of me.
Regardless of the drama that was resulting from trying to figure out how to combine our polar-opposite lives, I wanted Logan.
So I put my hand on his neck, giving him direct access to what I was feeling. And then I pulled his face back to mine.
His hand left my waist to wrap around me, pulling my body closer to his. Our mouths moved as one while our emotions burned together, an overwhelming rush of desire.
We wanted each other, it was as simple and as complicated as that.
The kiss went on for a long while before Logan finally pulled away.
“We’d better stop if we’re going to have time to talk.” He said, pulling his hand away from my cotie and resting it against my cheek.
“You’re right.” I bit my lip, pulling my hand away from his neck.
“But you can’t do that.” He revised, lifting my hand back. I smiled.
“If we’re going to talk, my emotions are only for me.” I said, taking my hand away again. He sighed.
“Alright, fine.” Logan brushed my hair out of my face. “Let me text my mom to cancel the pictures real quick.” He took my hand and pulled me to the bed, where he grabbed his phone and sent his mom a text. “Okay, we have an hour and a half until we need to get ready for the party.”
“What are your plans?” I asked, jumping directly into the questions.
“I signed a movie deal a few months ago to star in a superhero movie. Filming starts a month from tomorrow in Atlanta, Georgia.” He said.
“Wow, okay.” I raised my eyebrows. “So we’re supposed to go to Georgia in a few weeks. Wow.”
“Yeah. I can postpone it a few days if we need to.”
“Alright, I’ll try to wrap my mind around that.” I grimaced. Moving again, so soon? I would hate that. “What was your movie trilogy called? And what was it about, and what was your character?”
He spent the next twenty minutes explaining the series’ plot and characters.
“Did you always want to be an actor?” I wondered. Logan seemed happy enough telling me about the series, but his eyes hadn’t lit up the way people’s eyes light up when they talk about something they love.
“It’s the only thing I know.” My soulmate admitted. “I was in a TV show when I was six and I’ve been filming ever since. I’m good at it, and I enjoy it.”
“But do you love it?”
“I don’t know. I like it, and I would definitely miss it if I stopped.” He shrugged. “Do you have to love your job?”
“I don’t know. I love doing construction.” I said.
“You were a construction worker?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Yep.” I smiled and stretched my arms out behind my head.
“No way. You’re too pretty to work construction.” Logan reached out to play with a strand of my wavy hair.
“You’re the one who’s too pretty to work construction.” I teased him and then yawned. “All the teenage girls in America are in love with you. The human ones, anyway.”
“Hey, give it a little time and they’ll all be in love with you too.” He tugged on my hair, and I suddenly felt the past 24 hours catch up on me. I was in a strange place, surrounded by strange people, and it was exhausting.
“I really hope not. I don’t want the world to stare at me.” I grabbed one of Logan’s pillows and settled into his ridiculously expensive bed.
Ten
Logan’s expensive mattress was the most comfortable thing I’d ever felt.
“You’ll get used to it.” He half-smiled.
“I came from a much different place than you. Maybe you got used to it, but I won’t.” I shrugged, though I was lying down on the bed, my eyes pointed up at the ceiling.
“I thought the same thing when my family first moved here.” He protested.
“How old were you?” I sat up and waited for what I knew the answer was.
“Eight.” Logan admitted. “But it was hard for me too.”
“Right. Because you grew up in a place where there was hardly any TV, no makeup, and no hair salons. Where everyone spent half of their time in animal form, and left a pair of clothes at all of the places they visit on a daily or weekly basis. Where there was no money, no separation between higher class and lower class. And then you moved here, where everything is radically different and not necessarily in a good way.” I folded my arms.
“Okay, maybe I don’t know what it’s like for you.” He gave in and accepted that, finally.
“You definitely don’t know what it’s like for me.” I said, matter-of-factly.
“What do you want me to do about it? All we can do is try to accept that we came from completely different places.”
“It feels like we came from different planets.” I lowered my head back to the pillow. “All I can do is try to fit in and hope that I figure out your life on the way. This isn’t an ideal situation, but we’re soulmates. You’re worth it, aren’t you?”
“I hope.”
“Well there are teenage girls around the country who would probably attempt murder to have you, so I’m going to go with yes.” I smirked when he rolled his eyes.
“No one would try to kill you to be with me.” He said, shaking his head at me.
“The way the nail lady was talking about her sister’s obsession with you, I wouldn’t put it past them.” I stretched my arms behind my head and scratched my cotie, which was itchy because it had been so long since I shifted last. “It doesn’t matter if they try to kill me, though.” I yawned. “I can take them.”
“I don’t doubt that.” My soulmate agreed.
“Maybe that’s why the Creator put us together.” I figured. “Because I can fight off the crowds of screaming fans.”
“I highly doubt that’s why we’re soulmates.” He said, but I could see the smile in his eyes.
“There’s a chance.” I reached up to scratch my cotie again. “I really need to shift.”
“Do we need to go somewhere?” he checked. I appreciated him not asking me to wait or thinking that was weird. “There’s a park a few minutes from here.
“No. Unless you have something against a five-foot wolf taking a nap in your bed.” I realized there was a very good chance he would have a problem with that. And then he shook his head, though his eyebrows were raised high into his forehead.
“I don’t care. I thought wolves were like three feet tall, though.”
I flashed him a quick smile.
“I’m not just a wolf though.”
Standing up, I turned to face the wall and pulled my chili-pepper t-shirt over my head.
“Wow.” Logan swallowed, and it was so loud I could actually hear him do it.
I looked over my shoulder at his wide eyes, and then craned my neck to make sure there was nothing wrong with my back. The way he was looking at me, I figured there had to be something wrong with me. No matter how much I twisted my neck, I couldn’t really see my back.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Believe me, there is nothing wrong with you.” Logan said, still staring at my back.
“Then why are you staring at me?” I walked over to the bathroom to check my back for myself in the mirror when he didn’t answer. There was nothing on me, though, as he’d said.
“Logan, why are you staring at me?” I folded my arms over my chest. I was only wearing a bra, but I wasn’t worried about him seeing my body. I felt comfortable enough with him as long as he didn’t go trying to take my clothes off for me.
“Because you’re sexy, Em.”
He said it like it was completely undeniable.
“I thought you said you’ve seen plenty of half-naked women.”
“What? You think that my having a past stops me from being attracted to you?” he frowned, seeming offended by the suggestion.
“No, I just don’t know why you’re staring at me like I’m an alien.” I put my weight on my left leg.
“I’m staring at you like you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen.” He opposed my assuming his stare was a bad one, apparently.
“Well your mom decided how I’d look, so I can’t say that’s surprising. The only things she hasn’t tried to change about me are my boobs and butt, and I’m sure they’re next on the list.” I unfolded my arms, clenching my hands into fists by my sides.
“Do you really think I would even let her try something like that?” he stood up and crossed the room quickly, his muscles tensed.
I’d thought I would let the salon thing slide, but I was going
