Blackwing Defender

by T. S. Joyce

  “You aren’t really like this,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “So hot and cold.” Winter climbed in and closed the door beside her. It was all bent up, but it clicked into place with a little extra elbow grease.

  Logan turned up the radio. Some song about love and pain being the same thing. Perfect.

  “We aren’t nothing, Logan. We aren’t strangers anymore, not after everything we went through together today. Even if I don’t meet your qualifications for a friend, there is a chance we could be in the same crew. You want to pretend like today didn’t happen? Fine. Big fuckin’ surprise you’re just like everyone else. I liked being with you before you Changed. It felt good.”

  “It was a distraction.”

  “So? We fit! Our bodies were good at what we did. And you can’t pretend I wasn’t a distraction for you, too. You want to forget some casual fling in the woods, okay. I didn’t expect anything complicated from you, Logan. Just…don’t be mean.”

  “How many men have you been with?”

  She huffed a breath and dipped her hand out the broken window, caught the wind in the bowl she made. “None of your business.”

  “Seven.”

  She tossed him a dirty look. “I didn’t ask your number.” And she sure didn’t want to hear about it after the emotional roller coaster that was today.

  There was blood on her jeans. She could smell it. Even if the soreness in her arm didn’t remind her of what they’d shared earlier, the copper scent sure did. He’d loved her body, and then he’d scarred her. She winced and returned her gaze out the window as buildings gave way to thick Smoky Mountain forest.

  “I wouldn’t have killed you,” he said, barely audible over the music.

  “I trust you.” Winter didn’t even try to conceal the lie from her tone.

  “I swear I wouldn’t have.”

  Across her mind flashed the vision of that charging bear, glass shattering, the massive claw bigger than her face reaching for her, bleeding her. Apparently Logan-the-man was crazy, too. She’d seen the feral determination in that animal’s eyes.

  “Two,” she murmured just to change the subject. She rolled her head on the seat and looked at Logan’s handsome profile. Beautiful face, ruined soul. “Brody was my first.”

  “I was your second?” he asked.

  “Lucky me,” she said, holding her finger and thumb up in front of the sun. Squinting, she squished it between her fingers.

  “I liked being with you too. You know…before. You were good at fucking.”

  Winter snorted and giggled. “Thank you. I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  Logan chuckled a surprised sound, and there it was, that stunning smile she knew would transform his face. “Since I’ve said so much to you.”

  “You are a man of few words.”

  “I’m a man of action.”

  “Murder and fucking. I bet Kane and Rowan will be thrilled to induct you into the crew.”

  “I have a skill-set that can help them.”

  “Until you convince them to put you down.”

  The song switched to a slower beat. It was one of those with violins and a woman’s soulful voice.

  “Logan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If they ask you to Change, you should get out of it. Kane won’t let you around his mate if he knows what you are.”

  His smile faded to nothing. “What I am,” he repeated. “You know what I am, and you’re still sitting in my truck with me.”

  “I’m different.”

  “How?”

  “Kane has everything to lose.” When Logan dragged his eyes off the road to her, she smiled sadly. “I’m Winter of Nowhere, remember? I have nothing to lose.”

  Chapter Nine

  “About time,” Dustin called as Logan reached the others with the bags of cold food.

  He’d zoomed away from her as soon as he was able, without a single glance back to see if Winter was following. So it was going to be like that now. Fantastic.

  “Are you okay?” Emma asked in that thick voice of hers. Her eyes were already big in size, but right now, they were huge as she stared at Winter’s arm.

  Shit, she hadn’t covered the claw marks well enough. “I’m fine.”

  Emma arched her eyebrows high and looked at the smashed-up truck. And before Winter could stop her, the little hellion charged Logan and shoved him as hard as her flimsy human arms could manage. He barely moved, but he looked away, exposing his neck. On the second shove, he held up his hands in surrender.

  “You hurt her,” Emma blurted out, shoving him again.

  “What’s going on,” Dustin asked, a suspicious glance to where Winter was tugging her T-shirt sleeve lower.

  Behind Logan, who was still getting push-pummeled by the tiny honey-haired lady, Beast snarled and gripped the back of Logan’s neck roughly, yanked him backward out of the way of Fists of Fury.

  “You hurt her?” he snarled out in a terrifying voice. The scars on his face went red right along with his angry flush.

  Pulling Emma away from Logan, Dustin told her to, “Cut it out.”

  She kneed him neatly and swiftly right in the ballsack.

  “Oooow,” Dustin howled, releasing Emma immediately and doubling over.

  “Don’t touch me,” Emma said.

  Beast and Logan were locked up now, scuffling, hands around each other’s necks and snarling, so Winter rushed to separate them. Her fingers scrabbled desperately for purchase, but Beast and Logan as men were evenly matched. Beast didn’t know what Logan hid on the inside, though.

  “It was an accident!” she yelled. “Beast, stop!”

  The air was getting so heavy she was suffocating.

  “You stupid human, I was trying to help you,” Dustin growled at Emma from where he lay on the ground cradling his dick. “Can you not feel him? You were shoving a monster! Fuck!”

  Emma dropped down with a confused frown on her face and patted around Dustin’s privates as though that would cure the dick-kick. Dustin swatted her away none too gently, but Emma was persistent, and the two warring titans in front of Winter were now coming to blows.

  Beast slammed his fist against Logan’s Jaw, and Logan landed the same on Beast’s face in a blur. Shit! Winter got yanked down with them as they fell into a heap of flying fists.

  “Group D,” Rowan called from the porch.

  Winter froze, her arms wrapped around Beast’s massive bicep. The others froze, too.

  “Or should I say D-Team,” Rowan corrected, one eyebrow arched. “Please release each other’s necks and balls and follow me.”

  There were about ten shifters in a loose group near the tree-line, and all of them were laughing, the asshats.

  Dustin struggled to get up, still holding his crotch, and Beast and Logan shoved each other hard before they let go their death grips. When Winter was pushed backward with the force of the two disengaging, Logan snarled like a demon, eyes bright silver as he stood and launched at Beast again.

  “Now!” Rowan yelled, power crackling through the air.

  Emma was already to the Second of the Blackwing Crew. Dustin called her a “butt-kisser,” before he stumbled on a pile of spilled, cold french fries and loped after them. He was all hunched over like Emma had kicked his balls up to his belly button. Winter had to stay at the slow pace the titans walked because they were still glaring at each other and needed someone to walk between them to keep them separated.

  Kane stood in the doorway of the cabin, arms crossed over his chest, bright green dragon eyes narrowed on their rag-tag group.

  As they entered the cabin, Kane barked out, “Over there.” He jammed a finger at a couch that would only sit three and paced back and forth across the room as they took their seats.

  Winter sat between Dustin and Emma, and the titans stood like pissed-off sentries on either side of the couch, eyes full of fury and locked on each other. The volume of their snarling w
as ridiculously high and drowning out everything so Winter barked out, “Logan, don’t ruin this for me.”

  He dipped his silver gaze to her immediately, and she could see it—the slight dilation of his pupils that said part of him wasn’t broken. Taking care of more submissive females was a base instinct for dominant males. With a deep, baffled frown, he gave his attention to the wall and stopped the awful snarling sound in his throat.

  Both Beast and Logan were bleeding, Beast from his forehead and Logan from another split lip. The air smelled like pennies.

  “Do I even want to know what happened out there?” Kane asked.

  “No,” Winter, Logan, and Emma said at once, while Dustin muttered, “Probably,” and Beast grunted like an animal.

  This was ridiculous. There wasn’t a worse matched group of people for a crew, yet they were all sitting here trying just the same. D-Team was exactly right.

  Beside her, Emma laughed. Winter pursed her lips against a laugh and kept her gaze carefully on Kane. If Winter looked at Emma’s smiling face right now, she would lose it in a fit of giggles.

  Kane looked like he wanted to murder all of them. “You think this is funny?”

  Winter dared a glance to the side where Dustin was fighting a grin while shaking his head no. “Not funny at all, sir.”

  “Why the fuck is everyone bleeding?” Kane asked loudly, his black eyebrows arched up high.

  “Because they’re junior Gray Backs,” Rowan muttered from the kitchen where she was eating a purple popsicle.

  “Who started it?” Kane asked.

  Everyone looked straight at Logan except for Winter. She was no rat.

  Dustin spoke up in a bored tone. “Not that I care, but Winter came back with a big old bear claw mark down her arm. And she smells like pain. And sadness. And she owes me twenty bucks.”

  Kane smelled good and furious as he leveled Logan with that dragon glare of his. “Did you hurt her?”

  Logan nodded his chin once.

  “Get out,” Kane spat.

  Logan made to leave, but Winter stood in a rush and cut off his path to the doorway. “Wait, wait, it’s not what you think.”

  Kane approached in a blur and ripped her sleeve upward. Winter winced as his fingertips brushed the sensitive skin.

  “Don’t touch her,” Logan gritted out, rounding on the alpha.

  When Beast, Logan, and Kane all surged into a pile of violence, Winter screamed, “He’s mine!”

  “What?” Logan said, his shirt in Kane’s clenched fist.

  “His bear had an accident. Part of that was my fault. He warned me. Stop!” she shouted, pushing Beast back by the chest. He had about a hundred pounds of muscle and a foot of height on her. “If he leaves, I leave, too.”

  “Fine,” Kane said. “Both of you get out.”

  “Veto,” called Rowan. “What do you mean he’s yours?”

  “I mean…” Winter swallowed hard and looked around at all the expectant faces. “He’s my friend, and he deserves a shot at the crew.” Or at least a shot at going out how he wanted.

  Kane released Logan’s shirt and jammed his finger toward the wall where he’d stood earlier. Exposing his neck, Logan made his way slowly to the wall. Submissive he may look, but his eyes glowed, and the snarl in his throat was back. He was playing nice for a shot at the crew. Nothing more.

  Kane strode to the door and yelled, “Call-backs are tomorrow. If you don’t hear from me by ten in the morning, you aren’t up for my crew. Goodnight!”

  Kane slammed the door and dragged a chair noisily out from under the table. “I’m tired. I didn’t want to do this shit in the first place, my dragon has been a pill to manage today, and I have zero patience to sift through whatever shit-storm got Winter that injury. I will say that scars like that will not be tolerated in my crew.”

  “Well…” Rowan said, slurping purple syrup off the popsicle stick. “I am not so bothered by that as long as it’s not malicious.”

  “What?” Kane said, looking appalled.

  Rowan shrugged. “The Gray Backs fought all the time. These idiots remind me of home in a big way. At least they were laughing afterward.”

  “I’m not laughing,” Beast said.

  “At least most of them were laughing,” Rowan conceded. “Sometimes crews can be like that.”

  “Violent little heathens?” Kane asked too loud.

  “Well, yeah. It worked for the crew I grew up in. Not saying this should be an all-the-time thing, but a little brawl here and there is okay.”

  Kane groaned and rubbed his hands down his face for too long to be polite. Maybe he had a headache.

  “Biggest fear,” Rowan called across the room. “Don’t think too hard, just answer the questions as they come. Emma, you start.”

  “Biggest fear?” Emma glanced at Winter, but hell if she knew what the dragons were looking for. Emma hesitated only a second before she said, “Failing.”

  “Getting too attached,” Beast gritted out.

  “STDs,” Dustin said easily, like shifters could even get those.

  Logan pressed his back against the wall and slid down until he sat on the floor, his elbows resting on his bent knees. “My biggest fear is that no one will ever really know me.” He looked over at Winter, and there was a charged moment between them.

  “Same,” she murmured.

  “Ugh, just fuck already,” Dustin complained. “Or wait, did you already do that?” When his eyes widened, a lightbulb practically went off over his head. “Is that where you got the claw marks? Kinky.”

  Heat blasted up Winter’s neck and warmed her cheeks.

  “Next question,” Rowan rushed out, but she was looking at Winter with a spark of curiosity in her blue eyes. “Why did you leave your last crews?”

  Emma shrugged and said, “Boredom.”

  “Don’t pretend you had a crew,” Dustin scoffed.

  Emma smiled brightly and zipped her lips.

  “Right?” Dustin asked, uncertainty tainting his voice as he looked around at the rest of them. He ran his fingers though his hair, smoothing it back from his face. “Because humans don’t have crews. You mean your family…right?”

  Kane and Rowan were smiling now as if they were in on the secret, and little Ms. Human Emma just got a whole lot more interesting.

  “Maybe that’s where she learned to drop a shifter,” Logan said.

  “Oh yeah, kicking a man in the dick is such a skill.”

  “It looked pretty skillful to me,” Winter said. “I thought you werewolves were supposed to be fast.”

  Looking grumpy as hell, Dustin flipped her off and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “No crew,” Beast said.

  “Boy problems,” Winter admitted.

  “Alpha was a lying asshole,” Logan murmured.

  “Why do you want to be part of the Blackwing Crew?” Rowan asked as Kane relaxed back into the chair and linked his hands behind his head, eyes on them and seeming to miss nothing.

  “I like dragons,” Emma answered.

  “I also like dragons,” Dustin said, but there was a false note in his voice.

  There was something strange about the way Kane looked at Dustin. Every time his glance slid the werewolf’s way, it hardened and filled with some deep, dark emotion that gave Winter chills. This look he gave Dustin was no different. “Try that one again.”

  Dustin growled, but he wasn’t meeting Kane’s eyes anymore. “I got sick of being bottom of my pack.”

  “So you’ll be bottom of the crew here?” Winter asked. “Good decision.”

  “Screw you. Oh wait, Logan already did.”

  “Do you want to die?” Logan asked him blandly. His face was all twisted and full of murder though, so Dustin exposed his neck like a wise dog.

  “I need an alpha more dominant than me,” Beast said, ignoring the interruptions.

  “Same,” Logan said.

  Winter pulled her knees under her and got comfortable. “I need a fres
h start.”

  The questions stayed rapid-fire. The dragons didn’t ask them to elaborate, only watched them carefully as they answered. What was their last job? Where would they be interested in working here? Where did they see themselves in ten years? Why hadn’t they settled down with a mate yet? That was a hard one. They were supposed to keep answers simple, but Winter’s murmured, “I had a mate, but he chose another,” got a slew of questions from Dustin, then Emma, and even one from Beast.

  The dragons never brought it back around either, just watched her uncomfortably expose her secrets until Winter wanted to crawl under a rock and hide for the rest of her life. Logan sat silently against the wall, pricking the edge of his thumbnail with a giant Bowie knife he’d pulled from somewhere.

  “What’s Brody’s last name?” Logan asked carefully.

  “No,” Kane said sternly, power crackling across the single word.

  Dustin relaxed on the couch beside Winter and looked into his pants. “I think Emma bruised my balls.” He opened the front of his jeans wider and angled his hips toward Emma. “Do they look purple to you?”

  Emma looked at a snickering Rowan with a dead-eyed expression as she shook her head. Dustin was exhausting.

  “Winter?” Dustin asked. “Purple or no?”

  “Show her your dick, and I’ll kill you,” Logan said on a sigh as he leaned his head back against the wall.

  “What is with you, man?” Dustin asked. “You’re all death threats and emo. Sex is supposed to put you in a good mood. Unless Winter’s crotch is broken. It’s not broken, is it? Asking for a friend.”

  Winter wanted to give him a second kick to the jewels but settled for shoving him in the head.

  “Ow. Besides,” Dustin continued, “if we become the new Blackwing Crew, we’ll all see each other naked when we shift. I’m gonna put all your tiny wieners to shame.”

  Emma leaned over Winter’s lap and looked down Dustin’s pants with an impressed quirk to her lips. “Vienna sausage. Nice.”