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“Fine,” I said. “When you get your head sorted out, you know where to find me.” I turned and stalked away without a backward glance. Because I did have bigger things to think about up ahead. Like whether one of my other mates was going to come out of tonight’s confrontation with all limbs and vital organsintact.
Chapter 16
Ren
The guest suiteKylie had been given looked a lot like my set of rooms, other than her bed was only a regular king sized one and not wide enough to comfortably fit five. I guessed the shifter kin didn’t expect anyone other than their dragon shifter to be calling multiple mates into their bed. Or else they expected those other people tosquish.
“Is everything settled now?” Kylie asked me, bobbing on her feet. She’d only managed to sit on the elegant settee for about ten seconds before she’d bounced back up again with her irresistibleenergy.
“As settled as it can be,” I said. “Marco still has to fight that guy. But he seems sure he can take him. I just hope he’s prepared for anything. The rogues definitely don’t mind fightingdirty.”
“They haven’t tried anything that big so far, though, right?” Kylie said. “I mean, there were the three that attacked us at West’s people’s village, and then it sounded like you took on that bunch near Nate’s estate noproblem.”
My heart sank with the weight of all the things I’d been avoiding telling her. I should have told her everything sooner. Maybe if she’d realized just how dangerous my life had gotten, she wouldn’t have rushed down here on thisvisit.
On the other hand, maybe she’d just have rushed downsooner.
“There’ve been a couple of other... incidents,” I said slowly. “When we were traveling to Sunridge, a bunch of them ambushed us. That was when I managed a full shift the first time. And the rogues who attacked Nate’s estate—they killed four of the kin before the guards managed to stopthem.”
“Oh!” Kylie’s eyes went wide. “The thing at Sunridge—that was weeks ago. Why didn’t you tellme?”
I worried my lower lip with my teeth. My fingers shivered with an itch I hadn’t felt in days—the urge to find some object to pilfer, to take control. I curled them into my palm instead. I wasn’t that street rat thief anymore. I was a freaking dragon shifternow.
“I knew you’d be worried,” I said. “We came out of the ambush fine, and the attack on the estate was over before I even gotthere.”
Kylie was still looking at me with a hesitant expression. “I’d rather be worried and know what’s really going on with you than be kept in the dark. You should know that,Ren.”
I had. But I’d kept her in the dark anyway. There wasn’t really any way I could justifyit.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “There was so much going on... Keeping quiet about it and focusing on the good stuff just felt like the best way of handling it at the time. But you see whyI’mworried.”
Kylie nodded. “I guess if those asshole rogues do turn up, you can go full dragon mode on their assess,” she said, more of her usual cheerfulness comingback.
“That’s the plan.” I groped for a change in subject—to a subject that wouldn’t make me want to pocket every valuable in the building. “Marco’s people will be summoning us to dinner soon. I should put on something nicer. If there are rogues around, I want them remembering who’s in charge here.” I managed to grin. “You want to help me pick out adress?”
“Want to?” Kylie said, clapping her hands. “I’ve been dying to since you sent me that photo of you at Aaron’s place. All right, let’s do thisthing.”
We ducked into the hall and passed a few doors to myrooms.
I opened one wardrobe and then another. Kylie made a squeeing sound as she pawed through the offerings. “Oh, this is amazing. You’re going to look like a boss, all right. Forget princess—you’re going to be the empress of allshifters.”
I laughed and held out my arms to take the first dress she tossed to me. By the time she’d gone through all three wardrobes, my arms were aching and my face buried in silk and satin. I hefted the heap onto the bed. “Um, I think we need to do a little narrowing downhere.”
“Yes, yes.” Kylie tapped her lips. She grabbed a couple out of the pile. “I don’t know what I was thinking with this one. And now that I’m looking at them all, black is definitely too dour. The rest you’ll just have to put on so I can ogleyou.”
She shot me a bright smile as she went to put back the discards. I shook my head and stripped out of my T-shirt and jeans. As I shimmied into one of the dresses from the top of the heap, a simple pale green silk number, Kylie sat down on the edge of the bed. She glanced across its width, her eyebrows arching in amusement. “Hmm, I can’t imagine what you’d need a bedthisbig for… No, wait, actually Ican.”
My face flushed at her teasing. But when she turned back to me, a shadow had crossed herface.
“Is there anything else you decided not to tell me from the last few weeks?” sheasked.
Shit. I looked at myself in the mirror, contemplating the green silk flowing over my body. Did I look like an ingénue or a girl who’d severely fucked up the best friendship she’d ever had? Neither was what I was going for. I reached to pull that oneoff.
“There might have been a few things,” I admitted without meeting Kylie’s eyes. “Not that I didn’t want you to know. Just that would have been hard to talk about with onlytexts.”
“You could have called me,” Kylie pointedout.
“I couldn’t see getting into it except face to face.” Except now here we were, face to face, and I felt even more awkward. I grabbed a wine red gown out of the pile. “I told you my mom died on the mountain... I saw it. Like a vision. It was a bunch of fae who killed her. Murdered her. They were trying to stop her from getting that power she wanted me tohave.”
