“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 fresh 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.”
Winter burst out in a laugh, and even Logan, Rowan, and Kane chuckled. Beast stood against his wall with his arms crossed like he hated the world, and Dustin snapped his underwear back in place and argued that his dick was, “at least a bratwurst.”
Winter was rolling now. God, today had been exhausting and partly terrible, funny, and overwhelming. Her arm hurt, she was hungry, and she should be mad as a hornet at Logan for what he’d done, but mostly she was relieved. Tonight she was listening to werewolf dick-jokes instead of drowning out Lynn and Brody’s loud honeymoon fucking with music and the sound of her own crying.
Her giggles tapered off slowly. Maybe she was hysterical or emotionally exhausted, and this was the result. Whatever it was, the others were smiling, too, and she imagined it had been a long, hard day for all of them.
“This interview is done,” Kane muttered, his smile lingering. “Same thing I told the others—if Rowan and I are still interested, we’ll call you by ten in the morning. There’s a motel ten miles down the road you can stay in, or you can go all the way to Bryson City for rooms if you want.” The dragon jerked his chin toward the door and muttered, “Get out of my territory.”
And as they filtered out of the cabin, something settled inside of Winter. Maybe it was the sunset that cast the sky in such pretty colors, or the lush greenery around Kane’s land. Or maybe it was the chill she got when she brushed her knuckle over the lopsided house number, 1010. Or the sound of the others saying their farewells, or Logan’s lingering glance over his shoulder at her as he made his way to his battered truck.
She couldn’t put a finger on just one thing that made her feel so deeply comfortable in this moment, but down to her marrow, she knew this place was part of it.
And these people were important.
Chapter Ten
Winter felt better this morning than she had in a long time, which made no sense because she bore a new claw mark that still looked seven shades of awful. But whatever. The D-Team had already talked about it, along with Kane and Rowan, so what was the point of hiding it?