by Eva Chase
West’s home was the least posh of the estate houses, but I’d always found it comfortingly cozy. Most of my childhood memories came from the modest two-bedroom apartment my mother and I had shared in Manhattan, not the sprawling dragon shifter estate amid the mountains where I’d spent my first five years. Sometimes, even now, the fancy mansions that belonged to the alphas made me feel a little overwhelmed.
It might have been nice to drop into a chair by the fire and soak up that wafting heat for a few minutes. But our guests would be here soon, and I wasn’t going to slack off on this final celebration. The canine kin deserved as great a party as much as the other kin groups had gotten.
The thick wooden tables were already set, but I’d known that, because I’d been here helping make that happen an hour ago. I bit my lip as I scanned the room. Was there anything I was missing? I couldn’t ignore the itch nagging at me that there had to be something else I needed to get done.
“There you are.” The canine alpha stalked into the room, slowing as he reached me. West wrapped his arms around me from behind and tucked his head close to mine. “It’s getting hard for even a wolf to track you down, the way you’re running all over this estate.”
I made a face at my mate. “I just need to get everything ready. It’s almost time for people to start coming in.”
“I’m pretty sure everything is as ready as it can be, Sparks.”
My pulse hiccupped as a sudden thought occurred to me. “Aaron and some of the staff set up the lights in the trees, but I didn’t check to make sure they’re working.”
I started to pull out of West’s arms, but he tightened them around me, holding me in place. “Hey,” he said, his throaty voice as gentle as I’d ever heard it. “I can get one of my attendants to check. You don’t need to do everything.”
“It’s not everything,” I protested. “The celebrations were my idea—it’s my responsibility if anything goes wrong.”
“And what would be so horrifically wrong about a few lights not turning on?”
When I couldn’t think of a good answer to that right away, he shook his head at me. “You know, I do enjoy a good meal and holiday cheer in the air, but I’m starting to be glad Christmas will be over soon.”
I could tell from his tone that he was mostly joking, but a lump of emotion filled my throat anyway. “Do you really think— Has it been too much? Am I just being ridiculous?”
“What?” he scoffed. “You can be a lot of things, Sparks, but ridiculous isn’t one of them. Why does all this matter so much to you?”
“It just—” I started, and the lump swelled, choking me. My eyes felt abruptly hot. I dragged in a breath, and it came ragged.
“Ren.” West turned me toward him and cupped my cheek. His dark green eyes searched mine. “What’s wrong? You’ve been pushing yourself to the limit all week. These are just Christmas parties. People will have a good time—they aren’t expecting perfection. So why are you? What’s really going on?”
I swallowed hard. Tears I didn’t want to let fall burned behind my eyelids when I blinked.
West had been the last of my mates to trust me, for the same reasons that made him the hardest to brush off when he wanted an answer. And now that I had his love and loyalty, I knew I had every shred of them he had to offer.
It couldn’t hurt him to admit the things churning inside me. The real problem was I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge them to myself. But I didn’t think he was going to let me sweep this topic aside now.
My voice came out quiet. “Staying busy getting things ready for the celebrations—it’s kept me distracted. So I don’t have to think about—” My voice caught again.
“About what?” West said softly.
My hand went to my belly, to the shape of my daughter—our daughter—that I could feel in increasing detail through my own flesh. “I want to meet her. I’m so happy she’s coming. But I’m also—I’m scared for her, West. The last year has gone really well: no major conflicts, everyone getting along reasonably well. But what if that doesn’t last? I’ve never been able to count on keeping the things I care about. I don’t want to take the happiness I feel right now for granted, and then have it be taken away.”
“Oh, Sparks.” My mate trailed his thumbs over my cheeks to ease away the few tears that had managed to seep out. I made myself meet his gaze again and saw nothing but love and compassion there.
“I don’t think we should ever take our happiness for granted,” he said. “But I don’t think you need to be scared either. The last year has gone well because of the work you’ve done, the decisions you’ve made. You’re the best dragon shifter any of our kin could have hoped for.” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Hell, you even managed to win me over, so clearly you’re doing something very right.”
I couldn’t help snorting in amusement. “The biggest challenge of my rule.” The knot inside me hadn’t entirely released, though. “There are so many things I don’t know. I’ve never been a mother before. I haven’t even been a dragon shifter, really, for all that long. What if I do end up screwing something up?”
“Then we’ll set it right again. We all start somewhere. Look at how much we’ve figured out as we go already. Life’s thrown a hell of a lot of challenges at us so far, and we’ve met them all.” He bowed his head until his forehead touched mine. “You don’t have to tell yourself there’ll be nothing but happiness from here until forever. Just trust that whatever comes, we’ll find our way through it. You can believe that, can’t you?”
When he put it like that, his reassurance didn’t seem so hard to accept. My next breath came a little easier. I raised my head, seeking out West’s lips. He kissed me intently, as if he were pouring all the feeling he had in him into that embrace. I lost myself in it, in him, just for that minute.
“Better?” he asked afterward. “I know I’m not always the most elegant with my words. If you need to talk to the others too to feel more secure…”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I think I’m good now. Maybe I’ll want to talk to the others later, but you said just the right things.” Or maybe it was also that I’d said the right things. My chest felt lighter with those worries no longer unspoken.
West smiled. “Come on, then,” he said. “Someone told me there’s some lights we really need to check.”
I elbowed him, and he chuckled as we walked out of the dining hall.
An hour later, as I sat with West and the rest of my mates at our table, filling my hungry stomach and watching so many of my kin doing the same, a sense of satisfaction spread through me in a warm glow. Laughter and upbeat voices carried from all the tables. Kylie and Felix had scooted close together, him offering her a bite of something off his fork. There was nothing in the air right now except the enjoyment of good company and an excellent meal.
I had done well by my people—the people I hadn’t even known were mine until eighteen months ago. My alphas and I had accomplished an awful lot in that time. And when I stopped worrying about the future and let myself just look at what was here in the present, all I could see was happiness.
Even if it didn’t last forever, the fact that we had it now counted for something. And I’d do my damned best to see that we had it for as close to forever as I could manage. That was all anyone could really ask from me.
West leaned over when I’d taken my last bite. “Should I tell them to get the bonfire ready?”
I nodded and got to my feet. This part of the celebration that I’d planned specially for the canine kin felt even more appropriate now. Time for all of us to take a little weight off our chests.
“Everyone,” I called out to our guests. “Please join us in the courtyard now for a special bonfire.”
The crowd followed us out to the courtyard. Flames were already licking over the heaped wood, sending tangy pine smoke up toward the darkening sky. The breeze nipped at my ears as I stepped outside, but the blaze chased the chill away as soon as I got close. Its ruddy li
ght wavered over the faces all around the fire.
“It’s been a good year,” I said over the crackling of the flames, turning to take in all of the kin gathered around me. “And I mostly want us to celebrate those good parts. But nothing good comes from sweeping over past hurts. Any of you who was here on this estate or in one of the settlements that came under siege last year had more than your share of pain. So tonight I thought we could let our old fears and angers go. Anything leftover that we don’t need to hang on to, to free up that space in ourselves for the next year.”
I motioned to the containers of tokens and pencils that Kylie and Felix had set out on one of the wooden benches. “You don’t have to share it with anyone else—just write what you’d like to release on one of these wooden tokens and toss it into the fire.”
I picked up one of the tokens myself, a sanded-smooth rectangle about half the size of my palm. As I stepped back from the bench where the containers were sitting, others gathered around. I printed carefully on the pale birch surface.
Doubting that I can be a good leader. Focusing on fear instead of joy.
I tossed mine into the fire. It disappeared into the red-hot depths in an instant, with a sizzle I felt as much as heard. A smile tugged at my lips.
Around the fire, more and more of my kin threw in their own tokens. Their faces glowed now with more than just the reflected firelight. In that relief, I saw all the proof I could have needed that I belonged here.
Chapter 9
West
My fellow alphas and I had all grabbed tokens of our own to join in the fiery ritual Ren had suggested. Aaron and Nate jotted down a few words quickly and let theirs fly. Marco smirked to himself as he scrawled something.
I stared at the blank surface of mine, the hot sharp smoke tickling my lungs. My fingers had tensed around the pencil.
“Having trouble thinking of anything to put?” Ren said teasingly.
I grimaced. “No. I know exactly what I most need to let go of. It’s the doing it that’s not easy.”
But I’d committed to this course already, hadn’t I, in a much more concrete way than writing a word on a scrap of wood? My body balked for a second longer, and then I scribbled the letters quickly.
Prejudice.
That covered it in a nutshell. I flicked the token into the flames to join the others.
I wasn’t sure I felt all that much of a release. My gut was still tight when I left my mate and the other alphas to see where Felix had gotten to.
I’d been a little worried I’d find him literally wrapped up in his almost-mate, that friend of Ren’s, but they were just chatting with a few of the staff near the fire. I caught the fox shifter’s eye and motioned him off to the side.
“Should we head out to get him?” I asked.
Felix checked the time on his phone. “He’s not supposed to meet us at the pick-up spot for another half an hour.”
“It’s a fifteen-minute drive,” I said. “I want a bit of time in advance to scope out the lay of the land. He might be acting friendly, but he’s still a bloodsucker.”
Felix shrugged. He was my main liaison to the vampire community in New York, helping keep the peace with them since we’d overcome their attacks last year, but he didn’t dispute my sense of caution. “We can go, then. You’re the one who invited him.”
I glowered at him, and his jaw twitched as he lowered his eyes apologetically. But it was true. I’d invited the bloodsucker. I’d probably have felt a lot better if this whole thing hadn’t been my responsibility.
Kylie ambled over to us. “What are you two discussing all secretively?” she asked, setting her hands on her hips.
“Nothing anyone who doesn’t already know needs to know yet,” I said, and paused. “If Ren starts looking for me, tell her I’ll be back soon.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure she’s going to be real happy with that answer,” Kylie said, but she didn’t push. “Make sure you bring my guy back in one piece, you hear?”
I shouldered Felix toward the garage. “I think that depends more on him than me.”
Felix gave her a little wave before loping ahead of me to the garage around the side of the estate house. He was already in my favorite car, the engine just rumbling into action, when I came in.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea making this a surprise?” he said as I dropped into the passenger seat.
“It’s not going to be a surprise to the guards,” I said. “They’re all prepared. I’ll handle the rest. I don’t think anyone’s going to be all that happy about the idea without the proper context.”
I couldn’t say for sure they’d be happy about it even with the context, but I guessed that was on me too. This plan had seemed like a good idea when I’d thought of it, after Ren had started on her Christmas obsession and Aaron had mentioned to the rest of us his bright idea of reaching out to the fae monarch.
Of course, the difference was that during last year’s battle, the fae had stepped up and helped us survive. The vampires had been the ones trying to kill us.
Felix drove the car out through the side gate and along the road that rambled off farther to the northeast. The pines loomed on either side in pointed silhouettes.
We stopped at the crossroads I’d suggested as the meeting spot, pulling up on the gravel shoulder. No one else was nearby that I could see. I stepped out of the car and prowled around the intersection, drinking in the air. Not a hint of that sickly undead smell reached my nose.
No ambush. Everything was proceeding according to our agreement so far.
I was back at our car when headlights gleamed in the distance. A sleek sedan glided into view and parked on the opposite shoulder. The driver got out—I couldn’t see anyone else in the car. We’d asked him to come alone, and it looked as though he actually had. The thump of my heart slowed just slightly.
The vamp who’d come was a tall skinny guy with the usual pale gauntness to his face. He smiled tightly at me, standing as if he wasn’t completely sure he should leave his car.
“Alpha of the canine kin,” he said in a thin but steady voice. “My name is Edwin. I come from the house of the king, and I can speak on his behalf.”
“All right, Edwin,” I said, trying and failing to erase my instinctive gruffness from my voice. “Come on over. We won’t bite.”
His jaw tensed, and I reminded myself that I was supposed to be aiming for diplomacy here. But the vampire envoy did cross the road and allowed me to usher him into the back of the car. I hesitated for a second there, torn between having to sit next to the bloodsucker or sitting up front knowing he was at my back.
A show of bravery and good faith seemed like the better option. I shut the door and took my seat next to Felix again.
“So, Edwin,” I said as Felix started the engine. I studied the vampire through the rearview mirror. “Why did the king send you?”
“When your liaison extended the request, I volunteered,” the vampire said from where he was sitting stiffly on the aged leather.
My eyebrows jumped up. “And why’s that?” I wouldn’t have thought any of the vamps would be in a hurry to throw themselves in with a crowd of shifters, but I managed to restrain myself from voicing that fact.
“I’ve been pushing for us to make a greater gesture of good will for some time,” he said. “This seemed the ideal opportunity to put my money where my mouth is, as they say.”
Ah. Well, that didn’t sound particularly suspicious. And it was only fair that I gave him a warning. “A lot of my people were hurt during the attacks. Some of the kin who’ll be there tonight lost friends or family. You’ll have to be prepared that not everyone is going to be all that welcoming.”
“I was never led to expect anything else,” Edwin said dryly. He was silent for a moment, his gaze sliding to the dark landscape outside the car window. Then he added, “If it makes any difference to you, I was against those attacks from the start. I didn’t participate in them because at the time they were going o
n, I was confined in one of the former king’s prisons, awaiting trial for speaking against him.”
Anyone could have said that to try to gain sympathy points, but his tone sounded genuine to me. I swiveled in my seat to look at him directly. “Thank you,” I said, and found I meant it more than I’d expected to. “You put yourself on the line for us—whatever your reasons.”
The tight smile came back. “And my people never should have put any of your lives on the line. But all we can do now is move forward. If anything, I should thank you. It’s quite possible I owe my continued survival to your victory.”
The lights of the estate came into view around the still dancing blaze of the bonfire. Felix moved to turn the wheel, and I shook my head. “The front gate this time.”
“Whatever you say, boss,” he said in a voice that was a tad tongue-in-cheek. I decided not to submit him to another glower. Felix had a mouth on him, but he’d done good work.
The guards at the gate tugged it open. We drove just inside, and I motioned for Felix to stop. If this went sideways, I wanted us to be able to escort Edwin off the premises as quickly as possible.
I got out first and stepped to the back door to escort the vampire out. My kin around the bonfire had let their conversations trail off to peer over at us. Just barely in view beyond the flames, my mate was craning her neck to see. Aaron rested a hand on her shoulder, and all three of the other alphas started heading our way with her.
“My kin,” I said. “We have a guest tonight who will be making only a brief appearance, who would like to take the opportunity during this celebration to make a gesture of trust and peace. He is here on my invitation, and I expect you to behave with that in mind. He has something to say to our dragon shifter.”
I opened the door, and Edwin stepped out. I heard breaths drawn in sharply and a few rough mutters, but no one said anything loud enough that I could hear it.
Ren paused where she’d been skirting the fire. Edwin’s gaze found her and then drifted to the wavering flames. His body went momentarily rigid at the sight.
