Warrior's Rise (9 page)

Darien raised both of his eyebrows. “What, you think I’m lost too?”

Her smile was gentle and it made his heart shiver. “No, I just think you’re strong.”

Darien’s heart flipped in his chest and he averted his eyes. Sometimes Lucy was creepy. Creepy in the sexiest way. It was like she knew things, like she could see into people’s souls. She’d always been able to read him, from the moment he’d met her. He didn’t doubt she could read Logan too. She was usually never wrong about people. Maybe none of them could see what she saw in him, but Darien couldn’t deny that the man obviously had more layers than it had originally seemed.

As if he knew they were talking about him, Logan groaned, muttered something unintelligible and rolled over onto his back. As consciousness returned to him, his eyes opened slowly and he winced, bringing his hand over to his injured arm. “Where the crap am I?” he grumbled.

“Just to let you know, we didn’t let Colt write ‘BALLS’ across your forehead,” Darien put in. He chuckled as Colt shot him a scowl.

Logan swung his legs over the side of the bed and blinked a couple of times as if trying to wake up. “Gee thanks,” he yawned. “Aw man, I need to go to sleep.”

“You’ve been asleep,” Aki pointed out.

He shook his head. “Yeah, but I need to go to sleep in my own bed.” He stood, ran his fingers through his hair a few times, shoved his feet into his shoes and yawned again. “Thanks, guys. Sorry I fizzled out on you.”

Darien shrugged. “It’s cool. Get some rest. See you tomorrow.”

Logan gave a halfhearted wave and stumbled out the door. It was raining again. It had started right after dinner. Darien heard Logan shout several curse words and saw him take off in a sprint towards his cabin. He looked back at his friends as Colt shut the door and chuckled.

* * * *

Logan stared in dismay at his sodden sleeping bag, pillow and blanket. The weather hadn’t been bad for the last several days so he had moved his things back to the bed. That had obviously been a mistake. They were floating again. He let his breath out in an aggravated huff and his shoulder throbbed a dull ache as if to mock him. He glanced over at the corner where he’d slept before and made a face. A sharp pain stabbed through his shoulder as if it was talking to him. No way… Not tonight.

He grabbed his jacket and went back out into the rain, almost immediately getting soaked through. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, hunched his shoulders and barreled through the downpour to Willow’s cabin, where he rapped on the door. She opened it with a curious frown and he looked up at her. “The roof leaked all over my bed again,” he grumbled.

She sighed, but didn’t look irritated like she had last time. Her eyes still held a great amount of apathy, but they also held the faintest glimmer of apology. “I’m sorry, Logan, but I don’t have anywhere else to put you.” She started to close the door.

“Willow, wait!” He looked down at the ground, too weary to even attempt to sound harsh. He sighed and his shoulders drooped in defeat. “Please don’t do this to me again,” he muttered. “I’m cold. I’m wet. I’m injured.” He looked up into her eyes. “Please don’t make me sleep on the floor like a dog.”

She regarded him for a minute, something he said obviously striking some sort of chord in her that was not cold as Alaska during the Ice Age. She expelled a forceful breath and stepped aside. “Come in,” she relinquished.

He almost couldn’t believe she’d actually said it, but he wasn’t about to stand there and question her momentary generosity. He bounded inside without delay and shook the water off of his arms, shivering. He was startled when he felt her come up behind him and pull his jacket gently off of his shoulders.

“You can sleep on a cot in front of the fire,” she said softly as she hung his jacket up. “It won’t be five star, but at least it’ll be better than the floor.”

He turned to face her and shook his head. “No, Willow, it’s fine…” He met her eyes and gave her a weary smile. “Thank you.”

She met his gaze for a fraction of a second, flashed a half-smile, and headed towards the kitchen. “Do you want a cup of coffee?” she offered.

He smiled. “Yes, thank you.” He eased himself down in front of the fire, relishing the warmth.

“You take it black, I would assume?”

His smile turned into a grin and he glanced to the kitchen where she was pouring two cups of coffee. “Would I lose macho points if I told you I put enough cream and sugar in it to kill a diabetic?” To his surprise, she actually laughed. It was a warm sound and it made the cold he felt inside his body go away while the fire in front of him worked on the outside.

“Wow, Mr. Savage, honesty,” she said as she came back into the room and handed him a mug. “That’s probably the first piece of basic truth you’ve given me since you came here.”

He smiled and took the mug from her. “Here’s another piece for you.” He looked up at her as she sat in a chair diagonally from him. “I really prefer it when you call me by my first name.” She met his eyes and seemed slightly stunned for a second before she raised her mug to her lips. His smile grew and he averted his gaze to keep from staring at the way those perfect lips of hers teased the rim of her mug. He wondered what they would feel like teasing his lips. A shiver went along his spine at the thought and it puzzled him. He hadn’t had a reaction like that to a woman in ages. He felt attraction, sure. Sexual chemistry, yeah, but he hadn’t felt one of those shivers in a very long time. He had a feeling it meant no good.

He shrugged. “They asked me—bullied me, really—into watching a
Lord of the Rings
marathon with them. I made it through the first one, but conked out when the second one started.”

He took a sip of his coffee. “Yeah, well, there are moments in my life I’m not proud of. Turning into my father is at the top of the list.” He caught her inquisitive expression and gave a slight shrug. “You know Darien’s father?”

She snorted. “That horrible excuse for a human being? Yes.”

He nodded. “My dad was a lot like Darien’s. He ran out on Mom and me when I was twelve, but he did enough damage when he was around to jack me up for the rest of my life. Said that there was no way he would raise a weak son, or one who was soft in any way. I learned to be tough, hard, strong. It was either that or suffer worse. I thought if I did what he wanted it would make him happy. I thought it would—” He swallowed and forced his words to stop, forced his mind to steer away from the path it was trying to go down. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t expose his emotions to Willow. He wasn’t going to sit there and have a therapy session. She’d just end up thinking he was even more of a fool and he’d re-live things he’d rather not. He sighed. “Well, let’s just say that I got used to being a certain way because I thought that was how I was supposed to be.” He shook his head. “I didn’t see that, in trying to gain his acceptance, I became what I hate… I admire Darien for standing up for who he is and retaining his sense of self under those kinds of circumstances.”

“Darien is very strong,” she commented. She set her mug down and got out of her chair. “Logan, you’re bleeding through your shirt.” She knelt and touched his shoulder.

He blinked and tried to look at his wound.

“You must have irritated it somehow. Take your shirt off. I have a first aid kit in the bathroom. I can put some ointment on it and change the bandage.”

It was true that his shoulder was burning like fire. It had been bothering him since he’d left the kids’ cabin. He sighed and started to unbutton his shirt, slipping one arm out and then easing the fabric off of his wounded shoulder. A crimson spot had seeped through the bandage and stained the sleeve.

“I’m not going to lie,” Willow said as she reappeared next to him. “I almost had a heart attack when I saw that arrow sticking out of you earlier today.” She knelt and gently pulled the gauze bandage off. “What did you do to this? How did you make it bleed?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I probably flopped over onto it or something while I was asleep. It’s been bothering me since I woke up.” He tried not to pay attention to how nice her deft fingers felt brushing against his skin. Her touch was gentle, compassionate, and it was a great contrast to how she had behaved towards him thus far. It was a foreign feeling in general. His encounters with women were usually fast, furious and aggressive. He couldn’t even remember the last time a woman had touched him gently. He didn’t seek out meek, shy, or gentle women. He was aggressive. It was safe territory. Aggressive women came with no strings attached. It was purely physical. No emotions involved.

Willow was actually one of the most aggressive women he had ever met, but in a completely different way. She was aggressive with life, with the way she dealt with people, but here, now, tending his wound, she was gentle. Her voice was soft. She was being kind now when she had told him what a loser he was the day before. Her fingers made his skin burn and the sensation made his heart squeeze in his chest… Troublesome organ. Other than beating to keep your blood flowing, he didn’t know why you had to feel anything in it at all. It was so much easier when you didn’t.

He closed his eyes as she rubbed some sort of antibiotic ointment over his wound and covered it with a clean bandage. He sighed and any trace of cold he’d been feeling before evaporated with the way her touch made his blood burn.

“Is it hard?” she asked him suddenly.

Lady, you have no idea…
His eyes flew open and he met her gaze with a frown. “Huh?”

She looked at him. “Keeping it up all the time?”

He shot a glance down at his lap and swore he felt his face flush. “W-What?” He cleared his throat, trying to keep his voice from squeaking like a pubescent boy’s. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t awkward. He didn’t fumble. Ever. Why was he stammering and embarrassed?

“Your tough guy front?” Willow continued, obviously not catching what he’d thought her statements had been referring to. She sat back, finished with changing his bandage, and looked up at him. “Is it hard to keep that rude, obnoxious, macho man wall up all the time?”

He swallowed hard and shrugged. “Not really. It’s just me, I guess.”

She shook her head. “If it was, you wouldn’t be sitting here talking to me like this right now. You haven’t made any sort of pass at me, any crude sexual remarks.”

You weren’t in my head a second ago…

She stood and went to retrieve a blanket, which she draped over his shoulders. “You’re not acting all hardened and tough and wanting to pour whiskey in your open wound or something stupid like that. You’re just sitting here, like a civil human being, talking with me.” She gave him a pointed look and arched a playful eyebrow. “Is it so hard to let the front down?”

He averted his eyes, absolutely abhorring the fluttery feeling in his chest. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he murmured honestly. He’d been who he was for many years. It worked for him. To have a teenage girl shatter the only way he knew how to live his life was really actually doing quite a number on his psyche. How could he exist without the only protection he’d ever had?

He had no choice. He would not become his father. It was not an option. Much to his dismay and horror, he
had
to change the way he lived his life, the way he was. In order to do that, he had to figure out who he really was… And he hadn’t known the answer to that question in many, many years.

Chapter Nine

Willow was surprised at his honest admission and part of her heart softened. She had absolutely no right to try and tell him that lowering your front was easy. She lived and breathed behind her own, constantly. She had to. If she didn’t, she would be terrified all the time, and she was no good to her people like that. She sighed. “We all have fronts, Logan,” she said. “We all pretend to be what we’re not to present to everyone something we wish we could be.”

He blinked up at her with a quizzical expression, and his lips turned up at the corners. “That was the most cryptic thing I’ve ever heard, and yet, somehow, it made sense.”

She grinned and let her eyes travel over his sculpted upper body for a sinful second before she mentally shook herself and stood. Geez, had it really been such a long time since she had been in a man’s company other than her brother and Counselor John? She’d been living alone in the forest for too long if she started to think that Logan Savage was attractive. Sure, maybe he was being less heinous at the moment, but he was injured and feeling sorry for himself. As soon as he started to feel better, no doubt he’d be back to his abrasive, obnoxious self. Still, the six-pack was nice. So were the defined arms and shoulders. They’d be nice on anybody. She wasn’t blind.

She started to head towards the closet to get the cot out when he shifted the position of the blanket across his shoulders, exposing his lower back and a symbol that stopped her dead in her tracks. She blinked rapidly and frowned. “Where did you get that?” she questioned, going back over to him and touching the symbol.