Kane was true to his nickname—the End of Days.
At six o’clock tomorrow, Dark Kane was going to be the end of Logan’s days.
Logan tightened his arms around Winter’s shaking shoulders as he watched the massive dragon break through the cloud layer above and disappear from sight.
Now, after working toward the end for so long, Logan suddenly wasn’t ready.
Chapter Fifteen
“There will be no pulling Kane off this, Winter,” Ben said in a gruff voice. “Don’t yank the tail of the dragon. Live.”
Winter rested her cheek on the chain of the playground swing and swayed back and forth slowly. She’d thought Brody had broken her heart, but if Kane killed Logan, something inside of her said she would never be okay again.
“Ben, I care for him.” Her voice came out tear-soaked and pathetic, but she was past caring right now.
“Winter, I know. I can tell, but you don’t want a war with the End of Days. Trust me. I was in Apex for eight months with him. He was a friend, but one of the few people who ever really scared me. Not the human parts of him. The Blackwing Dragon parts. He’s giving Logan what he asked for. He’s giving him what he wants.”
“But it’s not what I want!”
“That’s right, so I think we need to revisit that because I remember sitting down with you while we were drying you out, while you were detoxing and so sick and we didn’t know if you were even going to make it. And I asked you what you wanted because I thought it would give you a reason to stay in this world, and do you remember what you said?”
Winter sniffed. “That I wanted a family who wanted me back. A family who stayed.”
“Exactly. You pick the wrong people, Winter. You can see they’re not right for you, deep down you can tell, but you cling to them anyway.”
“You think Logan is a bad bet?”
“I think you’ve seen a different side of Logan than the rest of the world has seen. And I applaud you for trying to see the best in everyone. But I knew about Logan Furrow long before he went to Kane. I’d heard about him. An assassin for hire who had been trained to feel nothing. He was the back-up plan for every alpha who accepted problem shifters. He’s famous for his skillset, but that skill is killing.”
“Killing killers, Ben. Killing shifters who can’t be saved and are murdering humans to fill some dark need. There’s a difference between a serial killer and a man who was the arm of hard justice for our people. I thought you, of all people, would understand. You went through the shit, Ben. You lost your panther for years, lost your brother in Apex, lost your friends there, and you spiraled. I know that’s why you picked me up and pushed me where I needed to be. You saw yourself in me. I see that in Logan. He’s savable.” She dragged in a long, shaking breath. “He’s mine to save, do you understand?”
“Winter, maybe you should come home.”
Warm tears streaked her cheeks. She shook her head. “Ben, he is home, and he’s about to be annihilated by the dark dragon. I’ll never have a home again.”
She hung up the phone in a rush and dropped it in the grass. She couldn’t take another second of him trying to convince her she was better off without the incredible feeling of safety Logan gave her.
He’d promised her day by day, and now the choice was being taken away from both of them. And what could she do? She’d asked Ben to talk to Kane, but he’d refused to get on the wrong side of the dragon. And who was she? A submissive panther in a world of fire-breathers.
“You gonna join the crew?” Logan asked from right behind her.
Winter startled hard, gasping.
“Shhh,” he said, trailing his fingers down the back of her bare neck. His eyes were the silver color of a minnow in the sun, and they were full of bottomless sorrow. Slowly, he drew the chains of the swing back, then released her and pushed her gently on her lower back.
Winter rested her cheek on the chain again and sighed, helped by kicking her legs. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Running won’t do me any good. I did my research on Kane before I came here. He’s ex special forces, survived God knows what on an elite team of shifters, and that was when he didn’t even have his dragon. He has surveillance capabilities you wouldn’t believe. In a matter of days, he found out about a kill that no one knew about but me and my old alpha. I wouldn’t be able to crawl out from my rock for a single second for the rest of my life. That’s a long time to live without making a mistake, and what kind of life would that be anyway? It wouldn’t give me you.”
“I could hide with you.”
Logan huffed a breath. “Beauty,” he murmured. “That’s what you gave my life at the end, and I can’t repay that gift by putting you in Kane’s line of fire. The best way for me to protect you is to let you go.”
Winter bit her lip hard so the sobbing sounds that crawled up the back of her throat wouldn’t escape. “No,” she whispered. “I can’t join the Blackwing Crew.”
“Why not?”
“You mean besides the fact the alpha is about to take the life of the man I love?”
“Don’t say that. Don’t talk about love, or it makes this harder.”
“You’re giving up. I didn’t take you for a quitter.”
“I quit a long time ago,” Logan gritted out. He stopped pushing her and paced away like he would walk back up the street to the hotel. Running his hands through his hair, he circled back. “I hurt you. I hurt everyone who gets close. That’s what I am, Winter. You just aren’t seeing me for what I am. Kane’s doing a good thing. For the wrong reasons maybe, but this is what I’ve been asking for. I spent years trying to end it, and he’s going to do it so I can go down fighting. I wish…”