by Abby Weeks
“Yes. I wasn’t sure of his name, but I knew who he was.”
“Did you kill him on purpose?”
“What?” Logan said.
“You heard me.”
“Where is this coming from? Why are you asking me that?”
“In the village, I looked. The only two men you’d killed were Hunter and Heath, and they were also the only two who accompanied me up here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Logan said.
Aisha’s cheeks were flushed. She knew there was something to this. She wasn’t just imagining it all. Logan had killed those two men.
“You ripped out their throats,” she said.
“I had to. You saw what they were doing to me. They almost killed me.”
“But theirs were the only throats you ripped out.”
“I don’t know,” Logan said. “It was an incredibly stressful situation. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“And in Fairbanks?”
“What about Fairbanks?”
“Did you know what you were doing down there?”
Logan looked at her. Their eyes locked. She knew he was hiding something from her.
“You heard me. I was seducing human women.”
Even the thought of him with human women drove her wild with jealousy. She was his handmaiden. He was her alpha. She was the only woman he had any business trying to mate with.
“How many women?” she said.
“What?”
“How many women did you seduce?”
“What difference does it make?”
“I want to know,” she said, beginning to lose her temper.
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Did you meet a girl called River?” Aisha said. “At the strip club in Fairbanks, did you see her?”
Logan looked away. Aisha knew it. He had seen River.
“No,” he said.
“Why are you lying?”
He looked guilty. He also looked embarrassed. “You shouldn’t be asking me so many questions,” he said.
“Why not? What are you afraid I’ll find out?”
“Nothing. I already said what I was doing. What could I possibly be trying to hide?”
Aisha wasn’t sure. She didn’t know what he could be hiding, but she was certain there was something. There was no doubt about that.
“Why did you lie about seeing River?” Aisha said.
Logan looked away. Then he spoke to her firmly. There wasn’t anger in his voice, but he meant every word he said.
“Look, it’s not for the female to question the alpha. It’s not your place. What I was doing in Fairbanks was something I had every right to do. It had to be done. It was something my pride as a male, my honor, depended on. I had no choice.”
Aisha was confused. What was he talking about? How could his pride depend on trying to get with a stripper in Fairbanks? That didn’t make any sense at all. And then, suddenly, the penny dropped.
“You weren’t seducing women at all, were you?”
He looked at her and then looked away again.
“Of course I was,” he said. “You don’t go to a strip club for the food.”
Aisha felt a knot of emotion rise up into her throat. She suddenly wanted to cry.
“You were looking for information, weren’t you?”
“What?” Logan said. “Of course not.”
“You went to Fairbanks to speak to River.”
Logan was silent. He was looking at her, watching her figure out what had happened, and she thought that she could see in his eyes a spark of admiration for her intelligence.
“Logan,” Aisha said, “please tell me the truth.” Her voice broke as she spoke. She was crying.
“Why are you crying?” he said.
“Did Packer ever tell you about the night he got shot in the parking lot back in Fairbanks?” Aisha said.
Logan looked at her for a long time before answering.
“He told me all I needed to know.”
“Did he tell you that Heath and Hunter abused me?”
Logan nodded.
“And you went to Fairbanks why? To confirm it?”
Logan sighed. He knew she’d figured it all out. There was no point keeping anything secret from her anymore.
“I couldn’t just rip out their throats without getting a second account,” he said. “I knew what Packer had told me was true, but even still, I felt I had to go back to the scene of their crime if I was going to make them die for what they’d done.”
“I knew it,” Aisha said, emotion and relief flooding through her mind at once. “You killed Heath and Hunter because of what they did to me.”
“They forced you,” Logan said.
“Is that why you wouldn’t form the handmaiden’s bond with me?” she said.
“How could I, when I knew something like that had been done to you? I tried to do nothing. I thought murdering the only men you knew from home would be too traumatic for you. I thought I should let sleeping dogs lie.”
“But you couldn’t,” Aisha said.
“I thought I could. I tried to forgive them, but it wasn’t my place to forgive. I just couldn’t do it.”
“That’s when you ran off?”
“At the bonding ceremony, I realized what had to be done. I had to go to Fairbanks and make certain for myself that Packer hadn’t made some mistake. And then I had to kill the men who’d disrespected you. It was the only way I could go on to form the bond with you and still hold my head up high.”
Aisha couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe he’d done all that for her, just to protect her honor. She was so touched. She let the tears fall down her cheeks, and she didn’t care that he was looking at her while she was crying.
“I thought you didn’t want to mate with me,” she said softly through her tears.
“Aisha, of course I want to mate with you. I want nothing more in all the world. It’s in my genes. It’s in my body. It’s in my soul. I was made to mate with you. I’m the alpha of the last band of shifter brothers in the world. You’re the last handmaiden. It would go against our destinies if the two of us didn’t mate.”
“And what about your brothers?”
“Of course they have to mate with you too. You’re their only option. I’d never deprive them of that.”
“And you didn’t even sleep with River?” she said.
“Of course I didn’t. Why the hell would I do that when I had you?”
Aisha didn’t know what she felt. She was laughing and crying at the same time now. She got down from her chair and lay next to Logan. She would have jumped on top of him if it wasn’t for the pain it would cause his back. She lay next to him and brought her face up very close to his.
Her lips brushed off his. She held her breath, and then Logan put his mouth gently on hers. His tongue reached out and probed against her mouth, slipping inside it. She moaned in pleasure. It was the kiss she’d been waiting for. The last of the brothers, the oldest, the strongest, was finally giving himself to her. She loved each brother in his own way, but Logan had always been the most intimidating. She’d always seen it as her job to make sure all brothers were happy, and now that Logan was finally kissing her, she could finally see that she was on her way to succeeding.
She moaned as Logan’s tongue danced with hers, sliding all over her mouth. She sucked gently on his tongue as it played with hers.
“Logan,” she whispered.
“Aisha,” Logan said. “Will you mate with me?”
“Of course I will,” she said. “I’m dying to.”
Chapter 36
ONCE AISHA AND LOGAN HAD had that conversation, it seemed as if his healing process sped into overdrive. The next day he was up, walking around. The day after that he was able to remove the poultice Ma Hetty had put on his wounds. Aisha was amazed at how quickly his body seemed to come back to health. Within a couple of days, he said he was ready to go hunting.
His brothers weren’t so sure, but they agreed to take him out when he insisted. Once they’d left, Aisha was alone with Ma Hetty for the first time since speaking to Logan.
“You seem different,” Ma Hetty said, taking the seat next to Aisha on the porch.
She’d made some tea and handed Aisha a cup.
“Thank you,” Aisha said.
She took a sip of the tea and it soothed her.
“Are you going to tell me what you’ve been thinking about for the last few days?” Ma Hetty said.
Aisha smiled. She was getting used to the fact that she couldn’t hide her emotions from Ma Hetty.
“I spoke to Logan,” she said.
“Of course you did,” Ma Hetty said.
“He said that he wasn’t in Fairbanks to mate with humans.”
Ma Hetty smiled. She didn’t look at all surprised.
“You knew all along,” Aisha said.
“Of course I knew. I’ve known Logan his whole life. He wasn’t going to go looking for human females now that there was a handmaiden here.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t ask anything.”
Aisha sighed. “You knew I was worried. I was scared sick that he was going for other females.”
Ma Hetty smiled. “Some things you have to hear from the right person.”
Aisha nodded. That was true. Finding out from Logan what he’d been doing had been an extremely touching moment. Hearing that he had been avenging her, punishing Heath and Hunter for how they’d abused her, it had made her cry. She couldn’t believe that any man had cared enough about her to do something like that. She’d been so used to being ill-treated by men. It was still something foreign to her, to find out that people actually wanted to defend her.
“He told me the reason he’d gone to Fairbanks was to find out what Heath and Hunter had done to me.”
Ma Hetty nodded. “I knew as soon as I saw your boyfriend what kind of man he was. I thought there was no chance at all that any woman could have a good life with him. He was rotten to the core.”
“He was,” Aisha said. “But I was so clueless when I was younger that I didn’t know any better.”
“There are a lot of girls like that,” Ma Hetty said. “In fact, I would say that pretty much every girl goes through a period when she’ll take up with the exact opposite sort of man she should be going for.”
“I don’t know about other girls,” Aisha said, “but that was certainly true for me. It’s like, if you’ve never been treated right by a man, you don’t know what it feels like. And if you don’t know what love is supposed to feel like, you don’t know what to look for. And you don’t know that what you’ve got isn’t love.”
“That’s the thing,” Ma Hetty said. “How are you supposed to search for love when you don’t even know what it looks like?”
“But now that I’ve been up here with the brothers, now that I’ve seen the way they treat me, I suddenly know what love is supposed to feel like.”
“Just wait,” Ma Hetty said. “Things are just getting started for you, my dear. Now that Logan’s opened up to you, you’re going to see what love is really like. He’s the strongest male I’ve ever met. He’s the most passionate too. That’s why he disappeared. That’s how I knew that he wasn’t looking for women down in Fairbanks. It’s just not his way. Killing your ex, that surprised me, but that’s the kind of male he is. That’s a true alpha right there, Aisha. You hang on to him. He’ll take good care of you for the rest of your life. Once you form the handmaiden’s bond with Logan, he’ll die before he lets anything happen to you. He’ll die before he loses you.”
Aisha smiled. That sounded good to her. In fact, it sounded perfect, heavenly. She couldn’t believe how lucky she’d been. She was actually going to have a life where four amazing men, men who could turn into wolves, were going to care for her and protect her.
And the sex! The sex was amazing. It was stunning. She’d never even heard of anything like it. Having all those men inside her at the same time, feeling the strength and force of their powerful orgasms inside her, it was insanely pleasurable. She’d always thought of herself as a timid lover, but that was when she was with Heath. She hadn’t been able to trust Heath. Nothing had been right.
Everything was different now. Things were so different she couldn’t even recognize the life she’d known before.
“So you know what’s going to happen next?” Ma Hetty said.
“I think so,” Aisha said. “I’m going to bond with Logan. And then we’re going to mate.”
Ma Hetty laughed. “You’re right,” she said. “That’s exactly what’s going to happen, but you’re talking about it like you know exactly what that means.”
“Well, I did already do the same thing with the other three,” Aisha said.
“But Logan’s different. He’s a different beast. You’ll see.”
“What do you mean?” Aisha said.
“Oh, you’ll see,” Ma Hetty said, with a sly smile on her face.
Aisha grinned. She got butterflies in her stomach. Whatever Ma Hetty was alluding to, it gave Aisha quite a thrill. She looked at Ma Hetty. The older woman was thinking quietly.
“What are you thinking?” Aisha said. She could read Ma Hetty’s emotions and knew she was sad.
“Having you here,” she said, “it makes me think.”
“About if things had been different?”
“Yes,” Ma Hetty said. “If things had been different, if I hadn’t been forced to become a seer.”
“Well,” Aisha said, “maybe you could change that.”
Ma Hetty shook her head sadly. “I’m too old to change things now,” she said. “And besides, becoming a seer, it’s a permanent thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t go back. It’s for life.”
“Oh,” Aisha said. “Sorry.”
Ma Hetty nodded. “It is what it is,” she said. “Besides, there aren’t any males my age.”
Aisha got up and went over to Ma Hetty and hugged her.
Chapter 37
AISHA DIDN’T HAVE TO WAIT long till she was face to face with Logan. It happened the next day. She was sitting on the porch when he came up to her.
“You want to go for a ride?” he said.
“A ride?”
“On my back.”
Aisha was flattered but shy. “What about your wounds?” she said. “Are you ready for that?”
“The wounds are almost completely healed,” he said. “Come on and climb up on me. I want to show you something.”
“All right,” Aisha said, butterflies fluttering in her stomach.
Logan got up, and before her eyes, transformed into his wolf form. Aisha would never cease being amazed at that process. Logan looked up at her, his big wolf eyes glowing like golden orbs, and he saw how impressed she was. He crouched down for her.
Aisha climbed up onto his back, and in an instant Logan was rushing through the forest. Aisha felt like she’d never traveled so fast. She had to duck branches as Logan sprinted among the trees, and she had to cling tight as he leapt over logs and rocks. There were many times when she was sure she was going to fall off. She was breathless when he came to a deep ravine and ran across a fallen log that bridged it. She looked down and could see hundreds of feet into the darkness beneath her.
“Oh my God,” she said, breathlessly.
She wasn’t sure where Logan was taking her, but it took a long time to get there. They covered many miles as he sped through the forest. When he finally came to a stop, he was at a trail in the forest. It was a small track that looked like it had been made for logging equipment.
“What is this place?” she said.
She climbed off his back and he shifted into his man form. Aisha caught her breath when she saw him. He was sweating, breathing heavily, his muscular chest heaving with the effort of the journey.
“Come with me,” he said.
He led her alo
ng the path, and they came to what looked to be an abandoned village in the middle of the forest. There were about twelve rotten old log cabins, their windows broken, their roofs fallen in. It was a ghost town.
“This was a mining outpost,” Logan said.
The place was eerie. Aisha could imagine people peeping out of the windows at her, long lost souls, the ghosts of miners.
“It’s been abandoned for many years, but there was a time when it was a safe haven for shifters. The people who lived here would give harbor to us when we were being hunted. They protected many handmaidens.”
Aisha looked around. At first she’d thought the place had become rundown and abandoned over time, but as she looked a little closer, she began to see the signs of some violent event that must have taken place. Many of the cabins showed the signs of fire. There were bullet holes in the wood. And then, beyond the houses at the far end of the town, there was what appeared to be a makeshift graveyard.
That was where Logan was heading, and Aisha hurried to keep up with him. She didn’t want to be left alone in that place. She could almost hear the screams and shouts that would have accompanied whatever had taken place.
“What happened here?” she said quietly.
“There was a massacre. A bunch of loggers found out about the place, they rounded up a posse, and they came here with gasoline and guns and burned the place down.”
Aisha looked at the graves sadly. They were marked with the charred wood of the houses, a burned cross for each grave.
“You should sit down,” Logan said.
“Why?” Aisha said, nervously.
“Trust me,” he said.
Aisha sat on the fence around the makeshift cemetery. She looked at Logan expectantly. His face was full of love and sympathy.
“This is where your mother died,” he said.
Aisha didn’t understand what he’d said to her at first. It took a moment for the words to sink in. Then she put her hand over her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears, and her breath caught in her throat. Logan came toward her and put his arms around her.
“What?” Aisha said. “How is that possible?”
Logan was nodding. His strong arms were wrapped around her, and he held her as she let out sobs. She wasn’t sure what was so upsetting about the news. She’d always assumed her mother was dead. Now she knew for sure.