by T. S. Joyce
Winter looked hurt.
“Not you!” He flung the application like a Frisbee and flinched his gaze away from the pain in her eyes.
“Smooth move, Romeo,” Dustin called as Logan brushed past her to the door.
He should turn around and apologize to her, but what good would that do? It was just a selfish ploy to get her to see him as something he wasn’t. For her to see him as decent. Best she figure out what he was now and stay the hell away. He wanted her to survive him.
In a rush, he shut the door behind him. Kane sat at a table, elbows on the polished surface, hands clasped in front of his mouth as he studied Logan. “Name.”
“Logan Furrow,” he answered, lifting his chin high.
Kane glared at him a few seconds too long, then pulled an open laptop closer and typed onto the keyboard, which gave Logan a few seconds to assess the situation. This part he was good at. That instant where he could take everything in and remember it for the rest of his life. The new-home sawdust smell that said Kane and Rowan had been renovating their lair, the dust motes that said he hadn’t dusted in a week. The flipped corner of a rug near the back door that said someone had left the back way in a hurry. The buzz of a new refrigerator, marks on the beams of the ceiling that said the roof was new. The soft flutter of papers that said Kane probably had notes pinned to a wall somewhere. An office maybe. Down the hallway to the right. The frown on Rowan’s face as she stood in the kitchen leaning on the counter. Not a threat. She smelled worried. Not offensive. Everyone felt uneasy when they got into tight spaces with him. Air Ryder’s scent lingered, but he wasn’t here anymore. He was probably the one who flipped the corner of the rug. There were three escapes. Front door, back door, and the picture window in the living room. A knife block sat on the counter, a fireplace set had a metal poker in it near the hearth, and that was all if he was too lazy to reach the six-inch-long Bowie knife he kept in a sheath at his ankle.
“Former Ten Rivers Crew?” Kane asked, arching his black eyebrow. “Why did you leave?”
“The alpha didn’t cut it.”
Kane’s monstrous green dragon eyes narrowed. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms as he studied Logan. “In what way?”
Logan growled. “Because he broke a promise.”
“Just one promise?”
Logan nodded his chin once.
“Must’ve been a big one.”
“It was the only one that mattered to me.”
Kane slid his computer out of the way and leaned forward on his elbows. “Logan Furrow. Your name sounds familiar. What did you do for work?”
Logan huffed a humorless breath. “Pass.”
“Then you can leave.”
Well, now he was directly in between a rock and a hard place. He would have to leave anyway if he admitted his career. “Any other question to start. Get to know me before you cut me out.”
“Fine, what did you do to your bear to break him?”
That was basically the same question. “Nothing. He’s fine.”
“Liar. I can feel how fucked up he is all the way from over here. From the way my mate is bristling behind me, I’m guessing she can, too. So please illuminate me, Mr. Furrow. Why should I allow you to be in my crew?”
“Because I’m loyal, and I can protect you and your mate. I can protect your entire crew if it came down to it. I have a skillset.”
“From your career?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Name your job, Logan. I’m not going to ask you again.”
“Mercenary. Assassin.”
“Fuck,” Kane spat out. He wouldn’t look at him now, was shaking his head back and forth. “Your choice?”
Logan hesitated.
“Answer me.”
“Not at first. At seventeen, I was ordered by my alpha to put down a problem shifter he couldn’t muster the balls to put down. My bear was…” Logan inhaled deeply and spilled the rest of his sins in one breath. “He was dominant, and I was young, and I didn’t know I could say no, and he hired me out after that.”
“How many kills?” Kane asked low.
“Enough,” Rowan said.
Kane made a tick sound behind his teeth and asked again, over his mate’s wishes. “How many?”
That number was for Logan alone. It was his ticket to hell.
“Sit down,” Rowan demanded, making her way to the table.
Kane shot her a warning look. “Rowan—”
“You said this was just as much my choice, and before we nix anyone, I want to know more than their career. I want to know them.”
“He is his career.”
Rowan cupped her mate’s cheeks and smiled down on him like an angel. “You see things in black and white.”
“I’m supposed to protect you.”
“I’m a dragon, and I’m not his target.” Rowan dragged her lightened eyes to Logan. They were gold now, with elongated pupils. “Sit down and tell me…what was the happiest day of your life?”
Shocked by her question, Logan stood frozen. This wasn’t what he’d bargained for. He’d thought the interview would be to assess his capability of keeping the crew safe, not this personal shit.
Rowan arched her blond brows. “Sit.”
There was dominance and order in her words, and he wanted to listen to her. He could practically smell the irritation on Kane, but he didn’t want to disappoint the Second.
He missed Winter. He shouldn’t be thinking about her right now, but he did. He missed the way she looked and smelled. He’d really liked the way he felt when he’d imagined her touching him.
If he didn’t answer questions, Kane would send him away from here. Away from her.
His mouth was dry as a desert as he took the chair across from Kane slowly.
“Take your time,” Rowan urged. “Think about it. Happiest day.”
The chair creaked under him as he shifted his weight and angled his face, exposing his neck to the pair of subdued titans across the table.
Kill him.
Kane snorted and shook his head as if he’d heard Logan’s bear.
“Five years ago, almost to the day, I was sent to a crew up in the Appalachian Mountains. Cougars. Real backwoods, quiet. Big crew. They had a problem cat, alpha couldn’t manage him anymore. He paid my alpha for my services with moonshine money. I was usually only brought in after the problem shifter had started killing, when their animals were out of control. This one was early. He hadn’t killed yet, but he was close. He’d been stalking hikers, tempting himself. His alpha said he was obviously bloodthirsty, so it was a typical job, nothing out of the ordinary. I was supposed to go in and challenge him, let him go honorably, leave. It was going to be a one-day job.”
“This is your happiest day?” Kane asked, looking disturbed.
“Just wait,” Rowan murmured. “Continue.”
“I got there, and I’d already grown this sixth sense about problem shifters. I could tell how far gone they were, and this one, Nick, wasn’t far gone. He was salvageable. Hadn’t got the taste of human blood yet, and so I stalled. I asked the alpha if I could take him out for a drink before the challenge. First time to ever do that. He agreed, thinking it was part of the gig, and I sat down in this old, shitty, hole-in-the-wall bar with the guy, and we talked. Really talked. I could tell he was trying, but the effort was new. And when I finally got him to fess up, he said there was a girl in his crew. She didn’t give him the time of day because he wasn’t right, but he’d been working harder in hopes he could get his cougar under control enough to ask her out.” Logan chuckled at the memory and scratched his jaw. “It was the first time I refused a job. I told the alpha Nick needed more time, and that if he ended him, I was coming for the alpha. That I would put his entire crew under my fucked-up bear. So he had a choice. Boot Nick from his crew or put more effort into saving him.”
Rowan smiled. “So your happiest day was when you didn’t have to kill.”
“Second happiest day.” Logan pu
lled his wallet from his back pocket and plucked a picture of a sweet baby girl from behind his driver’s license. He slid it across the table to Kane. “My happiest day was when Nick sent me this picture in the mail with a letter thanking me for giving him more time.”
Eyes going misty, Rowan sat there with the picture held in front of her. Females did that—cried a lot. Kane sat stoically, eyes narrowed and thoughtful.
“You asked me how I fucked up my bear. I did that by killing when my bear didn’t want to. I did it by not giving problem shifters enough time.”
“Worst day,” Kane said.
That was an easy one. “A month ago when my alpha went back on his word.”
“Which was?”
Logan leaned back in the seat and met Kane’s glowing green eyes. “To put me down. He’d promised me a set number of jobs, and then I was gonna have peace. He was dominant enough. One of the only ones in the world who could’ve bested me, but he liked that money too much, so he gave me another job instead.”
Rowan set the picture on the table and turned her head away, but Logan could see it—the tears dripping from her chin.
“Did you do the job?” Kane asked in a careful tone.
“Nope. I left the crew. It was the first time I ever disobeyed him. I left my chance of dying the way I wanted.” Logan leaned onto the table and dared a direct glance at Dark Kane. “Until you.”
Kane stood and paced to the kitchen and back, running his hands through his hair, pushing it back from his face. “I’m not going to be the one to put you down, Logan. I’m really not. I’m struggling to control my dragon and killing won’t keep me steady. It could put the world in danger. I’m not your solution.”
“I’ll do it,” Rowan whispered.
“What?” Kane and Logan asked simultaneously.
The Second of the Blackwing Crew leveled Logan with a heartbroken look. “If you make it into this crew, and you get to a point where you need to be put down, I’ll do it.”
“Rowan, this is a bad—”
“You can join the others,” she said, lifting her chin primly. “Send in that big fella with the scarred-up face next. Wait with Winter until we call for group interviews.”
Logan sat there stunned, his palms on the table as he dragged his gaze from Rowan to Kane, then back again.
She’d just offered him hope. “Thank you,” he murmured, exposing his neck. Jerkily he stood, and the chair behind him scraped across the floor. He made to leave, but remembered the picture and doubled back. He took it from Rowan’s outstretched grasp and said it again with more feeling this time because death by dragon’s fire was his last chance to end the hurt. “Thank you.”
“Logan?” Rowan asked as he opened the door.
“Yeah?”
“I asked Winter who she thought would be good in this crew, just based on pure instinct, and do you know what she said?”
“No.”
“She chose you. Maybe you aren’t unsalvageable either.”
Logan ducked his head to hide his deep frown. Rowan didn’t know what she was talking about. If she spent a single minute in his deranged mind, she would Change into her dragon and end him now. But she’d just done him a favor by pushing him into the next round, so he didn’t argue. Instead, he forced a smile and lied to make her feel better. “Maybe not.”
Chapter Five
“Oh, my gosh,” Winter whispered.
How did she wrap her head around all that Logan had just admitted to the dragons? She pushed off the house where she’d been eavesdropping near the back window and hurried around the corner. Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, Logan was a mercenary? And not only that, but he was on a mission to be put down? She wanted to cry, but he would see her tears and puffy eyes, and he would know what she’d done.
She bolted away from the house toward the trees. Once she was in the woods, Winter slowed her pace, acting like she’d just been taking a stroll through the forest.
“That was the longest piss in the history of urine,” Dustin called. “You pooped, didn’t you?” He nodded and rolled his eyes. “It’s okay, kitty, everybody poops.”
Logan was standing by Dustin with his hands on his hips, staring thoughtfully in her direction. Mortification heated her cheeks. “I didn’t poop, Dustin. I just took a walk.”
“Somebody call the fire truck. Kitty’s pants are on fire.”
“Fuck you,” she muttered.
“Fuck me?” Dustin asked, twitching his long hair out of his face. “Okay, is that on the table? You look a little small for my dick, but if we use tons of lube, you spread your legs wide enough, and relax your goody basket—”
“Stop it,” Logan gritted out.
Power rippled through his words. Dustin let off a dog whimper and snapped his head to the side, exposing his neck. “Okay, okay, sorry,” Dustin choked out.
Logan moved to the other side of the fire pit near Emma and sat down. Beast was nowhere to be seen, so he must’ve already been inside with the dragons.
Clenching her trembling hands to steady them, Winter murmured, “I really wasn’t pooping.”
“Then what were you doing in the woods, hmm?” Dustin asked, rubbing his neck like it was sore.
With a shrug, she said, “Nothing.”
Logan was staring at her clenched fists, though. “Were you eavesdropping?”
The direct question startled her. He would hear a lie, and now he was watching her so intently, there was no way she could wiggle out of this.
“Ooooh, curiosity is gonna kill the kitty,” Dustin sang.
God, she hoped he didn’t make it to group interviews.
Winter stalled by pulling her hair up into a high pony tail. “So, they still have to make it through all these interviews before they begin the group ones.” She nodded her chin toward the fifteen milling shifters hanging in loose groups in the shade. “I’m starving. I think I saw a mom-and-pop burger joint down the road near the gas station. Anyone want anything?”
“Three hamburgers with everything on them, two orders of fries, and if they have milkshakes, I want chocolate, and also a strawberry one,” Dustin said without missing a beat. “Extra-large like my—”
“Money,” she interrupted, palm out.
“You aren’t paying?”
“I would rather step into a legitimate bear trap than take a werewolf out to lunch.”
“Rude,” Dustin muttered, digging in his wallet.
“Emma?” Winter asked.
Apparently she’d turned her hearing aid back on because she nodded and told her she wanted a hamburger, hold the onions. When she reached for her purse, Winter shook her head. “On me,” she said.
Emma watched her lips, so Winter made a mental note to enunciate things clearly when talking to her.
“That’s not really fair, but okay,” Dustin muttered as he slapped a twenty onto her palm. “I want change back.”
Winter scoffed and shoved the bill into her back pocket. “You ordered all the food, Dustin. There won’t be any change.”
“Small towns cost less money,” he called after her as she made her way toward the gravel road. “Aren’t you going to wish me luck on my interview?”
“Knock ’em dead,” she called with a wave over her shoulder. “Tell more poop jokes. I’m sure they’ll let you right in.”
She’d avoided contact with Logan on purpose and would just get him the same thing Dustin ordered. She would even play super nice and order a meal for Beast, and maybe Kane and Rowan as well, even though she was a little miffed that Rowan had told Logan she’d recommended him for the crew. The interview stuff should’ve been private.
Hypocrite.
Dammit. Winter had eavesdropped, so she had no right to be mad at Rowan.
“I’ll drive,” Logan said from right beside her. Winter yelped and clutched her chest. How had he snuck up on her like that? He was huge, and bears had a tendency to lumber. Not him, though. He walked beside her with a smooth gait that didn’t dislodge a single
gravel pebble under his boots. Logan was scary. And sexy. But definitely scary first.
The thought of being trapped in a small space with him had her animal on edge, so Winter dragged her feet and looked back toward Kane’s house. Toward the others, where it felt safer in large numbers.
Emma was cleaning up the discarded applications fluttering across the ground, and Dustin was watching the petit human with an unfathomable expression, his head cocked like a dog. Up on the porch, Beast was standing at the top step, so tall he easily gripped the edge of the roof in his hands and looked the epitome of a relaxed man. Except for his face. He was staring at Winter, warning in his eyes, and slowly shaking his head no.
Winter ran into a wall of muscle. Logan steadied her, strong grip on her upper arms. An ember of heat cracked between them, right where their skin met, and they both flinched away hard from each other.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
Her chest fluttered with the remnants of that shock. “I didn’t do anything. M-maybe we should take different cars.”
Logan had been stoic-faced since she’d met him, but for a moment, she swore she watched hurt flash across his face before it turned to stone again. “You’re scared of me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. I can smell it.” He snarled up his face for an instant in an expression that was terrifying, but then it was gone, too, just like the hurt. “You’re in no danger from me. Everyone else…maybe. But not you.”
“That doesn’t make me feel much better.”
“You heard.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes anymore, and now he was leaning back against a white pick-up truck with black-out rims and huge mud tires. It was shiny and expensive looking.
“Does mercenary work pay well?” she asked, careful to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
Logan huffed a disgusted sound and stared off into the woods. And when at last he gave her his gaze again, his eyes churned light silver. “You stole from me.”
“I’m no thief.”
“You are. You listened in on something I didn’t want to share. Absorbed it without my consent, and you didn’t share anything back. Thief enough.”