by Cat Kalen
I feel Logan hovering on the outer edges of my thoughts. He’s an alpha. A protector. I know it’s not easy for him to step back and let me do what I have to do, but I love the faith he has in my abilities, and love even more that while he’s walked away, he’s still staying close.
I head straight to the kitchen drawer and pull it open. When I find what I’m looking for, what I’d discovered days earlier, I spin around and come face-to-face with the man from my nightmares.
“Pride,” he greets me, flecks of pewter puncturing his cruel eyes. Then he gives me a brutal grin and I watch his teeth sharpen as he prepares to shade, to kill the young girl who has given him nothing but trouble. “I should have known I could never take you by surprise.”
“Why?” I ask, my voice hard, my animal waiting for the signal, but I don’t need my primal side for this battle. No. The girl in me is going to take this fight on. “Why did you force Sandy to change you?”
He grunts deep in his throat. “Come on, Pride. You’re smarter than that.”
I stare at his face and note how much he’s aged over the last few weeks and the sight of his tired eyes has me thinking of my father. That’s when the pieces of the puzzle come together. “You were sick,” I say. “You were dying.”
His grin is dark, menacing. “And now I’m not.”
“We can get sick and die, just like humans,” I challenge.
“Shaders live for centuries before old age kicks in, and with these new regenerative abilities, I’m as healthy as ever.” Looking a bit bored by the whole conversation he says, “Okay, let’s make this quick, shall we. I have things to do, and a few shaders to claim.”
When his eyes meet mine I know what he’s thinking, that he’s more powerful than me now, and while I know better than to ever underestimate him, I know he’s still underestimating me.
That’s his first mistake.
I hold my ground. “Of course, old age and sickness isn’t the only way shaders can die. You of all people know that.”
Eyes unafraid as they stare at me, he lets loose a bark of laughter, and I know he sees me as no challenge. But when I take my hand out from behind my back, and he sees what I have, his laughter dies an abrupt death. I keep my animal settled as he tears at his clothes in preparation.
That’s his second mistake.
Because before he can complete his transformation, I rush at him, and knowing I never should have left anything to chance, never should have assumed those shaders had killed him, I do the one thing I should have done in the first place.
I slap a collar around his neck.
His bark echoes off the walls around me, but his tortured cries are short lived. Because he’s too inexperienced to know how to leash his wild side in the midst of transformation, and there is nothing he can do to halt the shift from man to animal, nothing he can do to prevent the collar from snapping his neck.
As I look at him, I let loose a long, piercing howl and think of all those I’ve loved and lost, all those who were tortured and abused by his hands.
All those I vowed to avenge.
I take in the unnatural angle of his head, and I know in my heart that justice has finally been served.
When I look up and see Logan in the doorway, his body, heart, and soul reaching out to me, I draw a deep breath, let it out ever so slowly.
“Now it’s over.”
Epilogue
Five years later.
Pacific Ocean
I squish the glorious white sand between my toes, my body completely warm and content as I blink against the bright sun glistening on the Pacific waters. Logan waves to me from the shore, then leans down to grab the small chubby hand reaching up for him.
Using slow, careful steps they move toward me. As I watch them, my heart gives a little putter against my chest, and I grab my camera from my bag to take a picture of two of the most important people in my life.
Water drips from Logan’s beautiful, athletic body as he tosses the little blond bundle of energy over his shoulder. He looks back at me and his smile is warm and tender when I snap the picture. I twist to put the camera away, and when I open the bag and see the stack of pictures that have been sitting there in a manila envelope untouched for five long years, I draw a deep breath, deciding today is the day. It’s time to finally face the past and make good on the promise I was never sure I could keep. My shoulders stiffen, and I blow out a long, slow breath as a riot of emotions moves through me.
“Hey,” Logan says when he picks up on my anxiety, speaking to me telepathically so the astute little bundle on his shoulders isn’t privy to my worries. His eyes narrow in concern. “Everything okay?”
I pat the blanket beside me. “Come sit down,” I say to him. After removing sweet little Abigail Stone from his shoulders, named after the woman who gave birth to me, and one of the alphas responsible for giving me the life I have today, Logan drops down onto the blanket.
The most beautiful two-year-old in the world settles herself on my lap, and I hand her a juice box while I dig out the pictures.
Logan smiles at me and brushes my hair from my shoulders. “You sure?”
I nod. “It’s time.”
“Momma.” Bright blue eyes that remind me of the ocean—remind me of freedom—blink up at me.
“Look, Abby,” I say, and show her the picture of me when I wasn’t much older than she.
“Abby,” she says, and I smile because, except for having her father’s eyes, the similarities between mother and daughter are uncanny.
“No, it’s Momma,” I correct.
“Momma,” she repeats.
We flip through a few more pictures until I come across one where I’m standing on my father’s lawn at his California mansion. It was the day we stood outside and scented the strays, the same day my father pulled grass from my hair. I think back to that moment and remember when he walked away, saying he had some last-minute things to take care of. This is what he’d been up to, pulling and printing images from the security camera.
When I consider the rest of the horrible events of that day, I remember what he asked of me, and all he taught me in the short time we managed to spend together. There was a purpose to his every action, a reason for his every word. And that purpose was to prepare me.
As my heart races faster, emotions bombard me and I continue to flip through the pile. The next picture is another one of us standing together. It was only later that day that I knew why he wanted a photo of us together, united. He wanted to leave me with at least one good memory before he died.
I think about his death. All the senseless deaths from that day. I’m not proud of the killing I did. I never wanted to be an assassin. But I had to protect my family. Like my father once told me I would. Like he did for me.
I think about Stone, and what he, too, did for me. I used to feel him watching, but no longer do. I can only hope he’s found his path and that some girl will love him as much as I do. I know true love will happen for him one day and I also know it will be one heck of a roller-coaster ride when it does.
Pulling my thoughts back, I point to my father in the picture. “This is your grandpapa.”
As I think about what my father asked of me tears cling to my lashes, and I can feel Logan inside my head, there to support me. Always there to pick me up when I’ve fallen down.
“Abby,” I begin, then go quiet for a minute, remembering how Logan once told me love was about forgiveness. “We’ve all made mistakes at one time or another. But he really loved me. Just like your papa and your momma really love you.”
“Papa,” she says this time.
I tip her chin until she’s looking up at me. “And your grandpapa would have loved you, too, Abby.”
Abby points a chubby finger at the picture, and says, “Grandpapa.”
I look past her shoulder, and as I stare at the ocean I think back to five years ago when I set out on a journey to change the world so I could live a normal life. At the time I thought norma
l meant going to school, hanging at the mall, wearing fashionable clothes, and suppressing the primal side of me until each shift night.
I quickly learned that wasn’t my normal, and never would be. My father tried to teach me that. To prepare me for the world and to warn that if I lose my animal, I lose the purpose of my life.
The purpose of a shader is to survive. To find happiness, to protect our packs in a world that wants us all dead. What I learned was that my purpose isn’t about going to school, working alongside humans while pretending we’re no different. Because the truth is we are different, and while I know humans will never accept us, I also understand our differences aren’t a bad thing. It’s those differences that make me who I am today, and thanks to three very important men in my life, I like the person I’ve become.
I once thought I wanted to be more human than animal, to let that side of me die. But I was wrong. My father taught me that I can never forget the primal side of me. I can’t allow the human side, or even the animal side, to ever overpower the other. It’s only when I embrace and accept both sides equally that I can look to my future.
The future of my family.
Logan takes Abby off my lap and pulls her to him, then he drags me into a three-way embrace. As Abby spills her juice all over us and squirms her way out we both laugh. She’s so much like me and is undoubtedly going to grow up to be a handful.
Logan’s Pacific blue eyes meet mine, and my chest clenches so tightly with the love I feel for him that I can barely fill my lungs. While I might not have lived the life of a typical teenager, when I look at my mate, my daughter, and think about all the things we’ve yet to learn, yet to teach, I know this is mine, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
About the Author
Cat Kalen, also known as USA today bestselling author Cathryn Fox, is a multi-published author in the romance genre. Cat is a wife, mom, sister, daughter, and friend. She loves dogs, sunny weather, anything chocolate, (she never says no to a brownie), pizza, and watermelon. She has two teenagers who keep her busy with their never ending activities, and a husband who is convinced he can turn her into a mixed martial arts fan. Cat can never find balance in her life, is always trying to find time to go to the gym, can never keep up with emails, Facebook or Twitter and tries to write page-turning books that her readers will love.
A maritime native and former financial officer, Cat has lived all over Canada but has finally settled down in her childhood hometown with her family.
Find out more about Cat:
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Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
Copyright © 2015 by Cat Kalen
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This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in September 2015 by Bloomsbury Spark, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.
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