Page 6 of Defiance
Chapter 2
“How did you know they were headed to Carnglaze?” Paul leant against the wall opposite, arms folded across his chest as he stared fixedly at Logan. “You didn’t know we had a tracker in Cole at that point.”
Logan didn’t so much as falter. They’d rehearsed every possible question Paul could ask. Worked out a way to answer them with at least half-truths. “The woman at the cottage told me.” Sadie—another shifter member of the resistance—had told him. But she was a woman at the cottage for all intents and purposes.
“Who?” Paul scoffed. “They were all dead when Tim and his team got there.” A shadow passed over his face at the mention of his dead unit members, and guilt gripped Logan before he quickly shook it off.
Tim had taken great delight in torturing Logan. He and the others would’ve happily killed him and a heavily pregnant Max. They didn’t deserve his sympathy. “They weren’t when me and Aaron arrived.”
“Why didn’t you report back to pack headquarters with that information? Why did you choose to go off alone?”
Logan let out a heavy sigh like he regretted every decision he’d made that day. “I didn’t want everyone chasing off to Carnglaze.”Truth. “She could’ve been lying for all we knew.”Vague but not entirely a lie. “Aaron waited for Tim and the others at the cottage and I went on ahead.”Truth.
“What happened when you got to Carnglaze? It’s all underground, right?”
Logan pictured it in his head. Remembered arriving on the motorbike with Cole wrapped around him.
It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“I don’t remember much.” He scrunched his eyes shut, feigning trying to remember. “The place is run down now, exposed to the elements. Everything was overgrown and—”
“Stop making excuses for your fucking mistakes!” Paul shook his head, disgust clear on his face.
Logan sighed again. “I didn’t pick up their scents in time.” He lowered his gaze, letting shame wash over him. Paul would expect it. “The next thing I knew, Mothecombe was waking me up at his hospital.”
Silence settled around them.
Paul stared at him.
Logan met his gaze, unflinching.
“Seriously? That’s all you remember.”
“Yep.” Paul didn’t believe him.
But he wasn’t meant to.
Logan had fucked up big time in the eyes of the pack. Anyone in his position would be loath to tell the whole truth.
Logan bit his lip and glanced down. A sure tell that he was hiding something.
Paul zeroed in on it. “No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “That’s not all, is it?”
“Fu—”
Paul shot across the room, fingers closing around Logan’s throat, cutting off his words. “One chance, Logan. That’s all you get to tell me the fucking truth.”
He released his grip enough for Logan to suck in a breath.
“Fine,” he gritted out, and Paul let go of him. “I underestimated them.” Logan glanced up at the ceiling and sighed. “They were only human. They shouldn’t have been able to overpower me.”
“But they did, right?”
“Yeah.” He bit his lip again, as though not wanting to say any more. “I picked up a scent, at the top near the main entrance.” That had been Max. “She had a gun, but she was on her own.” He let out a harsh laugh. “Or at least I thought she was. The rain...”
“Masked the other scents?” Paul finished for him.
When Logan nodded, he let out a low growl.
