by Eva Chase
I just had to make it through two more days without melting down from the stress along the way.
Marco came in at that moment with a few attendants in tow, all carrying platters of wine glasses. I gave a little cheer and jumped at the chance to get back to prep and away from conversations about my well-being.
The feline kin might have believed in being fashionable in most ways, but they weren’t fashionably late. About fifteen minutes before the time on the invitations, the first guests started to drift in. I was crouched by the sound system, just finishing tweaking the volume. Faint strains of classical music drifted out into the air.
I left the speakers to stand at my and my alphas’ table on the dais at the front of the room. As more and more feline kin arrived, I watched gleams of delight come into their eyes at the elegant styling. The highest families would get to sit with my mates and me at our table, but none of them had appeared yet. They wanted to make an entrance when enough of their kin were here to see.
A smile crossed my lips as our guests took their seats amid the glinting candles and glossy tablecloths. My hand stroked over my belly. This place will be part of your rule someday too, I thought to my daughter. Even if they like to act as if they don’t need you. That’s part of the reason why they do.
Chapter 7
Marco
The light from the chandeliers glimmered over Ren’s dark hair as I spun her in a gentle circle in time with the music. All around us, my kin were dancing on the floor now cleared of dining tables, but I felt I could say without a doubt that not one of them compared to my mate.
I pulled her back to me and tucked my arm around her waist. We swayed with the graceful strains of violin and piano, the sort of refined classical piece that made even the snobbiest elitists among my kin perk up. Ren beamed at me, some of the strain I’d seen in her earlier gone from her face now.
She shouldn’t have been worried. In the past year and a half, she’d gotten to know my people and their whims awfully well. Every element she’d chosen for tonight had been perfectly tailored to their tastes. I’d heard their exclamations as the staff had brought out each of the dinner’s delicacies; I could see the pleasure they were taking in the party in every expression around me, even if some tried to keep a poker face.
Oh, my kin would be talking about the Christmas celebration that our dragon shifter had orchestrated for the whole rest of the year—while looking forward to the next one. It really couldn’t have turned out better.
Her part of it, at least. Mine—that remained to be seen.
“It seems like the dinner has gone over well,” Ren said.
I smiled, dipping and turning her, careful of her balance in her current front-heavy state. “Understatement of the year, princess. Anyone you hadn’t won over before today I expect is ready to kiss your feet now.”
She rolled her eyes at me, but they shone even brighter at the same time. “I can’t imagine many felines ever lowering themselves to foot-kissing.”
“Possibly I was speaking in metaphors,” I allowed. “Don’t argue about it. Tonight was a triumph, Ren. Your triumph.”
“It’s not over yet,” she said, with a sudden glint of mischief. She’d kept quiet about whatever she’d been setting up with a few of my staff—sworn to secrecy—over in the immense greenhouse attached to the mansion, where anyone visiting the estate could blow off steam in their feline forms without worries of being spotted by humans in the wilds beyond.
“When do I get to hear about this secret plan of yours?” I asked, leaning close enough that my nose grazed hers.
Ren grinned, apparently unswayed by my powers of seduction, formidable as those generally proved to be. “You’ll see when everyone else does. Don’t you like surprises?”
“Not particularly,” I said.
She tapped my chest. “Curiosity killed the cat, isn’t that what they say?”
“Oh, if I have to wait, I suppose I’ll survive the suspense.”
She eased closer to me again, and as the song petered out, I closed my eyes and just enjoyed the feel of her body next to mine. Her body and that of our daughter so soon to come contained within it.
Straightening out affairs in the shifter realm after sixteen years without a dragon shifter and a interspecies war on top of that had taken a lot of work, with even more ahead of us. We didn’t have many moments where we could simply be together without any pressing responsibilities nagging at us.
The melody of the next song swelled from the speakers, and a hand heavy enough that I knew who it belonged to before he spoke came to rest on my shoulder.
“You can’t hog our dragon shifter the whole night, even if this is your estate,” Nate said in a genial tone. “May I cut in?”
I let out a huff of breath as if offended, but grinned to show I didn’t mean it. “I suppose I should share a little.” I gave Ren a kiss, quick yet sweet enough to send a tingle down to my groin. “I’ll be back to reclaim you later.”
She laughed. “Not if I find you first.”
I left her in the bear shifter’s arms and wove through the crowd toward the tables bunched together at one end of the room. I did actually have one responsibility that still needed taking care of, even if it’d been a completely optional one. Our dragon shifter wasn’t the only one who knew how to put together a surprise.
Stepping onto the dais that held the alphas’ table, I peered around the room until I caught the eye of Coreen, lion shifter and matriarch of the most established lion family among the kin. At the tip of my head, she left the friends she’d been talking with and came to join me.
“I think this is as good a time as any to do the presentation,” I said. “Can you assemble the others?”
“Of course,” she said. Coreen had been skeptical of our new dragon shifter at first, but after she’d watched Ren put down her husband’s murderer without hesitation, she’d been one of my mate’s most loyal advocates. Trust was not a concept that came easily among my kin, but I’d have depended on her through dire circumstances if need be.
She slipped through the crowd, finding the other figures from families prominent enough to have gotten a seat at the alphas’ table earlier tonight: husband and wife cheetah shifters, a broad-nosed tiger shifter, mother and daughter mountain lion shifters, and another couple made up of two leopards. At Coreen’s gesture, they ducked out of the banquet hall and returned a few moments later each with a parcel wrapped in gold foil paper.
I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised they’d decided to coordinate so their presents matched. That was the only way they could make sure none of them managed to top anyone else’s in appearance. Saying feline kin were image conscious was something like saying fish enjoyed living in water.
My people weren’t big on public spectacles, though, at least not ones done in an overt way that outright demanded their attention. As the next song wound down, I didn’t make any big announcement. Instead, I found Ren in the crowd and peeled her away from the bear shifter. “Time for a little break from the dancing,” I said with a grin.
Ren raised her eyebrows, but she followed me. I didn’t have to say anything—my kin around me noted my passing and that of our dragon shifter, and their gazes automatically tracked us to the front of the room. Without my calling any direct attention to what was about to happen, the dancers had already stilled and gone quiet by the time we reached the dais where the eight waiting figures stood.
I wasn’t sure I could say that everyone in this room respected all of them, being the finicky bunch our audience was, but certainly there shouldn’t be anyone here who respected none.
“Dragon shifter,” the male cheetah shifter said, pitching his voice loud enough to carry but not so loud it was obvious he wanted all eyes on him. “To pay tribute to you and your young one about to arrive, we hope that you will accept these gifts. Each was chosen with the most careful consideration.”
His wife offered their wrapped box to Ren with a respectful bob of her head. Ren�
�s hands closed around its glossy surface. She glanced to me as if for guidance, and I gave her a hint of a nod.
The paper peeled away with a jerk of Ren’s thumb. She opened the box inside, and a delighted smile crossed her face. She held up a red woolen coat and pants, the same shade as her dragon scales.
“It’s the finest lambs’ wool you’ll ever find,” the cheetah woman said in an eager voice. “Soft for your daughter while she’s still so delicate—and thick to keep her warm through the winter of her birth.”
“Thank you,” Ren said, running her fingers over the fabric with an expression of wonder. I wasn’t sure whether she was more amazed by the quality of the gift or the fact that my people where gifting her anything that had taken much consideration in the first place.
I bundled the clothes back into the box and set it on the table so that Ren could receive her next gift. The tiger shifter gave his own small bow and held out his offering.
“Mine comes with much the same thought,” he said. “My whiskers tell me we have a cold winter coming—as cold as it ever gets down here. Our littlest dragon shifter will need protection from chills. And she can dream of her first flight in the meantime.”
Ren unfolded a blanket more than half her height from the opened wrapping paper. “It’s lovely,” she said a little breathlessly. The blanket was velvet edged and made from the same soft wool as the coat and pants, woven with an image of a dragon in flight.
The mountain lion shifters stepped forward next. Ren unwrapped their present and lifted out a mobile of animal figures, each of them carved with the finest detail out of ebony and mahogany. They bobbed on their glittering strings as Ren turned it.
“To hang over her crib and keep her entertained,” the mother said. “Because any dragon shifter child will have an active mind in need of stimulation.”
Ren smiled, her gaze going distant for a second. “I know exactly where I can set it up. I’m sure she’ll love it.”
The leopard shifters handed over their box, the contents of which required a little more explanation. I could tell Ren was fighting a puzzled expression as she examined the silky rectangle of fabric with its loose strips on either side.
“It’s so you can carry her with you wherever you’d like,” the wife said quickly. “Light material so neither you nor her will get too hot and you won’t be weighed down. I thought you might want to always have her close by, even when you’re on the move. Let me show you.”
With lithe fingers, she demonstrated to Ren how to arrange the carrier’s straps over her shoulders and around her waist. Ren let out a pleased laugh. “I’ll definitely be getting a lot of use out of this. It’s wonderful.”
Coreen was the last to offer her present. The box was small, but Ren’s face lit up when she opened it. She drew out a silver rattle and mirror.
“Those belonged to my own son,” Coreen said in her resonant voice. “They were his favorite things to play with when he was a baby.”
Ren’s eyes widened. “Coreen,” she said. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep them in your family?”
The lion shifter’s lips stretched with a smile. “Your daughter will be part of my family—part of all of our families. It has been too long since a dragon shifter was born into our people. She will be our kin as much as you have proven yourself to be.”
For the second time in as many days, my mate appeared to be on the verge of tears. She blinked hard as I slipped my arm around her.
“Thank you, so much,” she said, and then turned to the watching crowd. “Thank all of you for being here today, and for working with me since I came back to you, even though you weren’t sure of me yet. You know… We can have more time for dancing, if you’d all like, but first I’d like to show you something else. Would you all come with me to the greenhouse?”
I tucked my hand around hers as she led the way into the hall, my kin following us with murmurs of retrained excitement. I was a little excited myself to see what our dragon shifter had cooked up. A couple of my attendants darted ahead of us, I supposed to get some part of the surprise in order.
Ren bent her head toward me. “Be honest—did you tell them what presents to get, or was that all their own initiative?”
“I suggested it might be a worthy gesture to present you with something,” I said. “The rest I left up to them. They did rather well, didn’t they?”
“Yes. Yes, they did. I wouldn’t have thought—” She stopped herself with a smile. “I guess we really have come a long way.”
We spilled past the greenhouse doors into the vast treed space. I drank in the floral perfume from the vegetation all around us. The lynx shifter next to me eyed the rock ledges along the glass walls as if he were itching for a climbing session.
“I know Christmas in Florida isn’t the same as the Christmases I grew up with up north,” Ren said to the shifters assembled around her. “But I thought you might enjoy a little taste of my kind of Christmas too.”
She motioned with her hand, and a whirring started from somewhere deep in the brush. A burst of glinting white dust shot out into the air over our heads—
No, I realized as the first few flakes hit my cheeks. Not dust. Snow. She’d brought us a white Christmas.
“Watch it, play with it—whatever you want,” Ren said, grinning. “Let the celebrations continue!”
The lynx shifter at my side had already scrambled out of his clothes and leapt forward in his feline form. He swatted at the tumbling flakes and spun around in their midst like he was returning to his kittenhood.
The growing flurry had stirred something inside all of my kin. Some of them hesitated, but as the first few dashed deeper into the greenhouse as their furred selves, others shed their clothes and joined the romp. My own jaguar urges tugged at me to spring into the artificial snowfall.
Ren was looking my way. “Go ahead,” she said, affection shining in her gaze. “It’s for you too. I’ll get plenty of snow to play with later.”
A chuckle broke from my throat, and then I was shifting into my jaguar self, muscles lengthening, tail swishing behind me. I bounded across the now-slippery surface of the path and swiped my tongue at the falling flakes. A giddy sensation swept through me.
It was strange, wasn’t it, to feel so childlike when I had a child of my own almost here? But maybe that was the real gift my mate had given me.
Chapter 8
Ren
“Do you think this is enough wood?” I asked Kylie, cocking my head as I studied the heap in the courtyard of the canine shifter estate. A pungent pine scent rose off the chopped logs.
My best friend laughed. “Ren, it’s almost as tall as I am. Unless you’re planning on roasting a giant on that thing, I think we’re good. And maybe even then.”
I mock-glowered at her. “I am going for epic here.”
“Somehow I don’t think West is going to appreciate it if you burn down his estate in the meantime.”
“Not going to happen,” Felix said easily, coming up beside Kylie and slinging his arm around her shoulders. “This place has seen lots of fire, most of it thanks to our dragon shifter here, and we all came out okay.” He grinned at me.
I had to smile back at the fox shifter, but at the same time a twinge ran through my chest. Not everyone had come out okay. Shifters had died during our battles with the vampires and the rogues. Entire villages had been razed to the ground. Nate had almost died just a short drive from where we were standing right now. If we ever faced another war like that…
I shoved those thoughts aside and spun on my heel. “We should get the tokens and the pencils ready—Felix, do you know where those ended up?”
“I saw the boxes over in the storage shed,” he said. “We can get ‘em for you.”
He gave Kylie a little tug, and she offered me a thumbs up before ambling off with him, tipping her head toward his shoulder. Funny to think that when she’d first shown up here, Felix had been skeptical of the idea of even having a human on the prem
ises. Now I was sure he’d have been baring his teeth at anyone who suggested similar. I’d bet he’d gotten a bit of hassling from some of his kin over his choice in girlfriend, but I’d never seen him show the slightest doubt in that choice.
Which was good. I’d pulled Kylie into this dangerous world of supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic accidentally, and she didn’t have dragon fire or claws to protect herself with. The rogues had already nearly killed her once. Even if I still felt a jab of worry every time we had to part ways, it was a relief knowing she had at least one shifter by her side most of the time.
I checked that everything else we needed for the bonfire was in place, tugging my coat tighter around me against the wind. The air had a touch of ice to it now, but there wasn’t any sign of real snow yet. It’d be nice to get at least one properly white Christmas. The one I’d manufactured on Marco’s estate didn’t really count by my standards.
The smell of roasting meat and vegetables was starting to carry from the estate house. I hurried inside, following that smell to the kitchen and poking my head inside. The staff were bustling around, pots clattering and dishes clinking. The head chef caught sight of me and dipped into a quick bow.
“Dragon shifter. Did you need something?”
“No, I just wanted to make sure—we’re on track to have dinner ready at six?”
She smiled. “Everything is on schedule. No one will go hungry, I can promise you that.”
“Okay, great. Thank you.” My own stomach rumbled, my mouth watering at the smells. How long had it been since I’d eaten lunch? Had I even eaten lunch? Suddenly I couldn’t remember. I’d had too many other things on my mind since we’d touched down here.
Well, it’d be dinnertime soon anyway. I hustled from the kitchen to the dining room with its stone-lined walls and crackling fireplace.
