Page 71 of Fate, Interrupted

But I only say, “Because I want her to understand.”

Logan nods once, slowly, and looks away. When he speaks again his voice drops, more considered—not softer, just more deliberate.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

I look at him sharply. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means this has already gone past curiosity.” He turns back to me. “You’re not interested in her. You’re trying to bring her closer to your world. Maybe without meaning to. That’s what answering her questions does. That’s what today did.”

I open my mouth.

He keeps going.

“And you can’t walk that back once it starts.”

The words sit between us. I want to push against them but I can’t find the purchase to do it. That’s the most infuriating thing about arguing with Logan—he doesn’t give you bad logic to attack. He gives you accurate logic and expects you to be grateful for it.

“She asks,” I say. “I’m not manufacturing the interest.”

“No,” Logan says. “But you’re feeding it. And you know the difference.”

The warehouse door bangs as someone lets it swing too hard. One of the men inside curses. Another laughs. The sound travels out into the lot and disappears, and neither of us speaks, because we both know the next words matter. I’m an adult man standing in my family’s parking lot being managed by my older brother, and I am aware of how that looks from the outside, yet I’m too tired to care.

Logan steps closer. Not in challenge. Enough that there is no room left in the conversation for deflection.

“Does she understand what this could cost her?” he asks.

The question is simple. It shouldn’t be difficult to answer.

For one second, I have nothing ready, and Logan sees the hesitation before I can do anything about it. He always sees. He’s right, and I know it. Norah understands wolves better than she did two weeks ago. She understands more about pack culture, the shape of wolf life in this city, the private structures humans rarely see. But that’s not the same as understanding consequences. Not the same as understanding what happens when people in her world notice how often she appears with me. For Norah, there would be no easy way back.

The thought drops into my chest with an unpleasant weight.

Logan watches it happen.

“She doesn’t,” he says. Not an accusation. A fact, stated with the flat accuracy of someone naming the weather. The heir naming a problem. The first-born doing his job.

I look toward the lit warehouse windows, the fence line at the far side of the property. Anywhere that isn’t his face. “No,” I say. “Not fully.”

Logan lets out a slow breath. “That’s what I mean,” he says.

I put both hands on the truck bed behind me, while irritation and exhaustion take up residence in my chest.

“What happens if staying here becomes too uncomfortable?” Logan says. “For either of you. The political climate isn’t going to change. Wolves are still fighting for every scrap they can get. If she makes the choice to be with you, it would uproot her life, her relationships. Cut her off from everything she knows.”

The words hit with such directness that for a moment I think the ground has moved.

The thought has already crossed my mind—arriving without warning while I was reading her Neruda in the middle of the lake, a flash I didn’t invite to stick around long enough to inspect.

Logan is watching me. He sees whatever crosses my face.

“I’m not telling you to decide anything,” he says. “Not tonight.”

“Then why say it?”

“Because someone needs to say it before you’re too far in to hear it.”

The irritation surfaces again, less hot this time. More tired. Tired of coming home to find myself in combat with my own family over my own life. Tired of the roiling in my gut every time the conversation lands here. Logan is right the way he is always rationally, infuriatingly right, and knowing it makes the irritation pointless. I’m standing in the parking lot of the operation that will never be mine holding both of those things and not sure what to do with either.