Page 44 of Shadow of Fury

Logan scowled, “No, I won’t protect his legacy. As soon as I’m free of him, I’m going to tell everyone the awful things he’s done.”

Small fingers squeezed his hand as her eyes drifted shut again, “Good boy. Always such a good boy. You’ll do better than us.”

“I will, Mom. I’ll take care of the pack. I promise.”

Her eyes seemed to dart behind her lids and she suddenly squeezed his hand so tight he felt a twinge of pain, “The pack.. The sick. Dead. Dying. So many gone. You have to help them. Have to find them.”

He tried to piece together the bits of information she was giving him, knowing they were important, somehow knowing this was the reason she’d wanted to see him. This was what she’d wanted to tell him. But what did it mean?

“I have to find who?” he asked. “The ones who left?”

He was surprised she even knew about that. From what he’d gathered it had been a slow but steady steam of members abandoning the pack. His father had never included his mate in the business of the pack so Logan couldn’t imagine he’d revealed his master plan to her. But someone must have or else, how would she know? Sunny maybe? But why?

“Logan.” Her grip on his hand loosened and he glanced up to see her eyes had focused on him again. “I have to tell you something.”

“Okay.” He leaned closer when she let out a raspy whisper. “What?”

“They didn’t all leave.” She held his gaze, trying to tell him something more than what he was hearing, but he didn’t understand what she meant. “You have to find them. Find them. Destroy him. That’s the legacy he deserves. Promise. Me.”

“Okay. Yeah, I promise.”

He said the words quickly and without thought even though he had no idea what he was promising. To find the pack members who had left or to be there for the ones who had stayed? It didn’t matter. He would figure it out.

The grip on his hand loosened and Logan’s heart kicked up in panic as the machine that had steadily been beeping went quiet. No. He sucked in a gasp as pain ripped through his chest. No, she couldn’t be gone that quickly, not that fast. She had just been talking to him.

The machine beeped again and he blew out a rough breath.

It was okay. She was alive still. Her breaths were just coming slowly now.

“Mom?” He squeezed her hand, but it was limp in his own. He felt the tears try to come again but swallowed them down. “It’s okay, you sleep now. I’m here. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

Logan sat by the bedside and watched his mother’s chest rise and fall. Shallow, raspy, rough breaths that seemed to take an eternity between each one. But he didn’t move. He didn’t get up. He didn’t release her hand. He sat beside her in the quiet, listening intently for each beep of the machine that told him she was still there, with him, even if he already felt alone.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed or just how long the room had been silent before he realized the beeping was gone. There was a steady hum now and it took him a moment to place it. The red lights on the machine didn’t jump anymore. They scrolled in a solid, flat line.

She was gone. And the tears he’d been holding back finally started to fall.

For the loss of his mother. For all that had been taken from her, from them. For all the years he’d lost with her. And for the last words she’d spoken to him that now, in death, seemed to make a horrifying and blood-chilling sort of sense.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned, seeing his sister through the dampness of his tears. She leaned down and hugged him and they held onto one another as Sunny moved around the room, unplugging the machine so that it would stop its incessant hum. He let his thoughts about his mother’s words slip to the back of his mind for now.

He would have to deal with that later but for now all he could do was try to hold it together, just like he’d been doing for the past six years.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“You sure you don’t want to come? You look like you could use a night out.” Raven grinned from the doorway but Wren stayed put where she was on the couch.

“I’m sure. Have fun, be safe.”

“I’m always safe.” Raven did a finger wave as she headed out to meet her girlfriends for a night of drinking and dancing.

Wren wasn’t in any mental state to deal with the girls tonight. She’d barely managed to hold it together when Raven had come in for work and tried to give her third degree. Wren had left the office early, come home and showered and changed into a ratty old t-shirt and a pair of comfy boxer shorts and then she’d curled up on the couch to stew. Raven had been surprised to see her already home but Wren had dodged her questions and her sister had let her be… for now.

A knock came on the door and Wren rolled her eyes. Raven was great about locking the door behind her when she left the house but she had a tendency to forget her keys. Wren groaned but forced herself up to go see what else her sister had forgotten.

She pulled the door open, “Ray I…”

Her words died in her throat when the tall figure on her porch came into view. Not Raven. Logan.