“Hey, man. I need you to drive to Tonic, Colorado to pick up Tanner. Coach Moore’s son went out there for some fun and seemed to vanish. The man is about ready to drive up there and tear the town apart. I told him that you would have no issue stopping by.”

The cocky voice on the other end of the line made Logan want to bite the other man’s leg off. Sammy was the Predators’ shortstop and was known for his god-like complex. Logan’s inner alligator wanted to remind the snake shifter that his reptile could eat him alive both as a human and an animal.

“That is a day’s drive just to get there. Not to mention the trip back with the kid. You know that I hate Tanner, and every word out of that kid’s mouth makes me want to strangle him. Kind of like how I feel about you right now.” Logan did not mention the fact that he was looking forward to getting home.

The past few months, Logan had been down in New Orleans visiting his friend Alix and the man’s mate, Max. While the trip had been fun, it also got complicated.

One of Max’s teammates, Mallow, discovered that one of Logan’s teammates was his mate. Logan wanted to get back and find out who it was before they faced each other this season. He was not sure how long it would take to get Tanner to come back and figure it out. Mallow did not seem like the kind of guy to be understanding and patient. He was not sure what kind of shifter Mallow was and did not want to find out because he pissed the man off.

“Oh, come on. Coach gave you time off to visit your buddy. You owe him.” Logan did not like the idea of owing anyone. Nor did he think that he actually owed anyone anything. Still, Coach Moore had always been an ass, and he had no doubt that the man would be unbearable if he did not at least try.

Logan pulled over, in order to change the address in his navigation system to Tonic. He wanted to curse at the time that appeared until his arrival. “Why can’t one of the other guys do this?”

The laugh on the other side of the phone had Logan rethinking his idea of being helpful. The answer that he got made him almost spin back around just to kick the other man’s ass. “Because none of us can stand the kid, either. You just happen to be the one closest at the wrong time. This is why you should never answer your phone on vacations.”

“Whatever. Tell Moore that I’ll call him tomorrow.” Logan hung up, not wanting to deal with Sammy anymore. The man really was a pain in the ass. Logan saw that he would make it to the town too late to do much. He planned to get to the town, find a hotel, and start looking at first light. The idea that he would need to check if there was any packs, covens, or whatever type of groups in the area came to mind. While the world may know about shifters, many still clung to the past set up of the different groups.

In some areas, shifters still remained in hiding and avoided interaction with humans. Packs, Covens, and other groups had signed a contract with the humans to create the Paranormal Council that was to keep track of the groups and enforce the laws that were agreed upon. It had taken many centuries for this to happen. Logan remembered his grandparents talking about the wars and battles between the paranormal and the humans. He knew that some people, human or shifters, remained stuck in the old ways. Logan had been lucky to grow up in a community that accepted shifters openly and to be in the shifter’s baseball organization. It helped that he was highly ranked and had a wide fan base composed of both groups.

While Logan had not been raised in a congregation of alligators, he knew how to interact well with the formal settings. If there was an issue, it was not like people would not realize he went missing. That gave Logan only a small amount of reassurance. He did not like the idea of heading into unknown territory, and the snap of his inner alligator said that they were in agreement.

The trip had been long but uneventful. Logan had arrived and found a small twenty-four-hour hotel. His room was small and smelled like a hospital. It made his nose burn and he was happy that his inner animal was not overly sensitive to smell. He chuckled slightly at the idea of Max, Jamie, or Kave trying to stay in the room. Jamie and Kave were a feline mated couple that were both teammates of Max. He could see Kave strangling the manager for having this room labeled as Shifter Friendly, while Jamie would just laugh at his mate’s pissed-off nature.

Logan shook his head at the idea of the people that he called his friends, despite the fact they were on rival teams. He focused on his phone instead. Coach Moore had sent him Tanner’s contact information and Logan had hoped that the kid would answer. Logan knew that Tanner was almost fifty years old but the guy acted like he was a wild teenager, so kid was how everyone classified him.

The phone rang and rang until finally Logan was forced to leave a voicemail. He tried to keep his tone of voice clear of annoyance and kept his message to a simple call me back. The more that Tanner knew, the better of a chance it was that the guy would avoid him. Logan decided that he would head to the police station to make his presence known. Tanner was going to be enough trouble without insulting the people of the town.