“And you don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” she countered.
The moment of levity passed. “Am I saying good-bye already?” he asked softly.
She shook her head. “No, it will be later. I have to search the woods for more of this crap. I won’t be leaving for a while yet. In the meantime, do I have to go outside and hot-wire a car to get you back to the hospital?”
“Oh, you mean one of the cars you flipped over?”
She pushed her hair over her shoulder. “There is no need for sarcasm.”
“You know, that SUV was Yogi’s.”
“I’ll flip it back, okay?” she drawled.
He reached out for her hand. “I’m sure some of the guys are still waiting outside. One of them can drive me, and Yogi too, if Salome doesn’t pick him up. But we’re going back to my dad’s house. I don’t need to be in the hospital anymore.”
“Connell—”
He grabbed one of her outstretched hands. “Really, imp, I’m on the mend now that I can shift again. And if I need anything, I’ll call Kiely, our resident doctor.”
Logan squinted at him, examining every inch of his aura. “All right. Get your butt in bed. I’ll come say goodbye once I’m done.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to share the bed for a while before you go?”
Logan looked at the ceiling as if pleading for patience. “You have actual holes in you, and you’re still a dog…”
He grinned unrepentantly. “Never doubt I have my priorities in order.”
45
The sun had set when Logan walked up the stairs to the second floor of the chief’s house. Her feet felt like lead.
It had taken her hours to search the woods near the Kane home. A few search spells had cut that down considerably, but she’d retraced her steps and covered every inch twice to ensure she hadn’t missed anything.
But there hadn’t been anything outside of what she’d found in his house and shed. He must have been supremely confident to believe no one would suspect him.
Despite Connell, Logan was glad she had to leave for a while. The atmosphere around here was heavy. She wasn’t as bad as Diana when it came to dealing with emotions, but she had no idea what to do or say to the people Bishop had betrayed.
Connell appeared to have bounced back, but it was obvious that underneath his cocky brashness, he was as hurt and bewildered as everyone else.
Logan turned the corner in the hallway, hoping she had hidden the stash of magical contraband well enough. There was some bad mojo sticking to most of those objects. She hadn’t wanted to bring them into the chief’s house, so she’d tied the bag to the tallest branch of the highest tree in the vicinity. She would pick it up on her way to T’Kairie.
She had said goodbye to the chief and Mara, telling them she would be back soon, and explaining that she had left an insanely skilled scholar, Alec, researching solutions for Sammy’s little problem. With any luck, he already had a solution waiting for her on the island.
Connell’s bedroom door was open, and when she saw why, she was no longer tired. Riley was sitting on his bed, watching him sleep.
“If you don’t get off that bed, I’m going to toss you out the window.” She was in no mood to play games. It had been a hard fucking day.
“Actually, I was waiting for you,” Riley said quietly. The towering blonde took a deep breath and stood, holding out a hand to indicate they should speak in the hallway.
Logan sighed and backed up so Riley could exit the bedroom. She reached for the door, watching Connell sleep for a moment before closing it.
Riley stood there for a very long minute without saying anything. Expecting her to start on a “you don’t belong with Connell conversation,” Logan crossed her arms and waited.
“Bishop is my uncle.”
Oh, okay, not about Connell. She straightened. “And?”
“And I was in their house a lot. I used to babysit Sammy for a little extra cash. I never saw Bishop do anything…you know, evil, but he went out at night every once in a while. I used to wonder where he was going. He always said he was going for a run, but then he’d take his car. For a while, I thought he had a secret girlfriend. The one time Salome came home from school early, I decided to meet up with some friends at a bar a few towns over.”
Logan’s ears prickled. Could it be that the evil Amazon had a lead for her? “Did you see something?”
Riley handed her a piece of paper. “I saw Bishop at the same bar a little later that night. He was holed up in the corner with some man. One who wasn’t a Were. I know all the male Weres around here.”
Logan bit her tongue so the scathing remark she wanted to make wouldn’t spill out. She opened the piece of paper. It described a blue sedan and had a license plate number. “This is the vehicle of the man he was meeting?”
Riley nodded. “Yeah. I don’t even know why I wrote it down, except that I thought it was weird.”
“How was it weird?”
The blonde behemoth waved her hand. “The sneaking and lying about it, and to top it off, the meeting took place at a human bar. Bishop always avoided outsiders and used to discourage Yogi and Sal from making friends with humans. That’s why I figured something was up—because otherwise, there’s no way he would have been caught dead at that place. But I never imagined this…”
Riley’s eyes grew distant, her mouth slackening slightly.
Logan shifted her weight, surprised to feel sympathy for her annoying predecessor. “I’ll follow up on this,” she promised.
Riley took one last look at the closed door, a jumble of emotions in her eyes. She left without saying anything else.
Logan held up the piece of paper and took out her phone. She texted the information to her contact at the DMV, a fae goblin who owed her a favor.
Based on the model of the car, it was probably a rental, but there might be a trail to follow. She put the phone away and opened the door to Connell’s bedroom to wake him for a quick goodbye.
At least, it was supposed to be quick… It was well after midnight when she finally left for T’Kairie.
46
Three weeks later, Logan landed in front of the chief’s house with a thump. Her landings were normally a little softer, but she was in a hurry. She only had a little while to prepare the group for ‘the solution’.
A lot of Weres were milling around the main compound today. A few surprised her by waving in a friendly fashion, although most gave her that stoic male nod that used to annoy the hell out of her.
She found the chief and Mara in the barn. They were surrounded by a bunch of teens in fighting stances. To her surprise, there were girls mixed in with the boys.
When one of the girls, a fierce-looking black Were with her hair in braids, gave her the same distant nod as the men outside, she broke into a grin—until Mara punched the chief in the face with a killer right hook.
“Whoa,” she said, wincing. “Is there something I should know? Should we all start hoarding food and stocking up on batteries? Cause regime changes can be vio-lent.”
Mara turned and smiled at her, but the chief glowered. “Mara is not challenging me for leadership of the pack. I’ve decided, after recent events, that some of our more talented females need to be trained alongside their brothers.”
He turned to the girls. “That’s because they are just as strong, just as fast, and just as capable as any man—and we don’t know when or where the next danger will strike. We must all be prepared to defend our pack.”
It wasn’t so much the words, as the weight he gave them, that made Logan want to clap by the time he was done. A few of the kids did cheer, but stopped immediately when the chief gave them his alpha stare. They resumed their practice poses before Mara dismissed them to freestyle.
Logan joined the chief and Mara as they walked outside. “It’s about time you started training the girls,” she said. “If you like, I can show them a few things too when I have time.”
“
Are you trained in combat?” he asked a touch sarcastically. “Don’t you just throw things at people or blow them down?”
Logan crossed her arms. “My tiger mom had me in judo the minute I could walk. These days, I’m considered an expert in over a dozen styles of martial arts,” she informed him. “Gia trained me herself in krav maga and pencak silat.”
Douglas stopped walking and turned to her in open-mouthed shock. “Pencak silat?” He coughed. “Well, if you have time…”
Time, shit. She was wasting it. “Oh yeah, speaking of, I actually had something to run by you about your scaly situation. Is Sammy around?”
“Yes,” Mara said. “He’s upstairs with Salome. He and Yogi have been bunking here for the last couple of weeks. Sal’s still at school, but on the weekends, she stays here too.”
That makes sense. Logan couldn’t blame them for not wanting to stay at home with all those memories of their father. And she was glad the chief was embracing them, making sure they weren’t ostracized from their community.
“Well, I have some news about his condition. Or lack of news…” she amended.
Mara and the chief exchanged glances. “I take it you don’t have a solution?”
“Not the kind you wanted—and I put our best book nerd on it. Alec hasn’t found anything that can change Sammy back into a wolf. Not yet anyway, and he’s gone through most of our records. So far, he’s got a big fat nada in the way of fixes. So my sister Serin suggested something.”
She broke off and looked up. “And there’s that something now.”
High overhead, a telltale shimmering ripple approached at Mach speed. It vaguely reminded Logan of the see-through camouflage the Predator used in the movie, but in this case, it was much bigger.
“You may want to stand over here,” she warned, hugging the wall of the barn. “We need to give him a little more room.”
“Him? Him who?” Mara asked with a frown.
There was a second—much louder—thump next to them. The invisibility glamour dropped away, revealing a green-and-gold dragon roughly the size of a small cottage.
Douglas swore under his breath, and the teenagers inside the barn poured outside with shouts and exclamations. All the noise and bustle alerted the people in the house. Soon, Salome and Sammy came running outside.
“He’s right there,” Logan called out, pointing to Sammy.
The dragon nodded once and shifted with a small swishing sound. In its place was a much smaller bespeckled blond man with a ponytail. Fortunately for the mixed company, he was fully dressed. Unlike the wolves, dragon shifters could fashion clothing from some of their scales when in human form.
Douglas looked askance at the man’s long hair and Birkenstocks as the man approached Sammy and Sal with a friendly wave. He bent down to speak to Sammy. When nothing else exciting happened, Mara ushered the other kids back into the barn with a stern command to get back to work. However, their attention wasn’t on practicing their kicks and strikes. All eyes were on the two dragons who were, for some reason, practicing an intricate handshake now.
“Let me guess,” the chief drawled. “His name is Draco or Drake.”
Logan’s lip curled. It was a fair assumption on Douglas’ part. Most dragon shifters had ultra-cool names and tattoos to match. This dragon shifter was an exception. “Actually, his name is Ed.”
“Ed the dragon?” Douglas asked sardonically.
Mara swallowed a laugh. “Oh. Is that short for Edward?”
Logan giggled, her sense of humor getting the better of her. “It’s Edmund actually. We call him Eddie sometimes, but usually, it’s just…Ed.”
This time, Mara did laugh. “Okay, then.”
Logan shrugged. “Until a fix is found—if one exists—Serin thought you could benefit from a mentorship of sorts. Most of the dragon shifters we know are kind of…odd, but Ed’s okay. He collects novelty cookie jars.”
“Cookie jars?” Douglas asked, his nose wrinkled.
Logan opened her hands. “Well, they all hoard something. Most have tons of money in jewels and coins tucked away, but Ed’s refreshingly non-materialistic—although I’m sure his 401K is rock solid. Financial acumen is a dragon thing.”
“Is it really?” Mara looked briefly intrigued, and then she humphed. “You learn something new every day.”
“He’ll be helpful,” Logan assured them. She couldn’t go out on a limb and assure them Ed was harmless. He was a dragon shifter after all, but Serin vouched for him, and Logan trusted the Water Elemental’s judgement—even with what was going on with her still-missing mate.
She explained that Ed was prepared to share his experience as a dragon shifter with Sammy, including a few tricks to avoid setting things on fire when he was annoyed. The offer was accepted with typical grudging grace.
Logan turned to watch Sammy and Ed get to know each other. They were walking toward the clearing at the border of the woods, presumably to practice something dragony.
High up on the hill, she spotted some new construction. Someone was building a house overlooking the compound. Logan was about to ask if the pack had decided to give the Kane family a new house when Sammy shifted for Ed. Smiling, Ed pointed to his feet while saying something.
“I suppose this is the best solution we could have asked for,” Douglas admitted. “Considering the circumstances,” he qualified.
“Personally, I’m just glad Sammy can still shift,” Mara said with a philosophical head bob. “He’s young enough that he’s the envy of all his friends. It might not stay that way when he gets older, but for now, he’s still pack to everyone.”
Logan acknowledged that, and then asked the question she had been dying to ask since landing. “So…where’s Connell?”
“Oh, after a few days, we couldn’t keep him in bed anymore,” Mara informed her with a twinkle in her eye. “He said you were taking too long and decided to go after you.”
“He left?” She had busted her ass to get back here, and he was gone?
“Yes, but he’s been in touch. Mostly to complain,” Douglas said with his trademark deadpan expression. “Apparently, you haven’t stayed in one place long enough for him to catch up with you. He said to tell you he found the damn island by the way—his words—but you had already left.”
Logan’s mouth dropped open.
Mara grinned at her. “What he actually said was that he was going to nail your little butt to the floor when he caught up with you.”
“My butt is not little,” Logan grumbled. “People have got to stop saying that. I told him there was no way to get to T’Kairie without me. I can’t believe he found it. But no, I wasn’t there this whole time. I had to travel a lot because I was helping my sisters investigate the missing artifacts.”
Once Serin had arrived and all the Elementals had gathered at the archives, the shit had hit the fan. No one had come right out and accused Jordan of stealing from them—especially since he hadn’t been there to defend himself, but he was her prime suspect.
Not everyone agreed. Serin’s parents and Jordan’s uncle were particularly loud in their defense of him. And even Diana admitted that she hadn’t picked up on any lies or anxiety from him during the little time she’d spent in his company.
Despite that, Logan was still suspicious. Either Jordan had something to do with the theft of the artifacts, or he knew something about it. It was the reason he had disappeared.
If he’d betrayed them, he was hiding. But if Jordan had stumbled on some knowledge of the robbery, then he was probably dead.
Whatever the truth was, she felt terrible for Serin. Her sister’s brittle silence on the whole matter of her mate had been painful to witness. Logan suspected she was in the first stages of grief, but Serin hadn’t wanted to talk about it.
Though the Mother’s rules dictated they couldn’t all be in the same room at the same time, she and her sisters had divided into teams to look over all the evidence. Alec had been amused by the game of musical rooms—up
until Diana had punched him in the arm with a fist like a hammer. Then the quips had stopped, and he’d helped them decide which clues should be a priority. After that, they had split up and left the island, each pursuing their own lead. But hers had dried up, and she’d decided it was time to do what she could for Sammy…and to get back to Connell.
Lost in thought, she was surprised when Douglas spoke to her again. “Riley told us about the man she saw Bishop with. She said you were looking into it. Did you find anything out?”
Oh, that. She didn’t have good news to share. “I’m afraid the car was a rental, and the name on the reservation an alias. To make matters worse, the rental place was a dive with no cameras.”
“So it was a dead end?” Mara asked
“For now,” she conceded. “Gia and my sister Serin are still running down some leads, so we may still find Bishop’s supplier and the witch who has Malcolm’s wolf.”
She paused, unsure what else to say. Deciding it was better not to make any promises she might not be able to keep, she asked about her furry idiot instead. “I don’t suppose Connell mentioned where he was the last time he called?”
Douglas almost smiled. “He said he was tired of chasing his tail, so he decided to wait for you at your home.”
What the hell? “Home? I don’t have a home,” she said, starting to get a headache.
Logan lived on the road, in a manner of speaking. Her home was the nearest safe house. Crap, was she going to have to go all the way back to Provence to find Connell? Was that where he thought she lived?
For some reason, the two Weres in front of her were smirking. “When he called, he mentioned that he’d eaten all of your cake—twice. Your mother said if you weren’t going to show up for your own birthday celebration, your aunt wasn’t going to make you anymore from now on.”
“My mother?” He was with her mother? Logan groaned. If he had tracked her mom and Aunt Mai back to their house in San Diego, she was in deep shit.
She had intended on having that serious discussion with Connell about their relationship. Yes, he was her mate, and yes, they were together. However, Logan wasn’t going to give up her job for him. She doubted he would ask that of her, but she had no idea what his expectations were.
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