Logan's Calling (7 page)

'I'm telling you, Mr DeRosier,' Frazier said almost pleadingly, 'I know they're shifters. Isn't there some test you can do?'

DeRosier sighed and flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the shoulder of his suit. 'There is but not here. I would have to take them to one of our Lodges. The test is here, tonight, Frazier. As you say, if they are shifters they have no choice but to shift during a full moon as long as they aren't wearing silver. Those conditions have been met but I'm yet to see any fur or fangs.'

Logan had heard enough. It was time to act. He pulled the Desert Eagle from the waistband of his jeans,checked it, and flicked off the safety. He stood up and used the butt of the rifle to smash the window, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. 

Frazier whirled around to face Logan, his face a mask of surprise. DeRosier took a couple of steps back but looked unfazed. Sarah and Amy jerked their heads up and Sarah shouted, 'Logan!' but the commotion had broken her concentration and she began to writhe on the floor of the cage, the shift that she had fought so long finally taking hold of her. Amy also began to shift, her eyes turning wild and green and a low growl issuing from deep within her.

Logan leapt through the broken window, the Eagle swinging in an arc between the two men, keeping both of them in his sights. 'Let them go,' he told Frazier.

Frazier put up his hands but he made no move to free the girls. 'Look, I told you. They're shifters!'

DeRosier appeared to be the calmest person in the room and the air of danger radiating from him was not lessened at gunpoint. In fact, now he was closer to the man, Logan sensed a wave of evil hanging around DeRosier like an ice cold black aura. It seemed to creep up Logan's spine like a questing spider.

'You don't want to do that. Put the gun down,' DeRosier said calmly.

'Fuck your Jedi mind tricks,' Logan said. But the creepy sensation crawling up his spine felt like it had lodged itself in his brain, letting DeRosier in. The Desert Eagle wavered in his hand. Fight it. Fight him. Got to stay in control.

'Put the gun down,' DeRosier repeated more firmly. It felt to Logan as if the man was speaking to the coldness that had crept into his mind and that coldness could control him. He lowered the gun even though he didn't want to. His arm felt too tired and the gun felt like it was made of lead.

In the cages, Sarah and Amy had shifted into she-wolves and they pulled at the steel bars, growling and snarling at Frazier and DeRosier.

Logan felt totally at the mercy of DeRosier. His feet were rooted to the floor and his arm was so heavy he couldn't move it. 

DeRosier looked at him as if he were regarding a bug in a jar. 'Shoot yourself in the head.'

Logan's arm, working of its own accord, lifted the Desert Eagle slowly toward his temple. He tried to resist the movement but his limbs were controlled by DeRosier's powerful will. The she-wolves started to go crazy in their cages, howling and gnashing their fangs.

The gun lifted up past Logan's shoulder and up along his neck.

The cold steel brushed through the hair above his ear and pressed to his skull.

Don't pull the trigger. Don't pull the fucking trigger.

Was this it? Had his life come to an end now? After all the scrapes he had survived in the war, was his destiny to just shoot himself in this cottage by the lake at the whim of an occultist? His biggest regret was that he had only just found his mate and now he was going to lose her.

Don't pull the trigger. He tried to control his fingers but they felt disconnected.

Don't pull the fucking trigger.

'Pull the trigger,' DeRosier commanded.

Logan felt his finger inch toward the cold metal trigger. He couldn't stop it. And as he wrapped his finger around the little deadly crescent of metal, he wondered why the moonlight flooding in through the broken window behind him had suddenly become so intense that he had to close his eyes against it. A sudden heat ran up along his spine, burning away the cold spider hold that DeRosier had on his mind. And as the heat flooded his brain he saw a wave of silver light behind his eyelids and he heard a howl and realized that it came from his own throat. Sharp pain stabbed at his face and neck and upper arms, travelling down through the rest of his body. His skull felt like it was stretching and remolding itself. He dimly heard the gun clatter to the floor as he fell forward onto all fours.

Then a voice cut into his mind. A voice that calmed him and soothed the panic that ran through him. Sarah's voice.

'Logan, open the cages. There's a latch on the outside of the doors.'

He opened his eyes and leapt forward, reaching Sarah's cage in a single bound. Whatever control DeRosier had over him in his human form was gone now that he was a werewolf. He swiped at the lock on the cage and it clicked open. Sarah burst out of the prison and stood on all fours in the center of the room, snarling and growling, the fur on her back bristling.

Frazier backed up against the wall so quickly he slammed into it and knocked a painted landscape onto the floor. Even faced by two werewolves, DeRosier looked calm. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a revolver.

Sarah's voice sounded in Logan's mind again. 'He has silver bullets.'

Logan propelled himself at DeRosier and the two of them went crashing through the window in a crash of splintered glass. As they hit the ground outside, the revolver discharged with a loud bang. Logan waited to feel pain as a silver bullet pierced his skin but he felt nothing. DeRosier had squeezed the trigger reflexively and had missed. 

Logan shook himself, glass shards flying from his fur. DeRosier scrambled to his feet, still wielding the gun. 

Logan prepared himself to leap at the occultist again then froze as three sets of headlights cut through the darkness, blinding him with their glare. His vision adjusted and felt a sudden fear. Three black SUVs were parked on this side of the cottage. DeRosier hadn't come alone. The doors of the vehicles opened and black-clad men with guns climbed out. 

'Sarah, where are you?' Logan thought.

'We're right behind you.'

He turned to see Sarah and Amy standing by the front of the cottage.

'Run!' he told them.

They ran for the trees as the men from the SUVs opened fire. Bullets ripped into the ground and trees around the three werewolves as they reached the pines and fled into the forest, leaving Frazier, DeRosier and the agents from the mysterious Temple of Thul behind them.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Wild

They padded among the trees in the moonlit woods, following scents they picked up on the night breeze and listening and smelling for signs of the men from the cottage. By midnight they were deep in the woods, in places where the only tracks were those made by animals. 

Logan had become used to the telepathic communication and he felt more free roaming the woods in this new wolf form than he had ever felt in his life. He felt connected with everything around him, as if he were a part of the world again but in a more profound way than he had ever been a part of the world before. 

The telepathic conversation ranged from Amy's feeling guilty over allowing herself to be fooled by Jensen Frazier to Logan telling the girls how he had slept for two days and missed Sarah's abduction from her house. It seemed Frazier had gone to the Temple of Thul before he was sure about Amy and Sarah and they had taken Sarah from the house. So Logan's theory about Frazier not kidnapping Sarah had been correct but he hadn't counted on the Temple members being involved before Frazier had proof about his suspicions. He mentally chastised himself for not being more careful at the cottage and thinking DeRosier had been there alone with Frazier. That had been a stupid notion. Once the girls had turned out to be shifters, how was DeRosier going to transport them to his Lodge if he was alone? And Logan should have realized he hadn't seen any vehicles at the cottage. If he had noticed that fact at the time, he might have checked the other side of the building and seen just how many vehicles there were. Stupid.

They found a place to sleep and Amy curled up in the undergrowth, telling them how tired felt.

'How about you?' Sarah asked Logan. 'Feeling tired?'

He looked at her and detected from her scent and body language what she wanted. 'No,' he thought, 'I feel like discovering new things now I'm a werewolf.'

She set off through the trees and he followed, his senses alive. He lost sight of Sarah for a moment and followed her by scent alone. When he caught up with her, she was waiting for him in a moonlit clearing. On her belly. Ass and tail raised.

He mounted her immediately, pushing inside her and finding her already wet and willing. She growled with pleasure and he pushed all the way in, servicing her with quick deep thrusts of his cock. The night breeze ruffled his fur and his heightened sense of smell made Sarah's pheromone signals even more powerful as he thrust rapidly into her. He nipped at her neck and she let out little yelps of pleasure.

They came together, both of them howling at the moon as they enjoyed each other's wolf-like bodies and the unity they shared. The telepathic communication made Logan's orgasm even more powerful as he could sense some of what Sarah was feeling as her own climax ripped through her body.

They lay together in the moonlight afterward and nuzzled each other.

'Logan,' she said, 'we can never go back to our old lives. Not now the Temple know who we are... what we are. They won't stop until they have us. They're too powerful for us to fight.'

'So what do we do? Flee?'

She thought for a moment then replied, 'We do the best that we can.'

*

After Sarah was asleep, Logan explored the surrounding woods.He wanted to experience his new form as much as he could, acutely aware that soon the sunrise would arrive and wash away the moonlight and he would shift back to his human form.

He found the ruins of an old house someone had built out here miles away from civilization and he stepped among the crumbling stone walls and looked up at the full moon. The house reminded him of his old life, life before Sarah. He hadn't physically removed himself from the world as the owner of this house had but he might as well have. He had been just as remote. And now, like this house, his old life was simply ruins. 

Now he had need to hide away but it was because he was hunted, not because he was afraid.

And now he had Sarah, his mate.

She had turned his old life upside down and she was a huge part of his new life.

He left the old ruined house and returned to where his mate lay sleeping in the moonlight. Settling down beside her, he pressed himself against her fur, feeling her body heat. 

And for the first time in a long while, Logan James slept deeply with no dreams or nightmares.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Promise

Otis Pike, the owner of the "Luckee Stop" Gas Station just outside the small town of Promise, Montana didn't see many strangers so when the cherry red Jeep pulled up by the pumps, he looked out of the window with some interest. When he saw the pretty blonde who got out and started filling the vehicle with gas, his interest became more lecherous than curious. Damn she was a fine woman.

But then her boyfriend got out of the Jeep and came into the store, nodding to Otis and heading for the snacks aisle. Well boyfriend or not, Otis intended to get as much of an eyeful as he could before they drove away. The way the blonde's ass filled her jeans was mighty fine.

Then the guy had to spoil it again by coming up to the checkout and with a half dozen candy bars and bags of chips. Otis sighed. He didn't get many pleasant distractions driving into the gas station and this feller was ruining his concentration.

Then he got a good look at the feller and his eyes widened. 'Afternoon,' he said, trying not to stare at the scar that ran down the left side of the man's face. The guy must have been in some terrible accident to get a scar like that. 

'Afternoon,' the guy replied.

'You just passing through?' Otis asked. Damn stupid question. Everyone who came to Promise was just passing through.

'Maybe. What's the town like?'

'Quiet. Damn quiet. We're too far away from any highways or large towns for anyone to be interested in us.'

The feller nodded. 'Sounds ideal. We like it quiet.'

'Yeah? You don't look to me like the kind of feller who would want life to be all that quiet. I reckon you'd get bored soon enough.' The woman replaced the gas nozzle. Otis rang up the gas along with the chips and candy. 'You paying cash or card?'

'I always pay in cash,' the scarred man said, counting out bills from his wallet. He handed them over and as he leaned forward, Otis noticed a silver amulet in the shape of a wolf's tooth hanging from a leather cord around the man's neck.

'What brings you all the way out here?' he asked, 'Road don't go nowhere except into nothing. You're a long way from civilization.'

'We like it that way.'

'Fair enough. But if I were you, I'd keep on moving. The sheriff doesn't like strangers.'

'Thanks for the warning. Keep the change.' The feller left the store and got back into the Jeep. As the vehicle pulled out of the gas station, Otis reached beneath the counter and picked up two sketches Sheriff Ronson had given him weeks ago. Yep, that was the feller alright. That scar was too unique, there was no mistake. And the other sketch was definitely the blonde. Ronson had also given him a sketch of a dark-haired woman but she hadn't been with the other two. 'Let me know immediately if you see these people,' Ronson had said. Well he could go fuck himself. The man was creepy and he had creepy visitors from out of town. Fuck him. The feller in the Jeep had been pleasant enough. Probably got that scar in the war, serving the country.  Ronson could take a flying leap.