Becoming the Enigma, page 12
The last thing Logan wanted to do was bring back that night like a pursuing nightmare. He eased up on the gas pedal and let the jeep drop to the speed limit again. As urgently as he wanted them to get home and the safe privacy of four walls, it wasn't worth destroying her peace of mind, even though she had destroyed his own.
How could she have done this to him? Did she even realize what she had done? Likely not. They never talked about Erik or Chicago. He knew that Lily had cautioned against bringing it up. Maybe it was time to make her understand just how dangerous Erik was, how the mere act of talking to the bastard might as well have been like stabbing him in the back with a silver dagger. Yet, in the same breath of Erik's sins, Logan would have to confess his own. If she knew what he had done, what the wolf helped him do...
Shame stifled his rage to the slightest degree, but it couldn't extinguish that burning in his chest. Once upon a time, he believed Katey could have been the only one to put out that fire and make him forget the past. Now, she was the one dusting off those terrible memories and shoving them in his face.
Erik already stole from him before. He wouldn't have Katey. His Katey.
When they finally made it back to the house, Katey saw Logan’s eyes had lost much of their golden hue. Only tiny flecks of the wolf remained, telling her she was not out of the woods yet. She jumped out of the jeep and fled quickly into the house, thinking that if she could outrun him, they wouldn’t have to finish their conversation.
Logan ran after her and slammed the door behind them, making the whole house shake from the force of it. She tried to run toward the stairs, but he blocked her way with his body, driving her back into the living room.
“Tell me what happened.”
Katey dropped her bag and folded her arms over her chest, mouth set. Two choices lay before her. She could continue to stonewall him and dance around the issue, or she could dive into the whole reason why she agreed to go out with Erik in the first place. Perhaps, if she could drive Logan to that desperation before the date, she wouldn’t have to go out in the end.
“Erik ambushed me after study hall to ask me out to the movies.”
Logan’s expression evolved in the span of just a few seconds. A once halfway coolness soured into disbelief. “What did you tell him?”
She squared her shoulders and readied herself for the eruption that was soon to follow. “I said I would.”
A long, pregnant moment passed and Katey watched the change in Logan. Hands balled into tight fists at his sides as his face flashed white in shock and then a deep red with rage. Through their bond, she felt his anger mount and build, a steadily strengthening earthquake that made them both tremble.
“Why would you say that?”
Katey shivered at the deep and throaty change in his voice. “So he’d leave me alone. He said if I go out with him, then I’d never have to see him again.”
“And you believe him?” Logan charged a step forward, driving her a step back in return.
“Wouldn’t it be a good thing for him to leave me alone? It’s only one night, one date. It’s not like he can hurt me in a public place like a movie theater.”
Logan huffed a mocking laugh. “Oh no, he can still hurt you. Didn’t any of that training mean something to you yesterday?”
Kate gave a nod. “Yes, and what happened should have told you that I can handle myself against a rougarou.”
Logan stalked so close, as if he were about to grab her, but Katey scuttled away deeper into the living room to escape him. “You think because you lost control of your wolf that you’d be any match for someone like Erik?”
That was a low blow. He knew how much it broke her not to have that same level of control as the rest of them. “Wasn’t that the whole point? Teaching me to fight so I could go up against a rougarou?”
“Not one like Erik.” Logan’s lips curled just enough to show his fangs were out.
So much rage and hate shined through Logan’s now golden wolf eyes. “Besides him being a rougarou, I still don’t get why you hate him so much.”
Logan opened his mouth as if to answer, but then clenched his jaw shut and turned away to stride the living room. She watched his eyes dart about the space, unable to fix on any point as he searched for the best way to explain it.
“What? Is this too complicated?” she snarked. “Do you know Erik from someplace else? The way you two sized one another up at lunch looked pretty personal.”
“Yes, I know him.”
Katey waited for more than his impassioned growling, but when nothing came, she pushed again. “What’d he do? Step on your tail?”
That, too, was a low blow. Logan couldn’t shift at will like other loups-garous, meaning he had never found his purest wolf form. He could only shift once a month when the more monster-like loup-garou form commandeered his body for the night.
Apparently, those were the right words to bring his restless feet back to her in a storm of fury. “He killed one of my best friends!”
Katey was tempted to recoil at his outburst, but the wolf inside her reared its ugly head once more and she felt the courage to thunder back. “Don’t yell at me like that! How was I supposed to know?”
“Do I have to explain every damn thing to you? If I tell you to stay away from him, then you stay the fuck away from him!”
Katey’s eyes flashed to their loup-garou gold in challenge to his own. “I told you I didn’t have a choice! You try being pinned to a wall and half the size of whoever is holding you there.”
“He had you pinned to a wall?” The words came out so harsh, like two heavy stones grinding against one another.
“All of me.” Katey took a step closer, their bodies nearly touching. “I couldn’t fucking move, Logan! I thought I could feel his damn hardon against my hip!”
That was the wrong thing to say. Logan turned away and let out a thunderous roar that shook the house and made her ears ring. That was enough to make Katey’s wolf prod her to run for cover.
She dashed for the stairs, but Logan grabbed her wrist and spun her around to pin her against the stairwell, not unlike how Erik had her trapped. In the shadows of the tight space, she witnessed the peak of Logan’s wrath.
“We’re not done here!” he bellowed.
“Well, I am. Let go of me!”
“No, not until you learn to listen.”
Senseless indignation rose up in Katey, regardless of how Logan’s body completely pressed into hers. She couldn’t feel anything past the anger and fear. “You’re not the boss of me! Darren is! I don’t have to listen to anything you say!”
“What we ask you to do is for your own safety. Why can’t you see that?”
Katey’s mouth curved back into a snarl. “That’s all any of you ever think about! Safety, safety, safety! I thought I had to be safe being human around you, but now I have to be safe about everything else that was totally fine before! I can’t even hang out with my friends or go see a movie without someone having a conniption fit!”
Logan slammed his hand into her shoulder, the very spot where he bit her. “You asked for this and you knew what you were getting into. It’s your own fault!”
“No, it’s yours!” Katey hardly knew what she was saying until it came spilling out of her mouth like vomit. It was too late to take any of it back and her wolf wasn’t done. “If you had just given me a little more time, maybe I wouldn’t have chosen this at all!”
Inside, she wanted to scream back that she didn’t mean any of it. It was a complete contradiction to everything she had confessed to him before, but she couldn’t stop herself, just like she couldn’t stop the wolf from slashing into his throat the day before.
“Well, tough shit! You’re in this pack now. Being a loup-garou isn’t some license to go off and do as you please.”
“Well maybe I don’t want to be in your pack!”
Logan jerked back as if she had spat in his face, but it abated none of his ire. “If you don’t want to be in this pack, then fine.” His voice dropped so low that it rumbled in his chest. “Leave for all I care. Go be with Erik’s pack and be his whore.”
Katey had enough. She screeched and slashed her claws at his face, leaving behind long, deep gashes from his forehead to his jaw. He roared, let go of her, and stumbled a few steps down. His hand pressed into his cheek and nose. Katey turned and bounded upstairs before he had a chance to catch her again.
She slammed her bedroom door, locked it tight, and half expected Logan to break down the door. Her whole body shook with anger as the wolf inside continued to froth at the mouth. No thought could take hold in her mind, other than the glaring, irrational rage that consumed her like a fire.
She grabbed one of her heavy hardback textbooks from a shelf and chunked it at the far wall with a shriek of rage. The corner of the book made contact with the wall and left a dent in the sheetrock.
Her vicious words to Logan echoed in her mind, taunting her and condemning her for the way she had spoken to him. He was completely right, but she refused to admit it. She chose this life, and now she was paying for it. Tears of regret and anger streamed down her cheeks as she paced and tried to push back the wolf so she could form some coherent train of thought.
As time passed, and through her tears and seething, a peculiar awareness pierced to her core. Logan didn’t come to force her back into the argument, he didn’t come to apologize. If anything, Logan felt more distant through their bond, like an elastic band stretched to its limits just before snapping apart.
Katey stood still in the middle of her room and held her breath, waiting for the bond to settle back. It didn't.
After a moment of panic, Katey went back downstairs, but her fear was confirmed. She desperately searched the house and found it empty, hoping foolishly that she might have been mistaken, but the bond didn't lie. Logan was gone and she was alone in the house. His bike and her jeep remained under the carport, so he had to be in the woods.
Guilt and loneliness arrested her rabbiting heart as she dropped on the sofa. She dumbly stared down at the dark blood under her nails, Logan's blood.
Once more, she screwed up. Her anger went unchecked, but so did his. She said things she didn't mean and disregarded his feelings.
She wasn't too far gone to understand how he could decipher the decisions she made. It wasn't just that she had agreed to go out with a rougarou. It was because it was Erik, the man who killed his friend. She thought of how she’d feel if someone killed Lily and expected her to just get over it. This was worse than betrayal. Katey didn't really know what to call it, but it was definitely worse.
That's why he left. Why stick around for her? Why stay in a house shared by a girl like her? Why try to make her understand when she seemed so determined not to?
Thoughtless of the mess on her fingers, she buried her face in her hands and wept. The strain of the bond, the grief of pushing Logan away, the sense of finality in her offense, it all collapsed around her ears as violently as if the house caved in on her.
What could she do? Should she stay and wait for Logan to come back so she could beg for forgiveness? Should she seize the opportunity and sneak out now before the pack came home and asked questions she couldn’t answer? Where could she go? Would she still meet Erik for the movies?
The only reason she would consider it would be to ensure Erik wouldn't continue to harass her at school. If Erik left her alone, he would leave Logan alone too. If she just went through with it, maybe that would be the end of it and they could somehow get past this. It could show Logan that not only could she handle herself against a rougarou, but that she still chose him over Erik.
She doubted Logan would be back anytime soon, and she only had an hour, maybe two, before the pack came home.
Fresh determination fought away the last of her tears and she marched upstairs. She washed up, and shed the clothes stained with Erik's scent to change into a new outfit suitable for a date night. She could kill a couple of hours in a coffee shop while she waited for seven o'clock. Tea would have to be her beverage of choice, and she would have to find another place to eat, but a plan gradually took shape. Logan would never understand why she would keep her word to Erik, and explaining herself would be pointless. This may dig a deeper hole for herself, but if she had lost Logan by now, nothing would bring him back anyway. At least doing this, she could force Erik out of her life long enough to try and fix things. It had all backfired so quickly and Katey tried not to think about how impossible mating was now, as she climbed into her jeep and left for town.
"You've reached the voicemail box of—"
Darren ended the call before leaving any message. The curse exploded from his mouth, and he was prepared to smash his own phone.
Dustin came back inside through the glass doors. “Logan’s trail goes into the woods and Katey’s scent is the freshest out by the carport." He looked up into his alpha’s golden eyes. "No luck?"
"Neither of them are answering," he growled. "After two calls to Katey’s phone, I believe she turned it off. It stopped ringing. Logan’s never rang at all."
"They've both gone dark," Dustin spoke the obvious. "Orders?"
Darren stormed the length of the living room. "You said there was blood. Whose?"
"Logan’s."
"Vamps?"
"Not a trace."
That should have been a comfort, but they still had two missing pack members. One was totally unaware of the vamp threat and the other likely didn't care if he was so willing to abandon Katey.
Darren passed a hand over his eyes. "What the bloody hell happened?"
Dustin crossed his arms and let his alpha pace. "They seemed fine after lunch.”
Darren took up his phone one more time to call the one person he knew would answer.
Ben picked up after the second ring. "Yeah?"
"Logan and Katey are missing. Logan’s on foot and Katey took her jeep. Where are you?"
"With Jacob and his betas. We're goin' over the plans."
Darren knew he had to be vague. Jacob would likely hear him. "Katey doesn't know about the vamps. We doubt Logan told her. Work them into your plans. Dustin will look for Logan and I'll stay home in case one of them comes back."
"We'll keep an eye out for both of them... Any idea why they took off."
"None. If you find either of them, call me immediately."
"You do the same."
He ended the call and gave one more desperate call to each of the young loups-garous. Same results. This time, he left a message for Katey.
"I don't know why you thought it was such a brilliant idea to go off on your own, but you better have a damn good explanation." Darren sucked in a breath. "Please come home, Katey. We're worried."
He hung up and looked to his beta, worry in every line of his body. They both knew the risks at hand. Once night fell, if there were any vamps in town, Katey and Logan could easily become targets. If they were in the wrong place at the wrong time...
"We will find them," Darren said, forcing calm authority into the words as if it were a certainty. "Alive."
Chapter 8
When Katey arrived at the theater, she instantly spotted Erik leaning against the wall by the advertisement posters with his hands slung casually in his jean pockets. Their only theater featured three movies at a time. One was usually some kids film, one suitable for any age, usually a chick-flick, and another for those over eighteen. This week featured Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sweeny Todd, and P.S. I Love You. Katey had absolutely no interest in any of them, but she wasn’t there to enjoy a film.
The minute Erik saw her jeep park near the front, he shot her a wicked grin and went to meet her. Every muscle and nerve in her body went on alert. Knowing what she knew now, Katey wasn’t going to let herself be put in another dangerous situation.
“Glad you could make it,” Erik greeted as she opened her door.
Katey gave him a brief, forced smile and angled out. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“What’s the hurry?” Erik reached up to hang his arm around her shoulders, but she quickly ducked out of it and hopped onto the covered walkway in front of the theater. He spat a laugh. “What’s stuck up your ass?”
She didn’t think that deserved a response, but she narrowed her eyes into slits. “Listen, I’m breaking all sorts of rules to be here, so be grateful that I showed up at all.”
Erik loomed over her. “Alpha got you on a tight leash, little pup?”
Katey looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. A family some distance away argued about what movie to see, and the couple at the ticket booth were too busy paying for their fares.
“Or is it because of the vamp warning out tonight?”
Katey’s head whipped around, eyes wide. “What?”
A pleased look crossed his face. “Oh, they didn’t tell you?”
Her face reddened at her unaccountable embarrassment. “I kind of snuck out of the house before anyone knew I was gone… Vamp, as in vampire?”
“Yep. Half of the wolves in town are out lookin’ for them.” Erik leaned closer. “But, don’t worry. I won’t let any vamp harm a hair on your pretty head.”
His hand lifted to stroke the hair he spoke of, but Katey darted away again. “I can take care of myself.”
He chuckled. “Sure you can, Katey. Just like you did today, right?”
She blinked. “You actually know my name?”
Erik moved toward the ticket booth as the couple made their way inside. “I’ve had my eye on you since last year. You’re a foster kid, just turned eighteen, are best friends with Forrest Croxen’s girl, and are now part of Darren Dubose’s pack of misfits.”
Katey swallowed hard. He had been watching her? For what purpose? Was she just next on some list or did he have other intentions with her, now that she was loup-garou? “And here I thought you were just trying to mess with Logan’s head.”
