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“They want us all dead,” West muttered. “That’sobvious.”
“I know that,” I said, resisting the urge to snap at him. “I meanwhy. If we knew why they’ve suddenly turned on us, we might be able to find some leverage we coulduse.”
Nate made a discomforted sound. “As far as I can tell, the only ‘leverage’ the bloodsuckers are going to understand is being burned to a crisp. And I’m looking forward to seeing you teach them thatlesson.”
“If I were going to hazard a guess,” Aaron said, “from what Marco’s kin told us… They liked seeing us weakened without a dragon shifter. It reassured them when our kin started to pick at each other, new conflicts developing. They were hoping we’d keep heading down that road until we were right at each other’s throats. But we’ve come back. As you said, we’re getting stronger again, moreunified.”
He gave me a smile that was tight but genuine. “They may have realized this is their last chance to hit us before we’re all the way to our former strength. And they got used to the idea that they might be rid of us. They didn’t want to go back to how things were before, to having to work with us and makecompromises.”
“They can forget about compromising after the mess they’ve made of things around here,” Marco said with a show ofteeth.
But the vamps still had us at a disadvantage. I studied the wall again, thinking about all those villages that didn’t have this kind of protection. “What exactly are the restrictions against shifters using weapons? Where do you draw theline?”
“We’re not shooting back at them,” Westsaid.
“Iknow. Nothing that’s intended as a weapon. But is there a law against usinganythingother than our bodies in afight?”
“What are you thinking, Ren?” Nateasked.
I motioned to the field beyond the estate’s gate. “We want to burn the vamps to a crisp. Am I the only one allowed to do that, or can your kin fight with firetoo?”
Aaron’s gaze turned distant with thought. “Anything we’d hold and attack someone directly with, like a torch, would be forbidden. But there are other ways we could usefire.”
“We still have the whole afternoon to prepare,” I said. “Could you have your kin lay down a ring of flammable material around their villages—around the other estates, too—that they could easily light up if the vampires showed up? It’d be mostly for protection… but if they happened to set it off while some of the vamps were walking by, and those vamps happened to catch on fire, that’d get a pass,right?”
Marco’s lips curled into a smirk. “I’m liking the way you think more and more every day,princess.”
“It would unsettle them too,” Nate said. “Easier for us to pick them off in the confusion. A good shove into the flames…” He wiped his palms together with a satisfiedexpression.
“Our kin will need to clear the vegetation from the area,” Aaron said. “We don’t want to end up burning a whole forest down. But there’s time for that. It could at least hold the vampires back.” Nodding to himself, he pulled out his phone. “I’ve got some more calls tomake.”
Kylie clapped her hands. “Well,I’mnot bound by any shifter laws, am I? I wonder if I can scrounge up some kind of flame-thrower. I can definitely put you in touch with people who’ll supply fuel on the down-low.”
I smiled at my best friend. If she had a super power, it was managing to make a friend or at least an acquaintance out of everyone she met, which was a lot of people. With all her connections, she could obtain just about anything you could possibly need, at least in the regular human part of the world. Which my alphas had first discovered back in New York when she’d gotten a lead on a puzzle the rest of us had drawn a blankon.
“I’ll take those names,” Nate said toKylie.
“There,” she said, reaching for her own phone. “You tell that Felix guy I’m already making myself more useful than he’s doing,West.”
The wolf shifter smirked at that comment. “I might do that right now.” He waved a hand toward thehouse.
Someone must have been watching, because a minute later, several of West’s attendants hurried out. The tawny-haired fennec fox shifter was in their midst. He glanced at Kylie as he hustled past. His expression switched to a glower when she gave him a thumbs-up and a broadgrin.
“We need a ring of ground cleared just beyond the estate wall, at least ten feet wide,” the canine alpha told his kin. “Any brush that’d hold a flame, collect it for us to lay down the middle. We can dose it with gasoline for goodmeasure.”
“Hold on,” I said as they headed for the gate. “You don’t need that here.I’mhere.”
West gave me a baleful look. “You’re just one dragon, Sparks, in case you forgot. A dragon who can only manage to stay a dragon maybe a half hour if you’re lucky. If the vamps turn up here, we’ll have to hold them off for the wholenight.”
“It’s not going to take me the whole night to fry them,” I retorted. “It’s not like I’m going to toast one and then take a ten-minute whirl around the estate before I get around to thenext.”
“And if they come in waves? If you miss some before you run out ofjuice?”
I crossed my arm over my chest. “I can pace myself. And I’ve shifted twice in the same day before. Night shouldn’t be anydifferent.”
He sighed. “Look, Sparks, it seems to me we’re better off having the extra protection just in case one dragon isn’t enough to save the day. These are my people here, and I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything I can to protect them. Unless you have some brilliant plan for destroying every vampire out there before the sun even goesdown?”
He had a point. I knew he had a point. It was just that the way he made that point niggled at me. “No,” I admitted. “I don’t. Believe me, if I did, I wouldn’t be keeping quiet aboutit.”
