“No new shifters are allowed onto the island your parents are headed to, where all the escapees go. But Mothecombe’s going to ask if they’ll make an exception under the circumstances.”
“Who the hell is Mothecombe?”
“He’s the alpha. We’re in his territory, his house.”
“Oh.” Cole swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Will I have to join a pack there? On the island?”
“If they agree to letting you in, then yeah, I’d expect so. They won’t want a strange new shifter running around unchecked.”
Cole shuddered. Having some stranger, a whole pack of strangers telling him what he could and couldn’t do was less than appealing. He’d have to do it too. Alpha’s fucking orders and all that crap. “And if they say no?”
“You could stay here. Join the Mothecombe Pack. Aaron seems to think—”
“Wait, who’s Aaron?” Where had all these new people come from?
“Aaron’s my best friend. He’s McKillan pack too. You can trust him,” he added when Cole stiffened. “He helped save us back at the cavern.”
An irrational flare of jealousy surged inside him at the fondness in Logan’s voice, and the words slipped out before he could stop them. “Are you and him together?”
Logan laughed. “God no. He’s like my brother.”
Cole grinned to himself.
“Anyway. Aaron said this place is remote enough that they could easily hide you from McKillan’s spies until you’re old news.”
“So I’d have to join this pack if I stayed here.”
“Yes.” Logan pulled back enough to see Cole’s face. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but at some point, you’re going to have to join a pack. Whether here or—” He stopped, and Cole rolled his eyes.
“Jersey or Guernsey, I’m assuming.
“Yeah.” Logan looked sheepish.
There was another option that Logan hadn’t mentioned. “Why can’t I go with you?”
“What?”
“I don’t think I’m imagining that there’s something going on between us, am I?”
“No.”
“Then why can’t I go wherever you’re going?” Unless of course Logan didn’t want him to? But Cole didn’t think that was the case. Logan wasn’t the type to play games, and his gut told him that Logan liked him.
More than liked him.
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
“You can’t come with me, because I’m going back to London with Aaron.”
“But—” Words failed him. He was obviously missing something. “They know you helped me. You killed members of your own pack, for fuck’s sake.”
“I know, and it’s complicated. Jacob and Aaron covered for me, and with Tim and the others dead, there’s no evidence linking me to your escape.”
He went on to explain the story they’d come up with, but Cole heard it all in a daze. He was going back to a pack that had tortured him for information, wanted him dead. “You can’t,” he whispered. Terror welled up inside him at the thought of what might happen to Logan if he returned. “They’re not going to just welcome you back with open arms, are they?”
Logan glanced down at the floor and shook his head. “No. It’ll be rough for a while.”
“Then why?”
