“That, uh, sounds good.”
Koios groaned. “Come on, Logan. Give me something, here.”
Whether or not Koios wanted to admit it aloud, he’d learned to depend on Logan’s wisdom as much as Logan depended on him as the voice in his ear. Now that Koios was up close and personal with the alpha due to his current living situation, he found himself turning to Logan more frequently than ever for his thoughts.
Logan straightened and looked at Koios. “I think it’s a great plan. A smart one, in fact. I’m glad Ben talked you into it. I’m hoping he’ll tell me how he did that because you’re more stubborn than my mate, and that’s saying something.”
Koios shook his head and returned his attention to the hips and back on the screen. From everything he’d read, the condition could be treated with physical therapy and strength training, exactly as Ben had explained. It didn’t mean Koios liked it.
“He made therapy make sense. I’m not refusing treatment to be obstinate, Logan. These lumps on my back may be useless pains in the ass, but they’re mine. I’m not going to chase some mystical cure. Facts, though, I’ll believe. A solid plan with medical science backing it up is a great start.”
Logan spun Koios’s empty chair around and straddled it. “But not magic, even though you’re surrounded by it. We’ve seen more magic in the past few years than I even knew existed, yet you still don’t want to give magic a chance.”
Koios rubbed his chest, the familiar ache turning into a throb. Logan’s piercing brown eyes followed the movement.
“Don’t you think I’ve been experimented on enough?” Koios hated the weakness his confession revealed. He’d buried the memories of his captivity as a child deep, but his first thought every time someone offered him up as a sacrificial lamb to the hell prince was that a god had done this to him in the first place. Why let the son of a goddess have the chance to finish the job?
Logan remained silent for a long minute. “Fair point. Ben is a good doctor. If he says physical therapy will help, I believe him. The Jerricks know their business. They’re good. I trust them with my pack.”
The words carried weight that Koios couldn’t quite understand. He’d not been a true pack member before, but even he knew that an alpha didn’t trust just anyone with their pack. Koios had watched Logan transform from a lone soldier to an alpha with a growing pack over their time working together. He had to admit, the change looked good on Logan.
“They saved my brother’s life. I’m well aware of their abilities.”
Logan crossed his arms over the chairback and leaned forward. “You’re aware of a lot of people and their abilities. I’ve never learned exactly how you manage to do it.”
Koios chuckled and turned back to the screen. “So you’re finally going to ask, huh? The question you’ve been wanting to ask from the first moment you heard my voice.”
“Why me?” Logan asked.
“That’s the one.” If only the answer were as simple as the question. “I spent a lot of years learning everything I could about computers. I knew my knowledge would keep my family safe. It was all I could do trapped in the basement, unable to be out in the world like my brothers and sisters. I started trying to identify shifters back then to keep tabs on them. I did it as practice, mostly. Created files on people I thought I could identify, tracked them, then tried to prove I was right.”
“And that led you to me?”
“It did. I had my eyes on a bar. A lot of shifters came in and out of there. You were one of them. I used a combination of a picture I grabbed from the security cameras and the credit cards they ran that night to put a name to your face.”
Logan shook his head. “Well that’s not creepy at all.”
Koios chuckled. “I know. I’ve never pretended everything I’ve done in the past is noble or even legal. But the thing is, I learned more about your background, and you stood out from the rest. How the hell had a wolf gotten into the military? Where was your pack? Why were you alone? I had questions.”
“I’m not sure I could have answered them. Not then, anyway.”
“Crisis after crisis rocked the world around me. I wanted to help. And I needed someone I could trust, Logan. Someone with training I didn’t have. So I watched and waited. And when things started going to hell around here, I made the call.”
“And the rest is history.”
“Something like that,” Koios said. “I didn’t expect…all this. I put you together with Gideon and Aleron because they were trusted by the hellhounds. They were familiar faces around some of the key players, and we weren’t.”
“And Scout?”
“Well, he needed something to do with his life. He needed to help others, but he had no interest in medicine like his dad and brother. He was in the same shoes I was. We’d both been held hostage as children and used as experiments for some whacked-out, power-hungry god. Both of our brothers ended up mated to the Chosen One and fought a battle where we couldn’t help. Scout needed to help. So did I.”
Logan nodded. “You did a good thing, Koios. This pack…Bailey…I never knew what it would be like to have a pack of my own. It’s the most precious gift, and I have you to thank for it.”
Koios scoffed. “No, you don’t. I didn’t know any of this would happen, Logan. You can give me credit for pushing you in the right direction, but that’s it. What you built? That’s all you.Youmade this happen. All I wanted was a couple guys who knew how to kick ass and take names.”
“You’re part of it now, Koios. You’ve been part of my pack since the beginning. The voice in my ear, the voice I trusted. I know you’re holding back because this isn’t what you thought you were building. But you’re one of mine, too. I’ll get you to admit it one of these days.”
Koios’s heart skipped a beat at the thought. He rubbed his chest again. “My brothers and sisters are my pack, Logan.”
