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.”