They drove through the night and well into the morning, swapping places when Logan got too tired to drive. Hail tried to keep a light, pleasant conversation flowing, but the closer they got to the city, the more Logan compressed into himself. He was bracing for impact, and his mind was full of what-ifs. Hail eventually gave up and focused on the road. Desert turned to prairie just as the sun came up, and to Mariella’s delight, they pulled up to the gate at eleven fifteen. She hopped out and buzzed them in, then they were home. Logan swallowed hard and clenched his fists, looking like a dog who just figured out that he was going to the vet.
“It’s going to be okay,” Hail told him.
“Yep.”
“I’ll be around.”
“Yep.”
Hail parked the truck and got out. Logan didn’t move, so he walked around the truck and opened his door. “You know, you’re still in the city even if you don’t get out of the truck, right?”
Logan sighed and stepped out, closing the door behind him. Robert was unconscious (for the third time. He kept mouthing off when he woke up, so they’d taken turns tranquilizing him), so they left him where he was. They stood by the truck and watched as Broderick and Sven greeted their new guests.
“I bet,” Logan said, “that Broderick is going to spend three days playing host to Mariella’s family before he asks for a report.”
“Nah,” Hail said. “He’ll spend today with them. Reports tomorrow while they get a tour of the town. Then he’ll spend three days playing host.”
As it turned out, they were both wrong. After Broderick had greeted each newcomer and welcomed them warmly, he immediately turned to Hail and Logan. He cocked his head at Mariella, tearing her away from her family. In a small huddle around the front of the truck he glared at them each in turn.
“What the hell happened out there?” He demanded in a growl low and powerful enough to make the air around them tremble.
“We had a leak,” Mariella said. “Robert gave our position away to hunters, three times. We didn’t know it was him until yesterday.”
“Where is he?”
Logan opened the back door of the truck, and Broderick looked inside. He turned an outraged glare to Logan. “Is this a joke?”
“What? No, I….” Logan peered in and his heart sank. The back seat contained nothing but a pile of loose chains. “He’s here somewhere,” he said. “He was unconscious and restrained when we got here.”
“So there’s a rogue shifter loose in my city?” Broderick asked dangerously.
“Yes,” Logan said bluntly.
“We’ll find him,” Mariella said.
“No,” Broderick said. He gestured, and four shifters walked up behind him. “You will go, right now, and each of you will give a full report to Sven.”
“Yes, sir,” they said in unison.
“Shit,” Hail whispered when Broderick walked away.
“Yeah. How the hell did he get out so quietly?”
“Not that,” Hail said. “I thought Broderick would be taking the report. I didn’t think….”
“So it’s Sven instead, big whoop.”
Hail shook his head. “Sven’s got some serious talents,” he said. “He’s got ways to put you in a trance so you remember everything in detail and can’t filter the truth.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“So?” Mariella said. “We did what we had to do, we brought back shifters, and we got rid of a bunch of hunters. What’s the problem?”
Logan and Hail exchanged a look over her head.
“When you put it like that….”
“You’re right, no problem….”
“Save it,” she said. “You’ll tell me or you won’t, but don’t clutter my brain with it right now.”
“Yes boss.”
Sven greeted them with an open, friendly smile, which made Logan instantly tense. They sat in a small sitting room at the front of the house, where tea and cookies were waiting for them. It seemed like a completely normal visit; or it would, if it hadn’t been for the four men who stood in the hallway just outside the door. Logan’s stomach growled with hunger and anxiety, and he nibbled on a cookie.
“Welcome back, everyone,” Sven said. “Shame about Robert. I would like to start with you, Mariella. As the team alpha. Would you come with me please?”
He extended an arm for her to take, and she gingerly laid her fingers on it. He led her into a small room off the sitting room and closed the door. Try as he might, Logan couldn’t hear anything from the other side. He paced the room, eating and drinking absently, just to have something to do with his fingers. After what seemed like an hour, he checked his watch and sighed. It had only been twenty minutes.
“What do you think they’re doing in there?” He asked impatiently as he flopped on the couch.
“Sven is probably just being thorough,” Hail said, but he was anxiously twisting a loose thread around his finger.
“Yeah,” Logan said. “Or he killed her and is taking his time disposing of the body.”
Hail laughed and immediately relaxed.
“What?” Logan asked.
“Thanks,” Hail grinned. “I needed that. That’s a worst case scenario that just won’t happen here. They aren’t killers.”
“They’re shifters.”
“And?”
“And killing comes with the territory,” Logan said. “At least the capacity to kill.”
“Sure, but having the weapon doesn’t mean you have to use it.”
Logan grunted and grabbed another cookie.
“Trust me,” Hail said. “I know Sven. He’s not going to hurt you.”
“I don’t think you believe that.”
“I do.”
“Mm.”
Mariella returned after forty-five minutes. She wore a sunny smile and her cheeks were wet with tears; both expressions seemed wholly authentic, which confused Logan immensely.
“What happened in there?” He asked her.
“Just told the truth,” she said lightly. “And now it’s after noon, and I need a shower. Have fun!”
“Mariella, wait!” But she’d walked past the guards and up the stairs to the guest rooms, and was gone.
“Hail,” Sven said. “Your report now, please.”
Hail disappeared, leaving Logan all alone in the room. He reached for a cookie, only to find that they were gone. The tea was, too.
“Hey,” he said, bringing the tray to the door. “Can I leave to go find more?”
“Sorry, not until you talk to Sven,” one of the guards said. “I’ll get you something.”
He took the tray and departed, and the other three rearranged themselves to guard the door effectively.
“So,” Logan said, looking at them. “Come here often? No… nobody wants to play. Alrighty then.” He wandered around the sitting room for the forty-seventh time, touching things as he went. Books, lamps, pictures in frames…the room was obviously designed for visiting and conversation, as there were very few attention-grabbing objects within it. The guard came back shortly with food and drink, and Logan began eating again. It felt as if his body was burning the food as soon as it hit his stomach. Every cookie left him as hungry as he’d been before he’d eaten it, and he finally stuffed four in his mouth at once out of sheer frustration.
The door opened just then and Hail stepped out, looking reserved and somber. As soon as he saw Logan with his face full of food, though, he burst out laughing.
“Remind me never to let you get nervous around hard candy,” he said. “You’ll choke yourself.”
Logan glared, chewed furiously, and swallowed the mouthful with a cup of cold tea.
“I think these cookies are broken,” he said.
“What?”
“Can’t get full.”
“Cookies won’t make you full.”
“They should, if you eat twenty of them.”
Hail chuckled and shook his head.
“Logan?” Sv
en called. “Your turn.”
“Here goes nothing,” Logan muttered. He stepped through the door that Sven held open, and found himself in a dark, cool, comfortable room. It was lit with red and had cushions on the floor in place of chairs. Logan sat cross-legged, and Sven hit a button on the little recorder beside him.
“You’re afraid,” Sven said. “That’s okay. Fear is an acceptable emotion.”
Logan wanted to argue, but he didn’t see the point. “What do you want to know?” He asked.
“Everything,” Sven said gently. “Tell me everything that happened.”
Logan began, reciting out the story in monotone. Just the facts. When he got to the part with the first hunter altercation, he breezed past the fire. Sven stopped him and made him go back.
“Tell me what you felt,” he said. “Tell me what you did, and why you did it.”
Logan struggled for a moment, staring at the flickering light of a candle-lit lamp on the low table between them.
“My friends were hurt,” he said slowly. “They looked dead. They weren’t, but they looked it. It wasn’t the first time hunters took something important from me. They’re a cancer on this earth. They needed to die.” Logan watched the candle for a moment more, and felt peace wash over him. The story spilled out of its own accord. “I fought with Hail. He didn’t understand, he needed me to do this. He needed to be protected from his own naivete. He was thinking about honor and justice, right and wrong, but there isn’t any of that out there. There’s only life and death. I pushed him away and ran. The hunters…I don’t know why. I don’t know if it was the fire or something they took before, or what, but they were already dead. I didn’t believe it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t take the risk. I fired a bullet into each of their skulls, just to be sure. I needed to be sure.”
“I understand,” Sven said. “Go on.”
Logan told him everything. The drinking, the sex, everything that he and Hail had told each other. He moved through the story one point at a time, leaving nothing out. The more he told, the better he felt, as if he was purging some poison in his gut.
“When Hail brought Robert back sedated, I was disappointed,” he confessed. “I wanted to kill the bastard. He’d nearly gotten us all killed, and god knows how much he told the rest of the hunters. Our whole species could be in danger now, because of him. I wanted to watch him die. And now we’re back, and he’s a threat again, and I should have ended him.”
“He wasn’t your responsibility,” Sven told him. “Mariella is team alpha. She would have had to make that call.”
“She wouldn’t,” Logan said, shaking his head. “She’ll put someone down if she has to, but it’s always a last resort for her. Which is why she’s the leader, she can come up with some really creative ways of handling problems. Sometimes creative is just too risky.”
“Yes. To ease your mind, I will tell you. He was caught. He’s waiting for me in another room. Once I get his story, we will have all the facts. Then we will evaluate the risks and benefits of continuing this program. You are invited to stay here tonight, though Hail may ask you to stay with him. The choice is yours. I suggest you see Snow first thing in the morning for a physical evaluation. Your body has been through a lot, and your body may have decided to absorb the pregnancy rather than implant it.”
Logan was shocked at the sense of loss that came with that possibility. In that moment, he realized what he really wanted.
“Thank you, Sven,” he said, shaking the man’s hand.
“Thank you.”
Logan left the room and found Hail waiting for him.
“That took a while,” Hail said. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Logan said. “I’m supposed to find a place to stay tonight. Know anybody?”
“Come on,” Hail grinned, holding out his hand. “Let me show you my paradise.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hail’s house was comfortable, in shades of brown, cream, and green. There was a big shower and a very big bed, both of which they used enthusiastically. Logan liked the place. It was just a little dark, but earthy and cool. He could tell that it would be warm when winter came. He began to think that it was just barely possible for him to survive the next year in good humor, if he was able to hide in the house when he needed to. They awoke early the next morning to visit Snow, who was expecting them. He took blood samples (a tricky business for a shifter, and Logan’s mouth was sore afterward), then took his temperature, then asked him to undress.
“I’ve had the lab work on developing a tiny camera. Microscopic. I’m going to inject it into your uterus, and it’s going to tell us what’s happening in there. Feet in the stirrups, please.”
It was obviously uncomfortable, and Hail winced as he held Logan’s hand. It didn’t take long, and soon there was an image on the screen.
“Uterine lining is thick,” Snow said absently. He guided the camera around with a joystick for several minutes, murmuring to himself. The camera was so tiny and advanced that individual cells were showing up on the screen in high definition. The camera scanned past a dark maroon spot on the wall, and Snow made the camera move toward it.
“Ah!” He said. “Right there, see?”
Hail and Logan squinted at the screen. The bruised cells spread out in a bullseye from a central dot, which was pale and looked irregular in comparison to the cells around it.
“I give up,” Logan said. “What is it?”
“That, Logan, is the implant site for your future child. Looks like it’s in there tight. As long as you take care of yourself and don’t do anything idiotic over the next three weeks, I can confidently tell you that you’re pregnant.”
Hail held his breath, pinning his entire universe on Logan’s reaction. A grin spread across Logan’s face from ear to ear.
“Well alright,” he said. “I get to be a daddy.”
They left shortly after, and Hail took Logan around, introducing him to everyone he would be relying on for the next year. Logan behaved himself well enough, and even remembered their names. Once that was all done, Hail took Logan to lunch.
“Did you ever know your dad?” Hail asked.
Logan shook his head. “Never met him. Only knew my mom till I was seven. I don’t remember her much, except that she was always really sad.”
“What happened to her?”
“Overdosed,” Logan said bluntly. “I guess I found her, but I don’t remember. After that it was just foster care. I don’t have any role models for this.”
“That’s why we have the class,” Hail pointed out.
“Yeah,” Logan said. “But they’re going to figure that we all have some kind of idea, aren’t they? I don’t know. At least it’ll be a shifter.”
“Why does that matter?”
“Because it’ll be harder for me to accidentally kill it,” Logan said dryly.
Hail looked at him with a serious expression. He opened his mouth, but closed it again and frowned at his sandwich.
“What?” Logan asked.
“Just…wondering. How you want to do this. I don’t want to assume that you want to be with me just because we made a baby, but I don’t want you to have to do this on your own either. We could get you set up in a house, you’d have everything you need. You won’t have to stay with me, I just want to make that clear. I’ll always be here for you and the baby either way.”
It stung like rejection, and Logan got angry. “Look,” he said, pushing his chair back. “If you don’t want to be with me, say so, but don’t lay it on me like that.”
“No, Logan, stop. Sit down. That isn’t what I meant. All I meant was, I’m happy being with you in whatever capacity you’re comfortable with. I was asking what you’re comfortable with.”
Logan sat down, squinting at Hail suspiciously. Hail’s face held no malice or manipulation, and Logan slowly relaxed.
“Your bed’s pretty comfortable,” he said with a shrug. “Why don’t we start there?”
The verdict came the next day. Robert would stay in Regis Thyme, but would not be allowed to communicate with the outside world in any way. He was to be forcibly rehabilitated through intense, daily therapy (which Logan thought was way too soft, until Hail pointed out that he would be working with Sven, who wouldn’t rest until he’d turned Robert inside out and rebuilt him), and would have to do community service within the walls of Regis Thyme for a minimum of five years. Logan was satisfied with that until Broderick continued.
“Logan Kim,” he said. “For exposing our community to human scrutiny, endangering our team, and general destruction, you are to spend the next six months in daily therapy, and will be performing community service for the same length of time. For heroic acts which led to safe, whole shifters and new discoveries in shifter medicine, we commend you. You will be provided with a home of your choice and a plaque of recognition embedded into the walls of Regis Thyme.”
Logan sat, stunned, trying to sort through what he just heard. Broderick had moved on to commending Mariella and Hail, but Logan had stopped listening.
“Wait a second,” he interrupted. The room turned to him in shock. “You’re punishing me and commending me for the same acts?”
“Not a punishment so much as a healing,” Sven said.
“Yes,” Broderick said at the same time. “Yes, we’re punishing you and commending you for the same act. Dangerous heroism is still heroism, and heroic law-breaking is still breaking the law. In a society free of punitive measures, we’ve decided to address both aspects.”
Logan thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “That’s fair.”
Broderick droned on again. In the end, it was decided that the team would be dissolved for the moment in order for the leaders to develop protocol and training. Mariella would be working closely with Broderick and Bart, as well as other community leaders. Their goal was to be mobile again within one year. Mariella’s family was welcomed with open arms, and Esperanza nearly cried when she set foot on the hardwood floor of her very own house. At least that’s what Mariella said. Logan couldn’t picture Esperanza crying about anything, ever.
Burning Transgressions (Shifter City Book 1) Page 16
