Blackwing Defender (Kane's Mountains Book 1) by T. S. Joyce Page A

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 was 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