He’s wrong. If you don’t attack first, you lose everything.

Everything.

“You scared me today,” he says softly, and I look away from the knife. “They’d already demanded our money. The swords were just to intimidate us into giving them a way to buy their next drink. It was a situation you could’ve talked your way out of with your eyes shut. Instead, you tried to kill them.”

I can’t look away from the worry on his face, even though I want to tell him I’ve learned my lesson. The lesson he tried to teach me when he made me promise to strike down the Commander if he ever threatened me. It’s branded deep into the fibers of my being now, and I don’t plan to act like it isn’t.

“How can I trust you to carry your weapons if you don’t know who deserves a death sentence and who doesn’t?” he asks, and slides closer to me, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against his chest. “Rachel. I should’ve been with you today. I’m so sorry.”

It’s not his fault.

I should’ve killed the Commander.

I should’ve entered the wagon and attacked without hesitation.

I should’ve kept my promise to Logan. If I had, Oliver would still be alive.

A small whimper escapes me, and tears spill down my cheeks. I try to tell him. To make the words come, but sobs choke me instead. My fingers are icy, trembling, as Logan pulls me down beside him on the couch. I stare out his window, watching the sky darken as tiny stars tear holes in its velvet surface until I cry myself to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

RACHEL

I wake lying next to Logan on the couch beneath his heavy wool blanket. His arm is still wrapped around my waist, his cheek pressed against the crown of my head. I keep still, letting the warmth and the solidness of his body imprint itself to mine. I want to memorize this moment, a tiny piece of what I once wanted, to hold with me while I face what comes next.

“Are you awake?” His voice is a low rumble against my ear.

I nod, though I don’t want to.

“I’ve been thinking. About yesterday.”

Oliver. I have to tell him. Now.

I struggle to sit up, but his arm tightens. “Please. Just listen for a minute.”

I stop struggling, but tension coils within me.

“I don’t know what happened. But I need to tell you, to convince you, that if he … if there was anything … if he hurt you in the way a man can hurt a woman, it wouldn’t change how I see you. He can’t break us, Rachel, unless we let him.”

“I also want to make a promise to you. Will you look at me?”

I roll over, the leather squeaking in protest beneath me, and tilt my head back to stare into his dark blue eyes. He raises his hand and strokes the side of my face. His touch is far gentler than his words.

“I’m going to make the Commander pay for what he did, Rachel. I swear it. And if he dares lay hands on you today, I won’t stop until he’s dead.”

This kind of response will ruin everything. All the Commander needs is one tiny excuse to take Logan from me forever. And I’m about to tell him something that will make his anger so much worse.

Suddenly I realize this is what the Commander is banking on. Logan will try to Claim me to protect me from the Commander’s machinations, and I’ll blindside him with the Commander’s plan. The only one who benefits is the Commander.

Unless Logan knows.

The shadows of grief and loss can’t obscure the startling clarity of this thought. I feel like I’ve emerged from a long slumber, awake and ready to act.

I’d be a fool to take the Commander at his word. I have to protect Logan, and the only way to do it is to trust him the way I promised I would. Logan won’t lose it at the Claiming ceremony and give the Commander an excuse to hurt him if he’s prepared to have me turn him down.

And he won’t try to exact unthinking, furious revenge for Oliver if he has a chance to grieve and then formulate a plan.

My voice is still hoarse from the screaming I did yesterday as I look Logan in the eye and say, “I already knew about the Claiming ceremony. He told me when he—”

My throat closes as the memories hit. Being inside the wagon. Oliver. Crimson everywhere.

Logan reaches up to cup my face with his palm, and I smell him—ink, fresh paper, and musk. “Listen to me, Rachel. You can take this one piece at a time. I’m in no hurry. Tell me about the Claiming ceremony. We’ll start there.”

“He says you’ll try to Claim me.”

“I will.”

“But that’s what he wants. What he expects.”

Logan frowns, and I can almost hear the gears of his mind working, analyzing, and plotting.

“He wants me to turn you down.”

“You don’t legally have that right. Only your Protector does.”

“You’re my Protector.”

“Which is what he’s going to use against me,” Logan says in his I-have-a-puzzle-to-solve voice. “He’s going to say as your Protector, I can’t both Claim you and speak for you. But why bother? What does he stand to gain? He doesn’t want you Claimed by someone else because he’s planning to send you into the Wasteland …”

I can see the answer written in his eyes even as I say it. “He’ll publicly renounce your Protectorship so you can’t legally stop him. He wants us separated because you aren’t going with me.”

“The hell I’m not.” His face is hard and bright.