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I loomed over the others in the middle of the small grove. My kin moved to clear a space. I focused on the burn tingling at the base of my dragon throat. On my anger at Orion’s death and the other deaths the rogues had caused. On my need to know what else they might have in store forus.
Then I opened my jaws and let the violet flames streamdown.
Marco threw the bobcat into the fire first. It shuddered and expanded into a woman’s form, huddled in the midst of the flames. “Who among my kin have you been talking to?” Marco snappedimmediately.
“I haven’t spoken to anyone,” the bobcat shifter said in a whimper. “No one tells me anything. I just did my best tohelp.”
“Are you aware of any allies among the feline kin—or any other kin—that the other rogues have been talking to?” Aaron asked, phrasing his questioncarefully.
She shook her head. “No one except the one on the disparate kin’s estate. And that one.” She pointed toward Orion. “Much good as he didus.”
“What were you going to do if your plan to ambush us here didn’t work?” Natesaid.
“I’m notsure.”
West cleared his throat. “What do you know about the other rogues’ plans?” he putin.
She shivered again, jerking her head away from the blast of my flames, but she couldn’t resist their burn. “There were plans being made around the feline estate,” she gasped out. “I don’t know what. But they were preparing for something big if we failedhere.”
Something big. Orion has said the rest of the rogues were prepared to launch a heavy assault. How many of them were leftnow?
I heaved another stream of flames over the bobcat shifter, ignoring the pinching sensation that was starting to work through mymuscles.
“Specifics,” Marco said. “Tell us everything you know about thoseplans.”
“Thatisall I know.” Her voice turned into awhimper.
Aaron made a gesture to Nate, maybe realizing that my strength was waning. The bear shifter grabbed the rogue woman and hauled her out of the truth-searingfire.
Thomas and Alice were ready with their captive. The gawky albatross shifter flinched beneath the flames, but he didn’t have any more answers to the alpha’s questions than the bobcat shifter had. My throat started to throb. I gestured to my mates, and West shot out one lastinquiry.
“Your allies who ran away from this attack—where would they havegone?”
“I’m not sure,” the guy said in a strained voice. “Maybe to meet up with the main group inFlorida?”
My flames sputtered out. My shift sputtered out too. I shrank into my human body and immediately launched into a coughing fit. Verysmooth.
When I got control of my lungs, Nate’s people were already hauling the two captured rogues away. “What are you going to do with them?” Iasked.
“Hold them, drugged, until we decide what punishment they should face.” Nate sighed. “They were only lackeys. I’d banish them—but they were outside the kin already, and look what they got upto.”
Our prisoners hadn’t known enough. I’d gone all the way up a mountain to earn the power of those violet flames, the ones that burned through to the truth. No other dragon shifter before me had claimed Sunridge’s secret. But it still hadn’t been enough to win theday.
“It sounds like as far as they knew the group that’s waiting in Florida, that’s most of them,” I pointed out. “The ‘main group,’ he said. That fits with what Orion toldme.”
“So if we can deal with the rogues there, we might have wiped up the rest of the problem,” West filled in. “Which would sound a lot more hopeful if we knew where the hell in Florida theywere.”
“Are we still goingthere?”
“I think that’s the best course of action we have,” Aaron said. “The rogues don’t know what we’ve found out. We should go on to the feline estate, act as if we don’t suspect anything is wrong, and investigate fromthere.”
“And when I find out which of my kin has been entertaining those lunatics, you’d better believe the fur is going to fly,” Marco said, baring his teeth in a fiercegrin.
Nate turned. His gaze fell on Orion’s limp body. He looked to me, taking in the blood smeared over my skin. His jawset.
“We’ll deal with the rogues,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument. “And the muskrat shifter will have a funeral with all the respect he’sdue.”
Chapter 12
