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

as her eyes dragged down his chiseled chest and the hard mounds of his abs, but when she reached his hips, he pulled his hand away and strode toward her.
    Logan stepped into the tub, slid in behind her, hugged her tightly against his chest, and buried his face in her neck. Winter sat there frozen in disbelief that this giant, complicated man had just exposed himself physically and emotionally to her.
    For a while, he didn’t say a word, but this was his apology. She knew without a shadow of a doubt he didn’t give affection freely, or perhaps ever.
    “Why?” she asked thickly. “Why did he hurt me?”
    “Because he’s broken. I broke him. He was good, and I made him kill, and now I’m the one who needs the mercenary.”
    “Rowan is your mercenary?”
    He nodded against her neck. “I want to go fighting, with honor, but you’ve seen me. Who can beat him?”
    “Only dragons.” No other shifter on earth was as big or dominant or bloodthirsty as Logan’s bear.
    Winter turned sideways in his arms to face the wall, curled her knees up and rested her head on his bare chest, stared at the lines of grout between the bathroom tiles. “I’m angry at you.”
    “You have every right to be.”
    “Not because you hurt me, Logan.”
    “Then why?”
    “I’m angry because you didn’t save him.”
    Logan dragged in a deep breath and stroked her wet hair. “I’m angry for the same reason.”
    ****
    Should he tell her why he’d marked her? Winter was soft and hurt. That asshole mate of hers had busted up her insides and made her hunch into herself, just a ball of cement against the world with hairline cracks that let her sweet demeanor leak through. She probably thought that was weakness, but it wasn’t.
    He couldn’t tell her his bear wouldn’t have killed her. That he was just trying to make sure she was scarred forever. The fucked-up monster in his middle had claimed his mate in only the way Logan’s broken bear could. Without permission and too roughly. Too much pain, too much blood—that was Logan’s punishment.
    She’d checked her phone on the side of that road, gone pale from a message Logan just knew was from her ex-mate, and something awful had happened inside of him. The possessiveness had nearly blinded him, and that first touch of her hand on his dick had sealed her fate. It was clear as water what she was doing. She was using him to forget Brody. But Logan’s bear would be good-goddamned if he was a balm for that prick.
    He’d grown desperate to make her belong to only Logan. And when Logan had refused to give into the temptation to bite her right over Brody’s claiming mark, his bear had revolted and forced the issue. He’d created chaos and trauma that Winter didn’t deserve. Even now, his bear was constricted in his middle watching her, adoring her, stalking her like the fucking psychopath he was.
    What was it? Was this some messed up way for his bear to try to save himself? By attaching to something beautiful. To something whole and perfect. Was this bond Logan felt in his chest some desperate attempt to chain himself to this world?
    It wasn’t fair to Winter. They were strangers, and it wasn’t her fault her kindness had earned the devotion of a beast.
    Look what he’d done to her in one day. She was naked in his arms, broken down sobbing, arm still running pink under the steaming shower water. This was his effect on people he tried to care for.
    Logan hated himself for what he’d done. For what he’d allowed. He hadn’t been able to stop the bear from marking her, but then, he hadn’t tried that hard, had he? He could’ve put up a bigger effort to stop the Change. He could’ve held on until she sped away. But he didn’t. He lost himself in the stupid momentary idea that he could keep something beautiful like Winter, but he couldn’t.
    He was a hurricane, and she was a butterfly. A butterfly with an inner strength that showed in how she was handling the aftermath of his attack, but