Page 45 of Marked For A Bite
Zoe extended her hand without hesitation, though Logan's tension beside her ratcheted up several degrees.
The moment Rhea's weathered fingers made contact with Zoe's palm, the older woman's violet eyes rolled back, her entire body going rigid as visions flooded her consciousness.
Time seemed suspended as they waited, the only sound Logan's carefully controlled breathing and the crackling of logs in Rhea's fireplace. Zoe felt power swirling around them, ancient and wild and completely beyond her understanding.
When Rhea's eyes snapped open, they blazed with shock and something that looked like joy.
"Your father," she whispered urgently. "He's alive."
The words hit Zoe like a freight train, stealing the breath from her lungs.Alive?
"What?" Zoe's voice cracked with disbelief.
"He's being held somewhere on these pack lands," Rhea continued, her grip tightening on Zoe's hand. "Imprisoned for twenty-five years. The vision showed me stone walls and magical bindings designed to contain a powerful wolf shifter."
Zoe's world tilted sideways as twenty-five years of believing her father was dead crumbled in an instant.
"No," she breathed, though deep in her soul she felt the truth of Rhea's words. "My mom made it seem like he died when I was a baby."
"Your mother hid the truth about your father to protect you," Rhea said gently. "Just as she hid your true nature until your twenty-fifth birthday."
Hot tears spilled down Zoe's cheeks as grief and rage warred in her chest. Her father—her flesh and blood, the other half of her heritage—had been suffering in captivity, while she had been living with her mother in a happy home free to chase her dreams.
"Where is he being held?" Zoe demanded, jerking to her feet with such violence that her chair toppled backward.
"Zoe." Logan's commanding voice cut through her rising hysteria. "We need more information before?—"
"We need to find him NOW!" Zoe's eyes blazed bright gold as her wolf surged to the surface, responding to her emotional turmoil. "He's been imprisoned for twenty-five years while I lived my life thinking he was dead!"
"Listen to me." Logan rose slowly, his hands extended in a calming gesture that only inflamed her further. "We can't go tearing through the territory blindly. We need a plan, intelligence, backup?—"
"Don't you dare try to control me right now," Zoe snarled, her canine teeth beginning to lengthen as her control slipped. "That's my father out there, suffering because of the same Council corruption that tried to have ME killed!"
Her rational mind recognized that Logan was right—charging off without a plan was suicide. But the newly awakened daughter in her, the girl who'd spent her entire life mourning a parent who was actually alive and captive, couldn't hear reason through the roaring in her ears.
Before anyone could stop her, Zoe bolted for the door, desperate for air and space to process this earth-shattering revelation.
TWENTY
LOGAN
Logan visibly forced himself to count to sixty, his rational mind wrestling with every protective instinct screaming at him to immediately follow his distraught mate. The sound of Zoe's angry footsteps hitting the forest floor echoed through Rhea's hut like gunshots, each step driving spikes of anguish through their bond that made his teeth grind.
Sixty seconds,he reminded himself grimly.Give her that much space to process before you go after her.
He understood her fury completely. Hell, if someone had walked up to him right now and announced that his father and sister were still alive—which was impossible since Logan had held their bloody, lifeless bodies in his own arms that terrible night—he'd tear through every obstacle between him and them without a second thought.
But ten years as Silvercrest pack's most lethal enforcer had taught him that impulsiveness got you killed. Fast.
When his internal countdown reached zero, Logan rose from his chair with predatory grace. "I'm going to her."
"Give her time to—" Lena started.
"She's had her time," Logan cut off, already moving toward the door. His hand automatically checked the tactical knife onhis right thigh, a gesture so ingrained he barely realized he'd done it.
Outside Rhea's hut, the autumn afternoon air carried the scent of dying leaves and approaching winter, but Logan's enhanced senses locked immediately onto Zoe. He found her twenty feet from the porch, collapsed to her knees on the forest floor, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
The sight hit him like a physical blow. His fierce, stubborn mate—the woman who'd killed for him without hesitation, who'd faced down his brutal training regimen with fierce joy—was breaking apart right in front of him.
