Page 82 of Callen's Captive
Chapter Seventeen
KATE
Five white wolves emerged from the trees, all at the same time. The wolves had surrounded her, Callen, and Blade. Worse, they were spread out, making it impossible to shoot more than one before the others would attack. Kate’s gun hand shook, and she didn’t know where to point, so she kept moving the gun from one wolf to the next.
“Shit,” Callen said, cursing beneath his breath.
“What?” she whispered.
“Drake’s here. I can smell him.”
Drake, the alpha with the virus that threatened to kill millions of humans, the one who’d infected Callen’s pack so that when he returned to his pack, he’d never be able to leave again. She’d lose Callen to his pack, and she couldn’t go with him.
As her gaze moved from wolf to wolf, wondering which one was Drake, they all shifted to human form. Despite all being white wolves, their human forms varied. Different color hair and eyes, even different skin tones. Two of the shifters she recognized as the ones who had taken her, the ones Blade had fought off and then Callen had scared off. They had returned with backup.
She aimed her gun at whichever shifter moved. Her hand was shaking, but hey, sometimes looking unpredictable was a good thing.
The last wolf finally shifted to human form. Black hair as dark as a raven stood out from all the others, as did his black eyes that she was sure could see right through her.
“Is that any way to say hello?” he said.
It was the smile that filled his face that made her tuck the gun in the back of her jeans and run into his arms.
“Kate!” Callen yelled. Her gut twisted at the panic in his voice. “It’s fine, Callen. This is Logan, the shifter I told you about.”
She had met Logan in person over a year ago by accident. She’d been stealing hard copy files from a WSSO warehouse at the same time he was there to, well, blow up the WSSO’s inventory of arms and propaganda materials. She’d spotted him first, warned him about a live security feed he hadn’t seen. Then Logan had returned the favor by getting her out of there before the place blew up. He didn’t have to do that; he could have left her in there to die.
They hadn’t had a chance to talk that night, but Logan returned to Riverview and tracked her down. As soon as he realized she could hack, they’d formed a quick alliance. She’d pass him information about places the WSSO owned, and he’d attack them. He attacked the WSSO in ways she never could.
He’d even come to Riverview a few times to sit and chat, swap exchange information on the WSSO and other anti-shifter groups. Logan had become a close ally in her fight against the WSSO. It wasn’t until only a few months ago when she’d told him about her parents that he’d offered to help her uncover the mystery behind their murders. He had his connections spanning many shifter communities. He said there was very little that happened in shifter territory that he couldn’t find out about. He was a wealth of information that she’d been lucky to find.
“That’s not Logan,” Callen said through clenched teeth.
“Of course, it is!” Kate threw her arms around Logan, who returned the hug and kissed her cheek.
“Kate, that’s Drake.”
She turned to Callen. The hard set of his face told her he was being serious, but it was Logan’s failure to deny Callen’s claim that worried her.
“Logan?” she asked, as he released her from the hug.
He placed his hand on her shoulder, despite Callen’s glare. “I don’t use my real name in the cities, love. It was never my intent to deceive you, but it was safer for both of us this way. I told you from the start that I have a high position and a lot of shifters depend on me. I have too many enemies to use my real name anywhere but here, where others already know me.
“But—”
Logan gently pressed a finger to her lips, quieting her. “There’s probably a lot you’ve already heard about me, and if you haven’t, you will. Not all of it nice, and some of it’s even true. But you need to keep one thing in mind, dear Kate—”
There was a clear growl from Callen when Logan—Drake—addressed her so familiarly. She glanced at Callen. Her shifter’s eyes had turned completely yellow, and they were shooting daggers at Logan. No, Drake. She needed to start thinking of him as Drake. Callen couldn’t move from Blade, and perhaps that was a good thing right now, because if looks could kill, Drake would have been skewed ten times over by now.
“Remember, there are two sides to every story,” Drake said.
She nodded, not sure what else to do. He had a point, and she had never known him to be anything except someone who delivered on his promises.
“What do you want from us?” Callen asked. “Why did your thugs kidnap her?”
Drake looked to her for clarification. “What does he mean by kidnap?”
She pointed at the two who’d taken her from Damien’s house. “They forced me to come with them.”
