Logan stepped closer, his eyes going to slits. “It’s not fine and I’ll never let it happen again.” The sincerity in his voice, the loyalty, it knocked the breath right out ofme.
I felt my dragon rising up, sending warm pulses of heat through me. All I could do was nod. Logan tucked a naked arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his body, and walked me the rest of the way out of the club like a treasureditem.
“Nice shoulder lock on that guy,” Keegan said as he walked next to us as we made our way to where the rest of the pack stood at the front of theclub.
Logan just gave his friend a side look and something passed between them, causing Keegan to smileraucously.
“Why do they call us ‘mutts?’” Iwhispered.
Keegan groaned. “Because even though most of the trash in here are barely ten percent sorcerer, they still hold themselves above us. Wolf is the most common shifter animal and to them we are little more thandogs.”
Well, at least we knew that Eva’s spell worked. To everyone in here we smelled like wolfshifters.
“You said you had a car around here?” Logan asked me. I was so close to him that I could feel the heat of hisbreath.
“Yeah, but it’s full of stuff, so it can only fit two people.” I had been in a transition period of my life when the Grand Canyon fall happened. And by transition, I mean homeless and sleeping in mycar.
Logan nodded as we reached Nadine and the others. “Keegan, I’ll go with Sloane to grab her car. Then let’s all meet at the ranch. We need to regroup on the living situation. Can you run by the house and pick up Mittens? Pack some of ourstuff?”
Keegan nodded. “No problem. See youthere.”
Having a half-naked sexy dragon shifter with his arm around me … while he made plans to save his pet kitten … made my ovaries ache for hisbabies.
“Ready?” Logan looked down at me and I nodded, pretty sure that if I spoke I might say something stupid like, ‘I’m still inheat.’
What had I gotten myself into with this dragonshifter?
6
IT WAS FREEZINGout and we were both half naked, Logan with his shirt off, me with my ass hanging out of his shirt. We were quite the pair as we walked side by side down Main Street towards my silver RAV-4. When my mom died, there was a small life insurance policy through her job as a school teacher, enough to pay for her cremation and this car. I didn’t have payments on it, and since I bought it with her death money, it was special to me. Almost like she had given it to me. Although I would rather have my mother back than any car in theworld.
“When I realized the hunters were following me, I kept my car here and grabbed a rental. I didn’t want them to learn my name or license plate or anything,” I told Logan as we waited for a car topass.
“Smart,” Logan said as we crossed the street. “We’ll need to talk about that. I’ll need details about who came for you. How many times? Were there different groups? Stuff like that.” I could see goosebumps had broken out on his tattooed, tannedchest.
Pulling my gaze away from the eye candy, I pointed to my car. “That’s me.” Bending low, I pulled the magnetic hide-a-key off my bumper. Every time I shifted, my clothes tore, so I had lost my original set of keys when I fell. I had no belongings left except this car, which luckily still held my wallet and laptop. My cellphone and camping pack were sitting at the bottom of the Grand Canyon along with my hikingclothes.
Unlocking the car, I jumped in and pulled a stack of drawings and colored pencils off of the seat so Logan could sit down. One drawing fell and Logan picked it up. It was a drawing of the sun setting over the Phoenix skyline. In the center was a girl, me. I always painted me whether it looked like me or not. The girl had an eye patch on, was missing a leg, and had blood on her shirt. The title was “Love is War.” I drew it to help cope with my mom’s death. It was dark but one of myfavorites.
“You’re an artist?” Logan seemedsurprised.
I shrugged. “Kind of. I mean, not a lot of jobs for illustrators, so it’s more of a hobby.” In order to actually make money as an artist I would probably have to get an hourly job at a gallery or take up graphic design. I had a few graphics classes in college, but I couldn’t get past the computer aspect of it. Art should be done by messy hands on grainypaper.
“This is pretty amazing.” Logan was sitting in the front seat, awestruck, staring at the Phoenix skylinedrawing.
I suddenly felt naked, like fully naked. Art was personal and it wasn’t a finishedpiece.
“Thanks,” I said, snatching the piece from his hands and tossing it in the back as I cranked theheat.
I hopped up on my seat, on my knees, and turned around so I could rifle through my clothes. Pulling out a wrinkled t-shirt and jeans, I spun back around. Logan was looking at the back seat. My blanket and pillow were still laid out from when I had slept herelast.
An awkward silence stretched out as I wiggled into the jeans and then whipped off Logan’s shirt, tossing it to him. After putting on my own shirt, I turned to facehim.
“Alright, what do you need to know?” I asked, getting down to business. Anything I could tell him that would keep the hunters away from us was fine byme.
Logan eyed the back seat again. “Are you homeless?” His voice held not one ounce of judgment. It was full of compassion, and it made emotion rise up in mythroat.
I didn’t see how this was relevant to the hunters findingme…
