During the day, she crammed into the tiny courthouse with most of the other hunters as they listened to the nonstop testimony the accused gave. Some of them had turned on each other in the hopes of not receiving a death sentence, but others, like Mateo, refused to speak. They sat in stony silence, glowering at everyone.
Though Elena tried to get her to stay home when the trial first started, her mother sat beside her throughout it all. Sometimes she would soundlessly weep as she dabbed her face with one of her father’s handkerchiefs. Elena would often wrap her arms around her mother and hug her close while she cried.
Logan sat directly behind her throughout it all. He never said or did anything, but his reassuring presence gave her strength on the days when she wasn’t sure how she was going to get through. And then, finally, after two weeks, the trial ended.
It was left to the hunters to decide their fate.
Before the changes in the compound, women couldn’t participate, but now, the women who sat through the trial would get to vote on the outcome. The families of the accused weren’t allowed to participate, but only a few of them had anyone there to support them; most were on their own.
The overwhelming majority of hunters in the room voted for execution. Elena had refrained from voting. She wasn’t impartial, and as much as she wanted them dead, it was better to let the others decide.
She hadn’t handed them their death sentence, but she would fire a gun at them on execution day. She made that clear to Juan as soon as the trial ended. And while she stood there, telling Juan she was going to be on the firing squad; Logan stood beside her.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to rely on his unwavering strength, but she found herself leaning toward him when they walked away. His arm brushed hers as they walked, but acutely aware of all the attention on them, Elena kept her back ramrod straight and her chin high as they walked together.
He didn’t try to touch her, but she itched to slip her fingers into his and squeeze his hand. She ached to feel his lips on hers again. He hadn’t tried to kiss her again since the motel, but that kiss haunted her dreams.
If she didn’t wake with a scream lodged in her throat over nightmares about her father, Mateo, and hunters stalking her, she woke yearning for Logan. She wasn’t getting much sleep at night.
Despite everything between them, and everything that happened, Elena felt a deeper connection to Logan than she ever had to anyone else.
She kept trying to remind herself that he was a vampire, but it didn’t matter. She’d somehow started to develop feelings for him.
However, with her father’s death still so raw and his murderers’ trial just ending, she didn’t have time to think about her growing feelings toward him.
As Logan walked with Elena back to her home, he almost cupped her elbow when she swayed a little, but he stopped himself before he did. He recalled her confusion and uncertainty after he kissed her at the motel, and he couldn’t do that to her again.
She had far too much going on in her life without any added pressure from him.
“You don’t have to be part of the firing squad,” he said.
“Yes, I do.”
He didn’t argue with her any further because he would have felt the same.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next morning,he brought her two of the sticky buns he knew she loved so much. He’d asked the woman cooking them to put some extra icing on them, and she had. She’d given him a wink as she pushed the buns toward him.
“It’s supposed to be the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, not a woman’s,” she teased.
Logan laughed as he lifted the sweet treats onto the tray already laden with coffee and toast for Rosa. “I’m trying something new.”
“I hope it works for you.”
He wasn’t expecting her to say this. When they first came to the compound, they were blindfolded and weren’t allowed to stay. Now, they remained, but originally it was only because Juan was trying to sort the whole mess out, and he wasn’t going to let anyone who might have killed Alejandro leave.
Once they sorted everything out, Juan asked him and Asher to stay and offered them the protection of the hunters. It would have been rude to refuse, and he wasn’t leaving Elena until he was sure she was safe, so they remained.
The more time he and Asher spent here, the more accepting the hunters became of his vampire status. He hadn’t believed any of them would like the idea of him and Elena, though if that happened, it would be alongtime from now. She was far from ready for anything more between them, but he would be here if she ever decided to give him a chance.
He hoped that time came before he had to leave. He’d talked to Ronan and Declan yesterday. There hadn’t been any major developments, but they’d lost another hunter and vampire while on patrol the other night. Things were getting ugly there; Logan was reluctant to leave Elena, but it was only a matter of time before they had to return.
He carried the tray across the compound to Rosa’s house. When he knocked on the door, her mother answered and smiled at him as she stepped aside. He followed her into the kitchen and set the tray down. He placed her plate of eggs and toast on the counter next to her coffee.
“Thank you,” Rosa said in her gently accented voice.
Like her daughter, the woman was beautiful with dark brown hair and golden-brown eyes. She was small and slender with delicate features and red-rimmed eyes.
