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All the shifters who lived on the estate had gathered around the massive pyre. The sharp smell of fresh sap nearly overwhelmed the stink of death. Four bodies lay there to be laid to rest. Their loved ones had come forward to talk about the lives of the fallen. Now Nate was moving from one body to the next, flames hissing on the end of the torch he carried. His low baritone voice swept through theclearing.
“Brother of my heart, kin to your alpha. Your light has snuffed out, but now you will burn brighter. As we let you go, we swear to rise up stronger foryou.”
“We swear to rise up stronger,” a chorus of voices rang out around the pyre. I added mine to it. A few bodies down from me, Ren startled and managed to join in for the last fewwords.
Just one more thing our dragon shifter didn’t know about her ownkind.
She’d missed the funeral for her own fathers and sisters. The massive one kin from all across the country had arrived for. I’d only been eleven, but I remembered starkly the sight of the alpha before me, the man who’d mentored me for the past three years, lying limp and vacant on the heap of firewood. The bullet hole marring his skin had looked so unnatural, like some horrible disease and not a proper battlewound.
The rogues were fucking unnatural, the way they slaughtered their own kind for their selfish reasons. I gritted my teeth, thinking about the one Nate’s guards had managed to capture. Wouldn’t I like to be sinking those teeth into him right now. If we hadn’t needed the information he could give us, I’d like to tear out his throat for what he’d done here. For what they’d done back then. For all of it,really.
“We swear to rise up stronger,” we repeated for the fourth time. Nate bowed his head. Then he tossed his torch onto thepyre.
The flames crackled, sweeping over the heap of woods and the bodies lying on it in a wave. Smoke billowed up. It prickled into my eyes and down my throat, coating my tongue. And the memory that rose up then wasn’t of mymentor.
How many bodies had we sent back to the light the day I’d said good-bye to my mother? Eight. Eight loyal kin felled. I’d had to order my people to build two pyres to hold them all. My throat had been hoarse by the time I’d finished the rounds. One of my advisors had offered to share the duty, seeing as I was fifteen and not yet fully of age, but I’d told him no. It’d been my battle. The deaths had been dealt because of mydecisions.
I’d just had to believe we’d have seen more deaths if my decisions had beendifferent.
Dad hadn’t believed that. Or maybe he hadn’t cared. The memory of his turned back, his shoulders stubbornly stiff, had stopped stinging over the years, even though he still hadn’t said a word to me since. I was his alpha, but I wasn’t his sonanymore.
Today, it took a long time for the flames to burn down. We stood in silent witness the entire time, letting the smoke and the smell wash over us. Honoring to ourdead.
Normally when the last flames flickered out amid the embers, we would see the ashes carried to their resting place and then be done. But when Nate stirred to move forward, Ren touched his arm. She stepped out from our ring toward the foot of thepyre.
Her face still looked a little paler than usual, making her dark eyes and hair gleam starkly in contrast. But I had to admire the strength with which she held herself, the steadiness of her posture. Whatever memories had rocked her when we’d arrived this morning, she’d wrestled them undercontrol.
Her voice came out steady too—steady andclear.
“The rogues have gotten away with too much, for too long. I wish I could have been here sooner to fulfill my role as dragon shifter. But now that I am here, I swear to you that we will see justice for these deaths. And if I have my way, the rogues won’t shed one more drop of kinblood.”
She raised a fist in the air and snapped it back to her side. A solemn air still hung over the gathering, but several voices in the crowd rose up in agreement. “Not one moredrop!”
I bit back a frown. I wished I could cheer too, but our dragon shifter wasn’t in any position to be giving her word on that matter. Her mother hadn’t been able to take on the rogues, and she’d been a dragon shifter with years of experience, who’d grown up into the role. The fact that Ren would even try to make that kind of promise just showed how much she still had tolearn.
Maybe the times really had changed. Maybe there were things a dragon shifter couldn’t set right anymore, even with new powers and the four of us by herside.
Well, I hadn’t committed myself yet, as much as parts of me had wanted to. It wasn’t her fault she was so far behind, but that didn’t mean I had to sacrifice myself and my kin holding herup.
I told myself that, but at the same time the determination on her face tugged at my heart. That damned mate bond still nagging at me, stirring up my emotions. I had to keep a tighter leash on them. If one touch from her could sever all my self-control, how could I put my kinfirst?
* * *
Ren
The pungent scentof the fire’s smoke followed me down into the basement of Nate’s estate house. I rubbed at my bare arms and resisted the urge to clear my throat. Would that be some kind of sign of disrespect? There were so many shifter traditions and expectations I still didn’tknow.
And from the way West had narrowed his eyes at me as we’d left the funeral clearing, he was keeping a careful tally ofthem.
Thankfully my other three alphas and Alice weren’t looking for excuses to dismiss me. We had a rogue to interrogate—one who hopefully knew more than the avian woman who’d attacked me on Aaron’s estate had. She’d been forced to cooperate. This one had joined the fight right alongside theothers.
The guard who’d led us down to the short row of holding cells nodded to one room. On the other side of the door’s small window, a skinny man with scruffy light brown hair was slumped on a bench. His wrists and ankles were chained to opposite ends, so he couldn’t hurt us—or himself. As long as he was in human form, atleast.
I stepped back from the window. “How do we know he won’t shift to get out of theshackles?”
“The tranquilizer we use in situations like this suppresses the ability to shift,” Aaron said, ready as ever with explanations. “The guards will have lowered the dose so he’s conscious enough to talk to us, but his bodily control is stillinhibited.”
“He should be awake enough now,” the guard said. He unlocked the door forus.
