Shame and anger poured through me in equal measure. He had been listening outside the door! "You heard," was all I could say. Part of me wanted to apologize, and part of me wanted to smack him.
"I have sensitive hearing," he said, before spinning on his heel and turning away.
Shit. The one guy I had just been told could keep me alive was pissed at me. Recipe for disaster. Why did I piss on everything that loved me? It was like this self-sabotage mechanism I had. Every boyfriend that got too close or too serious, I messed it up. Well, at least now I had a hundred grand to blow on the therapy I so desperately needed.
I followed Logan's chiseled naked back out of the VIP lounge, squeezing my way through the packed crowed, trying not to ogle at the way his muscles moved when he walked. The music changed to something more upbeat and the crowd suddenly tightened in on me, blocking my view of Logan.
"Excuse me." I lightly nudged the people nearest me to no avail. I wasn't an overly social person, so a crowd like this had my heart racing out of my chest. They pushed closer in on me, causing me to nearly trip over.
"Ow!" I screamed as someone stepped on my toe. I started to panic. Right as I was about to really throw an elbow, a strong firm hand grabbed my ass. Hard.
"How about a lap-dance, sweet thang?" a deep husky voice murmured in my ear. The smell of alcohol and something more sinister wrapped around me and I froze, unsure of what to do. Eva said to lay low, but my inner feminist was three seconds away from treating this crowd to a live castration. My dragon was uncoiling inside of me, and I knew if I shifted here I was dead. But I'd just been sexually assaulted and it felt awful. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I just walked away and acted like it didn't happen.
Before I could work out my dilemma, Logan suddenly burst through the crowd like a bowling ball. People went flying and I was given a glimpse of Logan's face. Sheer and utter terror was painted on his features as he scanned the area looking for me. When his gaze met mine, I saw relief flood through him. Everyone had moved back except the man I had yet to look at behind me. He was so close I could feel his body heat.
"I said I wanted a lap dance, mutt!" I barely registered movement behind me when Logan burst into action. He was a blur, charging through the now-open space where the crowd had parted. His body slammed into the person behind me and only then did I turn around.
A tall man with a solid build was lying face-down on the floor. Logan had his right arm pinned behind him in what looked like a herculean grip.
"She doesn't work here. Apologize. Now." Logan's voice was so deep and throaty I could tell he was barely hanging on to his humanity.
"Screw you, mutt!" the man spat. With one jerk, Logan snapped the man's arm up, breaking it at the shoulder, and a bloodcurdling yell erupted from the man's lips.
"That didn't sound like an apology," Logan told the man writhing on the ground.
"Hey, get the hell off my friend!" A young heavily intoxicated man charged towards Logan. I was just figuring out whether I should somehow intervene when Keegan blasted past me and intercepted the drunken friend. "Once my packmate gets his apology, we will be on our way," Keegan calmly informed the friend. "And if anyone says the word mutt again, we'll be breaking both arms." Keegan glared at the man on the ground who had accosted me.
"Alright! I'm sorry, okay. I'm sorry!" The man groaned, his face contorted in pain, and Logan released his broken arm, standing.
Keegan let go of the friend but stood facing both men, giving them an alpha stare, making sure they left as Logan made his way over to me.
"Sloane, Jesus I'm so sorry. I should never have walked off like that." He looked distraught, which was interesting to me-that he was taking the burden for some drunk asshole who had grabbed me. I was ninety-nine percent sure he didn't know that the guy had grabbed me, and I wasn't going to tell him as I was pretty sure the man would lose his life.
"It's fine." I shrugged it off. Not the first time I had been groped in a crowded bar, and probably wouldn't be the last, but it still felt awful, violating.
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 of me.
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 treasured item.
"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 the club.
Logan just gave his friend a side look and something passed between them, causing Keegan to smile raucously.
"Why do they call us ‘mutts?'" I whispered.
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 than dogs."
Well, at least we knew that Eva's spell worked. To everyone in here we smelled like wolf shifters.
"You said you had a car around here?" Logan asked me. I was so close to him that I could feel the heat of his breath.
"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 my car.
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 our stuff?"
Keegan nodded. "No problem. See you there."
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 his babies.
"Ready?" Logan looked down at me and I nodded, pretty sure that if I spoke I might say something stupid like, ‘I'm still in heat.'
What had I gotten myself into with this dragon shifter?
6
IT WAS FREEZING out 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 the world.
"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 to pass.
"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, tanned chest.
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 hiking clothes.
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 my favorites.
"You're an artist?" Logan seemed surprised.
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 grainy paper.