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The snow leopard growled, but he couldn’t do more than squirm and wince as the cougar took him by the scruff of his neck. The larger cat dragged him out to where the noon sun streamed through the thrown open doors. I stalked after them. My jawclenched.
The cougar let go of Phillipe and backed up a step. I loomed over the snow leopard, meeting his yellow-green gaze with a glare. From around the room, dozens of feline eyes fixed on me. And one pair of human eyes. Kylie gaped at me, her face stillpale.
The thought of what she must think of me now sent a pang through my chest. But I couldn’t let those worries distract me. What I did here mattered a hell of alot.
So I’d better do itgood.
“Phillipe,” I said, pitching my voice loud. “You were kin, and you betrayed all the others you should have called kin. You brought all this destruction down on your alpha’s estate, your shifter community.” I swept my arm to indicate the entire foyer. “But I will give you a chance. BecauseIam not here to destroy if I can help it. So much of shifter kind has been broken by the rogues and kin like you. Will you help us rebuild it now? Or do you only care about wreckingthings?”
Phillipe clung on to his feline form, his eyes narrowing. The muscles in his haunches bunched. I braced myself, feeling his intention. If that was how he wanted to end this, let them see him make the choicehimself.
He threw himself off the floor with one final surge of strength, his jaws yawning as if to eat mewhole.
My hand tingled as I drew a partial shift into my fingers. With the snow leopard’s sour breath in my face, I slashed my dragon talons across his neck, severing histhroat.
Chapter 21
Marco
That traitor,Phillipe, crumpled at Ren’s feet with a gush of blood down his chest. My dragon shifter dodged backward, shaking her hand to withdraw her talons. As the snow leopard shifted back into Phillipe’s stringy human form, her head whipped around. Her gaze locked with mine. A sudden worry shimmered in hereyes.
Why? Because she’d killed one of my kin? Good riddance to that piece of excrement. She’d been fuckingglorious.
I rose up out of my jaguar form, ignoring the aches and pangs where I’d have new scars tomorrow. Then I brought my hands together and started toclap.
Around the room, my kin and the other alphas were gradually shifting back. Most of them joined my applause. Ren’s head swiveled as she took in our response, looking startled and then, with a lift of her chin that made my heart swell with affection, owning it. Not a princess of flames anymore. The woman before me was every inch aqueen.
I walked up to her and took her hand. “He got what was coming to him,” I said in a low voice. “You were amazing,Ren.”
I leaned in to kiss her, and someone gave an exhausted but still joyful whoop in the crowd. All of my kin had to feel it now—that my bond with my mate had been consummated, that their own desires could bring them new feline children after all these years. But that wasn’t the only reason tocelebrate.
Ren kissed me back hard, as if replenishing her strength through the meeting of our lips. I was happy to give anything she needed to take. She touched my cheek, finding the claw mark just below my eye that hadn’t yet sealed. I shook my head to tell her not to fret about that. The wound only stung a little while I stood here next toher.
Then I turned to face my kin and raised our joined hands in the air in a gesture of triumph. “The rogues and the traitors among our kin have been put down. This is the security a dragon shifter brings us. A new age for us is about to begin. An age when shifters will work together against our enemies, and live and love without the shadow of violence hanging overus.”
“Here’s to the dragon shifter!” someone—I thought Silvan—shouted from ouraudience.
“To the dragon shifter!” a bunch of voices joined in. Some wary, some limping, but all bright-eyed, several of my kin slunk over to show their respects to Ren, as if they’d only just mether.
Better late than never. A smile crept over my face as I watched them bob their heads and press their hands to hers, murmuring words of gratitude and encouragement. No one here had ever seen a battle like this on our home ground before. And no one here had seen a dragon fight like Ren justhad.
Even a cat could appreciate the strength she’d shown—and themercy.
My gaze traveled away from her to those we’d lost despite my mate’s courage and all of our best efforts. Coreen’s husband, Raoul, had taken a fatal bullet to the chest. The rogues had dealt fatal flows to a few others in the fray. A couple of my attendants who’d rushed in to help had fallen and not gotten up. And there were many kin alive but too weakened from their wounds tostand.
Several more attendants had slipped into the room now that the chaos had settled. I motioned them over. “Bring our injured kin to the medical room, quickly. And we’ll need to arrange a funeral for the dead.” I paused. Not all of the dead. Phillipe had lost the right to that respect, and the rogues had never earned it to begin with. “The rogues we’ll burn too,elsewhere.”
They nodded and ran to follow my orders. Coreen had gone to kneel by her husband, resting her hand on his forehead, her shoulders slumped. “I’ll help see to him,” she said in a rough voice to the attendants who’d joined her. Her gaze foundmine.
“I’m sorry,” Isaid.
Her mouth twisted. “He fought well. He didn’t know how to stand back. It wasn’t his nature.” She looked over my shoulder, toward Ren, and then back to me. “Thank you,” she added. “Maybe we have gone too long without a dragonshifter.”
“I have no intention of losing this one,” I said, and she managed a hint of asmile.
I made my way back to Ren. Some of my kin were still clustered around her, fawning over her. She was holding herself straight, answering them all warmly, but I could sense the exhaustion in her. My mate had fought too many battles in the last fewweeks.
I wrapped my arms around her from behind. Even with the pain of my healing wounds, the feel of her bare skin against mine was heaven. I pressed a kiss to her shoulder and murmured in her ear, “Shall I escort you back to your rooms? I can’t imagine how big a break you need after allthat.”
