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  “Because I couldn’t think of anyone else,” Nadia got to her feet, her uneasiness spinning to fear again. “I had to risk it—I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Logan got out of his chair and met her, toe-to-toe. “Tell me why you really came up here.”

  Gods, was he not going to leave it alone? He towered over her, and she took a step back. “I told you. To get a job, start a career. You know, have a life.”

  “On your own.”

  “Yes, on my own.”

  “You wouldn’t be alone.” Logan’s voice was harsh. “You’d be unprotected, prey to every shark looking for a victim. Look what’s happened already.”

  He closed the small distance between them. When Nadia took another step back, he did too, and another, and another, until she banged against the wall and its peeling wallpaper.

  Logan caught her shoulders with strong hands, as intimidating as ever. He had the best eyes, tawny like a lion’s, and a stare that stabbed through her as though he knew all her secrets.

  All but one.

  “Being hunted wasn’t my idea,” Nadia said with heat. “I didn’t run up to the werewolves and yell, ‘Hi there, I’m a demon woman, helpless and alone, why don’t you chase me?’”

  “You didn’t have to. They knew. How did they?”

  “I don’t know!” she said in a near shout. “If this is all my fault, why did you bother to come after me? And help me? I’m a demon—what do you care?”

  Logan leaned closer, finger pressing his temple. “How could I not come after you? You’ve been burned in my brain since the day I met you.”

  Nadia wanted to laugh. “Because the mighty werewolf cop likes to keep track of the demon element in his city?”

  “No,” Logan snarled. Because of this.” He cupped his hands around Nadia’s face and covered her mouth with a searing kiss.

  Chapter Five

  Gods, she tasted good.

  Logan shuddered as she laced her fingers around the back of his neck, her lips opening to his. He slid his tongue between them and stroked through her mouth, tasting her fear and anger, her desperation.

  Forget about her? Never.

  Logan had desired Nadia the moment he’d seen her, with her dark brown eyes in a softly curved face and the set of her shoulders that said she’d not break down. Logan’s interest in her had only grown as he’d kept tabs on her these last six months.

  He’d felt more than interest, more than simple need. Logan had felt the bonding magic a werewolf high in the pack developed for his mate, but he’d resisted. He should resist now.

  Logan deepened the kiss and leaned Nadia against the wall. Her body was slim and small compared to his, but so strong. Even the weakest demon was stronger than any human and even many weres could be.

  Nadia’s tongue tangled his, finding the depths of his mouth. She wasn’t afraid. She welcomed this.

  Logan furrowed her hair as he eased the kiss to a close. Nadia’s face was dirty from her run through the woods, scratched and cut from sharp branches. He traced his fingers over the cuts, wishing for the healing powers of Tain, one of the Immortals, who could have closed up her wounds in two seconds flat.

  The urge to heal her, to hold her, to take care of her was strong. Logan longed to sling Nadia over his shoulder and carry her home, to keep her there until he made the world safe.

  He should feel that for a pack mate, not a demon woman, no matter how beautiful.

  It was possible that Matt, as pack leader, had sensed Logan starting a mate bond. Packmasters were deeply connected to every nuance of every wolf in the pack, and Logan was willing to bet that simply walking away hadn’t broken the connection. Matt must be exploiting it, the same way he exploited everything else.

  “You should shower,” Logan said, his voice not working right. “And sleep. You need the rest.”

  The spark in Nadia’s eyes made his heart hammer. The bed was right next to them, a rickety thing covered with a threadbare blue plaid bedspread.

  He saw Nadia glance at it. Heat flared inside him. She wanted it.

  No.

  Logan pushed away from her. “Go take a shower. We’ll talk about what to do with you later.”

  Nadia flushed. “What to do with me? Is it too much to get your brain around, werewolf, that you don’t have to do anything with me?”

  Without waiting for answer Nadia slid out from between him and the wall, strode into the bathroom, and slammed the door. The thin-walled room shook with the impact.

  Logan heard the shower snap on, pipes groaning as hot water dragged through them. He pictured Nadia peeling off her clothes—his clothes, actually—and letting them fall one by one to the cold bathroom floor. Naked, she’d pull back the plastic shower curtain and step under the steaming water.

  Logan made a move toward the bathroom but then stopped, his gut clenching.

  He’d come to protect Nadia, not claim her. He wouldn’t be as bad as Matt.

  Logan turned away from the bathroom, his body tight. He ached for her, and his arousal hated him for not pulling her down onto the bed when he had the chance. He could show her, with his body, how much he’d been thinking of her all this time.

  He had a more basic reason for being with her—the need for her warm female body under his. Logan wanted to look into her eyes when she came, feel her move with climax while he thrust into her.

  Stop.

  Logan took up his cell phone from the table. He stared at it for a long time, then slowly punched in a number he’d tried to forget and hadn’t been able to.

  A woman picked up on the other end with a breathless, “Hello?”

  “Kayla,” Logan said. He didn’t have to tell her who he was. She knew. “Where’s Matt?”

  “You’re not supposed to call, Logan,” Kayla said with continued breathlessness. “You’re not pack anymore. You’re outcast . . .”

  “Where the hell is Matt?” Logan snarled. The Packmaster in him was strong enough to cut off her words but not allow her to hang up the phone. “Do you even know?”

  “I know.”

  “He’s after me, isn’t he? Why?”

  “Matt can go wherever he feels like going,” Kayla said, trying to be strong. “He’s pack leader, asshole.”

  To think, Logan used to be in love with her.

  No, not love. Kayla had been promised to him, and he’d been loyal to her and protective. Logan’s reward for taking care of her all those years was her running to Matt and sparking the challenge.

  “Matt has come here to kill me,” Logan said in a hard voice. “Why is he bothering? I left the pack, like you said. I walked away so you two could live happily ever after.”

  “Because it’s not over,” Kayla said.

  “Yes, it is.” Logan was over and done with it—he’d turned his back on his old life and that was that.

  “You never fought him.” Kayla’s words tumbled out. “You didn’t take up the challenge. You ruined him. Half the pack thinks you’re the stronger wolf, that you would have won if you’d fought. A lot of them won’t listen to Matt anymore. They say you should be pack leader, that him driving you out was against pack law. Karl, the new Packmaster, can’t keep order. Not like you could.”

  “So Matt came out here to challenge me again?” Logan asked when Kayla finally slowed down.

  There were tears in her voice. “Yes. Please don’t kill him, Logan.”

  So even Kayla believed that Logan was the stronger wolf. Interesting.

  “Why didn’t he just confront me?” Logan demanded. “He kidnapped one of my friends and tormented her to get me up here. Why didn’t he simply come find me? Or send someone to drag me back?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about that.”

  Because Matt was a coward, Logan realized. He’d used Nadia to lure Logan alone into the wild, far from any help he might have from his L.A. friends.

  Stealing Nadia served two purposes—the beginnings of the bond would ensure that Logan woul
d come after her; and second, the other wolves would hear about how much Logan cared about a demon. What kind of werewolf sought a death-magic creature for a mate? Logan’s value in the pack’s eyes would lower once they knew.

  “Are you going to kill him?” Kayla asked in a small voice.

  “That all depends on Matt,” Logan said.

  Kayla started to bleat something else, but Logan hung up on her.

  He wanted to throw the phone across the room, to punch the wall, anything to release the rage inside him.

  Logan heard the water go off, the shower curtain slide back, and then Nadia came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel.

  His breath caught in his throat, his rage giving way to roaring desire. Damn it, was she sexy like that on purpose?

  Of course she was. Nadia was a demon.

  The motel’s one thin towel barely came together around her torso. Her limbs were shapely but strong, muscles playing as she walked across the room toward the plastic bags Logan had carried in.

  “Oh, good, you bought toothbrushes.” Nadia rummaged in the bags, pulling out sweatshirts and jeans made for women. She held up a shirt to look at it. “How did you know what size to get?”

  “I remembered.”

  She turned around, her short hair dripping water. “Remembered from what?”

  “The matriarch’s records.”

  Nadia’s eyes widened, this time with outrage. “You looked at my file? That’s private, Detective. Wait—Samantha let you?”

  “She didn’t exactly let me.” Logan’s cop instincts, much like his wolf instincts, died hard.

  Nadia glared at him, the towel baring the cleavage between lovely round breasts. “You mean you snooped. Samantha should have kept the policy of barring non-demons from the matriarch’s mansion.”

  “That would put a damper on her marriage to Tain,” Logan said, straight-faced.

  “Why did you read my records?” Nadia said, ignoring the comment. “What were you doing? Making sure I hadn’t broken any of your paranormal laws? What were you going to do if I had? . . . Shed on me?”

  He held up his hands. “I was making sure you were all right.”

  “What, you couldn’t just ask me?”

  Logan hardened his voice again. “Someone hurt you, Nadia. Bad. I need to know all about you so I could make sure it didn’t happen again. I won’t let it happen again.”

  Nadia opened her mouth to answer, then broke off. Logan wished she weren’t so damned delectable, that he didn’t ache to throw her to the bed and pull the towel off her.

  “Who were you talking to on the phone?” Nadia asked abruptly. “I have good hearing. You sounded pissed off.”

  Logan’s mouth hardened. “Kayla. Matt’s mate.”

  “The woman you were supposed to marry?”

  “How did you know about that?”

  She gave him a little smile. “You check up on me, wolf; I check up on you. Why didn’t you marry her?”

  Logan turned his back, surprised at how angry the whole situation still made him. “We were pledged to be mates since childhood. My father, who was Packmaster before me, and her father arranged it. When it came time to take Kayla as my mate in truth, Matt stepped in and claimed her for himself. I either had to answer his challenge or go. I decided to go.”

  “Werewolves arrange their marriages? I’ve never heard that.”

  “Most don’t, not anymore. But werewolves at the top of the pack marry for the good of the pack. Kayla’s family is high-ranking, and she was a good match for Packmaster.” He smiled wryly to himself. “Matt decided she was better for pack leader.”

  “So why didn’t you fight him?”

  Logan heard the plastic bags rattle and the thump of the towel as it hit the floor. He kept his back firmly turned.

  “Because Kayla hoped one of us would die. If I won, I’d become pack leader. If Matt won, I’d just be dead, wouldn’t I? Kayla wanted to be pack leader’s mate, and she’d have it over Matt’s dead body or mine. I didn’t intend to give her the satisfaction of getting one of us killed. So I walked.”

  “I bet that was hard.” A note of sympathy entered Nadia’s voice.

  “The hardest thing I ever did,” Logan said, letting out his breath. “The wolf inside me snarled at me to kill Matt and hang his body out for the vultures. But I wasn’t dying for Kayla. Or killing for her, either.”

  “She sounds like a real bitch,” Nadia said. “Pun intended. You can turn around now.”

  She was settling a sweatshirt over her new jeans as Logan turned. His blood pounded when he saw the sliver of her belly, the shadow of her naval, before the shirt came down.

  He wanted to push her back on the bed and lick across her skin until he was satisfied. Which he wouldn’t be. He’d have to unbutton and unzip her jeans and tug them down, dipping his tongue to taste the heat of her.

  Logan dragged a chair from the table and straddled it wrong way around, hoping that hid his pounding erection.

  “So tell me what happened,” he said, forcing himself back into the role of investigating officer. “Why did you come up to this particular area to hunt for a job? Did you have a specific place in mind?”

  His voice sounded natural, normal. Nadia sat herself on the bed, cross-legged, resting her elbows on her knees, her expression still wary. Logan remained in the chair, hanging on to the back of it for dear life.

  “I got an email,” she said. “A job offer.”

  “What kind of job offer?”

  Nadia studied her fingernails, now clean, and he had the feeling she was choosing her words. “To come up to a lodge here in the mountains and work. I saw it as a chance to start over. So I left L.A. and hitchhiked north.”

  Logan clutched the chair until the wood dented. Imagining her out on a dark rural highway, all sexy in her tight jeans, sticking out her thumb for any lust-starved lunatic to pick up, made his blood boil.

  “What lodge?”

  “A resort near Crater Lake that’s always looking for people. Apparently it’s so remote people don’t like to stay long, but that sounded perfect to me.”

  “How did they get your email? Or was it a bulk thing?”

  Logan heard himself rattling off the questions, but Nadia answered without rancor. “It was addressed to me personally. They named a woman I’d met when I worked in Santa Monica. It seemed like a good offer.”

  “But you never made it to the lodge.”

  “I almost did. I hitchhiked to Sacramento, then got a bus up to the mountains. It took forever, but it was so beautiful.” She sounded wistful.

  “And you met the guy who sent you the email? What was his name?”

  “Dan Martin, but I never met him. When I got off the bus, a van with the resort logo on it was there to pick me up. I figured it was legit.” Nadia shifted, tensing again as she spoke. “There was a man in the back, and as soon as we got down a road, out of sight of other traffic, he shot me with a tranquilizer dart.”

  Logan’s growl came from deep inside himself. “Go on.”

  “When I woke up, I was in deep woods. I was naked, and the man who’d picked me up from the bus station had a gun pointed at me. He explained that he’d brought werewolves out to hunt me, and I had to give them a good chase or he’d shoot me. If I survived the hunt alive, he’d give me two thousand dollars and a ride to anywhere.” Her smile was shaky. “I didn’t have much choice, did I? I ran like hell. They chased me, three werewolves and the first guy, who was human. I did everything I could to lose them, but I couldn’t. Damn wolves could track me anywhere.”

  Logan’s growls wouldn’t stop. They rumbled up in his throat and rippled through his body. He felt his skin flash hot, as it did just before he changed.

  “What was this resort called?” he managed to ask.

  “The Lodge of the Pines.”

  Logan got up from the chair and paced the small room, trying to keep the beast inside from breaking free. “Where is it?”

  “Since I don’t
know where we are, I’m not sure where it is from here. I looked it up before I left home, but the email said a van regularly took guests up from the bus station, so I didn’t worry about exact directions.”

  “Bus station.”

  “That’s what I said. What do you plan to do, go to the station and wait for another van to show up?”

  Logan turned to her, feeling his skin rippling as he again fought the change. “Yes,” he said.

  Chapter Six

  Nadia got to her feet and planted herself in front of Logan on his next restless stride across the room. “What makes you think they won’t shoot you with a tranquilizer?” she demanded. “If one of these wolves is your pack leader, don’t you think he’ll be waiting for you?”

  “I hope he is,” Logan said in a savage voice.

  Her heart beat swiftly. “Don’t, Logan.”

  Logan pinned her with his stare, his body vibrating with rage. She’d never seen him like this. The couple times she’d gone out with him, he’d been hard-faced but quiet, calm but not overly friendly, seeming alone even when he was with other people.

  Nadia could imagine him as wolf, sitting unmoving on a hilltop, wind gently ruffling his fur, while the other members of his pack avoided coming too close. Wolves were beautiful—she wasn’t immune to that—and the wolf Logan became was a magnificent creature. She’d seen that.

  She wondered how lonely Logan was, how hard it had been to leave his pack behind. Leaving everything he knew—Nadia had some idea what that was like.

  “Don’t?” Logan asked her with a snarl. “Why not?”

  “Because he might kill you, that’s why not.” Nadia’s pulse kept pounding. “You’re alone here, Logan, and Matt brought friends.”

  Logan gazed down at her with an expression that must have scared the bejesus out of the wolves when he’d been Packmaster. “They hunted you. It’s my job to show Matt what happens when he messes with one of mine.”

  Nadia kept her voice steady. “What do you mean, one of mine?”

  Logan’s golden stare burned her. “I’ve made a connection with you that must have vibrated through the pack. I didn’t mean to, but I did. So you’re under my protection now. It doesn’t matter that you’re not werewolf. I’m bonded by laws that go way beyond what Matt understands.” He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them, a little more of Logan the man looked out. “And I want to get the bastards who did this to you.”