“Have a seat,” Logan said, gesturing to the chair across from him.

He wasn’t too surprised when the man walked past the offered chair to lean against the wall and fold his arms over his large chest.

With a sigh, Logan leaned forward and grabbed the folder off the coffee table in front of him and tossed it across the room. It landed at Kale’s feet. The other man cocked a brow as he leaned down to pick it up, never taking his eyes away from Logan as he did it.

So little trust, Logan thought with an inward sigh. Not that he could blame the man. Under any other circumstances the man would probably find himself knocked out, chained, and tortured for a few days, years, decades or centuries until Logan either got bored or forgot he was there. With these things it was really hard to tell which would come first, but he was willing to find out.

Maybe after Kale found Ms. McGuire he wouldKale’s deep laughter tore him away from his thoughts.

“I wouldn’t even think about it, Logan. We both know how it would end,” the man said with a touch of brogue that came and went over the centuries, sounding more amused than pissed, which was insulting in itself and Logan was glad they were alone for this meeting. He’d hate to lose any more of his men today because they thought he was a soft touch and tried to disobey him in any way.

“You can’t blame me,” Logan said, having absolutely no doubt that something in his expression had given away his thoughts. Kale’s ability to read a man by a single expression used to entertain and somewhat frighten him when they were young men, but now it hardly fazed him, unless it interfered with his plans. Then it simply pissed him off.

The large man simply shrugged as he opened the folder and looked down. “You can try, but I doubt it would work out any better than the last time,” Kale drawled, flipping through the file.

Logan leaned back in his chair, heavily sighing.

Unfortunately the man was probably right. Over the past nine centuries Kale was the only man he couldn’t seem to kill, and not from a lack of trying. He’d lost count of how many times he’d tried to capture or kill the bastard only to have it come back and bite him in the ass.

“Why exactly did you summon me for this bullshit?”

Kale asked, tossing the folder back on the coffee table.

“Because it’s a job and you need the money,” Logan pointed out, biting back a rare smile as his onetime friend, the man he once thought of as a brother, glared at him. No doubt the man hated the reminder that Logan was once privy to all of his inner most thoughts and plans and knew his one true weakness.

Money.

It was something he could understand and even appreciate in the man, especially since that little obsession had helped him out a time or two.

“I just finished a very lucrative job this morning. I don’t need any more money,” Kale bit out between clenched teeth.

Logan simply shrugged. He’d agree that the man didn’t need more money considering he probably had more than Logan and most of the Masters he did jobs for, but wanting it was another issue. He ran his eyes over the immortal’s mussed hair, the dark circles under his eyes, slightly pale complexion and rumpled clothes and knew the man was telling the truth about finishing a job that morning. He had no doubts that Kale had planned on enjoying the full moon tonight before taking that ever elusive break he was always promising himself and probably needed desperately, but Logan didn’t care. He had a job and this bastard was going to do it for him.

“I need you to find her for me,” Logan said, gesturing to the file and having no doubt that Kale already had it memorized. There was a reason why the man was the best in the business after all and why Logan was going to make damn sure he scooped him up for this job before some other Master decided to use his f**king brain and use the mutt, an insulting term for a shifter without a pack, for himself.

“You and about twentyfive,” Kale started to say only to get cut off by an annoying beep. With a sigh he unclipped a pager from his belt and look at it only to snort. “Make that twenty-six Masters need me to find her.”

Logan shouldn’t be surprised, but he honestly was. Not that other Masters were desperate for Kale’s services, but because the man had come to see him first. Then again if the man was willing to tell everyone to go f**k themselves he would get more enjoyment out of starting with Logan, he thought dryly.

“I’ll tell you what,” Kale said, giving him a mocking smile, “you tell me why you want this little woman so badly, say pretty please, and I might just think about it.”

He knew there were so many things he could say that would work on any other man that would get him what he needed, but he knew threatening the man, threatening someone that he loved, or offering him more money than any of the others would never work with this man. So he said the one thing that he knew would grab the man’s attention and probably get his throat ripped out, but he really didn’t have much of choice at the moment.

“Elizabeth,” he said, not at all surprised when the man’s eyes shifted to liquid silver or when his nails turned into claws and his teeth into a deadly row of canines.

Logan looked straight into the eyes of the beast that longed to tear his heart out and said, “You owe me.”

“I f**king saved you,” Kale said in a voice that was more beast than man at the moment.

“Thanks to you we’ll never know, now will we?” he said with a calm that he didn’t feel.

He hated thinking about Elizabeth, never mind saying her name. In the last nine hundred years of his life she was the only one to ever come close to bringing him to his knees and he knew if the bastard in front of him hadn’t interfered he probably wouldn’t be here today.

But he would never be that man again thanks to the bastard in front of him. He would never hold her in his arms again or watch her stomach grow round with his child. Instead of growing old surrounded by their children and grandchildren on the piece of land he’d damn near killed himself to buy she’d died in the streets like a f**king animal.

“You finally ready to do this?” Kale asked, his eyes shifted back to emerald green.

It was only then that Logan realized he’d crossed the room and had Kale by the throat. Disgusted by his lack of control, he shoved Kale away from him. One day he would make the man pay, but not today, and definitely not this easily.

“You’re taking the job,” Logan said tightly as he walked back across the room, turning his back on his enemy as part of him hopped Kale would make a move so he had his excuse to tear him apart with his hands even though he knew the right thing was to wait for the perfect moment.

For Elizabeth.

For a moment Kale said nothing and Logan wondered if the man left. He’d never seen another, shifter, human or vampire move the way Kale did. With his enhanced hearing and sense of smell he should be able to pinpoint the exact second that Kale entered or left a room, but he couldn’t. When he’d been nothing more than a human with a naive perception of the world he thought he’d lived in he’d envied Kale’s abilities.

He’d looked up to his best friend and for most of their childhood he’d done his damndest to be just like him.

Everyone in their tiny village had admired and respected Kale, even when he was still a boy. In a time when strength meant everything Kale had it in spades.