by Eva Chase
A lump had filled my throat. “But your mother died.”
“Yes,” he said harshly. “That’s what real loyalty is, Sparks. I swore to serve my kin as much as they serve me. I could have been selfish and put one person I cared about over the good of the pack, but then I’d have been a wretch of an alpha. I have to put them first, always. Every time they show their throats to me, they’re telling me they know I don’t take their loyalty lightly. I won’t let them down.”
“And everyone knows about the choice you made.” Marco had known about it, and the canine and feline kin weren’t exactly buddy-buddy.
West shrugged stiffly. “There was a lot of talk, at the time. Mostly because my father didn’t agree with that choice. He saw what happened, but he was too far away to help my mother himself. He hasn’t spoken to me since that battle.”
I stared at him. When West was fifteen—his father had held that decision over him, a decision that had saved so many lives, for twelve years? “You were practically still a kid.”
“I was alpha,” West said, his gaze coming back to me as if daring me to blame him too.
But I didn’t. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had saved his mom in that moment, but he’d made a sacrifice instead. One life to save several more, to protect a village, to turn the tide of the battle. I couldn’t imagine it. If it’d been my mom—
The realization hit me then, like a smack in the face. It took me a few seconds to even form the words.
“You must have hated my mother,” I said. “For what she did. For leaving all of you, for all that time. Just to protect me.” By his standards, she’d been so terribly weak.
I didn’t expect to see West’s expression soften. “Ren…” he said. “I did. For a long time. But I don’t know what it’s like, being in those shoes. Having all the additional responsibilities that come with being dragon shifter. Maybe running and saving you was the best thing she could have done for us. It certainly could have gone a hell of a lot worse.”
We could all have died, and the dragon shifter line could have died out completely. Was he saying he was sure now that his kin were better off with me than each kin-group fending for themselves?
“Anyway,” West went on, “As a fellow alpha, Nate might as well be my kin too. If I’d gotten in there a little faster last night, before that vampire pulled the trigger…” He exhaled raggedly. “I carry that responsibility. All of us alphas need to stay strong. United. I’d hate to see what the bloodsuckers do to us if we fall apart.”
And what about after the vampires were dealt with? Did he see us staying united then?
My pulse had sped up, thumping hard in my chest. “West,” I said, “if you—”
A wordless shout of alarm rang down the hall. Both of us whirled toward the door.
“They’re here!” someone called out. “The vampires are outside the walls.”
Chapter 8
Ren
“Away from the doors!” West shouted as we dashed through the jostling crowd to the front doors. “If you’ve got an assigned task, join me outside. Everyone else, stay in the house. You’re safest behind these walls. That’s an order!”
I could taste the fear in the air, like an acrid chill. Uneasy murmurs traveled all around us. My heart thudded. Evacuating all these kin to this estate meant fewer walls to defend, but it also meant a whole lot more depended on us holding these particular walls. We couldn’t let even one vampire break through.
I burst past the door with a bunch of West’s guards and other kin who were joining the battle. Sandra, the wolf shifter he’d sent scouting this afternoon, fell into step beside us. Her face was flushed, her breath short. “I headed back as soon as I saw the trucks. I can’t have gotten more than a few minutes lead on them. They’ll be here any—”
The growl of engines sounded on the other side of the walls. And here they were. West swung his arm. “To your assigned positions. Everyone, ready. We’ll take them down just like we discussed.”
I knew my role in all of this. I wanted to say something to West, to show how much I appreciated him opening up to me, but our enemies were right outside. I couldn’t waste a second.
And after the story he’d just told me, I knew he wouldn’t want me to anyway.
I yanked off my dress as I hurried down the front steps and launched myself into the air. My wings snapped from my frame, expanding as the rest of my body did too. No relaxed shift this time. My muscles screamed and my nerves twanged. But I was up in the sky, scaled and soaring, before the first vampires had even emerged.
Truck doors slammed. Feet crunched into the brush. Guns clicked, ready to fire. Was the king himself out there?
After the way he’d ducked out of the battle last night, I doubted it. Here was West leading our defense on the front lines, and the leader of our enemies couldn’t even be bothered to show up to watch the results of his orders.
I gritted my teeth, my dragon fangs rasping against each other. If I ever saw the vampire king again, I wasn’t giving him the chance to barter for his life. He’d be a crispy cinder before he’d so much as blinked.
The bloodsuckers moved through the forest along the edge of the ring we’d cleared. Their pale forms blended in and out of the shadows. They were spreading out, circling the estate, as we’d expected. And not venturing too close to the cleared area with its heaped line of firewood. I guessed the purpose of that defense was pretty obvious.
But we didn’t want to light it until we needed to. That wood would have to last us the whole night, until the sun drove any remaining vampires away.
West’s people spread out too, taking their positions along the walls. Ready to leap over and light the fire if they needed to—or to fend off any vampires who tried to scale those walls. As I swooped over the front yard, Kylie emerged from one of the equipment sheds carrying the flame-thrower she’d had one of her contacts fashion. Felix’s head jerked around in a double-take when she passed him. Oh yeah, he definitely wasn’t underestimating her now.
But I didn’t want any of my companions to have to leave the protection of these walls. If I could turn all the vamps to cinders before they breached the estate—and before my shift started to falter—there’d be no more kin joining Nate in the healer room tonight.
Gunfire rattled by the far end of the estate. I swung around to pinpoint the sound, and the vampires near the gate moved forward. Oh no, they weren’t getting away with that. I banked sharply to the left, gathering flames in my throat.
My blast crackled over three of the bloodsuckers. Shots boomed from deeper between the trees. Bullets tore through the lower edge of my wings with a sharp stinging.
I swept upward, out of the guns’ range, and then dove back down. One undead figure, and another, and another, was visible here and there between the trees. I caught two of them before they wrenched their guns up. The third opened fire.
I managed to yank myself to the side just in time to avoid the worst of the onslaught of bullets. A fresh stinging radiated through my right wing.
Below me, farther down the wall, a group of vamps had made a run at the estate. They leapt at the wall, flinging themselves higher than any living human could have jumped, heaving their guns with them to get in some early shots.
I careened toward them, withheld fire searing the back of my mouth. The shifter guard on the platform inside the wall bashed one of the intruder’s skulls against the stone blocks. Kylie scrambled up to join him and took out another vamp with a spurt of her flame-thrower. They both ducked back down as guns crackled from the edge of the forest.
Then I was on the vamps. I breathed a scorching line of fire over the rest of the group clambering over the wall and whipped myself around to blast the ones hiding in the trees.
I couldn’t tell how many I caught amid the blackened tree trunks. They were keeping too far back, just close enough to have a clear line of fire with their guns. The forest was too dense for me to pick them off easily, not without setting it all up in
flames.
More gunfire rang out from the far end of the estate. I wheeled, flapping my wings harder. Even here, I couldn’t be everywhere at once. But I had to take out more of the bloodsuckers before I pulled back and let that protective ring do the fiery work for me. There were too many still out there. If our ring burned out before dawn, if even a few vamps got past the walls, this battle would turn into a bloodbath.
I rained fire down on another group of vampires that had run at the wall. Two of the shifters were grappling with one who’d managed to scramble over. I swooped toward him. He got a couple shots off before the guards wrenched the gun away from him. Blood bloomed on one of the guard’s shoulders. He slashed the vampire’s throat.
As the undead body slumped into stasis, the guards jumped back, looking to me. Oh, I could finish the job, all right. I breathed a spear of flames down at the vampire, my lips curling into a dragonish smile as he burst into ashes.
My smile didn’t last long. I wheeled back toward the forest, and a cacophony of shots split the air. All of them aimed at me. The vampires knew who the biggest threat to them was. I spewed flames across the edge of the forest, not quite quickly enough. The hail of bullets had been aimed at my wings again, where the scales were softest and the flesh thinnest.
I flapped my wings, pushing myself higher. The air coursed through the dappling of wounds, sparking pain with every movement. More shots echoed up from beneath me. More bullets tore through the tender flesh. I poured down more fire, but the guns kept booming. Each bullet bit through my body with a sharp throbbing. My thoughts started to splinter.
I had to keep going. Had to stop all of them. But there were too many, and my wings could barely hold me up now. Every brush of air against them was agony.
My focus narrowed through the haze of pain. I couldn’t fall outside the walls. My kin would come to try to rescue me, and the vampires would slaughter them. But I could give my shifters one last gesture of protection. If I set our ring on fire, none of them would have to venture beyond the walls for that purpose either.
My wings wavered. Another hail of bullets sprayed over me, some tearing more holes in my wings, some glancing off my thicker scales, a few digging into my side. I sputtered up one last gush of flames aimed at the circle of chopped wood.
The logs and branches hissed. Flames leapt up all along the ring in a rippling dance. With a relieved smile, I hurled my plummeting body toward the wall.
My knee glanced off the stones, but I tumbled over the side into the estate. Voices were hollering and footsteps pounding toward me before I even hit the ground, already human again.
The impact sent a fresh wave of agony through my shoulders and down my back. I cried out, flinching against ground now slick with my blood. Then the pain hazed my mind completely, and the world went black.
My body came back into awareness gradually. First the dull prickling of pain running all down my back and sides, where my dragon wings had crumpled back into my human form. A deeper ache searing through my ribs when I tried to roll over. A soft sheet was draped over me. Warring smells of blood and a sweet, clean perfume drifting through the air to my nose.
I managed to blink my eyes open.
“Ren!” Kylie said. She was standing over me at the edge of the bed, her hands fisted where they rested on the mattress. The pink tufts of her pixie cut were drooping and dark smudges underlined her eyes, but she gave me her most brilliant smile. “How do you feel? Should I call the healers?”
Of course. I was back here in the healer room again. Holding my body still, I took in my surroundings. Pale light was shining through the windows. Good, that meant we’d gotten to the morning without losing the estate. More forms were slumped under sheets around the room, but the rasps of sleeping breaths carried to my ears. They were all alive still.
Everyone in here, at least.
“Sore, but okay other than that,” I said, meeting Kylie’s gaze again. “I don’t think I need any help. What happened last night? Is everyone else okay?”
“We held the vamps off,” she said. “Some of the shifters were injured, but all of us survived.”
That should have been amazing news, but her smile had faltered. I pushed myself into a sitting position, wincing as I went. My back throbbed, but I needed to know. “What’s wrong? Something’s bothering you.”
“You are way too good at picking those things up,” my best friend said, waggling a finger at me. “And you should really stay lying down until someone checks you out again, I think.”
When I didn’t budge, Kylie let out a huff of breath. “I don’t know what’s wrong. But the vamps pulled back after the fire had been going a couple hours. They took off and didn’t come back, but they didn’t send any message about giving up the fight or anything. Your guys figure they’re making some new plan now that they’ve seen our strategy.”
Of course they were. I suppressed a groan. “Great. Well, I guess we can be glad we’ve got all day to prepare for whatever it is.”
“And for you to recover,” Kylie said, giving me a gentle shove. “You were really beat up, Ren. Just because you’re a dragon doesn’t mean you’re immortal, you know.”
“Believe me, I’ve never been more aware of that than right now.” I stretched one arm and then the other, bracing myself against the twanging aches that shot through my muscles.
“I should go tell the guys. They’ll want to know you’re awake. They were hanging around looking worried for a really long while, you know, but then they had to get on with whatever alpha business needs taking care of. Maybe you’ll listen to them about getting your rest even if you won’t listen to me.”
She wrinkled her nose at me, and I cracked a smile. Then a low rumble of a voice reached my ears from the bed behind me.
“You don’t have to go far to tell me.”
“Nate!” I threw myself around on the bed, so fast the pain sliced right through me. But seeing those warm brown eyes gazing back at me was worth the extra helping of agony. I scrambled right off the mattress and clambered onto his cot, slowing as I eased myself down beside him. If my body was aching this much after last night’s wounds, I couldn’t imagine how he must be feeling after the beating he’d taken.
My mate wrapped his brawny arm around my waist and tugged me even closer to him. I cuddled up to him, breathing in his musky, peppery scent. My heart swelled with joy. “I was so worried about you. You’ve been out a whole day, you know.”
Nate let out a hoarse chuckle. “Looks like I should have been worried about you too. Throwing yourself into the middle of the battle like usual?”
“Someone’s got to bring the firepower,” I said. “Anyway, after that fight in the gas station, I don’t think you’re anyone to talk.”
“Hmm. I’m definitely not looking to repeat that experience.”
Kylie made an amused sound. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter which bed you’re lying in as long as you’re lying down. Don’t get too frisky, is all I’m saying. I’ll see if I can track down the other guys.”
“Thank you,” I called after her. I tipped my head back to kiss Nate and looped my arm around his back. The faint dimpling of his wounds made me hesitate. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”
“Ren,” Nate murmured, “there is absolutely nowhere I want you to be except right here. So don’t you dare budge an inch.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead and adjusted his body so we fit together even more perfectly. I nestled in his warmth, letting my eyelids slide shut. We both deserved a little reprieve before we had to face whatever the vampires were going to throw at us next, didn’t we?
Chapter 9
West
I studied my scar in the mirror as I readied a fresh bandage. This morning, the pulse of the old wound was still threaded with angry red, but mostly its glow shone yellow. A sickly yellow like the twist of anxiety that wound through my chest.
I scowled at the patch of color before I pressed the bandage over it. Damned fae. Trust
them to come up with a kind of injury that’d haunt you more than a decade later.
Granted, at the moment I was feeling even less pleased with the vampires. My scowl deepened as I shrugged on a clean shirt to replace the one I’d been too busy to change since sometime yesterday. I had my kin running around doing everything I could think of to be ready for tonight… but who the hell knew what tonight was going to bring? The bloodsuckers clearly weren’t going to be happy until they’d slaughtered the lot of us.
Like they’d almost slaughtered Ren last night.
My pulse hitched at the memory of her falling, bullet-riddled body. I clenched my jaw and turned toward the door.
Just as the woman in question burst past it into my rooms.
My dragon shifter’s eyes were bright with excitement, her face split with a beaming smile. But I could tell from her slight hesitation as she nudged the door shut behind her that she was still in some pain. She had to be. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been slumped unconscious on that healer room bed while her flesh knit itself back together.
“Nate’s awake!” she said. “He’s okay. Still a little weak from all the wounds, but okay.”
Her scent reached me then, that fiery sweetness mixed with the bear shifter’s musk. Because of course they’d been all over each other the second he’d come to.
A twinge of jealousy I knew was ridiculous shivered through me. She should have gone right to him. He was her mate, and he’d almost died. I clamped down on the twinge and shoved it aside, along with the half a dozen other emotions I was trying not to feel.
“And you should be back there in the healer room too, not running around to tell me,” I said. “You’re not fully recovered yet either.”
“I walked,” Ren said. “And I thought you’d want to know, after everything you said yesterday. Kylie found Marco and Aaron, but you must have been off hiding somewhere.”
