“Okay, if you say so. I’m just glad Marco doesn’t know about any of this. He’d have a cow if he could see me now. ”
Ian had been at first surprised, then excited, and finally horrified to see Logan climbing slowly up to the top of the falls. Hunters were right below them—all they had to do was look up.
Just as Ian was about to break cover to draw their attention away from Logan, Logan stood up and waved his arms, then yelled something down at them. They jumped to their feet and yelled back up. Ian’s blood froze in his veins. He’d actually begun to hope Logan had been telling him the truth, and he hadn’t betrayed him, but there was the proof staring him in the face. Beside him, Marco put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Suddenly Marco froze too. Nicky stood up beside Logan, smiling and looking quietly at ease. “Oh my God!” Marco said, his voice registering too many emotions to catalog.
They watched and listened in horror as the two young men had a friendly talk with the Hunters below and then climbed down to them. Almost in shock, they watched as they came down into the camp and shook hands with the leader, who motioned for them to sit beside him at the campfire.
Unable to watch any longer, Ian fell down on his backside. Marco watched for a few more seconds before falling down beside him.
“Now what?” Ian asked bitterly.
Marco got a hard expression on his face. “We wait until the time is right and move in. ”
“What are you going to do?”
Marco took a deep breath. “I’m going to get my mate back. Whatever it takes, Nicky’s coming home with me. ”
Ian nodded. “I agree. The same for Logan. Let’s do it. ”
Logan stepped forward to shake Dawson’s hand . “This is a friend of mine—Nicky uh…” “Anderson,” Nicky supplied. “Nice to meet you. ”
“You too, Nicky. Well, Logan, your father will be thrilled I’ve found you. I’m sure your
family will be happy too, son. Please sit down for a minute. We were about to go hunting for some game, but now we need to break camp right away and take you two back home to civilization. We’ll get moving. ”
“Thanks, but we do need a little rest first. ” Logan smiled at Dawson. “When I spotted you
out here, I couldn’t believe it. What are you doing here, Dawson?Don’t you usually stay close to the general?”
“Yes, but since you disappeared, along w ith that wolf, he’s been frantic about you. When we saw you were tied and gagged on the monitor tapes, we feared the worst. We saw some young men dressed as guards taking you down the halls. ” He slanted a hard look at Nicky. “We’ve been in the woods around the wolf compound, hoping for a sighting of you. I hope you weren’t hurt in any way, Logan. ”
“No , not at all, this time. They kept me in a basement cell, about all they can do now that I’m Werekin. Nicky was in another one. Together we escaped. We’ve been hiding out in the woods, trying to make our way back down to Brevard so I could contact the general. ”
“I’m so glad we decided to check out this part of the woods. And you’re sure you haven’t been abused?” “No, not this time, though they were pretty brutal the first time before that bastard bit me, thinking they’d turn me into their slave. You can see it didn’t work. ” He laughed. Something occurred to him that hadn’t before. “I don’t understand why my father didn’t move the facilityafter he learned I’d been captured. He had to know they’d torture me for information. It’s not like him to take a chance I wouldn’t break. I mean I was sure after that long a time, he’d have moved everything out of the compound and fed them a bunch of crap. I figured if I could get out of their compound, I had a chance to escape. I was really surprised when I found the warehouse still packed. ”
“Oh yes, empty crates. That was a stroke of genius on your father’s part. He knew since they didn’t kill you when they took you, they would torture information out of you. We moved everything to the Cummings basecamp. ”
The way a smirk teased the corner of Dawson’s lips, Logan knew Dawson was dying to say since you didn’t get killed when they attacked and didn’t have balls enough to kill yourself,he knew they’d torture it out of you. He set his own features not to take the bait, and swallowed down the disgusting idea his father deliberately left him, certain he’d be tortured and break, to set a trap for the wolves.
Dawson continued. “He set up a continuous guard on the most likely targets, hoping to snare someone in the leadership. He knew the smartest place for them to strike would be our munitions. We backed off on random attacks to watch their compound and radioed ahead as soon as your little group left there. Sure enough, that’s where you took them. ”
“Yeah, it worked great, only the wolves thought I must have tipped you off. The big one you captured along with me didn’t believe me when I denied it. ”
“It was all your father’s idea. Sacrifices sometimes have to be made for the good of humanity. I’m glad it turned out well in the end. ” The smirk went full force. “I hope that didn’t make it even harder on you when they took you again. Well, if you’ve rested, let’s be on our way. Stand up, boys, and let me tie your hands. ” He made a hand motion to the men with him.
Nicky jumped to his feet in alarm, and Logan stood slowly, putting a hand on Nicky’s arm to calm him even though five men had shifted to encircle them and cover them with their weapons.
“Whoa there, Dawson. You don’t need to tie us. We surrendered, remember? You granted us asylum. ”
“That was beforeI got a good look at your friend here. Did you really think we wouldn’t recognize the alpha’s mate? We’re not going to let him slip through our fingers. Your father is going to be an exceptionally happy man when he sees you and your friend. He’s a brilliant man, and he damn sure read you right. He knew you didn’t have the balls to stand up to torture and would spill your guts. The only thing your father didn’t anticipate was them turning you into a wolf whore. Or did you think he wouldn’t know what it meant when you said they’d turned you to—what is it you called it—Werekin? You must have really twitched that ass of yours around, doing whatever it took to save your life, and getting the beta in the process. Yourfather didn’t buy any of that crap you fed him anymore than I buywhat you’re trying to feed me now. He put a bounty on your head, a nice big fat one. Them taking you off again fouled up his plans for you. ”
Logan went dead inside. “What plans?”
“You didn’t think the doctor took all that blood from you and your fuck buddy just for fun, did you?” He chuckled. “No, he wanted to research what went on with your blood because of the feedings for a while before he killed that fucking wolf. Then he was going to switch you off to another wolf’s blood, to see if you really couldn’t survive on another’s, and if you did, take you off all of it to watch what happened to you. He wanted to see how much difference it made in you too, or did you think we wouldn’t have noticed you’ve put on a good fifteen pounds of muscle and healed in a matter of days after that flogging I gave you?”
Nicky gasped, staring at Logan. Logan commented calmly. “That’s about what I would expect from the psycho son-of-a-bitch. ”