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The guy started ambling toward the car. West glanced back at Marco. “As you pointed out,jaguar boy, he’d be your kin. You go talk to him. If something goes wrong, I’m sure you can jump right back in the car as we speed out ofhere.”
His voice was dry, but a thread of tension ran through it. He’d left one hand on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly. Aaron eyed the guy through the windshield. In the back seat, Nate undid his seatbelt. Preparing in case he needed to shift, I guessed. We were all on highalert.
Marco muttered something about “ungrateful canines,” but he got up and slid open the door. “Stay right there, princess,” he told me. He hopped out and sauntered up the road to meet the stranger. “Kin mark?” heasked.
The guy started to raise his hand—and two sharpcrackssplit the air. The same sharp, echoing sound I’d heard in my memory of my mother’s desperate flight with me from our oldhome.
The SUV hitched, with a sputtering sound from one of the tires. Marco’s shoulder jerked. He stumbled sideways, clutching his chest just below his collarbone. Blood bloomed beneath hisfingers.
My heart stopped. Gunshots. That’s what that soundwas.
The rogues didn’t care about shifter law, obviously. They’d brought guns to this fight—and to that one longago.
“Marco!” West hollered. He pressed on the gas pedal, but the deflated tire thumped weakly against the pavement. “Shit. I’ll get him. Staylow.”
He threw himself out of the driver’s seat before anyone could protest. Another bullet struck the window across from me. The glass cracked. I flinched down, ducking beside the seat. Nate growled. Aaron wrenched off hisshirt.
“You’re going to shift?” I said, panic jolting through me. “They’ll shoot you out there.” Two morecracksrang out, with athunkagainst the side of the SUV—and a snarl on the road outside. Where was West? Had he gotten to Marco? How many rogues were in on thisambush?
“It’s a lot harder to hit a moving target,” Aaron said. He shot me a quick look, his bright eyes intent. “Stay down. We’ll take care ofthis.”
He leapt out, slamming the door behind him. A flash of golden feathers rocketed past the window an instantlater.
A hiss and a yelp carried from down the road. My alphas or the rogues? I didn’t dare raise my head high enough to peek out thewindow.
“And it takes more than a few bullets to stop a bear,” Nate growled. He shoved open the back hatch, shifting as he went. His immense furry body charged past my window into thefray.
Another shot crackled. I winced, my fingernails digging into the leather seat. My heart thudded so fast the beats blendedtogether.
A voice, thick and guttural, called out from somewhere above. “Give up the dragon shifter, kin-bound, and you’ll live to keep bossing your peoplearound.”
The words struck a chord of recognition deep down in the animal core of me. I’d never heard that voice speak before, but it jolted me back to the first rogue attack, the snarls and growls of the black wolf that had tried to gouge open my neck. The skin there stung inmemory.
I swallowed hard. He must be the one leading this group. But my alphas obviously weren’t interested in bargaining my life away. The snaps and cries from down the road were gettinglouder.
A high keening filled the air—Aaron’s battle cry—and cut off abruptly. My throatconstricted.
The rogues had killed four alphas once before. My fathers. They’d murdered my sisters too. Slaughtered almost all of the people who’d mattered most to me. And now they were trying to take away my mates too, to get atme.
No. Rage bubbled up inside me. My fingers curled tighter, forming fists. I dragged in a breath, slow and steady the way Aaron had taught me, and the anger streamed through me in a white hot glow. As powerful as the connection that had solidified between him and me when I’d claimed him as mine last night. When I’d grasped the role I was meant for with bothhands.
The energy rippled through all my limbs. I was not going to let this happen again. Not here. Not now. I would notstay. My alphas deserved a mate who could protect them as much as they protectedme.
And damn it, they hadone.
I dashed forward to grasp the door handle. Yanking the side door open, I flung myself out of the car. Out andup.
The shift rippled through my muscles, stretching, burning. My body expanded, sleek and sinewy. Talons ripped from my arched fingers. Wings burst from my back. They flapped with an instinctive heft, and I careened through the air. My eyes sharpened. The wind warbled over the smooth scales covering my skin. Fire smoldered all through my extendedneck.
I’d done it. I was a dragon. And it feltamazing.
I beat my wings, soaring higher. Testing every inch of my newfound body. But I didn’t have time to savor the sensations. My shadow streaked over the ground, twice as large as the SUV, and my gaze caught on a woman crouched by a boulder thirty feet up the mountainside. A pistol was braced in her hands. She raised it towardme.
A fiery confidence blazed through me. Oh, no. She could forget that. She was going to regret ever messing with me andmine.
I dove toward her. She pulled the trigger. A splinter of pain lanced through one of my wings, but I didn’t care. I opened my jaws and let loose the fire searing throughme.
The woman screamed as the flames engulfed her. I swooped over her hiding spot and whipped around, seeking out her companions. There’d been two guns firing. Where was the other coward hiding behind apistol?
