IV
1170 Words
He seemed… sarcastic for some reason.
Standing there with blood still drying on his hands, red hair tousled from the shift, Logan looked more like a teenager who’d just skipped class than someone who’d taken down a Rogue Werewolf. His posture was relaxed, almost bored, like the danger hadn’t even registered. I found it hilariously odd that a Werewolf could stand against the Alpha King and live to tell about it—especially one who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.
But then the truth hit me.
He hadn’t known.
Not even a whisper. Not a rumor. Nothing.
I wasn’t a secret kept from him—I was a truth buried so deep it took blood and instinct to dig it out.
The way he looked at me shifted ever so slightly. Not with recognition, but with realization. His gaze flicked across my face, tracing features that matched his own in ways neither of us expected. My appearance backed up everything his cousins on his mother’s side must’ve told him. The resemblance to a man we both hated was undeniable.
The realization hit me harder than the run, harder than the cliff, harder than the Rogue’s death.
He looked like me. Or maybe I looked like him. Same jawline. Same eyes, just a shade apart. But where I had shadows, he had light. Where I had scars, he had stories.
And now he had me—a remnant of his past that probably reminded him of a pain he’d rather forget.
The small spat he had with King Neil stopped me dead in my tracks. They didn’t yell. They didn’t posture. But the tension between them was thick enough to taste. They treated each other like brothers—not by blood, but by battle. Their words were clipped, layered with history, like they’d spent years doing the same song and dance with authority, always toeing the line between respect and rebellion.
Then King Neil raised a brow after Logan said he couldn’t just leave me.
He allowed the slight, telling my brother to take me to the dungeons until further notice. Was it a precaution? Some kind of damnation wrapped in an act of so-called kindness?
I didn’t know. All I knew for sure was that I was finally safe, finally free. Even if it was at the depressing cost of my own mother’s life.
When he—Logan—walked me through the settlement that was the Shadow Storm pack lands, he said nothing. His steps were steady, boots crunching over gravel paths lined with moss and wildflowers. The buildings were carved from stone and wood, sturdy and weathered, like they’d stood through generations of storms. Wolves moved through the streets in human form, nodding to Logan with quiet respect. No one looked at me. Not yet.
Someone ran over, a tray in his hands, papers stacked neatly on top.
“Alpha Logan, these Alliance papers need your signature,” the boy said, breathless but composed.
I blinked, really looking at Logan for the first time since our forest meeting. His shoulders were broad, posture relaxed but commanding. I hadn’t known he shouldered a title, and now that I knew he was an Alpha, I could feel the fear creeping into my bones like it belonged there. Like it had found a home in my body and wasn’t going to let go any time soon.
He took the pen without hesitation, speed-reading through the packet of papers like it was second nature. His eyes flicked across the text, lips moving silently as he scanned each line. The boy stood still, waiting, tray balanced perfectly.
Logan nodded once, signed, then asked about someone named Paul’s family.
The boy’s voice dropped. “They’re… holding. It’s not easy to lose any pack members, but Steve was well-loved by everyone.”
I just stayed put, not moving an inch. I didn’t want to give him a reason to put me out of my misery. Not yet.
When he was finished with the paperwork, he guided me to an underground area tucked behind a stone archway. The dungeons were not what I was expecting, however. It was clean—almost unnervingly so. The air was cool, fresh, not damp or sour. Stone benches lined the walls, carved from the earth itself, smooth and solid. Iron bars acted as doors, but the cells weren’t cages. The walls were thick enough to offer privacy, and each space had a small, barred window that let in sunlight and the scent of pine from the forest above.
It didn’t feel like punishment. It felt like waiting.
The sounds of children playing in the distance chilled me.
Their laughter echoed faintly through the stone, light and careless. Had Austin succeeded in his planned attack, those voices would have been silenced. Their joy would’ve been replaced with screams. Blood. Fire.
He sat with me, silent and calm, the kind of quiet that didn’t demand anything. Just presence. Just space.
Then he started talking.
Austin was dead.
The words hit me like a punch to the chest. My breath caught, vision blurred, and for a second, I thought I might pass out. The shift in my mind—from terror to relief—was so sudden it felt like my body couldn’t keep up. The weight I’d carried for years cracked, just a little.
Logan didn’t let the silence linger. He pressed for more answers, more details. His voice was steady, but his eyes pulsed with power—like the truth itself was something he could sense, something he needed to pull from me.
I didn’t want to give them.
I didn’t want to revisit the twisted punishments Austin had carved into my mother’s life. I didn’t want to speak the words that made her suffering real again. But at the same time, I wanted Logan to know. I wanted him to understand what I’d survived. What she had endured.
My voice cracked. My hands shook. I stared at the floor, at the iron bars, at the small window that let in light I didn’t feel worthy of. And Logan listened. Every word. Every pause. Every broken breath.
Shockingly, he didn’t get pissed.
He didn’t yell. Didn’t storm out. Didn’t look at me like I was broken.
Instead, he held me close. His arms wrapped around me with a strength that didn’t crush, just anchored. And then he did something I never thought I’d hear from anyone in a position of power.
He apologized for not finding me sooner.
The words were soft, but they shattered something inside me. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault. That he didn’t know. That he couldn’t have. But he wasn’t done.
He kept speaking, voice low and steady, like he was trying to stitch something back together inside me. As he continued to soothe me, something shifted. Not in the room. Not in him.
In me.
An understanding washed over me.
Mama had been right.
He was going to protect me.
- Writer
