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Nate was still sprawled on his cot like he had been when I’d left the room a few hours ago. The healers who’d attended to my fellow alpha were leaving him be for now. They’d bandaged his wounds, and blood hadn’t seeped through the white gauze, so I could assume at least that they weren’t bleeding anymore. He was still breathing. He just hadn’t wokenup.
Serenity was curled up on top of the covers of the bed next to his, her eyes finally closed. Even asleep, her face looked tense. She’d been afraid of disturbing Nate but unwilling to return to her own room last night, despite the healers’ cajoling. Her own wounds had closed, only angry pink marks still dotting her pale legs. Soon they’d fade too, like all the other injuries she’d taken in her first few weeks as our dragonshifter.
What an introduction to the shifter community she’d had. Every time I thought the worst was over, the world upped the ante on us all overagain.
I didn’t want to wake her. There wasn’t anything I could do for Nate. I’d at least seen he was still alive. But I couldn’t quite convince my feet to carry me back to my own room. All that waited for me there was more restlessdozing.
The door to the healer’s dorm clicked open. Marco slunk in, looking as weary as I felt. He came to a stop besideme.
“Nochange?”
“Not for the worse, at least,” Isaid.
“Small blessings.” The jaguar shifter’s lips curled as if he couldn’t decide whether to smile or grimace and had ended up halfway in between. “What the hell are we going to do without the bear’sstrength?”
“We’d lose a lot more than that if we losthim.”
“That’s true,” Marco agreed. The feline alpha must have sensed as much as I did that in a lot of ways Nate was the glue that had held our quartet of clashing personalities together—with his strength, but also that easy warmth he always seemed to radiate, unless you gave him a good reason to get angry. It was hard to squabble all that much when he wasaround.
We hadn’t even come together properly yet, not with West still dangling the possibility of eschewing the mating alliance altogether. I’d thought the canine alpha was starting to come around, but what would happen if Nate died? How united would we be then? The young man he’d have been training to take the alpha position after him wouldn’t be of age yet. Either the disparate kin would fall into fighting over the rulership, or Serenity would be left without anothermate.
If we lost Nate, the vampires might have won already, without even one more drop of bloodshed.
“Have you seen West this morning?” I askedMarco.
He nodded. “Wolf boy is prowling around the common rooms snapping at anyone he doesn’t like the look of. So only slightly more annoying thanusual.”
“He feelsresponsible.”
“We all knew we had to go to that parlay, no matter how much it looked like a trap.” He glanced at me. “Any problems reported from any of yoursettlements?”
I shook my head. “It looks like the vamps elsewhere were holding back waiting to see how last night played out. I doubt we’ll get another reprievetonight.”
We might have left the room then, our combined uselessness heavy enough to push us into motion, but Serenity stirred. She rubbed at her face and shoved herself upright on the bed. Her gaze rested on Nate for a moment, her mouth twisting, and then rose tous.
“What’shappening?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “He’s still healing, just… slowly. We have to assume he is, at least. He hasn’t taken any turns for theworse.”
She got up and walked to the side of the Nate’s bed, resting her hand on the bear shifter’s arm. “But he hasn’t woken up atall?”
“It’s pretty normal for us to need a good long sleep when we’ve been severely injured, princess,” Marco put in. “To make sure we don’t go running around straining those internal organs all over again while they’re still piecing themselves backtogether.”
“I don’t know. That just sounds like a coma to me. And sometimes people don’t come out ofthose.”
“Shifters aren’t your regular sort of person,” Marco said archly. “And alpha shifters least of all.” But the tilt of his head was a little stiff. Nate wasn’t out of the woodsyet.
Our dragon shifter could clearly tell that too. Her expression held so much worry that I had to go to her. Marco shot us a look and then driftedaway.
“Hey,” I said, tugging Serenity to me. “He’s hanging in there. The fact that he’s still with us after the wounds he took last night is a very good sign. We’ve got centuries of history behind us. Shifters are a tough bunch. It’s not all going to end just because some vampires got some ridiculous notions into theirheads.”
My mate gave me a pained smile. Then she bobbed up on her toes to kiss me. I leaned into it, reveling in the softness of her lips and the sweet scent of her skin. Wishing I could offer her more reassurance than I alreadyhad.
* * *
Ren
I finally peeled myself away from Nate’s side when I realized it was past noon and I’d already lost half of the day. I didn’t want to leave my mate, but the vampires were no doubt preparing for a full-out assault tonight. If there was anything I could do to protect the rest of my kin, I needed to be here to do it. They were counting onme.
