“I guess I’m still a little unsure,” she replied softly.
Darren sat up and leaned his elbows on his knees to move in closer to her. “I know it’s a lot to think about and I’m sure Logan has informed you that it won’t be him changing you if you decide, so you have nothing to worry about in that respect.”
Katey eagerly looked up to him. “What if I wanted it to be him to change me?”
Darren quickly shook his head. “It won’t happen. It’ll be me or Dustin since we have the experience.”
“But, why?”
“Logan’s far too young and inexperienced. If he did do it, we’d have to be there to pull him off of you if things got out of hand. It may not sound very dangerous right now, but you’ll soon find out that it’s very important to think of your safety around us, especially Logan.”
Katey grew flustered. “Logan keeps going on about that too, but I really don’t see how you all are so dangerous at all. I’ve seen you guys get angry a few times, but never raging mad, wanting to kill somebody.”
“You only think that because you haven’t been around us long enough to understand. It takes decades, if not centuries for us to become this controlled and not have to think about it. If we changed you, it would probably take us a good while to train you and keep you under control long enough to teach you the ropes. We’d even let you skip school for it because big crowds can spell disaster for a new loup-garou.”
Katey interjected with, “Oh, then sign me up!” She offered her arm out to him gladly. “A couple months of vacation would be great before these exams!”
Darren laughed heartily and she recoiled her arm. She enjoyed his laugh, so deep and warm.
“You wouldn’t get out of your exams that easily. You’d still have homework. And believe me, the adjusting process is no vacation. After the training period, you really wouldn’t live any differently than before. You would have more responsibilities and have to be aware of yourself and what you do.”
Darren paused thoughtfully. “But really, it may be worth it in the end. It’s not so bad once you’re used to it. I mean, I know Logan and Ben are still a little uncomfortable with themselves, but that’s because they are still relatively new to this. Dustin and I have been living like this for much longer and we don’t even really remember what life was like before we changed. This is all we’ve ever known and Logan still has memories of being a normal kid. It’s difficult for him in more ways than one. I suppose he’s told you about his mother and what happened when he changed. He considers himself a monster, but he really isn’t.”
Katey was hanging onto every word as he glanced over to her and smiled kindly.
“But, anyway, my point is that you do have a lot to think about. And whichever way you choose, you are always welcome here with us. We care about you, more than you can comprehend right now.”
At the thought of being welcome, Katey remembered something that her and Logan had talked about. “Were you the one who taught Logan that humans and loups-garous are so different?” she asked.
Darren pinched his eyebrows together in confusion and peered at her. “What do you mean?”
“The way he talks sometimes is like anyone that isn’t a loup-garou is inferior.”
He sat back in understanding and nodded. “We didn’t teach him that specifically. We have tried to explain to him over the years that it’s best to keep ourselves separate from others because of what we are.”
“But, why? As long as they don’t find out, what’s the harm? You can blend in well enough.”
“It’s not about blending in, it’s about safety and security. The more he associates with others that don’t understand what he is, the more he is at risk of exposing all of us.”
“But you and the teachers do that everyday at school.”
“Yes, but it’s not the same,” Darren explained, picking his words as carefully as he could. “We have learned how to mingle over the centuries well enough that it’s not a problem. Logan doesn’t have the control yet to know how to do that. That’s why it was such a concern to us when he decided to enter public school all of the sudden.”
Katey sighed and finished off her fries before continuing. “But if he never gets out and around people, he’ll never know how to interact with them.”
“We have been gradually introducing him into society after we screwed up in the twenties and left him with another loup-garou for a few years. That didn’t end well,” Darren breathed a sigh as he remembered the incident. “It’s taking us much longer with Logan to train him the right way than it has for any of us.”
Katey was intrigued by the mention of the twenties, but she let it go. “Why is that?”
Darren gave her a caring, fatherly look. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he said encouragingly. It reminded Katey of all those times adults say to kids, I’ll tell you when you’re older. How long until Katey was old enough?
He then stood up from the bed to walk back around towards the door.
“By the way,” she said quickly. He turned back to her and waited. “I’m sorry for that comment I made in the hospital about my mom. I didn’t realize what you and Dustin had been through. If I had known, I wouldn’t have said anything.”
Darren nodded. “I understand. I’m just sorry I snapped the way I did. I had no right to get on your case when you clearly wouldn’t have known.”
Katey didn’t know if it was safe to broach upon the subject, but she had to know. “Do you really not know who your father was?”
Darren’s eyes darkened, as a shadow seemed to pass over his face at the question. He cast his stare to the floor and sighed. “No. I haven’t any idea. My mother never mentioned him and every time I asked, she would change the subject.” He looked back up to Katey and shrugged. “The only thing I know for a fact was that he was a loup-garou and that’s the only reason I’m here today.”
“I’m sorry about that.” Katey wanted to say that she understood how he felt, but she realized that she probably couldn’t fully comprehend it. She knew even less about her father, but at least she couldn’t point to something about her personality or her body structure and blame him for it. It wasn’t his fault she was an orphan, and it wasn’t her mother’s fault either. Katey would never know that kind of resentment towards someone she had never really met, so she couldn’t relate.
Darren gave her an assuring smile. “It’s water under the bridge now… Come with me,” he said, motioning for her to follow him out of the bedroom.
Katey peered curiously at him, but obeyed the alpha male, following him down the hall and down the stairs into the living room.
Ben, Dustin and Logan were all sitting on the couch, in each of their hands were paint ball guns. Katey froze at the foot of the stairs and watched them as Darren put on his own jacket.
“What’s going on?” she asked, her gaze shifting between each of them.
The guys chuckled a bit and each rose to their feet to walk towards the front door. Logan approached her holding up his paint ball gun and offering her a jacket. Their eyes met and Katey couldn’t help but gave him a shy smile.
“You might want to wear this. It’s a little chilly outside,” Logan said as a devilish grin spread across his face. The light in his eyes reassured her that all was forgiven and forgotten. Dustin must have been right when he said a good night’s sleep would cure all his anxiety.
The air in the house might have been cold that morning, but under his approving countenance, Katey might as well have been standing on a sunny beach in the Bahamas. Logan tore himself away and followed the others out the door.
“Wait, where are we going?” Katey asked as she shrugged into the jacket and wished she had put on warmer jeans, hastily running after her roommates.
***
After a long afternoon of extreme paintballing on the field they had set up in the woods on their property, the guys gathered together to head back to the house.
Each of them were covered in paint spo
ts, with the exception of Ben, who was a master of the game from his experience serving in four wars in his lifetime. Katey was the only one decked out in protective gear, while the others wore only their play clothes and jackets, which were torn and tattered from years of abuse.
Logan, Katey and Ben were riding in the bed of Dustin’s red pickup while Darren sat in the passenger seat in the front. Even with the loud rolling engine and bumping ride back to the house, Katey somehow managed to pass out from exhaustion with her head leaning against Logan’s chest.
They all saw how she did her best to keep up as they dodged and bolted between hiding places for hours. She was no match for their speed and reflexes, but the others accommodated to her handicap by slowing down a bit. Katey even managed to get a few genuine shots on the guys, which sent her into fits of victorious giggles. Logan loved to hear her laugh and enjoy herself.
Dustin had been right about sleeping on the issue. It allowed Logan to somehow reset his worries, and though forgetting his blunder was not an option, he was able to put it behind him, unlike other things.
Logan watched her sleep, admiring her soft features and enjoyed the warmth of her body against his own. The other three kept a close eye on the two, with Dustin constantly glancing in his rearview mirror and Darren craning his head around to check occasionally. Why they were so concerned, Logan didn’t know. It wasn’t as if he would do something foolish in front of them in the back of a bouncing pickup truck.
Once they arrived home, Logan carefully scooped Katey into his arms and cradled her to his chest as the rest made their inside through the back door that led to the billiard room towards the back of the house. They all slipped off their muddy shoes at the door and stripped their shirts from their muscular bodies so they could be thrown in the wash, but Logan only kicked off his boots, being mindful not to jostle Katey too sharply with his movements.
Darren eyed Logan, who was staring down at the sleeping human in his arms with a look of utter entrancement. The boy hadn’t moved far from the door as the rest headed towards the kitchen for dinner.
“You might want to take her upstairs, Logan,” the alpha advised.
Logan’s head snapped up as if he had just awoken from his daydream. He nodded, made his way through the kitchen, into the living room and up the stairs. It didn’t take long for him to realize the others were following him too. How long would it take for them to trust him?
He lowered her onto the bed with the utmost care, as if she were a glass figurine, liable to break at any moment. He then cautiously slid her dirty jacket and shoes off.
“She sure seemed to have a fun time today,” Dustin whispered from the doorway.
“It’s a good thing,” Darren replied. “She needed a little fun after all she’s been through.”
Logan gently pushed her legs under the covers, tucked the blankets up to her chin and slid her glasses from her face to place on her nightstand.
Ben gave a wide yawn and briskly shook her head, much like a wolf would. “Yeah, if you call shooting up your teachers fun,” he quipped.
“You should have let her get a couple of shots in on you,” Dustin snapped.
“Like you were?”
“Of course, I was.”
“You know if we were actually going at our natural speed she would never have gotten any shots in at all.”
“That’s not the point, Ben,” Darren interjected. He turned to Logan who was sitting on the edge of the bed, crinkling Katey’s jacket between his hands and staring fondly down at her. “Logan, you coming? You need to get something to eat before going to bed. You haven’t eaten since lunch.”
Logan glanced up to Darren and nodded, a remorseful look in his eyes that puzzled his guardians. “Yeah, I’ll be right down. Just give me a minute.”
Ben was the first to walk away, soon followed by Dustin who only shrugged to Darren in passing. Darren watched Logan gaze upon Katey for a little longer, and then turned away to exit down the hall.
Logan didn’t want to leave Katey’s side. In the darkness, he could see her tranquil face and smiled. Hardly knowing why, he stood and gently planted a kiss on the crown of her head. When he pulled away, he lingered a moment longer to affectionately stroke his fingers along her soft hair. Logan likened her to Sleeping Beauty and wished with all that was in him that he could have been her Prince Charming to wake her from the spell. He wanted a happily ever after for both of them.
He stood up straight and exhaled deeply before retreating down the hall.
As soon as he shut the door, Katey’s eyes cracked open a bit. She grinned and snuggled deeper under the covers to finally surrender herself to sleep.
Chapter 23
The next morning, the teachers were sitting at the glass dinette in their flannel pajama bottoms, eating their breakfasts. It consisted mostly of eggs and other breakfast meats like sausage and bacon with a glass of water for each of them.
Logan stood alone leaning against the kitchen island, his eyes fixed on the window just above the sink. He was lost in thought and the other knew it. He was also listening to the running water upstairs. Katey was taking an early morning shower to wash away the grim and dirt from their paintballing the day before.
As he listened to her lather soap and sigh under the therapeutic hot water, Logan had to fight the lustful thoughts that bashed against the doors of his mind, threatening to invade and complicate his life even more. He’d just gotten over one humiliating slip up and he wasn’t in the mood to undergo another.
“Logan,” Darren said, “today is the first day of semester exams. Remember, today is your fourth and third period exams, tomorrow is sixth and fifth, and then Wednesday is second and first. You’ll be having a pretty short day, so we expect you to come straight home.”
Logan heard his alpha’s lecture, but his mind wasn’t with him in the kitchen.
The guys all knew from his vacant, distracted stare that he wasn’t listening either. Logan was snapped from his concentration when Ben pointed his fork at the boy.
“I’m telling you, Logan, don’t even think about it.”
Logan looked to his mentors and resisted the urge to glare. “Think about what?”
“You know what I mean. Don’t you be getting any thoughts about Katey, ya hear?”
“So what if I have thoughts? I can do as I please,” Logan replied defensively.
“Not until I release you from this pack, you won’t,” Darren added calmly while chewing on a stick of greasy bacon.
“And when will that be?” Logan asked, moving to the fridge to pour a glass of milk for himself.
“John didn’t release me for nearly two centuries, so what do you think?”
Logan rolled his eyes at the mention of Darren’s former mentor, the loup-garou who practically raised him after he discovered what he was. Darren behaved as an alpha the way John had taught, while adding in a few of his own personal flourishes to the job title. However, it was a weekly thing to hear the name uttered under this roof.
Logan had met John before on many occasions and had the utmost respect for the alpha, which was never questioned. He just wished that Darren did not use the same template as John, so to speak.
Dustin raised an eyebrow to his alpha. “Not to defend the boy, but you released me after only half a century.”
Darren dropped his fork and gestured to Ben. “Yes, and see what happened?”
Ben wrinkled his forehead and looked between the two. “Don’t be using me as evidence against him.”
“Fine, then I’ll use Chicago as an example,” Darren countered, motioning his hand to Logan this time.
Logan took a deep swig of milk and growled, “Do you have to keep throwing Chicago in my face like that?”
“Why are we even arguing?” Dustin exclaimed, leaning back in his chair and spreading his arms out in amazement.
“I told Logan to keep his hands off Katey,” Ben reminded as he cut into one of his sausage with the edge of his fork.
&
nbsp; “Well, Logan, have you had sex with her yet?” Dustin asked bluntly.
Logan’s lips curled into a sneer. “No.”
“Have you kissed her yet?”
“No.”
“Then there is nothing to worry about!” Dustin cried with a wide grin and returned to his breakfast.
“Logan, why aren’t you eating?” Darren asked suddenly, seeing that the boy hadn’t even attempted to make his breakfast yet.
Darren had become more overbearing as of late, and Logan was growing weary of it.
Ever since the accident, Logan had adopted a nasty attitude that Darren had never seen in him before. He thought it was because of the accident, but he went further to speculate that it could have been something involving Katey herself. Darren wanted to press the matter, but with Logan’s increasingly fragile temper, he didn’t want to activate that landmine again.
Logan turned to grab a bowl down from the cabinets and his head instantly perked up as the sound of the water stopping above them. Even the teachers paused in their eating to listen to her footsteps that trailed out of the bathroom and back into her bedroom.
“Just because he hasn’t yet, doesn’t mean he won’t,” Ben refuted before taking a sip of his water.
“I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, if you don’t mind,” Dustin responded in frustration.
“Have you forgotten whose genes he has?”
Darren couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at that comment.
Dustin’s eyebrows furrowed in agitation. “Yes, and that means he’s got a good enough sense of self control not to do something stupid.”
“Like go after a married woman?” Darren muttered with his mouth full of pan-seared ham.
Dustin rolled his eyes and dropped his fork to his plate. “That might as well be my ‘Chicago’, Darren. Must you bring that up? It was only a couple of days and nothing happened. I’ll bet you tons of people were having affairs on the ship that weekend.”
“And you know what would have happened if we hadn’t hit the iceberg and docked in New York as originally planned. She would have tried to leave her husband for you, and then what?”
The Enigma (The Loup-Garou Series Book 1) Page 29