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“Nothing worthy of immediate concern,” Aaron said. “But we shouldn’t lower ourguards.”
“No chance of that with the bunch ofyou.”
Nate grimaced at him. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and turn the damn spit,Marco?”
“Hmm, I think this side needs a littlelonger.”
“Give me that.” West grabbed the stick from him. “You’re going to put out the fire at that rate.” He prodded two of the logs Marco had jostled closer together. A flicker of a memory passed through my head—a brief squabble with my sisters, tug-of-war over a toy. A lump rose in mythroat.
The question that had occurred to me earlier prodded me again. This seemed as good a time to ask asany.
“There are only four alphas at any time, right?” Isaid.
Marco gave me an amused look. “Aren’t we enough for you,princess?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant... A dragon shifter is supposed to take the alphas as mates. So what if there’s more than one dragon shifter? My sisters weren’tsupposedtodie.”
Aaron dipped his head. “No,” he said. “And it’s common for each dragon shifter to give birth to more than one daughter, in case of a tragedy. Generally speaking, your parents would have chosen which of you seemed best suited for the responsibility, and the others would have supported her. They could take mates as well, but their line wouldn’t passon.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense.” So if the rogues hadn’t carried out their bloody assault, it might have been one of my sisters bonded to these four now. The thought sent an uncomfortable prickling over my skin. I turned my gaze back to thefire.
The flames danced higher, nearly grazing the deer’s flesh. It was starting to brown. The sizzles that reached my ears now were drips of fat, not blood. The smell of roasted venison was trickling through theair.
My mouth started to water. Maybe I didn’t like the idea of killing a deer, but I wasn’t too squeamish to eat it now that it was already dead. I guessed that kind of did make me ahypocrite.
The flickering light and the wavering warmth started to lull my nerves. I let my gaze sink into the fire. The flames darted up and back down, orange tinged with a darker red around the edges. Yellow-white at their core. Beautiful, the way they flared to life. Almostlike—
The fragment of memory rushed up so fast it rocked me on my seat. For an instant, I was a little girl again, clutching my mother’s scaled leg as the ground fell away beneath us. The swoop of her wings warbled through the air. Sharp cracks rang out below us. What was that sound? I’d never heard it before, but it terrifiedme.
Mama opened her dragon mouth and spewed a stream of flame at our attackers. My arm was throbbing. Blood seeped from a gouge just above my elbow. Tears streaked down my cheeks. Another burst of flame filled my vision,and—
I caught myself before I tipped right over, planting my feet hard on the ground. The heat of the campfire washed over me, sharper than before. My hand rose to my arm, to the phantom pain of that long ago wound. I rubbed the skin there even though I didn’t have a scar to show it had beenreal.
“Ren?” Nate said from across the grove. “Are youokay?”
“I’m fine.” I pushed myself to my feet. I couldn’t be that little girl anymore, clinging helplessly while someone else did all the fighting. It didn’t matter which of my sisters Mom and my dads would have chosen to lead. I was the only one left, and I had the ferocity in me...somewhere.
My gaze traveled up one of the tall birch trees near the edge of the grove. Its white bark shone against the darkness. Without letting myself second-guess the impulse, I strode over to it and grasped the lowestbranches.
“What are you up to, princess?” Marcoasked.
“Just need to stretch my legs a bit,” I said. “Don’t mindme.”
I clambered upward from branch to branch, steadying myself when I needed to against the trunk. The papery bark rustled under my groping hands. The smells of the roasting meat and the fire fell away, leaving only the tangy scent ofsap.
I stopped when the trunk had narrowed a little too much for comfort and peered down. West was turning the meat. The other guys were peering up at me, watching my progress. The firelight danced off theirfaces.
I was about as high up as I’d been in the pine a few days ago. A jump I knew I could make. But I didn’t want to land. I wanted those wings to unfurl from my back and carry me back toward thesky.
The urge to fly had been with me my whole life. Maybe I could draw it all the way out if my body believed shifting was the only way to protect me from thefall?
I dragged in a breath. Then I launched myself out into theair.
Normally I’d have moved right into my landing pose: feet braced, knees bent, body properly aligned. But I had to believe I’d hurt myself if I hit the ground. I let my limbs scatter, a gasp slipping from my mouth as my hair whipped up behind me. I could break a leg or worse like this. If I didn’t shift and glide out of thefall.
A fluttering sensation raced through my chest, but my body stayed totally human. My body careened on down. The ground looked far too close. Shit. Biting back a curse, I yanked my feet under me at the lastsecond.
I hit the ground slightly off balance, but managed to roll out of the fall with at least a bit of grace. My left foot had taken too much of my weight. It throbbed when I straightened up. I gritted my teeth and managed to march back to my stone seat withoutlimping.
