Chapter 287

Chapter 287
Steam had already filled the bathroom by the time Logan stepped beneath the water. He tipped his head back and let the heat strike his face, trying to force his mind toward the council meeting waiting for him later that morning. Noel would want patrol numbers first. Cole would want to know how many men Logan planned to take south. The older council members would argue that the Alpha should never leave Snow territory while Kael was testing their borders, and at least one of them would suggest sending Drea with guards while Logan remained behind. That suggestion would die the moment it was spoken.
Drea was not going to South Carolina without him. The decision had been made before Logan even understood all the reasons behind it, but the medical requirement removed any chance of negotiation. The Chaplin root had to be prepared using blood from both parents, which meant there would be no trusted courier, no armed escort carrying her away while Logan remained in the palace pretending he could concentrate on anything else. He would go with her, and if the council hated the idea, they could hate it from the safety of the room he had built for them.
He reached for the soap and dragged it across his chest, already anticipating the arguments. Kael had chosen an inconvenient time to send his damned letter. Someone wanted something Logan possessed, and until he knew whether that meant Drea, the unborn child, Project X records, or something else entirely, leaving Snow territory was strategically foolish. Unfortunately, allowing his child to die because remaining home was strategically convenient was not an option he could stomach.
His hand stopped against his stomach when Drea entered his thoughts.
She had slept beside him the night before, though sleep had not come easily for either of them. Logan remembered the way she had eventually settled against his chest after everything between them had burned itself out. Her hair had spread across his arm and the pillow, and one of her hands had remained curled near his ribs. Even in sleep, she had kept drifting closer, as though some part of her body sought his warmth while the rest of her still resented how badly she needed it.
The memory should have softened something in him. Instead, his body reacted with immediate, inconvenient honesty.
Logan looked down and swore.
He was already hard.
“Of course,” he muttered, then rinsed the soap from his hands and braced one palm against the wet stone wall.
He could have ignored it. He had ignored arousal plenty of times, particularly since Drea came into his life and made wanting inconvenient by attaching anger, guilt, fear, and argument to almost every moment of desire. This morning, however, the memory of her body remained too close. He could still remember how she had looked beneath him, flushed and furious and vulnerable, the same woman who had frozen half his room only minutes before pulling him into a kiss.
His fingers wrapped around his cock.
The first stroke dragged a rough breath from his chest. Logan closed his eyes and tightened his grip, working slowly from base to tip while the hot water ran over his shoulders. His thumb passed over the head, spreading the slickness already gathered there, and his hips shifted instinctively toward his fist.
Drea had done this.
Not literally. She had barely moved that morning before he woke and realized she had spent half the night pressed against him. Yet his mind supplied other memories with vicious precision: her thighs opening for him, the sound of her breathing when pleasure finally overwhelmed fear, the way her fingers had tightened in his hair when she wanted more but refused to ask prettily for it.
Logan stroked himself again, harder.
His jaw clenched as pleasure gathered low in his stomach. He had spent years teaching himself control because an Alpha without it was only an animal with authority. Drea had somehow discovered every weak place in that discipline without consciously trying. A sharp look could harden him. One sarcastic remark could follow him into his room hours later. The memory of her mouth could ruin a council meeting before it began.
He pumped his fist faster, letting his head fall forward while water streamed down his neck and back. His cock slid wet through his palm, thick and hot against his grip, and his breathing deepened with every stroke. He pictured Drea sitting astride him with that stubborn expression she wore whenever she was determined not to give him the satisfaction of knowing what he did to her. In his imagination, she looked down at him with her hair falling over one shoulder, her breasts moving with each slow roll of her hips while she deliberately made him wait.
“Fuck, Drea.”
The fantasy sharpened. Logan imagined gripping her ass and pulling her harder against him, imagined the wet heat of her cunt taking him while she tried to keep that defiant look on her face. He knew exactly how long that expression would last. He had seen it disappear before, watched anger dissolve into open pleasure when her body stopped cooperating with whatever argument her mouth still wanted to make.
His hand moved faster.
The sound of water almost covered the wet slide of his fist. Logan shifted his stance and drove into his grip, fucking his hand with increasingly rough thrusts while tension climbed through his body. His other palm flattened harder against the wall. The muscles in his shoulders and abdomen tightened, and he let himself imagine Drea moaning his name without any fear around it.
That was the part that nearly finished him.
Not simply her body. Not even the memory of how wet she had been around him. It was the idea of Drea wanting him without needing comfort first, without a nightmare or an argument or some new disaster forcing them into each other’s arms. He imagined her coming into his room because she wanted his cock, climbing onto him because she had decided she wanted pleasure, and looking him directly in the eyes while she took it.
Logan’s fist tightened around the head of his cock.
“Jesus Christ.”
He stroked down again, slower once, then faster. His hips jerked forward. Pleasure concentrated sharply at the base of his spine, building until his thighs tensed and his breathing turned ragged. He pictured Drea bent over his bed, her hands gripping the sheets while he held her hips and drove into her. He imagined her looking back at him over her shoulder, wet and flushed and demanding that he stop holding back.
His control snapped.
Logan came hard into his fist, the first pulse striking across the wet stone beneath the water. His head dropped as another contraction tore through him, then another, his hand continuing to work his cock while pleasure rolled heavily through his body. He breathed through clenched teeth and stroked himself until the last tremor faded, leaving his legs tense and his pulse pounding.
For several seconds, he remained where he was with one hand against the wall.
Then he looked down at himself and exhaled.
“Excellent preparation for council.”
The words almost made him laugh, though the sound never fully came. He rinsed himself clean, finished washing, and forced his thoughts back toward the day ahead. Drea would wake soon, if she had not already. He still needed to tell her exactly how they would travel, and he needed to decide how much of Kael’s threat she should hear before they left. Given her recent insistence on being included in matters concerning her own life, hiding it from her was probably a battle he would lose anyway.
By the time Logan dressed and left his room, the palace had begun its morning rhythm. Guards changed posts along the inner corridors. Servants carried breakfast trays upstairs. Somewhere below, Noel’s voice carried briefly from one of the strategy rooms before a door closed and cut it off.
Logan did not go to the council chamber.
He went to the greenhouse.
The temperature changed immediately when he entered. Moist warmth replaced the dry chill of the palace, and sunlight filtered through the high glass panes above rows of herbs and winter flowers Brianna had spent years cultivating. His mother stood at a long wooden table near the center, trimming dead leaves from a flowering plant with small silver shears.
She did not look up. “You are late.”
“I did not know we had an appointment.”
“We did not. You usually appear here when you want something unpleasant.”
Logan walked farther inside. “Then perhaps I am becoming predictable.”
“That would be a welcome development.”
Brianna clipped another leaf and placed it neatly beside the others. Only then did she look at him. The cool assessment in her eyes reminded Logan that his mother could inspect a man more effectively than most interrogators.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I spoke to Drea.”
“I assumed you would eventually.”
“She knows about the Chaplin root.”
Brianna’s hand stopped briefly, then resumed its work. “And?”
“We may leave for South Carolina within the next few days.”
The shears lowered.
Brianna stared at him.
“No.”
Logan almost smiled because he had expected exactly that response. “I was informing you, Mother.”
“And I am informing you that leaving Snow territory now would be idiotic.” She set the shears down and turned fully toward him. “Kael sends you a threat, patrols report movement near the southern border, and your answer is to take yourself and the woman carrying your heir outside the strongest defenses you possess?”
“The treatment is in South Carolina.”
“Send men.”
“It requires blood from both parents.”
“Send your blood.”
“It has to be fresh during preparation.”
Brianna’s face hardened further. “Then send Drea and enough men to turn the entire route into a military procession.”
“No.”
“You are Alpha.”
“I am also the father.”
“That is precisely why you cannot behave like a frightened husband.”
The wording struck harder than Logan expected. His expression cooled. “Be careful.”
Brianna’s mouth tightened. “I buried one Snow Alpha already. Forgive me if I am unimpressed by your eagerness to give me the opportunity to bury another.”
Logan stared at her for a long moment. Beneath the coldness, he heard the thing she would never say plainly. Fear had lived inside Brianna so long that it usually emerged wearing anger.
“I am not Damien,” he said.
“No. You are worse in certain ways because you inherited his certainty and added your own arrogance.”
“Comforting.”
“I did not raise you to be comforted.”
“I noticed.”
Brianna moved away from the table and walked toward a row of herbs growing beneath one of the windows. “What exactly do you expect me to say? That I approve? That I think walking beyond these borders while someone is threatening this family is wise?”
“I expect you to understand that staying here kills the child.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
Logan continued before she could interrupt. “The strain is active. Drea is already manifesting cold. If we wait because the council is afraid of what Kael might do, then there may be no child left to protect.”
Brianna looked back at him. “And Drea?”
“What about her?”
“Can the strain kill her?”
Logan hesitated.
That was answer enough.
Brianna closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, some of the argument had left her face. “Your father wanted to go to South Carolina.”
Logan frowned. “What?”
A strange, distant expression crossed her features. “Years ago, before the pack became what it is now. When it was still mostly the two of us making plans for places we assumed we had endless time to see.”
Logan leaned one hip against the edge of the table. He could not remember hearing this story before. “Why South Carolina?”
“He had seen photographs of the coast.” Brianna touched the edge of one leaf absently. “He said he wanted somewhere warm enough that I would stop complaining about winter for one week.”
“You love winter.”
“I learned to tolerate winter because I loved your father.”
The admission came so naturally that Logan said nothing.
Brianna gave a faint, humorless smile. “He wanted to see Charleston. He wanted the ocean, old buildings, ridiculous food he had heard about from someone passing through. We kept saying we would go after the next winter. Then the Snow Pack started expanding. There were border disputes, new families, land agreements, Project X rumors, and always some reason the trip could wait.”
Logan watched her face change as she spoke. Brianna rarely looked backward unless anger required it. This was different. For a few seconds, she seemed less like the woman who ruled half the palace through sheer will and more like someone remembering a life that had ended before she knew it was ending.
“We never went,” she said.
“No.”
“No.” She looked down at the plants. “We kept thinking there would be time.”
Logan felt the sentence somewhere beneath his ribs.
Brianna turned back toward him. “If South Carolina is where the treatment is, and if going there is what gives that child the best chance, I will not stand against you.”
“That sounded almost supportive.”
“Do not make me regret it.”
“I will try.”
“You will do more than try.” Her expression sharpened again. “You will take enough men. You will change routes twice before leaving Snow territory. You will not tell the full council exactly when you intend to depart, because someone in this palace has become too interested in our movements. You will keep Drea close, and you will stop behaving as though your ability to kill people makes you impossible to kill.”
Logan pushed away from the table. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Come back.”
He looked at her.
Brianna had already turned toward the flowers again, but the hand reaching for the shears was not quite steady.
Logan nodded once. “I intend to.”
He turned toward the greenhouse doors.
Heat struck him behind the eyes.
Logan stopped.
For one second, he thought the greenhouse had simply become too warm. Then the floor vanished.
Stone appeared beneath his boots.
Westside.
Logan’s breath caught.
He knew the corridor immediately. Smoke stained the ceiling. One of the wall lamps had been torn free and lay broken near the stairs. Blood streaked the floor where someone had been dragged away.
He was walking.
Logan tried to stop.
His body kept moving.
A young girl stood at the far end of the corridor.
She could not have been more than thirteen or fourteen. Her dress was torn at one shoulder, and blood marked one side of her face. She backed away from him with both hands raised, eyes enormous with terror.
“Please.”
Logan stared at her.
He did not know her.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
His feet carried him closer.
Something was wrong with his hands.
Logan looked down.
Claws extended from his fingers.
Long.
Dark.
Ready.
No.
He tried to pull them back.
His body ignored him.
The girl struck the wall behind her and had nowhere else to go. Tears streamed down her face as she shook her head over and over.
“Please, Alpha. Please.”
Logan heard himself breathing.
Slow.
Controlled.
His face felt wrong. Heavy. Cold. He could not see his own expression, but he saw it reflected in the girl’s terror.
He was enjoying this.
No.
The thought slammed through him, but the man wearing his body kept walking.
The girl began to cry harder. “I didn’t do anything.”
Logan raised one clawed hand.
She screamed.
The corridor flickered.
For one instant, the girl disappeared and Brianna stood in front of him instead, her mouth moving around his name. Then Westside returned. The girl was there again, pressed against the wall while his claws moved closer to her throat.
“No.”
This time Logan heard himself speak.
The girl stared at him.
His hand stopped inches from her.
Then everything dissolved.
The greenhouse slammed back into place.
Logan staggered.
His shoulder struck the wooden table hard enough to send a clay pot crashing to the floor. Soil scattered across the stone. His knees buckled before he could catch himself.
“Logan!”
Brianna reached him before he hit the ground. She caught his arm with both hands, trying to steady a man nearly twice her weight while his vision flashed between green leaves and a smoke-filled corridor that no longer existed.
Logan grabbed the table.
His pulse thundered.
Sweat broke across the back of his neck despite the cool greenhouse air.
Brianna’s voice sharpened with fear. “What happened? Logan, look at me. Are you hurt?”
He stared past her.
For one horrible second, he could still see the girl.
Her hands raised.
Her face wet with tears.
Please don’t hurt me.
Logan swallowed and forced his eyes toward his mother. “I’m fine.”
“You nearly collapsed.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You are white as the snow outside.”
Logan looked down at his hands.
No claws.
Nothing.
His fingers were trembling.
Brianna followed his gaze. “Logan?”
He closed both hands into fists, but the memory remained too vivid to dismiss. He knew Westside. He remembered the attack. He remembered blood, fire, Lorne, Lilly, Drea upstairs. He remembered enough faces to know that girl should have meant something if she had truly stood in front of him.
She meant nothing.
Yet the fear in her eyes felt like memory.
Logan lifted his head slowly, still gripping the table for support as the last traces of the vision finally disappeared.
“What the hell just happened?”