AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And you’d better believe I’m going to help with that business,” Kylie piped up. “Just wait. In a few days you’ll be wondering why you don’t have humans like me around all thetime.”
Felix raised a skeptical eyebrow, but he was smart enough not to say anything with his alpha watching overhim.
“Let’s go in,” West said. “We should talk with Marco’s kin, find out exactly whathappened.”
The outside of the mansion had looked kind of hard and cold, but warmth washed over us as soon as we stepped inside. The walls were painted a subdued gold tone and thick rugs covered the floors. The front hall opened into a great room with a massive stone-lined fireplace that must be incredibly cozy in the winter. A hint of fresh-baked bread in the air caught my attention, and my stomachrumbled.
“I’ll summon the feline kin,” West’s coyote shifter lieutenant said. His gaze slid to two of the other attendants. “Bring the alphas and our dragon shifter—andher friend—somebreakfast.”
West gave him a thin but approving smile. I sank onto one of the wool sofas, the cushion immediately enveloping me. This place was a lot like its master, I observed with a tickle of amusement. Tough and apparently impenetrable on the outside, but with unexpected pleasures if you made your way past thosewalls.
West was the only one of the four alphas I hadn’t yet consummated my mate bond with. We’d had a tumultuous run of it over the last few weeks. He’d been skeptical of me from the start, but I’d thought he was softening toward me lately, at least a little. It was so hard to tell with him. But the moments of passion he’d allowed himself with me… My skin heated just remembering them, even with everything else on mymind.
Kylie sat down on the sofa at my left and Nate at my right. The bear shifter gave my knee a reassuring touch. Aaron took an armchair across from us, his golden Disney-prince hair gleaming in the dawn sunlight streaking through the picture window. West and Marco stayed on their feet. West stood stiffly, his arms folded over his chest, while Marcopaced.
“This never should have happened,” he muttered. “We barely scuffed up those vamps the other day. Wesettledthings with the king. Why is he going to listen to a few mangy rogues whining to himanyway?”
He fell silent when breakfast appeared, buttered bread and jam and slices of fried ham that made my mouth water despite myself. I put together a quick sandwich to ease the pangs in mystomach.
I’d only gotten in a few bites when Marco’s kin appeared, one of the figures familiar: Leonard the lion shifter, one of Marco’s lieutenants, his round face split by jutting cheekbones. We’d had kind of an unfortunate first meeting. That was, he’d kidnapped me, thinking that was the easiest way to get me to hisalpha.
Now, he looked even more down-beaten than when Marco had laid into him for that mistake. His eyes were hollowed and a slash of red ran across one of those high cheekbones where a wound was only just sealing. It looked like the scrape of a bullet. My gut clenched. I put my sandwich down on the coffeetable.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Marco said, but he couldn’t quite work a teasing lilt into his voice. He motioned Leonard and his companion, a stocky silver-hair woman who smelled like a lynx, to one of the other sofas. “Sit down before you talk. You’ve clearly done enough running for one night. We just need to know what happened at the house, and then you can get back to yournapping.”
Leonard dropped onto the sofa and leaned his head into his hands. He rubbed them up and down over hisface.
“We had no idea they were coming,” he said hoarsely. “We never keep watch that closely at the house—it’s in the middle of the suburbs for Christ’s sake. Not where you’d ever think… Right after sundown, they blasted down the door. At least ten of them, maybe fifteen. I couldn’t have counted. They charged all through the place, spraying bullets. I barely pulled Lindy out of the way in time. Sandra and I carried her out to the car and got out of there. There wasn’t anything else todo.”
A chill ran over me. All of us around the great room had tensed. “Spraying bullets,” I repeated. “They all had guns?” Some of the rogue shifters had fought us with pistols and rifles, going against one of the firmest shifter laws, but their resources when it came to human weaponry had seemed to be limited. I didn’t know what restrictions vampires faced—ordidn’t.
Leonard shuddered. “They hadmachineguns, most of them. Pistol-sized, but still not anything I’d want to tangle with again. The bloodsuckers didn’t even try to bite us. Knew they’d lose if it came to hand-to-hand fighting.” His lips curled back. “Treaty-breakersandcowards.”
Machine guns. Fucking hell. I saw the same horror echoed in all the alphas’ expressions. How could we fight against an army of undead stocked up with military gradefirearms?
“And they’ll be dealt with as the treaty-breakers they are,” Marco said, his voice taut. “I don’t suppose they offered any clue as to what this surprise assault was prompted by? Blasting up our homes isn’t one of their usualhobbies.”
Leonard shook his head. “They didn’t say anything at all. Just opened fire. And the other four in the house—they’d fallen before I even realized what washappening.”
He faltered, his face crumpling. Marco stepped towardhim.
“It isn’t your fault,” he said firmly. “You couldn’t have expected an attack like that. And believe me, the bloodsuckers are going topay.”
“Is there anything else you saw or heard that might be useful to us, for fighting back?” Aaronasked.
“I… I can’t think of anything. It all happened so fast.” Leonard rubbed his face again. He was obviouslyexhausted.
“Sandra?” Marcosaid.
The lynx shifter looked equally worn-out—and shell shocked. She swayed a little on her cushion. “I did hear one of the vamps say something to one of the others,” she said. “That—that they’d been hoping the shifters would take each other out, but handling it themselves was more fun.” She winced at that lastword.
My hackles rose. If there’d been a vampire in the room with us right then, I don’t think anything could have restrained me from shooting my dragon talons from my hand and slicing its head straightoff.
“They know we’re getting stronger,” I said. “Because I’m here. Because there’s a dragon shifter to bring the kin together again.” I inhaled sharply. “And I am going to do that. What Marco said is right. The vampires are going to pay, any way I can makethem.”
It was almost painful seeing the hope light behind the anguish in the lynx shifter’s eyes. I’d better fulfill that promise, even if I wasn’t entirely sure howyet.
“All right, you two,” Marco said with a shooing motion. “You did what you could. You got out of there alive, and saved Lindy too. Now get your rest. We might need you bynightfall.”
