by Eva Chase
“What’s going on?” Kylie asked, getting up from where she, Felix, and some of the other shifters had been preparing a stack of torches with dry chunks of branches and gasoline.
“I think we need to make a small adjustment in our plans,” I said. “You might as well come along too.” I’d be telling her afterward anyway.
We slipped around the fringes of the crowded public areas to the hall where the alphas’ private rooms lay. Aaron was already waiting in the small lounge area there. West came in a moment later.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, his eyes immediately seeking out mine.
“Nothing exactly,” I said. “But there’s something I need to say before it’s too late. I think, whether we hear from the fae or not—but especially if we don’t—it’d be best if you all went to your own estates.”
The last few words made my throat ache coming up. My whole body ached, thinking about it. Seeing the way my mates stared at me in response.
“You want us to leave you?” Nate said, as incredulously as if I’d suggested he should fly back to his estate with his arms instead of a jet.
“Well, I’d be leaving too,” I said, willing my voice to stay steady. “I think I should be at the canine estate. It’s been hit the hardest already, and the vampires from both New York and Chicago will be focused there. So if I can only protect one place, that seems like the one that’ll need me the most. And your kin need you with them more than I do tonight. You can rally them, keep them hopeful.”
I caught Nate’s gaze, and then Marco’s. “Most of yours haven’t seen you since before this war started.”
“Serenity,” Aaron said softly. I realized I was trembling. I clenched my hands, drawing my shoulders back.
I’d never been apart from my mates, not by more than an hour or two’s drive, since they’d found me. It’d wrenched at me having Aaron gone on a reconnaissance mission for less than a day.
But I’d have my fire whether they were all with me or not. I meant what I’d said. Their kin needed them more. I couldn’t hold them back for my own comfort. Then the rogues really would be right about me distracting the alphas from their duty to the rest of their people.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I have to get used to it anyway, don’t I? You all will have business on your estates and the other settlements after this is over. It’s not like you’re supposed to be with me 24-7.”
“No,” Aaron agreed. “But given the circumstances—how long you were apart from shifter society—ideally we’d have stayed with you until you were a little more settled in.”
I laughed roughly. “Not much chance of really getting settled until we’ve dealt with the vampires, is there?”
“Well, wherever you’re going, I’m going too,” Kylie announced. “In case there was any doubt about that.”
I smiled at her. “I was counting on it.”
“Are you sure, Ren?” Marco asked. “I’d imagine my kin think they haven’t much use for me at all.”
“They think that, but we both know how much you do for them,” I said.
The corner of his mouth quirked up, but he still looked sad. “I can’t argue with that, princess.”
Nate opened and closed his hands as if he didn’t know what to do with them. “I don’t like it,” he said. “Leaving you with just one of us to defend you—no offense meant to you, West. Or to you, Ren. I know you can defend yourself. But if you’re injured again…”
“Then West will be there, and all his kin too,” I said, and touched the bear shifter’s arm. My throat tightened. “I don’t want to be apart from you either. Any of you. But my job is to make sure all our kin have what they need, isn’t it? And I can’t let what I want get in the way of that.”
He sighed, bowing his head by mine. “I know.”
“All right. Then we should all go, quickly, while we still have time to make it back before nightfall.”
I bobbed up on my toes to press a quick but determined kiss to Nate’s lips. Marco caught me next, teasing his fingers into my hair as he brought our mouths together. I turned to Aaron, and he kissed me gently before resting his forehead against mine.
“We’ll be with you, either way,” he said. “Part of us always will be.”
The nervous jittering inside me calmed just slightly. “And part of me will be with you.”
I wasn’t going to let myself think about how this might be the last time I saw any of them.
West had stayed quiet through the whole conversation. There wasn’t much for him to say, I guessed, when he was the one I’d be with. And I knew he had to want to get back to his own kin. But when I came up beside him as we all strode out toward the air strip, he looked almost haunted.
“You haven’t even had all of us for a whole two days yet, Sparks,” he said.
I managed to smile. “Oh, I don’t know. I think I had you a lot longer than that.”
He glanced at me with a flash of his eyes. His mouth twitched. “All right. I’ll give you that.”
"You'd better go round up the rest of your kin who came with us," I told him. "I think my best friend will be particularly disappointed if a certain fox shifter gets left behind."
West chuckled and loped off toward the courtyard. The best friend in question looped her arm around mine. "Always looking out for my best interests."
I nudged Kylie in the side with my elbow. "When you let me."
West's underlings caught up with us as we reached the field where the avian jets and the canine one we'd arrived in were waiting. I'd only made it two steps toward the latter when an eerie sensation rippled over my skin, raising the hairs on my arms.
An instant later, a pale slender form appeared as if out of the sunlight in front of me.
"Forgive the unexpected intrusion, dragon shifter, alphas," the fae man said in a cool voice. "My monarch wanted me to reach you as quickly as possible. I have just one question before I give you her answer: If we help you now, do you swear that you will come to our aid in a similar time of need?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Ren,” West said beside me, cautioning.
Sure, the promise was vague—but how could I say no, considering how much I was asking of them? I didn’t let myself second-guess my answer.
“Yes,” I said. “Of course. I swear it.”
The fae man gave me a slight bob of his head. “Then we will assist in your fight against the vampires."
Just like that? It took me a second to catch my breath. "Thank you. Tell your monarch thank you from me too. What do you need from us to make this work?"
"Tell us where you need us to be and where you will be,” he said with a thin, shimmering smile. “We can handle the rest."
The sky deepened from pink to purple as the sun sank toward the horizon. The summer heat cooled in the breeze. I moved my weight from one foot to the other, trying to curb my restlessness.
Beside me, West set his hand on my shoulder. We watched the gate to his estate together, at least two hundred of our kin gathered around us and spread out all along the stone wall, as if we’d see the first sign of the vampires there.
Really, West would get a call on that phone in his pocket from one of the scouts down the road before we got our first glimpse. The vamps wouldn’t be on us the second the sun set. They had to get out here from wherever they were holed up first. But we knew they’d been gathering forces—and their new armored trucks too.
It wasn’t just our kin, and Kylie of course, with us. My gaze slid to one of the softly glowing figures standing near me in the courtyard.
A dozen fae had been waiting for us when we’d landed at the canine estate. Three of them were in my view now. The other nine had taken positions along the wall so there’d be one in range no matter where the vampires struck. The other alphas had reported similar numbers at the other estates. They’d also arrived at the towns I’d told them seemed most in danger.
West tensed, presumably noticing my glance. My stomach knotted. What if I’d m
ade the wrong decision? The fae could decide to turn on us after all, to make sure the bloodsuckers wiped us out, so shifters wouldn’t trouble them anymore either.
I’d invited them in. Offered our throats to them, in a way.
It was too late to take back that choice now. I just had to hope my instincts had been right.
My restlessness drew me away from West to the nearest fae. The woman was as tall and slender as all her kind, but I had the sense she was on the younger side, whatever that meant in fae terms. She gave me a faint smile when I joined her.
“Is there anything else I’ll need to do?” I asked. “Or do I just have to stay near you and start breathing my fire?”
She nodded. “From what I understand and what my monarch said, that’s all we’ll need. I’ve already tapped into your energy with my magic. When you stir up that fire, I’ll be able to channel it—for my own use, and to stream it through me to all the other fae who’ve come out.”
“Even the ones across the country?”
“It isn’t so far,” she said, as if she were in the habit of taking a jaunt from one ocean to the other in her daily walk. “We are all connected, you know. We can reach each other without much effort at all. Otherwise it would be very lonely, needing to always stay close to our homes.”
Oh. So they had some sort of telepathic communication? I guessed that made sense, when she put it that way. No wonder the fae leader near the dragon shifter estate had known about all the offenses the shifters had made in other fae territories.
The fae woman paused. “We fae live a long time, you know,” she went on. “Longer than shifters. One of the elders in my domain spoke to me once of sharing fire with a dragon shifter. She said it was the most thrilling experience of her life. I’m saddened by the reason you needed our help—but I’m excited to be a part of it.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Really?” I said. “I, ah, got the impression you were all pretty uncertain about having anything to do with shifters.”
“Some of us, maybe,” she said. “Some didn’t have anyone to pass on those memories. There’ve been so many bad ones in between. But I don’t think it makes sense for any of us to be afraid of you.”
My stomach started to unclench. Afraid of us? Was that what it came down to? I guessed it did. All of us, afraid of how the other could hurt us, striking out to try to defend ourselves from offenses no one had even committed yet.
We should have been better than that, the monarch had said. We all should have. And maybe we could be, tonight.
“Or for us to be afraid of you,” I suggested. Her smile grew a little, as if she understood exactly what I meant.
West had raised his phone to his ear. While I’d been talking to the fae woman, the sun had disappeared completely. The wolf shifter called over to me. “The trucks are on the move. They’ll be here soon.”
I breathed in and out deep and slow, readying myself for a shift. I’d need to hold it as long as I possibly could if we were going to push the vampires back all across the country. All we needed was for them to arrive and try to breach our walls, and we’d incinerate them inside those damned trucks they must have thought themselves so smart to obtain.
The other shifters stirred in their places around the courtyard. An owl hooted in the distance. Then my ears picked up the distant sounds of engines.
They grew from a hum into a rumble. Everyone along the walls went still, braced for action. The engine’s growl rose even higher—and cut off as the trucks must have come to a stop.
I exhaled sharply in the sudden silence. A different sound reached my ears: a low, rolling chuckle that made every nerve in my body jangle in alarm.
“Oh, dragon shifter,” a cajoling voice carried over the wall. “Won’t you come out and play?”
West looked to me, frowning. My skin had turned clammy. Nausea swelled inside me.
“It’s him,” I said hoarsely, just loud enough for my mate to hear me. “The rogue who led the attack on my estate—the one who had my family killed.”
Chapter 20
Ren
“Do you remember me?” the voice went on, lilting over the canine estate’s stone wall with an amused tone that set my teeth on edge. “I remember you. Scared little girl scampering after her mother down the halls. Too bad we didn’t paint them with your blood too that night.”
I remembered. Oh, hell, did I remember. When he chuckled again, the tone of it took me back sixteen years to that panicked dash through the estate, adrenaline sour on my tongue and heart thudding at the base of my throat. To the blood the rogues had spilled all over my home. My dads’. My sisters’.
I’d assumed we’d caught the rogue who’d led that assault in one of our past battles with his group. I hadn’t seen him clearly back then, didn’t even know what kind of shifter he was, so there’d been no way to tell other than that chuckle. But charging into battle wasn’t how he worked, was it? He led others to the fray and then stood back to watch the carnage.
To watch and laugh.
So he’d survived. Survived and gone running to the vampires with his last few rogue accomplices? Was he using them to get his revenge or were they using him?
Possibly both.
“Well, then, where are you?” the rogue called again. “Still too scared to stand your ground and face me?”
My jaw clenched. West gripped my arm. I hadn’t even heard him coming to my side.
“Ignore him,” my mate said in a low voice. “He’s trying to get you worked up. To distract you. But he doesn’t matter. When we take down the vampires, we’ll take down any rogues with them too.”
Bertrand jogged across the courtyard to us. “We’ve got eyes on four rogues. The vampires are staying back, but those traitors have come right out of the forest. Looks like the bloodsuckers have shared their guns.”
If they were at the edge of the forest, then they were in my firing range.
As if triggered by my thought, a crackle of gunfire sounded near the gate. The guards along the wall jerked down. One yelped, clapping his hand to his head where a bullet had grazed his temple. A couple of his kin rushed to help.
I gritted my teeth. We couldn’t just leave the rogues alone. With that weaponry, they were almost as big a threat as the vampires.
I yanked my arm away from West and strode to the wall. The urge to shift was already prickling through me. I could at least pick off these few, even if the vampires were still hiding in the shelter of the forest. A little warm-up. Show them how far from scared I was.
“Wow,” the lead rogue said, his voice dripping with disdain. “Still no sign of that fearsome dragon. I guess we don’t have anything to worry about here after all. She can’t even be bothered to protect her kin.”
West followed me, catching my wrist again. “Don’t,” he said.
The rogue kept going. “Just like your mother, apparently. Running away instead of standing and fighting. Not that it did her any good. Did you hear your sisters crying out as we cut them down? And those pathetic alphas—I put the bullet in one of your fathers’ heads myself, while he lay groaning.”
Rage flared through my body. It pushed the talons from my fingers and the scales to the surface of my skin. A draconic roar rang from my throat as my muscles twisted and expanded. My wings unfurled, ready to cast me up in to the air, so I could incinerate them like so much barbeque. Wrench their lives from this world like they had my family’s. Pay them back for every bit of pain they’d caused—
Flames scorched the base of my throat as I tensed to push myself off the ground—and a memory seared through my head. The wild rush of the fire over the trees when I’d lost control after our parlay with the vampire king.
I caught myself, regret twisting around my fury. Containing it, just barely.
No. This was what the rogues wanted. Why else would he be saying things that horrible? I had to keep a clear head. I had to keep my human reason, like Aaron always said.
It was our animal sides, the sides that
wanted to lash out and bite back the second we were hurt, that had gotten us into so much trouble, wasn’t it? That had split us apart from our alliance with the fae all those years ago.
I’d chosen differently. I could choose differently again.
A ragged breath released from my already constricting throat. I collapsed back into my human form. West was there waiting. His arms went around me as I stumbled. I accepted his support for just a second as I got my bearings. Then I straightened up.
“We have to deal with them,” I said. “But we make a plan first. What do they want? What are they planning?”
West’s eyes were still worried, but he followed my cue. “They want to lure you out there, so they must think they’ll have an advantage when they do. Four guns isn’t enough to take you down before you fry them.”
I nodded. “And the vampires are going along with whatever the rogues are doing. It might even be a plan they came up with. They want to get rid of me before they come at the rest of you.” I ran my tongue over the edges of my teeth. “There must be a bunch of the vamps waiting with a good line of sight to where the rogues are. They’d shoot me while I’m occupied with the rogues.”
“That would make the most sense, strategically,” Bertrand said.
“So we turn the tables on them.” I’d learned other things during that skirmish at the gas station. I glanced between West and his lieutenant. “The kin can take on the vampires while they’re in the denser forest, right? The vamps won’t be able to take long shots, and we have the advantage hand-to-hand. I can pretend I’m going after the rogues, and while they’re focused on me, a bunch of your people can come at the vampires from the other side.”
“Pretend?” West repeated. “I’m thinking that’s going to look an awful lot like actually doing it.”
I glowered at him. “I won’t get too close. I’ll swing around. Their range of fire can’t be very wide through the trees. And if a few bullets clip me, well, I’ve survived that before. We get in there, take out as many as we can in the first minute of confusion, and then withdraw. Maybe that’ll be enough to get them to stop lurking and come at us so I can really take them on with our fae friends.”
