Chapter 7 Poe #2
The room falls silent save for the distant thump of footsteps from the floor above us.
I watch Logan’s face, seeing the calculations running behind those golden eyes.
He’s weighing options, counting costs, mapping strategies.
The commander I followed into battle a dozen times, the tactician who never lost a campaign.
But this isn’t the Outlands. This isn’t a border skirmish or a rebellion in some distant province. This is the heart of Melilla, the throne itself. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
“And Maya? Cillian?” Logan asks finally. “What happens to them if I fail?”
“They’d be protected,” Nikolai assures him. “We have safe houses, loyal supporters in outlying parts of the kingdom. I will ensure their safety no matter what happens.
“Unless the king gets word of this before we’re ready and sends the full might of his forces to flush us out,” Logan corrects. “Then they die with me.”
“They might die anyway,” I say, no longer bothering with niceties. “The king’s guards are searching for us. We’re already living on borrowed time.”
Logan’s gaze snaps to mine, surprise and something else flashing across his features.
“You think I should do this,” he says, not quite a question.
I consider lying. It would be easier, safer, to tell him what he wants to hear. To fall back into the role of loyal shadow, the weapon that doesn’t question where it’s aimed.
But I’m tired of easy. Tired of safe. Tired of being a weapon rather than a man.
“I think you should consider all options,” I say carefully. “Including this one.”
Logan studies me for a long moment, as if seeing me for the first time. Perhaps he is. Perhaps we’re both seeing each other clearly now, without the distortions of blind loyalty or unquestioning obedience.
“If—“ Logan begins, then stops, recalibrating. “What would this look like? Practically speaking.”
Nikolai leans forward, energy animating his tired features. “We have people inside the palace. Military support from disaffected officers. Financial backing from nobles who’ve grown weary of the king’s increasingly erratic taxes and trade policies.”
“Numbers,” Logan demands, slipping effortlessly into his commander’s role.
“Three hundred fighters within the city walls,” Nikolai replies promptly. “Another five hundred who could be mobilized within a week. Plus whatever forces you could turn from the royal guard itself.”
“Not enough,” Logan and I say simultaneously.
“Not for a frontal assault,” Nikolai agrees. “But we’re not suggesting open warfare. This would be... surgical. Precise.”
“Assassination,” I translate, the word hanging heavy in the air.
Nikolai doesn’t flinch. “Regime change,” he corrects, though we all know it’s the same thing. “The king is already losing support. We’d simply...accelerate the inevitable.”
“I need time,” Logan says finally. “To think about this.”
Nikolai nods, hope evident in his expression. “The smuggler won’t be leaving for another week.”
“And if I choose to leave?” Logan asks. “If I take Maya and the others and disappear beyond the border?”
“Then I wish you a long and peaceful exile,” Nikolai replies, though his expression suggests he doesn’t believe that’s the choice Logan will make. “But consider this, little brother—how long before the king’s reach extends beyond the city? How far can you really run?”
The questions hang in the air, unanswered and perhaps unanswerable. Logan stands, signaling the end of the meeting. I rise with him, the habit of years too ingrained to break even now.
“One week,” Logan confirms. “I’ll send word.”
Nikolai nods, rising to embrace his brother in a brief, fierce hug. “Be careful,” he murmurs. “Eyes everywhere these days.”
“Always,” Logan replies, the ghost of a smile touching his lips.
We leave the way we came, through the bar and back into the damp night. The rain has stopped, leaving the streets slick and reflective, each puddle a mirror for the sparse streetlights. We walk in silence, maintaining our charade of being strangers until we’re well clear of the district.
It’s only when we reach the relative safety of a deserted park that Logan speaks, his voice low and troubled.
“You’ve been quiet.”
I glance at him, measuring my response. “I think everything that needs to be said has been said. You’re the one who has to make the decision.”
He huffs out a laugh devoid of humor. “Am I?”
“You’ve always been the one makes all the decisions up until now.”
“This isn’t political anymore…this is personal.”
“Is there a difference anymore?” I ask before I can stop myself.
Logan’s steps falter, just for a moment. “There should be.”
“But there isn’t,” I press, the words spilling out now that the dam has broken. “Not for us. Not for the pack. Everything you do affects all of us. Every choice you make shapes our lives.”
“You think I don’t know that?” There’s an edge to his voice now, the first hint of the temper I know simmers beneath his controlled exterior. “You think I don’t feel the weight of it every day?”
“Maybe you feel it,” I acknowledge. “I’m just not sure you consider it.”
Logan stops walking entirely, turning to face me with an expression I can’t quite read in the dim light.
“Is that what you think of me?” he asks quietly. “That I don’t consider the consequences of my actions on the pack?”
I could lie. Should lie, probably. But we’re beyond that now.
“I think you consider the consequences as they affect your goals,” I say carefully. “Not necessarily as they affect us individually.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” I challenge, surprised by my own boldness. “Would you have forced the bond on Maya if you’d truly considered what it would do to her? What about Cillian? Were you thinking about the rest of us when you decided to keep his designation a secret?”
Logan flinches as if I’d struck him. “Maya signed a contract. I didn’t force her to do anything she hadn’t already agreed to do.”
“Cillian—”
“Bonding Cillian was an accident, something done in the heat of the moment. And it never would have happened if he hadn’t hidden his designation from me for years.
” Logan glares back at me, fire in his eyes.
“I murdered my own fucking brother to save Cillian and I kept his secret because he fucking begged me to.”
The words taste bitter on my tongue, but I still say them. “And somehow things always work out to you getting your own way.”
Logan studies me for a long moment, then sighs, the anger stiffening his posture despite the softness of his voice.
“What would you have me do, Poe? Take Maya and run? Spend our lives looking over our shoulders? Or stay and fight for something better? Go ahead and make the decision, so you can live with the consequences.”
“I don’t know,” I admit, the honesty costing me. “I just know that whatever you decide affects all of us. And this time, we should all have a say.”
A democratic pack,” Logan says, a hint of his old sardonic humor returning. “How progressive of you.”
“Call it what you want,” I shrug. “But Maya deserves a voice in this. So do Ares and Cillian.”
“And you?” Logan asks, his gaze intent. “What do you want, Poe?”
The question catches me off guard. No one asks what I want. I’m the shadow, the knife in the dark. I execute orders. I don’t give them or question them.
Except that’s no longer true, is it? I’ve been questioning everything lately. Every order, every assumption, every loyalty that once seemed unshakable.
“I want...” I begin, then stop, uncertain how to articulate the tangle of desires and fears that have been growing inside me. “I want to be more than your weapon.”
The words hang between us, raw and honest in a way I rarely allow myself to be. Logan’s expression softens, something like understanding flickering in his eyes.
“You’ve never been just a weapon to me, Poe,” he says quietly. “Never.”
I want to believe him. Part of me does. But the rest remembers too many missions, too many targets, too many nights washing blood from beneath my fingernails while Logan slept peacefully, secure in the knowledge that his orders had been carried out without question.
“Then prove it,” I challenge. “Talk to the others. Really talk to them. Listen to what they want before you decide our futures.”
Logan is silent for a long moment, his expression unreadable in the shadows. Finally, he nods, a single sharp movement that feels simultaneously like a victory and a surrender.