Page 49 of Marked For A Bite
Logan's hand found her hand, his fingers intertwining with hers in a gesture that sent warmth shooting through her despite the tension crackling in the air.
"Time to go gear up properly," he said, his eyes meeting hers with an intensity that made her stomach flutter.
He led Zoe out the front door of Kieran's cabin and down the wooden porch steps. She felt a pulse of nervous anticipation with each step they took toward Logan's cabin.
"Two hours isn't much time," Logan said, "but it's enough to train you on firearms and poison protocols."
Zoe's steps faltered slightly. "Poison protocols?"
Logan's expression was grim as he slowed his pace to match hers. "Granite Ridge has been known to use poison-tipped arrows and bullets. If you get hit, you need to know how to extract them properly or the toxin will kill you faster than the wound itself."
This just got very real,Zoe thought, her stomach lurching at the casual way Logan delivered this deadly information.
They reached Logan's fortified cabin in record time—thirty minutes of Logan pushing their pace through the forest until Zoe's lungs burned. Once inside, he immediately headed to what she now realized was his weapons cache.
"Strip the harness," he commanded, his voice taking on that absolute authority that made her wolf sit up and take notice. "I'm upgrading your loadout."
Zoe fumbled with the leather straps, her fingers suddenly clumsy from the pressure of their impending mission. Logan, on the other hand, moved with lethal efficiency around his cabin, gathering additional weapons like a man preparing for war.
"Two Glock 19s," he said, pressing the sleek black pistols into her hands. "Fifteen rounds each, one in the chamber. Safety's here, trigger pull is smooth, aim center mass."
The weight of the guns felt foreign and terrifying in her palms. "Logan, I've never held a gun."
"You have now." He then guided her hands into proper position, his larger fingers wrapping around hers todemonstrate the grip. The contact sent heat shooting up her arms despite the deadly seriousness of the situation. "Feel that? Firm but not death grip. The gun's an extension of your arm, not a separate tool."
For the next hour in his training gym, Logan drilled her relentlessly. He taught her to draw, aim, and fire in fluid motions until muscle memory began to take hold. His hands were everywhere—adjusting her stance, correcting her grip, and steadying her shoulders when the recoil made her stumble.
"Again," he barked when she hesitated on a reload. "In the field, hesitation kills you."
And gets my father killed too,Zoe reminded herself, forcing her shaking fingers to slam the magazine home with more confidence.
Logan moved to poison protocols last, producing vicious-looking arrows and bullets from his collection. "Granite Ridge favors neurotoxins that cause paralysis within minutes. You extract by cutting perpendicular to the wound path—never pull straight out or you'll tear the blood vessels and spread the poison faster."
He demonstrated on a training dummy, his knife work precise and surgical. "Apply pressure here and here to slow circulation. You've got roughly four minutes before full nervous system shutdown."
Four minutes.The timeframe seared itself into her brain.Four minutes to save my own life.
As the sun began its descent toward the horizon, Logan finally declared her ready. They left his cabin armed to the teeth—Zoe now carried the additional Glocks in shoulder holsters, with extra ammunition secured to her thighs alongside her throwing knives.
The meetup point at the Silvercrest-Granite Ridge border buzzed with controlled energy when they arrived thirty minuteslater. Forty pack members in tactical gear stood clustered around a detailed map, their faces painted with black camouflage streaks.
Maya approached them first, her copper hair braided back. "Any last-minute intelligence on the target?"
"Negative," Logan replied. "We go in with what we have."
Kieran's commanding voice cut through the low conversations. "Final briefing. Alpha team—Logan, Zoe, Lena, and five pack members—takes point through the maintenance tunnels. Malcolm's Beta team creates diversion at main entrance. Gamma secures escape routes and provides medical support."
Logan stepped forward, his reputation as the Silvercrest pack's deadliest enforcer immediately affording him the attention from every pack member present. "Delta team waits ten minutes, then follows Alpha through the tunnels. Sigma waits another ten after that. Hand signals only once we breach the facility perimeter. Anyone who compromises operational security answers to me personally."
The threat in his voice was unmistakable. Several pack members shifted nervously.
Zoe's stomach churned violently.My father is somewhere under that concrete fortress. Twenty-five years of imprisonment because he fell in love with a human.
Logan appeared beside her, his hand finding the small of her back. "Breathe," he murmured in her ear. "Remember what I taught you—center yourself, focus on the immediate objective, and let muscle memory guide your actions."
His familiar scent of mountain rain and masculine heat washed over her, temporarily settling her racing heart. "What if I freeze up? What if I can't do this?"
"You can do this," Logan said with certainty. "I've seen you fight. I've seen you kill to protect what matters. This is exactly the same."
