Shifting Loyalty (District Shifters Book 2)

by Lola Gabriel

  Raina nodded. They stepped into the elevator and headed down to the restaurant, a basement venue. Once they were there, Raina looked around her.

  The restaurant was big and not even a quarter full. Simple white tablecloths adorned each table, and the silverware was nothing fancy. Just a knife, a fork, and a spoon. None of this ‘twenty of each’ thing. Raina was glad of that. She liked simple. The food was a buffet style, and Raina’s jaw dropped when she saw the sheer amount of dishes to choose from. Logan smiled at her amazement.

  “It’s quite the feast, isn’t it?” he said.

  Raina laughed and nodded. “Yeah. I’m glad I’m not wearing anything tight.”

  They headed to the buffet, and Raina began to fill her plate. She chose a spoonful of mac and cheese, a cheese and bacon burger, and a loaded baked potato. She watched as he chose a pork chop, mussels in a creamy sauce, and a pile of French fries. He led her to a table in the quietest section of the room, and they sat down. A waiter appeared at their side in seconds.

  “Would you like to see the wine menu?” he asked.

  “Actually, no,” Logan said. “We’d like two New York Dynamites, please.”

  The waiter nodded and moved away.

  “Two New York what now?” Raina said.

  “New York Dynamites, the hotel’s signature cocktails,” Logan replied. “I seem to remember you enjoying those we had earlier. Sparkler and all.”

  “Oh, don’t remind me,” she said with a grin. They shared a laugh, and Raina began to eat. She liked the idea of a couple of potent cocktails. As long as Logan drank a few more than she did, that was. If she could get him tipsy, she might be able to get him to open up a bit more about his deal with Chester.

  The waiter brought the drinks, and Raina’s jaw dropped. Each one was served in a giant glass bowl that must have held at least three pints. They were neon pink in color, with swirls of glitter floating through them, and they came with a whole host of fruit lining the glass. Floating on top of the pink liquid was a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

  “Oh, my God!” Raina exclaimed when the waiter put the drinks down, then smiled and thanked him. Logan said his thanks and asked him to put the drinks on his tab.

  “Try it,” he told Raina.

  She sipped from one of the three long straws. The drink tasted like strawberries and cream soda.

  “Oh, wow,” she said.

  “You like it?” Logan asked.

  “Yeah. A little too much,” Raina commented. She took a long pull through the straw and went back to her meal. “I really am sorry, you know,” she said after a moment.

  “For liking the cocktail?” Logan teased her.

  “No. For running out on you today. I… Something came up that I had to deal with.”

  “Raina, if you’re in some sort of trouble, you can tell me, you know. Maybe I can help you,” Logan said.

  Raina felt awful. Logan was looking at her with such tender concern, and everything in her told her he was genuine. And yet there was a major barrier between them. She wished she could tell him the truth, but he had a deal with Chester, and he wasn’t going to take too kindly to learning she wanted to blow it up. She just shook her head.

  “I’m not in any trouble.” Logan wasn’t going to let it go unless she moved the conversation on quickly, so she added, “So did you really go around Madame Tussaud’s on your own?”

  Logan shook his head and laughed. “No, but thinking of me wandering around like a little sad case worked, didn’t it? It got you to agree to have dinner with me.”

  “Well played,” Raina laughed.

  They chatted about life in London and Alaska, comparing the similarities and the differences as they ate. Raina found her cocktail going down a lot more quickly than she had planned, but when Logan asked for another two, she didn’t object. She could feel herself getting slightly tipsy and more relaxed in Logan’s company, and she could no longer deny that she was enjoying spending time with him. It wasn’t just that he was smoking hot. They seemed to click, and they had so much in common. Raina knew she was playing a dangerous game, letting her guard down around Logan, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. He was just so easy to talk to.

  They finished their meal, and when Logan asked Raina to join him in the bar for a few more drinks, she smiled and accepted his invitation. They took a booth towards the back of the room. Logan offered Raina another cocktail, but she asked for a white wine instead. She had to at least keep some of her wits about her. She realized that might be easier said than done when Logan came to the table with a bottle of wine rather than a single glass.

  “Are you trying to get me drunk?” she asked Logan playfully.

  “Oh, yes,” he replied with a grin. She couldn’t help but laugh; the effect of the cocktails, she told herself. Nothing more. She wasn’t really flirting with Logan. “So, Raina, do you have any brothers or sisters?” Logan asked.

  Raina shook her head. “No, I’m an only child. But not a spoiled one. What about you?”

  “I have three younger brothers,” Logan said. “So you can imagine the fun we had growing up.”

  “I can imagine the fun your poor mom must have had trying to keep up with you all,” Raina laughed.

  “Yeah. It’s fair to say we were a bit of a handful. We were always well disciplined, though. When your father is the alpha of the pack, you can get away with certain things, but you also know exactly where the line is, and you know you can’t cross it. Or you learn that quickly.

  “I remember this one time, Ben, he’s the youngest, went missing. My mom was frantic, and my dad called around the pack and instigated a search of the entire district. What they didn’t know was that Josh, he’s the one two years younger than me, and I had been to see a witch and bought an invisibility potion. Ben’s disappearance was a diversion so Josh could go on a date with a girl my parents didn’t really approve of. Anyway, Josh realized she wasn’t all that, and that it was just the fact that my parents were so against it that had convinced him it was a good idea, and he called the date off early.

  “We expected the potion to last about twenty minutes and for Ben to reappear and say he’d been in the tree house the whole time. What we didn’t know was that we were only meant to use a couple of drops of the potion at a time, so we gave Ben the whole thing. He was invisible for sixteen hours.”

  “Sixteen hours? Oh, my God!” Raina laughed. “Your parents must have been so scared!”

  “They were. My father started calling the alphas from other districts. Things got totally out of hand, and the whole country was looking for Ben. There was talk being thrown around that hunters had gotten to him. Josh and I debated coming clean, but it had gone so far by then, we didn’t dare do it. Ben finally became visible again, and he tried to convince my parents he’d been in the treehouse the whole time. I don’t think it would have worked, anyway, not after so long, but the potion hadn’t quite worn off, and the whole time he was talking, his arms kept fading in and out of view. My father worked out what had happened pretty quickly, and he knew Josh and I would be behind it somehow.

  “We heard him yelling our names, and we just took off. Can you imagine it? Two boys, I think I was sixteen and Josh fourteen at the time, running down the street with an angry man chasing them, threatening to kill them? A concerned stranger called the police, and we had to explain to the policeman that he was in fact our father. We got such an ass-whooping for that one, and we were both grounded for months. Ben got an ice cream.”

  Raina was laughing so hard that tears were running down her face. “I can totally picture it. And I can imagine you and Josh when you found out that Ben wasn’t getting punished.”

  “Oh, we were indignant, alright,” Logan chuckled.

  “Are you and your brothers still close then?” Raina asked.

  Logan looked into his drink for a moment, and she instantly regretted the question. He looked back up at her, and the laughter was gone from his face.

  “We were.
Until recently,” he said. “Remember I told you my pack is starting to revolt? Josh is leading the revolution, and Ben and my other brother, Mal, are on his side. Josh has a mate and a son, and they believe he should be leader. The thing is, before all of this started, if he’d come to me and spoken to me reasonably about it, I would have at least heard him out, but he’s not right for the role. And causing a mutiny within the pack proves it. Yes, he has an heir, but there’s so much more to being the alpha than that. He’s irresponsible, selfish. His own needs would always come first, and I can’t just stand by and watch him tear apart the pack my father nurtured for so long.”

  “So that’s why you were willing to use a Matchmaker,” Raina said. “For the good of the pack.”

  Logan nodded. “Yes. Finding a mate this way was never something I imagined myself doing, but I have to put the pack’s needs before my own. And they need to know I am mated and will produce an heir. So here I am.”

  Raina felt herself softening towards Logan a little. She still found the idea of him using a Matchmaker abhorrent, but now she could understand why he had taken this route. She knew from her travels how quickly a pack could end up in chaos if their leader was selfish. It still didn’t excuse the practice, though, and Raina took her chance to move the conversation back around to Chester.

  “Have you heard anything about when your new mate will be ready?” she asked.

  “Within the next couple of days,” Logan answered. “Why?”

  “I’m just curious,” Raina said. “Tell me about Chester. I want to know about the sort of person who can become a successful Matchmaker.”

  “There’s really nothing much to tell,” Logan said. “He’s very charming, but there’s an air of… I don’t know… something a bit dangerous about him. Like he’s not the sort of guy you cross.”

  Raina playfully touched Logan’s arm, trying to ignore the sparks she felt as she did. “I bet you could take him, though, right?”

  “The part of me that’s trying desperately to impress you wants to say yes.” Logan smiled.

  “But would it be true?” Raina pressed him.

  “I have no idea, Raina. I’ve never met the man,” he said. Dammit. So he wasn’t going to be able to describe Chester to her, then.

  “It seems a little risky making a deal with someone you’ve never met,” Raina commented.

  “He said that’s the way these deals work. It sounds kind of stupid now, but I have no idea if it’s any different, and I didn’t want to look clueless, so I took at him at his word, acting like I knew that already.”

  “So he played to your macho ego?” Raina smiled. “Interesting.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Logan huffed out.

  “How do you communicate with him, then? Smoke signal or something?”

  “He’ll call me when Brianna is ready and organize a meeting.”

  Yes, when you’re as implicated as he is and you can’t make trouble for him without making it for yourself, Raina thought to herself. Chester was good. Very good.

  Logan was starting to look at Raina a little strangely, and she realized her gentle questioning had turned into a bit of an interrogation. She was so close to getting the answer she needed; a way to contact Chester. But she had to play it just right, or Logan would become suspicious and stop answering her questions. She leaned closer to him and twirled a strand of hair around her fingers. She ran her tongue over her lips and smiled at Logan.

  “But if you wanted to call the whole thing off, you’d have a way to do that, right?”

  “Right,” Logan agreed quickly. “I have Chester’s card. I can call him when I need to.”

  “I didn’t imagine a Matchmaker having anything as ordinary as a business card,” she said.

  “Honestly? Me neither,” he said with a laugh.

  “Is it special? Does it self-destruct after you use it or anything?” She grinned.

  Logan snorted. “No. It’s really just a boring little business card. It’s not even a colorful design.”

  “Sacrilege,” Raina giggled.

  “I know. I’d offer to show it to you, but I really don’t think you’d be impressed.”

  “I might be impressed at how unimpressive it is,” Raina said.

  “Well, you’re more than welcome to see it,” Logan said. “But it’s in my room, and if you want to see it, you’ll have to come and get it.” His words sent a shiver of desire through Raina. His invitation was to see a whole lot more than Chester’s card, and she knew it. But this was her chance. She had to take it.

  “Lead the way,” she purred with what she hoped was a seductive smile.

  8

  Logan was starting to think he had seriously misjudged the situation with Raina. Sure, she was hiding something from him, he was still certain of that. But over the course of the night, the cocktails and the wine had lowered her inhibitions somewhat, and she was no longer holding herself back from him. She spoke animatedly when she talked to him, and she was full of smiles and little touches on his arm, touches that set his skin on fire and made his bear crave her.

  She was definitely into him, and as the night went on, Logan found that he no longer cared what she was hiding. If he could just have her, he would face anything that came their way. He would do whatever he had to do to protect her and make her his mate.

  He’d worried momentarily when she started asking questions about Brianna, but he soon worked out why. She was testing the waters, making sure there really was a way out of the deal for him. That was understandable. She didn’t want to let herself get attached to Logan if there was no future for them. He would happily cancel the deal to be with her. It was only money, after all, and if Chester got too angry, he would simply pay him the fee and tell him to match the girl with someone else.

  His suspicions were confirmed when Raina outright asked him if he had a way to contact Chester in case he changed his mind. And no one was as enthusiastic about seeing a business card as Raina was pretending to be. She knew what she was agreeing to when she accepted to come to his room.

  Logan stood up and offered his hand to Raina. She took it, and he helped her to her feet, trying to ignore the way her hand in his made him feel. He could feel his cock coming to life, hardening, just at the thought of what he and Raina were about to do. And once he had claimed her pussy, he would claim her heart. There was no doubt in his mind that his bear instincts were right. Raina was his mate. He had been led to New York simply so he could find her.

  They headed to the elevator in silence, not wanting to say the wrong thing and break the mood between them. Logan was glad of the moment to get his head straight. Raina was still a mystery to him, and although she had made it clear she was into him, she had a habit of blowing hot and cold, and he didn’t want anything to spook her now. Not when he was so close to making her his.

  * * *

  They got into the elevator, and Logan pressed the button for the penthouse suite. Raina raised an eyebrow, and he laughed. “What? I like to travel in style.”

  “So it seems,” she said, grinning.

  They stepped out of the lift, and Logan led Raina to a door. He ran his card through the slot and pushed the door open, gesturing at her to enter. She was immediately shocked at the luxury of the room before her. It wasn’t like hers; it was a huge suite, and she found herself standing in a lounge area complete with a seating area and entertainment system and a fully stocked bar. The curtains were still open, and the full wall opposite the door was glass, giving Raina a view of the whole city sprawling through the night. She moved closer to the window, drawn by the lights.

  “It’s a stunning view,” she gasped.

  “Not half as stunning as the woman standing in front of it,” Logan said.

  Raina turned back to him, feeling herself blushing once more. She smiled at him and shook her head slightly.

  “I’m pretty sure even Cleopatra couldn’t compare to that view,” she said.

  “Then we’ll have to a
gree to disagree.” Logan smiled. “I’ll get you a drink, and then, do you want the tour?”

  Raina nodded, although what she really wanted was Chester’s card. She couldn’t think of a way to bring it up without being too obviously interested in it at this point, though.

  Logan walked to the bar. He grabbed two glasses and turned to the optics. He added a double measure of gin to each glass, and then he opened two bottles of tonic, topping each glass up. He whistled to himself as he bent down to a freezer beneath the bar top and grabbed a handful of ice.

  Raina watched him add two cubes to each glass. Her eyes were drawn to Logan even when she tried to look away. She kept imagining what he would look like with his shirt open, his jeans gone. She could feel her pussy getting wet at the thought of it. He moved with an easy grace, something Raina felt very much drawn to. He added a slice of lime to each glass and came over to Raina, handing one to her.

  “I know it’s standard to have lemon, but I think the lime is a much nicer flavor,” he said.

  “Me too,” Raina agreed, barely able to take her eyes off Logan. She took a sip of her drink to distract herself, even though she knew she had already had too many.

  “Let’s get this card thing out of the way then, huh?” Logan grinned. “And then the tour.”

  Raina felt her heart speed up, and she no longer knew if it was because she was finally going to get to see something that could lead her to Chester, or if it was because of the lust she could see in Logan’s eyes as he looked at her.

  Logan moved to a small cabinet below the TV. He opened a drawer there and pulled out a card, which he handed to Raina. She could feel excitement swirling in her stomach. The back of the card was totally blank, and on the front was a phone number. Raina knew she would never remember it, and she couldn’t very well write it down. But there was something that made her take notice. Chester’s full name was on the card: Chester Dunbridge. It rang a bell. Raina couldn’t place it right now, but she would. It was the clue she had been looking for. She handed the card back to Logan with a smile.