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“I’m not sure.” He spread his hands. “They said they’d reach out to me. I don’t knowhow.”
“But if they did, you’d tell usnow?”
He raised his head. “Yes,” he said. “I’d come straight to myalpha.”
I tasted the honesty in his words. He was still scared, still unsettled. But he was upset by what he’d seen the rogues do too. He truly hadn’t done anything to hurt usyet.
Maybe to trust me, what he needed was for me to trusthim.
Chapter 6
Nate
Orion’s voicebounced off the close walls of the holding cell. “But I cooperated!” my former guard protested as one of my current guards jabbed him with a tranquilizer. “I answered her questions. I didn’t do anythingwrong!”
“You talked with shifters you know are out to screw us over,” I replied, just barely holding my anger in check. “You didn’t tell me what was going on. You considered going along with them. Be glad that our dragon shifter is merciful, because believe me, I’d like to do a lot worse to you thanthis.”
The muskrat shifter opened his mouth as if to argue more, but the drug was already taking effect. His chin wobbled, and then his body sagged. The guard holding him let him drop onto the bench in the holding room. She turned to me. “Should I chainhim?”
I shook my head. “If he comes to enough to shift, those things won’t hold him. Just make sure he’s kept tranquilized enough until I decide where he’ll end upnext.”
She gave me a sharp nod and threw one last disdainful look at her former colleague. With a sniff, she stalked out of the room. Our would-be-traitor wasn’t going anywhere anytimesoon.
I stalked down the hall, my muscles itching. I wanted so badly to shift. To shift and rage, clawing the floor, battering the walls, letting out every bit of the frustration that had been boiling up inside me since lastnight.
But I wasn’t just an animal. I knew turning into a raging bear wasn’t going to helpanyone.
“Are you all right, sir?” the guard askedme.
“Yes,” I said. “Go on back to your regular duty. And thankyou.”
No, I wasn’t all right, not at all. I’d misjudged my own kin. I’d brought my new mate, the mate I’d been waiting for from the moment I became alpha years ago, into the worst kind of danger. I couldn’t even promise her she’d be safe within my estate’swalls.
She should have been looking forward to a grand celebration tonight, one that would have rivaled the reception she’d gotten at the avian estate. Instead we were limiting the guests, checking them over for weapons, setting an atmosphere of anxiety. And everyone would have been anxious anyway after the other night’s attack. Word about that would be all over the countrysidenow.
We needed to shut those rogues down for good. Maybe we should have before we’d even foundRen.
It’d become easy to ignore the problem over the years. In the aftermath of the previous alphas’ murders, I’d been too busy learning my role to offer a counter-attack. Some of the old guard had tried to track down as many of the rogues as they could, but the perpetrators had gone into hiding. And they hadn’t stirred up much trouble sincethen.
Because they thought they’d gotten what they wanted, I had toassume.
I prowled through the halls of my home, not entirely sure where I was going but needing to keep moving. I stopped when I spotted one of my attendants coming around acorner.
“Vernon,” I said. “Is the avian alpha back yet?Aaron?”
The panda shifter blinked his big round eyes. “Not that I’ve heard, sir. I can ask in case I missed hisarrival.”
I waved that suggestion off. If the avian alpha had returned, I couldn’t imagine he’d have been quiet with his news. “That’s fine. Just come find me if you seehim.”
I stalked on, my feet carrying me without thinking to the wing that held my advisors’ quarters. The place where the other night’s attack had been the most brutal. My people had rushed to clean up as quickly as they could, but a bullet hole still marked one wall. There were scratches in the floorboards no buffing was going toerase.
My jaw clenched. I knocked on the first door at myright.
Yvonne opened it a moment later. The stately horse shifter had been one of the first of the former alpha’s advisors to really take me under her wing when I’d been hardly more than a boy. Now, her silver hair was slicked back from her face in its usual braid, but her eyes looked wearier than usual. Heavy withgrief.
“My alpha,” she said with a dip of her head. “What brings youhere?”
“I just wanted to check in on you. See how you’redoing.”
