He could feel her even more intensely than he had when their minds had been linked. It was like the difference between clasping hands and intertwining your fingers. This way felt thorough, unbreakable, like they were woven together for good.
And he didn’t want it any other way.
Mate, his hellhound breathed.Our mate.
Its voice hit Logan like a sledgehammer. For a moment, he was still too caught up in Iz’s eyes—in histrue mate’seyes—to realize why he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. It was a rollercoaster ride of exultation and horror.
If Iz was his mate, he was hers.
And all the tricks she had taught him to be grateful for, all the feral habits that had preserved his life and even a sliver of his sanity ... they had made him into someone who wasn’t remotely worthy of her.
He was a wreck. He had spent months living like an animal, with barely a passing human thought in his head. He hadbroken. Iz deserved someone who was as brave and strong and graciously, effortlessly elegant as she was. Logan wasn’t sure he’d ever qualified for that role, but it was a joke to think he ever could now.
And he was pretty sure she knew it. Her stunning eyes had gone wide, and there was a sudden, horrible doubt in them.
In all the time they had been down here together, he had never felt that kind of uncertainty from her before, not even on the days when it would have been easy to give up all hope.
She had already looked like she was maybe five minutes away from passing out from sheer hunger and over-exertion, and this revelation clearly hadn’t helped. She had the expression of someone who had just been sucker-punched.
“Logan,” she said, holding her throat again. The rasp reminded him of just how much it was costing her to talk.
She wanted to let him down gently, and she was too fundamentally kind to say anything as simple and brusque as “it’s never going to happen.” She would couch it in nicer, gentler terms, and it would take longer, and right now, that meant it would hurt her.
He might not be much of a mate, but at least he could keep her from causing herself any more pain right now. They could handle this later.
“We can talk about it when we’re somewhere else,” he said, trying to sound like this would be a normal, casual conversation and not one that would feel like he was cutting out his own heart. “We need to get the animals out, and we both need some food stat. With any luck, Sebastian will be avoiding us so thoroughly he won’t even know we escaped until we come back and clap some shiftsilver cuffs on him. But right now, we have to prioritize getting out.”
Iz sucked in a deep breath, like she wanted to argue, but she nodded.
She didn’t take his arm, though, even when he offered it to her. She went and sagged against the wall, looking boneless and tired.
Logan couldn’t let himself think about how much he just wanted to sweep her up in his arms and carry her out of here. It would drive him crazy.
Crazier.
He focused on the animals, unlocking cage after cage.
Some of Sebastian’s “treasures” had lived down here so long that they had grown skittish and shy, just like Logan had feared. A few of them did fall back and cling to the corners of their cages, like they didn’t know what to do with their suddenly acquired freedom. He really could have missed them if he were working in the dark.
Logan held out his hand, letting them inquisitively sniff at him. His scent as a human wouldn’t be the same as his scent as a hellhound, but he suspected a faint doggy whiff hung around anyway. If nothing else, his scent would at least be enough for them to tell that he wasn’t Randolph Sebastian in a Logan-mask.
He got a little kick out of the fact that Nathaniel, who had been one of his oldest companions down here, was also one of the least reluctant. Actually, “least reluctant” was putting it mildly. As soon as Logan opened Nathaniel’s cage, the winged greyhound immediately andexuberantlyfly-tackled him, licking his face and covering him with stray hairs and molting feathers.
It let him hear Iz’s real, human laugh for the first time too.
“He likes you,” she said. Her voice was already a little smoother; her accelerated shifter healing must have already started doing its work.
“I like him,” Logan said honestly. “First he tries to feed us, now he’s offering cuddles. You couldn’t ask for a better dog.”
Nate let out an affirmativeruffto this sentiment and flew over to shower Iz with affection too.
Logan was glad Nate was there to provide all the comfort he couldn’t. For obvious reasons, Iz wouldn’t hesitate to take it fromNate, who she could be sure was offering it with no strings attached.
Even if Iz had trusted him enough to believe that the two of them being mates could lead to something other than disaster, Logan wasn’t sure that he could have comforted her without freezing up. He couldn’t get around the fact that every second he spent with her was going to make it harder for him to do the right thing and step away. If he took her in his arms, he wouldn’t want to let her go again.
All the emotion was corked up now, making his chest hurt. Like just about everything else, it was a problem he would have to deal with later.
The fluffalo were a little reluctant to come out, but they gave in as soon as Logan stroked their broad, velvety noses. Pretty soon they were following him out of the cage, butting up against his shins like friendly dogs and looking up at him with their sad, trusting eyes.