“Someone called in about a fire. By the time the police came, this was all they found.”
That couldn’t be all to the story. There were guns fired. He could tell that by the distinct scent of black powder discharge. He sniffed the air, following the scent of death. He left Katey to follow it toward the outer edge of the compound where the humans hadn’t touched anything yet.
Between the remains of two buildings, Logan found a victim of the battle. He laid face-down in a massive puddle of his own blood that had absorbed into the ground, painting it a dark hue as rain or oil might. Katey, visibly stunned by the sight of so much death, stayed in the cover of the trees while he examined the body, relaying the details to her as he reasoned it out.
“He’s not wearing any armor. He has entrance and exit wounds along his back. They were firing from both sides. The entrance wounds are small and made by hollow-point bullets. The exit wounds are large – probably buckshot.” Logan turned the corpse over, unblinking eyes staring at him behind a muddy face. His throat was torn open, explaining why he had bled so much before finally dying. “Brutal claw marks on his throat. There aren’t any exit wounds for the hollow-point rounds. So, he still has some bullets in him.”
He looked around and found a gun in the human’s hands, complete with a noise suppressor and a few empty cartridges sprinkled around where he had fallen. Logan picked one up and immediately dropped it after his fingers were burnt. It was as if he had touched a hot iron. “Silver bullets,” he remarked.
“They were hunters?” Katey asked.
Logan hung his head and let out a heavy sigh. Hunters had found the Devians once again. That didn’t explain the vampires. By the evidence of blood from all three races, it was clear that they all fought with one enemy in mind.
“The vampires and Devians were fighting off the hunters,” he replied.
The hollow-points were older standard ammunition for vampires who wanted to shoot the loups-garous and keep the silver bullets in the bodies. He knew several Devians who were avid hunters, who loaded their shotguns with buckshot. It clearly wasn’t enough. Otherwise, they would still be there, and the compound would not be burned to the ground.
Then again, the various trails of scents that led away from the compound were positive. There must have been enough loups-garous to escape, and they would have taken away the bodies of their dead to avoid the risk of exposure. How many had been killed? Who had been shot down by the hunters? It was expected of the pack to scatter so they wouldn’t be found all together again, but did they have a leader to give that order?
And the most pressing question of all: how did the hunters find them? The compound was a secret, even to other loup-garou packs in Alabama. Unless there was a confederate in their midst, the hunters wouldn’t have even known about the evacuations or where their final destination would be. How good was their tracking? Or was it some mistake on their part during the evacuations that tipped of the hunter scouts to their activity?
“Hey! What are you doing over there!”
Logan looked up to see two officers at the end of the former alley. He jumped to his feet and darted back into the woods. Katey followed as they made off at full speed back to the bike. They were back on Highway 148 before the cops could even get in their cars to pursue them.
When they arrived back to Highway 9, Logan’s questions continued to mount one on top of the other. He made assumptions and guesses, but he was no closer to an answer by the time he brought the bike to a halt at the stop sign, with an old grocery store and a feed store on either side of him.
He looked to his right, which led south and back to Crestucky where the rest of his pack were.
He looked to his left, which led farther north and east toward the Georgia state line.
Behind him lay his only plan. They had nowhere else to go that he knew would be absolutely safe. Except for one place.
Logan rubbed the back of his neck, and Katey hugged him from behind, reminding him that they still had one another. He was sure that if it weren’t for her, he would have lost his mind back at the compound. All that work to get them to safety and it was for nothing. He was tempted to think that the Devians might have been better off in Crestucky, but that wasn’t true.
“Now what?” she asked gently, though he could feel her arms to be tense.
Through her calm, Logan saw the deep distress in her eyes. Back at the compound, he knew that she must have been struggling to hold it together, just as she had when the vamp came to tell them that hunters had begun popping up all over town.
Perhaps they were both numbed by the tragedy. Perhaps when the morning came, they would both have their own breakdowns and mourn the loss of good friends and allies.
Until then, he had to be strong and make the decisions. He hadn’t been on his own without an alpha since the twenties in Chicago, and that didn’t turn out as gloriously as everyone had hoped. Yet, Logan was older and wiser now. Another difference was that back then he didn’t have anyone depending on him as Katey did now.
He leaned back over the bike and steered the bike to the right to head south. “We’re going to Louisiana.”
There was little to keep Katey awake and her eyes open. Although falling off the motorcycle at seventy-five miles per hour wouldn’t kill her, it wasn’t the kind of wake up she needed.
Her only reward for staying conscious for the entire three hours they drove west, was to see the sunrise behind them as they sped toward – hopefully – safety.
For her own sanity, Katey had to block out all she had seen and felt at the former safe house. She tried not to let the twisted figures of the hunters invade her mind as she held onto Logan tighter. She tried not to think about who could have been killed at the scene. It took at least an hour for the overpowering, residual odor of blood to fade from her senses and even then, she couldn’t shake the heaviness of death from her mind.
On top of it all, she could feel the strain in Logan. On the exterior, he was as taciturn and focused as a soldier. Beneath it all, he was grieving and angry. There were no words to comfort him. What could she say to someone who might have lost old friends? What if Forrest and Lily were among the dead that was carted away at the end of the battle? What if Jacob, the alpha, had been murdered by another hunter?
For what seemed like the thousandth time, Katey took a deep breath and let it out slowly. They didn’t know for sure who was dead. In time, they would find out what happened and only then would they mourn. It was senseless to do so prematurely when they didn’t even know who to mourn for.
They were just across the Mississippi state line when Logan looked over his shoulder. “There’s a hotel up ahead,” he said. “We’re stopping to rest, and we’ll move on. I want to be in Louisiana before nightfall.”
Katey nodded her consent, eager for a warm bed and a good meal. She hadn’t slept in what seemed like ages, and her body ached with fatigue. As far as she could recall, she hadn’t been this exhausted since the time she stayed up for two nights straight. That long-ago sleep-over weekend with Lily and Beth was a piece of cake compared to this torture.
Logan slowed down his bike and turned into a motel parking lot with only a few other vehicles parked in front of the long two-story building. Off to the side was the front office where they were to check in, a smaller building detached from the complex with a lone clerk manning the desk.
When Logan cut off the engine, the comparable silence rang in Katey’s ears. For the last few hours, the dull roaring and popping noise was all she had to listen to. With slow movements, Logan kicked down the kickstand for the bike and fished out one of the fake identification cards that matched with an equally fake credit card. Katey fell off her place on the back seat and nearly crumbled to the ground when she discovered that her legs had lost all strength.
Logan caught her around the waist and pulled her back to her feet as he dismounted as well. They made their way inside, both haggard and weary. To their benefit, the clerk was a loup-ga
rou, and perhaps that was why Logan had chosen this hotel amongst others. She didn’t have the clarity of mind to ask then, but she would have to inquire later if this was a well-known safe stop for traveling loups-garous.
Katey met the man’s questioning eyes. He was young, but that could mean he was anywhere from eighteen to forty in loup-garou years. He leaned forward on the desk as they approached.
“Are you two okay?” he asked, then looked to Katey and froze. “Are you…?”
Logan slapped his card and ID on the counter. “She is. We need a private room for the day.”
There would have been a time when Logan beamed with pride over the fact that Katey was a loup-garou, but there was no time for politeness or boasting.
The clerk shook his head. “It’s on the house,” he replied, then proceeded to pull out a brass key. “I won’t even log it. Just don’t trash it or anything.”
Logan snatched up his cards and the key. “We appreciate it,” he said.
“Is there anything I can help you with?” the clerk asked, his face full of pity and Katey knew he was eager to help. He must have been the son of a beta or omega.
Before Logan had a chance to open his mouth, Katey felt his heave of irritation and quieted him with one touch to his shoulder. She looked at the clerk and shook her head. “No, thank you. We just need some rest. We’ve been traveling almost all night.”
The clerk nodded in understanding. “I’ll keep an eye on your room, so no one bothers you.”
Katey mustered up the energy to smile and thanked him again before they left the front office and moved the bike toward the other end of the complex. Their room was on the first floor and conveniently out of sight from the highway.
They trudged inside, and Katey was surprised by the cleanliness of the room. A single king bed was pushed up against the right wall with two oak nightstands on either side accommodating lamps and an alarm clock. Across from the bed was a dresser, upon which sat a television and TV Guide program. Opposite the front door was a vanity counter with a single sink and tall mirror with soap and other basic bathroom amenities tucked into one corner in a neat pile on top of a stack of towels. The door to the bathroom was to the right of the sink.
Logan walked in and dropped the duffle bag on the floor at the foot of the bed. Katey quietly shut the door and mindlessly stumbled toward the bed until her legs hit the edge and she toppled forward onto the mattress.
She heard her fiancé let out a snort of amusement. As her eyes drifted shut and her legs now curled up comfortably on top of the blankets, Katey vaguely heard the sound of rushing water like a toilet flushing and light footsteps on carpet.
Through the haze of drifting sleep, she couldn’t recall if Logan had ever crawled into bed with her. By the time she opened her eyes again, it was a few hours later according to the clock on the nightstand, and although it was insufficient sleep, her body felt a little more refreshed than it had when they first arrived at the motel.
With stiff muscles, Katey pushed herself up and looked around. The duffle bag was still on the floor, but Logan was nowhere to be found. More awake now than she had been in the last twelve hours, Katey jumped off the bed and rushed to the window beside the room door. The motorcycle was gone.
Her heart pounded against her chest until it hurt, but she took a small bit of comfort in the fact that their bond was still pulsing strongly in her spirit. Logan was alive. She climbed back on the bed and found a piece of the motel stationary sitting face-up on one of the unruffled pillows. Katey snagged it up and read the familiar, beautiful cursive.
Katey,
If you wake up before I come back, I’ve gone to the store to get food. I will be back shortly.
Love, Logan
Katey swallowed hard. How far was the store? She tried to search her memory for any sign of a grocery store along the highway they drove down, but couldn’t recall any. That wasn’t surprising, considering how tired she had been straddling the back of Logan’s motorcycle.
She checked the clock again. If Logan wanted to be in Louisiana before nightfall, they would have to leave within the next few hours. When did he leave? Had he been gone the entire time she was asleep, or did he take a nap with her? Perhaps he just left, and his absence woke her up, to begin with? Or, did he leave hours ago and he should have been back much earlier than this?
Within less than a minute, her head was spinning with all the possible things that could have gone wrong. The loneliness devoured her as it had when Logan was away during the Devian evacuation, but she didn’t have Ben’s company to rely on.
In one sense, she was terrified for her own safety, but also for Logan. He was just as alone as she was, but perhaps he was not near as vulnerable. She clung to their bond, knowing that if anything changed, he would feel it there. If it ever stopped feeding her its reassuring energy, then she knew that Logan was gone. Her wolf howled for her mate and Katey was tempted to copy the cry for help, but held the impulse at bay.
Every possible scenario was explored as Katey held her head in her hands. The panic had nearly consumed her in the silence until her phone rang. Praying that it was Logan, she scrambled to reach her jean pocket.
Although it wasn’t Logan, the caller would be a welcome voice to hear in the chaos that had engulfed the last twenty-four hours.
“Darren?” she hastily answered.
“Katey, where are you and Logan.”
Swallowing back the tears that wanted to leak from her eyes, she replied, “I’m in a motel room. I don’t know where Logan is.”
“I just spent the last thirty minutes trying to call him, but his phone must be dead.”
Katey took a stuttered breath and tried not to break down. What if his phone had been smashed in an accident? “He left a note saying that he went to get groceries, but I don’t know when that was, and I was asleep when he left.” Without meaning to, her words came out in a gradually building whimper, the threatening tears choked her.
“Hey,” Darren said in a peculiar calm voice. “It’s all right. I’m sure Logan is fine.”
“Are you and the rest okay?” she quickly asked.
“We are fine. The vamps told us this morning what happened. We’re packing up to come to the safe house now.”
Katey cleared her throat. “Darren, the safe house… it’s not there.”
There was a long pause of silence before Darren asked, “What do you mean?”
To the best of her abilities, she began to tell him all about what they saw and what Logan found out. While she spoke, she heard footsteps come toward the phone and knew that Dustin and Ben must have heard her from wherever they were at in the house.
She tried to picture them there in the living room or the kitchen and how the morning sun would have been streaming through the windows. Homesickness hit her like a punch in the gut, and she wanted nothing more than for her and Logan to be back in Crestucky with the rest of their pack.
Once she finished her story, she heard a heavy sigh from the other end of the line. “Okay,” Darren whispered. Through the phone, over miles of distance, somehow, she could feel the gravity of his emotions. It was the same storm that Logan found himself in, but stronger.
Katey understood his grief. They tried so hard to keep the Devians safe and in his eyes, it might have been for nothing. Although they didn’t know details, Darren would fill in the blanks and assume the worst, just as she was with Logan.
A thundering noise came from the highway and Katey couldn’t dart to the window fast enough. She bumped into a corner of the nightstand in the process and nearly sent a lamp to the floor. It would have been worth the damage.
Logan came cruising in on his motorcycle, making a straight line for their side of the motel complex.
“Logan’s back,” she nearly screeched.
“Good. Keep me on the phone. I need to talk to him.”
The half a minute it took for Logan to park the bike, grab the groceries and duck inside the room took far too lon
g. As soon as the door was closed, Katey tossed the phone on the bed with Darren still waiting on the line and tackled Logan.
He wasn’t the formidable pillar of strength that she was used to. With one arm toting a couple of the plastic bags laden down with goods, he stumbled backward until he collided with the back wall. Katey pinned him there, her arms wrapped around his waist.
She let the heat from his body seep into her bones. It reminded her that he was alive, his heart beating against her ears. His steady breaths told her that he was near and safe with her.
“When did you leave?” she whined.
Logan’s arm slowly enveloped her, and he made no move to resist her embrace. “I intended to be back before you got up.”
“I thought something happened to you.” Katey buried her face in his chest, savoring his naturally intoxicating scent mingled with those from the highway and all the places they had been since last night.
“Did you try to call?” His soothing voice pleasingly rumbled in her ears.
“No. I just woke up a little while ago.”
“My phone died,” he said and held up his armful of bags to show her. “I bought us a charger to share. I imagine your phone is low on battery too.”
Then, Katey remembered Darren who probably heard every word they said. She reluctantly pulled away and looked back to the phone on the bed. “Darren’s on the phone.”
Logan gently pushed her aside, set the bags down by his duffle bag and snatched up the phone. Katey wasn’t the least bit offended by Logan’s eagerness to talk to his alpha. They hadn’t heard from the pack since before they left Crestucky and it was a fair assumption that they could have been harmed by the hunters in the strike on the town.
“Darren?”
“I’m still here,” Katey heard from her place by the door.
As she watched Logan set himself down on the bed, she realized that he did not take a nap earlier. Dark circles hung under his dull eyes, and his lips were turned down in a frown that seemed to mar his face in a way that made her worried.
Beast Within (Loup-Garou Series Book 3) Page 22
