Chapter 31 #2
And Logan? He didn’t dab it on. He didn’t smear a polite little stripe.
He took the cursed bottle and dumped its entire contents down his chest like it was body wash.
I watched how the pink sludge oozed over his shoulders, cutting a path down his pecs and slipping into every trench of his abs.
A blob got stuck in his belly button like a sinful little pool, some more in that golden trail disappearing under his shorts—thank you, werewolf sight.
Logan bent and slathered it on his legs too, like he was marinating himself for a barbecue.
Reckless! Insane! Dangerous!
When he was done, he tipped his head toward our team, lips slowly curling into a smirk. It was as if to say he didn’t need to heal from injuries—because there wouldn’t be any.
Skeleton Guy copied him, using the same exaggerated quantities. My twin, too.
Still, I forgot everything—the crowd, the Pure Lorea, even my twitching knee—when Logan lifted his head and sniffed.
He stilled for a heartbeat.
Then the search began.
Unblinking, he scanned the crowd on the Comets side of the line.
My breath snagged between my lungs and throat when our eyes locked across heads and distance.
It felt like forever—like time just gave us a secret pocket to exist in together.
He looked at me through half-lidded silver eyes, and I stared right back at him, wide-eyed.
He pulled his phone from his back pocket, spared it one glance, and then put it back in his pocket.
Three seconds later, my own phone pinged.
Logan
I’m gonna score for you, mate
I snapped my head back up. His eyes were already waiting for mine.
The corner of Logan’s mouth lifted, revealing a panty-dropping grin. He watched as heat flooded my cheeks just for him, and before I knew it, I gave him a small smile. Just for him.
The Terminator. The Dark Diamonds captain I’d heard endless stories about. My mate. He was still staring, that expression so unreadable that it frustrated me.
That was when the car door came.
It tore through the air with a metallic scream, aimed straight for the back of his head.
I lurched half out of my seat, ready to warn—
But Logan was faster.
He pivoted swiftly, caught it with one hand, and, in the same breath, hurled it back like a hammer. The car door flattened three of our Ultras who had crept onto the field. Bodies went flying, and the crowd erupted in a chorus of half-gasps, half-cheers.
Logan stood there, that same grin reforming across his face. He threw a look full of arrogance and challenge toward my team, one that mockingly said, “Come at me. Try me. Bleed for it.”
I glanced at Lachlan for comparison. My twin hadn’t even blinked at the door-throw stunt, hadn’t looked at Logan once. He was too busy circling his teammates, hyping them up with his easy grin, radiating steady confidence.
If Logan was the mischievous and unbeatable dragon, tricking the travelers along the way and devouring them whole, the Lachlan was the immortal hero who slayed the monsters and lived to listen to the tale but not tell it.
The two had similar builds, but my mate had an inch on my twin, while my twin won by a breadth in the shoulders.
“Hello? Earth to Yva!” Makena snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Did you hear a word I just said?”
“Um, Gaius asked to speak to you after the game?”
“No! Tomorrow! And he invited me out.” She huffed so hard that her braid wobbled, strands of black hair trying to break free from their prison.
“Fantastic.” I smiled faintly. “So, are you two on speaking terms now?”
It was hard to keep up with them.
My palms began to sweat when I perceived a particular gaze on me from the arena.
“It’s a date, Yva. A date-date. With food. And drinks. And sex. Lots of it, I hope. Which you’d know about if you hadn’t been staring off like a haunted doll in a window display.”
“I wasn’t staring,” I lied.
Tiny mate detail: When your mate stares at you, no matter the distance, you feel it. So, thanks to him, I’d missed everything Makena had just said. And Amaia’s snark. And my mother’s commentary. And our Ultras’ new chant that Tiziano had slaved over for weeks.
And then the growls came. Deep. Low. Hungry.
Not human. Not even wolf.
The gates at the far end screeched open, and out prowled the Jesters. Four of them, unnecessarily big wolves who had just been let loose. To amuse the public? In a werewolfish way, yes. In reality? To maul whoever they could catch.
Their furless skin seemed stretched too tight, muscles bulging in odd places, like someone had stitched them together wrong on purpose.
They loped into the arena, circling like sharks, their fangs glistening as tongues slid over them in obscene strokes.
Choosing. Deciding. Who shall I maul first? Who shall I save for last?
Makena bit into her pointy purple nails. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Why do they look bigger than last time? Tell me they’re not bigger than last time.”
“They’re…thriving.”
“Thriving? Yvaine, that thing could fit you in its mouth like a chicken wing!”
Amaia clicked her tongue. “Technically, it would be a wolf leg. We aren’t chickens, and we don’t have wings.”
The two teams held their sides of the arena, crowded in the farthest corners, tense and watchful, ready to sprint. To battle.
And there, right in the middle of the stadium, stood Logan. Calm. Solid. Spinning the wereball over one finger, then a second and a third.
The visiting team always got the first move.
A sigh slipped out of me, long and defeated, as my gaze ping-ponged frantically between Lachlan and Logan. Ping. Pong. Ping. Pong. A game with no winners.
Last night, I had sworn to myself—sworn—that I wouldn’t let this get under my skin anymore. I’d even meditated, cross-legged, candles lit.
Didn’t matter.
Because the game hadn’t even started, and I was already ruined. And nothing, not even the Dalai Lama himself, could have prepared me for what was about to happen.
The gong boomed.
The stadium roared.
And the Terminator, whose eyes were fixed on a precise spot in our corner, catapulted himself right across the field. All by himself, wereball tucked under one arm.
I clapped my hands over my face.
What are you doing?!
Mayday, mayday, mayday! This was a suicide mission. Nobody ever faced the full opposite team alone.
Through the cracks of my fingers, I peeked at him as he bulldozed on.
My heart nearly leaped out of my chest.
Logan was a thunderbolt. Maybe the jagged lines over his arms and shoulder signified that. Lightning—unexpected. Dangerous. Fast, just like him.
He dodged the Comets players, punching one before slipping past a tackle. Shoulders slammed into ribs, knees into guts. His teammates shouted his name—in confusion, in disbelief, in anticipation. They had no clue what he was doing. Nobody did.
At the very last second, swarmed by too many Comets, Logan threw the ball back. A perfect spiral, smooth as silk, landing in Skeleton Guy’s hands. Any coach would’ve kissed him for that pass. Any person would have caught it, including me.
But Logan didn’t stop to check. Didn’t slow down.
He wasn’t done.
His eyes were still locked on one spot—a laser focus that could’ve burned holes into the turf. And his feet kept running and running, eating up distance, toward our defense, toward—
Sillas.
My stomach dropped.
Makena and Amaia clasped my forearms, both gaping.
“Is he—” one said at the same time the other asked, “Does he know?”
The whole stadium watched in shock and horror as my mate pounced on Sillas. Not in a tackle…but in an execution.
Logan slammed his fist into Sillas’s face so hard that I swore I saw teeth ping off the grass. Then another. And another. He pummeled him with the fury of a rabid dog too far gone for recovery.
For a moment, the game stopped.
The crowd gasped, the noise sucking right out of the air.
Tiziano yelled, “Someone euthanize that degenerate!”
Makena nudged me with a “So romantic!” while Amaia listed the injuries Sillas was sporting like she was checking items off a grocery list.
Sillas tried to fight back—arms up, fists flailing—and defend the last inch of untouched skin and pride left, but every attempt just made Logan meaner.
The Terminator hit him like he had a personal vendetta.
Like he knew about Sillas and me.
Blood sprayed across Logan’s knuckles, his jaw, even splattered the grass.
By the time he was done, Sillas didn’t even look like a player anymore. It looked more like he’d played four consecutive wereball games, then enrolled in an illegal MMA league.
Logan had left his face swollen and purple, his ribs a mess, chest heaving in broken gasps.
Blood gushed from internal bleeding that had turned external.
While I’d never been afraid of seeing blood, the vital bodily fluid that supplied nutrients and oxygen to cells, I hated it when blood went to waste like that.
When Logan had had enough, he hopped back up, chest puffing out like the slaughter cock king he was.
Never had I seen such pure satisfaction on someone’s face. My mate wore the biggest smirk ever recorded in the history of smirks as he wiped the blood off with his palm, only to smear it across his chest like war paint.
Savage. My mate is a savage.
And just when I thought I couldn’t sink any further into my seat, silver eyes flipped up to mine.
Logan threw me a winning wink, gave Sillas one last kick in the ribs, and then jogged off.
His primitive little stunt had worked. A dirty strategy to distract the Comets.
Because the Dark Diamonds had just made their first touchdown.
My phone buzzed in my lap.
Logan
Told you I’d score for you
And I knew he didn’t mean the touchdown.
No.
He meant Sillas.
And he sure did, I thought, as I watched what remained of Sillas being carried out of the arena on a stretcher.