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I fried another two vampires. Between the pain spreading from my own wounds and the energy I’d expelled already, my dragon body was starting to prickle. I wasn’t going to be able to hold the shift muchlonger.
Lights glowed across our end of the parking lot. Engines rumbled as the canine kin waited for the last few stragglers to make it to the vehicles. A couple cars had already pulled away. As the rest of the fighting shifters broke from the trees to make an escape, the remaining vampires pushed to the edge of the forest where they could more easily pick usoff.
Not if I had anything to say about it. I dove, blazing a line of fire along the edge of the lot. In his wolf form, West wove among the fleeing shifters, urging them on toward the cars. Nate’s bear charged at the vampires that were trying to dodge my flames. At the other end of the lot, Aaron and Marco had tackled the last of the vamps by thetrucks.
My flames flickered out. I wrenched at my chest, trying to produce more, but my lungs stuttered. In that moment, one of the vampires sprang forward and pulled his trigger with his gun pointing straight at Nate’sback.
West shoved the bear shifter to the side, but his wolf was barely big enough to jostle the much bigger animal. The bullets clipped the grizzly’s head and streaked down his side. Nate groaned, spinning around but alreadyswaying.
No!Panic knifed through me, twisting my gut. The fury that followed it blazed up so fast and hard my vision hazedwhite.
Not my mate. These undead monsters werenottaking him fromme.
More fire than I’d have thought I’d had in me—more fire than I’d have imagined I could ever have summoned—ripped up from my lungs. It scorched my throat and singed my own teeth. I expelled it all with a scream ofanger.
The rush of flames crashed into the vampires at the edge of the forest, searing through all of them before they could so much as flinch. It seared up the trees too. Up the trunks, blackening the bark and biting into the wood beneath. Flickering into the leaves, filling the air with smoke. The rising wind whipped it into a fury to match myown.
A fury I couldn’t control. The fire surged from tree to tree, burning the rest of the vampires up or sending them running into the shadows. But it didn’t stop. It crackled on, devouring all the vegetation in itspath.
I hit the ground. My human legs sagged as I shifted. Blood streaked down my pale skin from the bullets I’dtaken.
Aaron rushed to my side. West and Marco had shifted back into human form too, hauling Nate into the back of one of our vans. The bear shifter’s head drooped in West’s grasp, his skin waxen. A dribble of blood spotted the pavement along theirpath.
“He’s alive,” Aaron said, but I thought I heard an unspokenfor nowin there. My raw throat squeezed shut. I stumbled upright at the eagle shifter’s tug. He pulled my arm across his shoulders and looped his around mywaist.
The fire blazed on through the forest, its heat wafting over us. A shudder passed throughme.
“I started a whole forestfire.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” Aaron said. “As soon as we’re on the road, I’ll call the closest fire department. They’ll know what steps totake.”
He started to lead me to one of the other cars, but I shook my head. “I want to be with Nate. Ineedto be withNate.”
Aaron looked as if he might have argued, but then he changed his mind. “All right. But someone has to tend to youtoo.”
I hobbled with him to the van. A couple of kin were already bent over Nate’s prone body, sharing blood and digging out the bullets. “Ren,” West said hoarsely, but Aaron waved himaway.
“We should get back to our cars. Get everyone out of here before any more vamps showup.”
“Right.” West shook off his momentary hesitation and bellowed down the end of the lot. “Everyone! Moveout!”
I half scrambled, half dragged myself onto the van bed next to Nate. Another canine shifter leapt to see to my wounds. I closed my eyes, tuning out his attentions and pressing my face to my mate’s shoulder. The glimpse I’d gotten of Nate’s torn-up torso was more than I ever wanted to seeagain.
Nate’s chest still rose and fell with steady if shallow breaths. I longed to squirm closer, to hear the thump of his heart in his chest, but I was afraid to disturb the wounds that hadn’t yet closed. Instead I nestled as close to him as I dared, willing with every shred of my soul for him to heal. For him to beokay.
The van’s engine rumbled, but the roar of the forest fire carried over it. Flames danced behind my eyelids as the wheels lurched over the uneven ground to thehighway.
Not all of the destruction here was the vampires’ doing. In that moment when I’d seen my mate fall, I hadn’t been thinking at all, only acting. A mindless animal, like the vampire king had said. It wasn’t just Nate who might die because of this battle tonight. And if any innocent people did, those deaths would be onmyconscience.
As we roared down the highway toward the canine estate, I wasn’t sure which potential tragedy made my heart acheharder.
Chapter 6
Aaron
Dawn light was only just startingto seep through the trees beyond my bedroom window when I pushed myself out of bed, but I wasn’t getting much sleep there anyway. Bleary-eyed but with humming nerves, I found myself wandering down the hall to the healer’sdormitory.
The room held several cots, but right now only two were occupied. The other shifters injured in last night’s battle must have recovered enough to return to their ownquarters.
