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He tried to chuckle, but it came out more like a gurgle. Oh, God, there really wasn’t anything I could do, wasthere?
“There’s something... didn’t tell you...” His voice wasfading.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just—justrest.”
“No. You need... There’s a feline kin. Someone... someone high up in the families. Calling the shots. Allied... with the rogues. They listen to him. The rest of the group—every rogue remaining… Ready to attack all together. You haveto...”
His throat worked, and his body spasmed. “Orion!” I cried out, but his eyes had already fogged. “No, no, damnit.”
I could feel it, as much as I wanted to resist what my senses were telling me. He wasgone.
I sat back on my heels, my shoulders slumped. Then I flinched around at a thud behindme.
West had just tackled the fox shifter. From their positions, she’d been about to leap at me. His wolf was twice as big as her form. She squirmed and clawed, but she didn’t stand achance.
And she clearly knew that too. Like so many of the rogues before, she wasn’t letting herself be taken prisoner. West shifted one of his paws to get a better hold on her, and she rammed her neck into hisclaws.
He jerked back, but it was already too late. He’d severed her throat. With a snarl of disappointment, he sprang off her saggingbody.
West looked around at the dwindling fray and shifted into human form. His gaze caught mine. He jerked his chin towardOrion.
“He’spassed?”
I swallowed hard. “It was just—the cut was too deep—it happened so fast. I tried everything I could think of.” My hands, tacky with the muskrat shifter’s blood, clenched in mylap.
West’s eyes dropped to them and rose back to my face. A shadow passed through his expression, from dark to light. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “You did.” He paused. “Ren—”
“We’ve got a prisoner!” someone shouted. A panting Thomas hunched over a sinewy body he’d managed to hold in place by the wrists. Alice had pinned the guy’s ankles with her talons, still in eagleform.
“And I’ve got another,” Marco announced, sauntering from amid the trees with a bobcat he held by the scruff of its neck and its restrained hind legs. His fingers tensed as the rogue struggled to break free. Nate shifted and moved to helphim.
I pushed myself onto my feet. Too quickly. My legs wobbled, my stomach feeling as if I’d left it behind down by theground.
West caught me by the shoulders. “Hey,” he said, his voice somehow rough and gentle at the same time. He pulled me into a hug, tucking my head under his chin. We were both naked, but with the image of Orion’s dead body lingering in my head, his blood staining my hands, there was nothing sensual about the embrace. I leaned into the heat of West’s body seeking only comfort, from the mate I’d never expected to offerit.
He stroked his hand over my hair, and my hands slipped against his chest. Shit, I was getting blood all over him. I jerked back, not knowing where to put them. West looked down at himself, the smears of blood over the lean muscles, and shook hishead.
“It’s okay,” he said. And then, in more the tone I’d have expected from him. “I expect you’ll make plenty more messes than that before you’re done,Sparks.”
As I made a face at him, Aaron came up beside me. He offered me a strip of moss to wipe my hands. “I think we’ll need your help questioning the captives,” he said. “They don’t seem any more inclined to talk than the other rogues havebeen.”
Of course. I dragged in a breath and took in the results of our ambush. At least a couple dozen bodies littered the forest floor—all of them, as far as I could tell, rogues, other than Orion. A couple of Nate’s other people were sprawled, having their wounds tended to by their kin, but none of the rest of us had taken a fatal injury. There’d been more rogues in the attack party than I could see around me,though.
“Some of the others got away?” Isaid.
Nate nodded. “A few cowards ran when they saw the way the battle was going and moved too fast for any of us to catch them. But only afew.”
Damn. I looked at the bobcat and then the rogue pinned on the ground. “You’ve got a choice. You can talk to us now or you can talk in myfire.”
The man on the ground glared at me. The bobcat hissed. Well, I guess that answeredthat.
“Pour down the flames, and we’ll toss them in,” Marco suggested. “I don’t think they’ll be going anywhere once you’re got them in the hotspot.”
“All right.” I glanced at him. “Orion told me there’s an important feline shifter, one of your kin, who’s been calling at least some of the shots. Making plans with therogues.”
Marco’s eyes darkened. “Interesting,” he said, an edge creeping into his voice. “Let’s see what these two have to say about that, shallwe?”
I closed my eyes, reaching back to my sense of my dragon self. The change came over me more slowly this time, lengthening and expanding, nerves twitching. I’d already exhausted a lot of my energy during the fight. But I had enough to make this interrogationcount.
