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I pushed myself away from Nate, with a squeeze of his hand to tell him it wasn’t a rejection. “I get it,” I said, standing up. “I don’t blame you for worrying. But I’m still coming. It’s the path my mother left for me to follow, and I’m not letting anyone stopme.”
Chapter 12
Nate
Our dragon shifterwas so strong. She sat squeezed between me and Marco in the back of Aaron’s sedan as he drove the bunch of us into the city, her back straight and her jaw set. But I’d taken her hand a few minutes after we’d gotten in, and she hadn’t let go of mine since. Her slim fingers stayed twined with mine, grippingtight.
They felt so fragile, but I knew the rest of her wasn’t. The news about her family’s murders had shocked her—that was obvious. I was never going to forget the way the blood had drained from her face as Aaron had told her the story, as if she were dying alongside her long-gone sisters and fathers. But she hadn’t let her emotions hold her back. She wasn’t letting anything stop her from being right here with us to face whatever waitedahead.
I had to admit, Ihatedthat Ren was here. My hackles had risen the second we’d crossed the city’s boundaries. I hadn’t scented a vampire yet, but the whole place stunk of metal and burnt gasoline. Even if there hadn’t been any bloodsuckers around, this wasn’t where shifters were meant to go. I had to admire Ren too, though. She might not have remembered much yet, but she was still every inch adragon.
As soon as we’d figured out what had happened to her mother, we could get on with our proper lives. The way we’d all been waiting to for the last sixteen years. Alphas and dragon shifter, all the kin-groups growing inharmony.
As long as the other alphas didn’t screw it up. West sat in the front passenger seat with that perpetual cloud over him, his expression grim. “Isn’t there a way to avoid all this traffic?” he muttered to Aaron as we crept down a jammed street. He’d been so cold to Ren the entire time. How could he really think that pushing her aside, throwing away the legacy of the dragon shifters, was the rightmove?
And Marco... You could never really trust a cat. He lounged on the other side of the backseat with his elbow propped against the window. “Heel, doggie,” he teased. “We’ll get there when we get there.” Which only made West’s frown turn into a scowl. The feline alpha had welcomed Ren, sure, but he also took a little too much enjoyment from stirring uptrouble.
“I can turn onto a street that should be less congested up here,” Aaron said calmly. The avian alpha seemed steady enough, but the avians didn’t mingle much with the rest of us anyway. I wasn’t sure how to readhim.
The bear-kin and those we ruled over had never wavered in our devotion to shifter law.Iwould stand by Ren no matter what happened. At least she could be sure ofthat.
I ran my thumb over the back of her hand, and she leaned a little more of her weight on me. I resisted the urge to nuzzle her hair and take in her lovely scent. For now I had to stay focused on protecting her. All the other pleasures of having a mate could wait until our business here wasfinished.
But I was looking forward to them even more now that I’d mether.
Aaron drew the car to a stop. “From here, we need to go on foot,” he said. Ren looked up at me with a smile that sent a bolt of desire through my chest. Resolve coiled aroundit.
She was leaving this city alive, or I’d die heretoo.
* * *
Ren
Ibracedmy hand against the wall of the tunnel, and my fingers came away damp and gritty. My nose wrinkled at the sensation. The stairs we were tramping down were narrow, the air dank, and the space dark except for the bobbing beam of Aaron’s flashlight as he led theway.
I’d never been really claustrophobic, but this place gave me the creeps. Nowhere to run orjump.
Nowhere to stretch the wings I couldn’t convince to rise out of meyet.
At least I had my best friend with me again. Kylie squeezed my other hand where she was walking shoulder-to-shoulder with me and shot me a grin.Sheseemed more excited about this expedition than I was. Maybe because she hadn’t just heard a story about practically her entire family beingslaughtered.
“Do you have any idea what we’re going to find down here?” she murmured. “I mean, why your mom wanted to send you to thatsymbol?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know any more than you do at this point.” About my mom’s plans, at least. The second we’d met up by the subway entrance, Kylie had asked how I was, but I hadn’t mentioned what I’d learned about my past. It seemed like a lot of dump on even my best friend. I was still processing the factsmyself.
I must have seen more of the violence than the brief fragment of memory that had come to me, but none of the rest had come back yet, even after hearing the story. I wasn’t sure if that was for the best or if I’d rather have had those images to examine. I could almost sense them, like sharks weaving by beneath water too dark to penetrate in my mind. They were going to surface sometime, and when they did, it was going tohurt.
“Quite an adventure,” Kylie said, and nudged me with her elbow. “You looked like you were getting pretty close with the big guy. Now he’s a hunk and ahalf.”
She must have meant Nate. He was at the back of our procession, several feet behind us, making sure no unfriendly intruders snuck up on us. My face warmed a little. I was getting used to the idea that all four of these guys were meant to be my partners, but I knew it was going to sound kind of weird to anyone else. Anyone human, atleast.
But it wasn’t as if I’d be able to hide it from Kylie very long. I didn’t wantto.
“Actually...” I said. “I’ve been getting pretty close with all of them. Well, the three of them who don’t spend the whole time glaring daggers at me.” I glowered briefly at West’s lean back where he was stalking along just behind Aaron. “It turns out that’s the thing with dragon shifters. We’re supposed to, er, bond with all of the alphas. It’s, like, a politicaldecree.”
We followed the guys past a door with squeaky hinges and into a wider tunnel that was just as dark and dank. Aaron’s light wavered over the curved walls of the long-unused subwayroute.
Kylie’s eyebrows had shot up. “Wait. When you saybond, you mean in a fully bodily way,right?”
