CHAPTER TWO

LOGAN

It takes a second for the news to sink in. For me to realize he said my name. Not Oliver’s. Mine.

Even as I absorb the sucker punch of panic to my gut, I’m scrambling for a plan. Something we can all agree on as reasonable and just. A Protector is an older male family member or a husband. Not a nineteen-year-old orphan who carved his way out of poverty and desperation to become the apprentice to Baalboden’s best tracker.

Maybe the Commander will intervene and tell us how preposterous this is. Acknowledge that I can’t possibly be expected to take on a sixteen-year-old ward. Not when a man of Oliver’s age and reputation is willing and able.

Instead, the Commander looks across the long expanse of table between us and smiles, a small tightening of his mouth that does nothing to mitigate the predatory challenge in his eyes.

He won’t step in without seeing me beg him for it first. I press my lips closed, a thin line of defiance. I’d rather combine every element on the Periodic Table and take my chances with the outcome than humble myself before the Commander. Even for the worthy cause of giving both Rachel and Oliver what I know they want. I’ll have to come up with another way to put Oliver in charge of Rachel. Maybe as her new Protector, it’s within my rights to assign her to another?

Before I can pursue this line of thinking, Rachel leaps to her feet and says, “No!”

Oliver grabs for her, tugging her toward her chair, but she shakes him off.

“No?” The Commander draws the word out with deliberate intent, looking at her properly for the first time since we entered the room. Dread sinks into me at the way his eyes scrape over her like he’d enjoy teaching her how to keep her mouth shut.

I’ve seen that expression on the kind of men who frequent the back alleys of South Edge. It never bodes well for the woman they’ve selected as their prey.

Rachel’s voice shakes. “He’s not … I can’t be.... This is crazy.”

I snatch her arm and forcibly seat her again before she says something that gets her in the kind of trouble I can’t save her from. “What she means is that this is very unexpected.”

“What I mean is there is no way in this lifetime that I’ll ever willingly answer to you.” She glares at me, but her words are laced with panic.

I understand the feeling. I don’t know how to be a Protector. Especially Rachel’s Protector. And I don’t know what words to say that would make her despise the situation less.

“You dare argue against your father’s wishes?” The Commander leans forward, placing each palm flat against the table.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Yes, I—”

“You don’t.” I meet her eyes and try to convey with my expression that she should be quiet and let me handle this. Not that I’ve ever known Jared’s headstrong daughter to be quiet about anything. But the thought of what the Commander could do to her if she angers him makes me sick with fear.

She throws me a look of absolute loathing, then pulls her arm free and turns to the Commander. “He’s only nineteen. Wouldn’t a man of Oliver’s years and experience be a better choice?”

Her words hurt, a sudden sharp ache that takes me by surprise. The fact that I was about to suggest the same does nothing to lessen the sting.

“Your father didn’t think so,” the Commander says dismissively, turning his gaze from her as if she couldn’t possibly have anything more to say.

“But … I’m nearly Claiming age. Just three months away. Surely I’m old enough not to need to stay under the roof of my official Protector—”

The Commander straightens abruptly and glares Rachel into silence. “First, you question your father’s wisdom over you. Now, you question the Protectorship laws of Baalboden itself?”

“Sir, she’s just a bit off balance right now. It’s been a difficult day for her.” The calm in Oliver’s voice is strained around the edges.

The expression on the Commander’s face turns the dread coursing through me into stone. Oliver can’t defuse him. Rachel can’t either, not that she’d try. That leaves me. Standing between the leader who’s hated me for most of my life and the girl who thinks she hates me too.

“To argue against the law of Baalboden is to argue against me.” The Commander chops each word into a sharp-edged weapon. “Are you absolutely sure you wish to take me on, girl?”

Stepping away from his chair, he marches toward us with slow deliberation. The torches paint grotesque shadows on his face as he passes them, and I brace myself.

Best Case Scenario: All he intends is to give Rachel a lecture, and I can wait until it’s over before quietly insisting, as her Protector, that we take her home.

Worst Case Scenario: He intends to punish her physically for having the gall to argue with him, and I’ll have to step in. Promise to do the job myself when I get her home. Transfer his attention from her to me. It’s what a true Protector would do.

I no longer harbor false hope that I can somehow delegate the job to Oliver. The Commander won’t allow it, not after this. Jared trusted me with the person he loved most. Not Oliver, her surrogate grandfather. Not Roderigo Angeles, her best friend’s father. Me. The orphaned apprentice she once said she loved. I don’t understand why Jared felt this was best for her, but I don’t have to. He offered an outcast street rat a place at his table. Not just as an employee, but as a friend. I owe it to him to do my best for Rachel.