Chapter 37 #2
“Yeah, yeah. Sure! Just go away.” He flipped off his retreating back, eyes full of liquid resentment. “You aren’t the one who had to cross an entire ocean to get some peace from the betrayal of your own mate!”
At that, Logan stopped again—but this time, his stance was different. His whole body stiffened. The cords in his neck tensed as fists clenched.
“But how would you know? Do you even need to attend exams, or do you just pass automatically, just because you’re you? Huh?”
The disrespect, under normal circumstances, would’ve earned him a black eye or two. But in that moment, Logan was frighteningly calm. Deadly silent. And for those who knew him well, like me, it was a terribly dangerous fact.
Oh, fuck, no. I needed to intervene.
“He passes ‘cause he’s awesome. I bet an ugly ass like you needs to repeat.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my twin and his mate. They were whispering to each other in their private, newly formed bubble. Callum was watching her, and she was looking back up at him.
Their height difference was noticeable. Cheeks flustered, hands clasped right in front of their drumming chests—it could’ve been the perfect portrait for an artist who wanted to depict what new love looked like.
Unfortunately, things were about to get ugly.
“She’s what?”
Logan’s voice exploded from his mouth. His nostrils flared widely, chest heaving up and down.
“You heard me, Masturbator.”
“Did she…” He exhaled, left eye twitching. Bad sign! “Did she leave me?” He started to rock back and forth, arms clutching his middle. “It hurts.”
“Hell yeah! She went back to Inverness!” the Comet yelled before pursing his lips. “Oh, I’m sorry, I meant Scotland. You know where that is, right? United Kingdom! Ever heard of that?”
A deep growl rumbled from Logan’s chest. I could feel it morph into a full-blown roar.
Things changed.
His expression shattered into something cold, unforgiving, with no shred of compassion. Beastly. The tic in his left eye was the only indication of the immensity awakening from within him, besides the cracks on his arms seeming to break further.
When two red irises blinked open, Callum pushed his mate behind his back and held her there with one arm.
“T! Hey, T. Thor, calm down!” I tried, but Logan was focused on the Comet douche.
“She…she left?” Logan repeated, tone flat in a sort of daze-like trance, ignoring us.
His left eye twitched again. His head tilted to the left, then snapped, as his fingers curled into a strange hooked shape, nails turning completely black.
When werewolves started to shift, they normally shook from head to toe. They would growl, and their eyes would turn pitch black. Fangs and claws would emerge. Bones would pop.
But the future Alpha of Dark Diamond wasn’t a typical werewolf, and what Logan did before his alter ego appeared were just small, tiny things—things that someone like that douche didn’t care about or even notice.
Why would he, when he had never seen anyone or anything like it? Sometimes ignorance could be very dangerous.
“Oh, Aunt’s tits!” I cursed, glancing at the people around me. “Back off, everyone!”
“Or what?” the douche dared. “Will he knock me down and rip me up alive, like he did with Sillas? How can you be upset that Yvaine dated him? You’ve been fucking anything that moves—”
Enough of this shit.
The punch that knocked him out didn’t come from Logan.
I kissed my knuckles for a job well done.
“Does he ever shut the fuck up? Jeez.” I glanced at the body crumpled on the ground. That should do for a while. I was Skeleton Man; smashing skulls was my specialty.
My attention snapped back to Logan, and I flinched.
Black veins surfaced and bulged all over his body. The unnatural tic in his left eye increased in frequency as the gold of his hair shifted into an inky black, from root to tip.
“Logan, my man, hey. It’s me, C. Please take a big breath.”
But Logan didn’t spare C a glance, because his name was no longer Logan.
“Mate, away.” His voice was different, the grammar incorrect.
C and I jumped back.
“Callum, move them away.” I took a very slow step back, my palms open in front of me.
“I’m not going to leave you here with it,” my twin whispered, his mate trapped in his arms.
“What the hell!? What’s wrong with him?” The girl with curly dark hair couldn’t help but stare at the Terminator.
“C, now, damn it! He’s not going to kill me. I’m his best friend,” I semi-yelled without averting my eyes from Logan.
“He might not. But this isn’t him anymore. Last time he—”
I jerked my hand, the missing tips of my fingers a reminder. “Last time was different. That was after it murdered Daniel.”
My best friend was still somewhere in there. He hadn’t transformed fully yet.
“Hello there, Lucien.” At that name, Logan’s head snapped toward me.
Haunted, crimson-red eyes assessed the situation with cold disinterest.
“Mate left Lucien,” Logan said simply, with that distorted voice.
A split second later, blood spilled from the cracks over Logan’s arms and shoulders, all the red veins thickening until they popped.
Lucien didn’t appear with the sickening sound of broken bones and wolf growls like a normal werewolf’s shift.
No.
Because Logan wasn’t a werewolf.
One moment, the human form was standing there. A second later, his shadow expanded across the grass expanded. Two ears rose onto the top of the head as a muzzle formed and elongated.
A creature clawed its way out of the human body, still standing on two legs, as if it had been hiding right underneath the flesh. It was an odd, terrifying sight to witness.
We stood there looking up at the creature in front of us. Still. Unmoving.
For supernatural people, they were all pretty shocked to see proof of a further supernatural phenomenon.
My twin’s mate hid her head in the crook of Callum’s neck, his arms a safety belt around her. The other girl hovered protectively over the idiot on the ground, my fist imprinted into his cheek, but color had bled out of her face like a candle that had been snuffed.
Callum and I had only seen Lucien three times.
Once, inside a cage, foaming and headbutting the bars as a pup.
The second, when it murdered Daniel.
The third time? Two weeks ago. My dad and Logan’s dad had evacuated half the campus—and only yesterday had all the trees been replanted.
Logan never left it out. It was always locked away in the deepest recesses of Logan. Isolated. Lonely. Unstable.
“Lucien…need…find…mate,” the creature huffed with a strong, odd accent.
The voice was almost hypnotic, not as deep as one would imagine. I’d always told Logan it reminded me of a young anaconda with the capacity to speak to humans.
“Mate mine. Mate going no any-wheres.” His voice vibrated, filling the surroundings with fear and awe. “Lucien go find mate.”
He threw his muzzle in the air and let out a primal sound, howling deeply into the dark belly of the night. It was an unearthly howl. A howl that no werewolf could make.
My twin’s mate slapped her palms over her ears. The other girl stumbled back as if Lucien’s growl had physically struck her.
His giant head snapped back down, lips retracting over terrible fangs.
It hunched, back curved, its long black tail whipping the night as beastly clawed fingers curled. And then it bolted.
The pounding of its stride caused tremors and shivers, both on the ground and in our hearts.
Once it had left, the night sky seemed less dark, the pale moon peeking back out from the clouds like it was letting out a sigh of relief.
“What…” the one girl breathed out, kneeling on the ground. “What the heck was that thing?”
“A lycan,” I muttered, one hand clutching both her hands.
“A lycan?” Callum’s mate parroted, voice muffled in his chest. “That can’t be. They don’t exist.”
“Oh, but they do.” I paused, eyes on the two freshly toppled pines. “And it won’t stop until it finds its mate.”
The End. For Now.