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Thomas started to walk down a path that I assumed led farther into the estate. The rest of us followed. Alice fell into step between me and Aaron as if she were trying to maximize her chances of protecting both of us. Her sharp eyes roved theforest.
“The current count is nine kin with major injuries, four dead,” the black bear shifter said, his voice rough as he gave the numbers. “How many with scratches and bruises, we didn’t bother tocount.”
Nate rubbed his mouth, grimacing. “Who did welose?”
“The rogues were clearly targeting the wing where the advisors reside. They broke into Yvonne’s and Garret’s rooms first, before there’d even been much time to sound the alarm. And they had weapons—a few guns, the other ones knives... All of us put up as good a fight as we could, but Garret fell, and Yvonne’s mate. And two of the guards whointervened.”
“How did they get in?” Marco piped up. “I’ve seen the walls you’ve got around this compound. And I assume some of the guards were guardingthose.”
Thomas’s voice dropped to almost a growl. He didn’t like anyone but his alpha questioning him, I got the impression. “We’re not sure yet how they got in. Wedopatrol the grounds carefully, especially after hearing about recent problems, but none of the guards saw the intruders until after they were already at the estatehouse.”
“I’m sure everyone here was doing their job with their full ability,” Nate said. “The rogues have been turning to tricks that no shifter should lower themselves to. What happened to theattackers?”
We emerged from the path into a tiled courtyard. Our feet rapped against the polished slabs of clay. A huge adobe mansion that I had to guess was the “estate house” Thomas had mentioned loomed at one end of the yard. Kneeling figures were scattered across its steps and in the hallway beyond its open, archeddoorway.
“We killed most of them in the struggle,” Thomas said. “The way they came at us, with no concern for themselves—they almost forced us to. It was a bloody night, I can tell you thatmuch.”
We came up to the steps, his last words rolling through my mind, and I realized what all those kneeling shifters were doing. They were scrubbing at the tiles and the walls with rags. Scrubbing at ruddy patches that dappled the clay and the pale brownadobe.
Blood. All that shifter blood spilled here lastnight...
Suddenly all the blood in my own body seemed to be rushing past my ears with the thudding of my heart. My visionswam.
There had been blood—blood everywhere. Blood splattering the walls painted in the delicate shade of yellow my mother had let my sisters and me pick out. Blood pooled under my wolf-father’s slumped form. Blood gushing from the bullet wounds in my oldest sister’s chest. The boom of more shots echoing down the hall. My mother’s hand so tight around mine the bones pinched. The frantic patter of my feet down the hardwoodfloor.
The smell of it. Thick and metallic, saturating the air, mingling with the harsh smoky scent of the guns. It had trickled down my throat and filled my stomach, until my gut twisted andheaved—
No, heaving was happening now. I stumbled and bent down, clutching my belly. My pulse rattled painfully. The memories kept streaming through my head, the horrible smell sixteen years gone clogging mynose.
Temperance, my oldest sister, the one who’d always encouraged me to climb higher, run faster, even when I faltered. She’d shoved me out of the way as the rogues had opened fire through the doorway. And Verity, just two years older than me—Mom had tried to grab us both. That was when my eagle shifter father had thrown himself at the rogue with the rifle, talons gouging and wings shielding us. The bullets of a pistol had torn right through him, and she—andshe—
“Ren,” someone was saying. “Ren!” A strong arm had wrapped around my tremblingback.
A sob caught in my throat. Nate’s musky peppery smell followed it, chasing away the phantom scents from my past. I grasped his shirt, clinging on to him as if he were the only thing keeping me in place. At that moment, maybe hewas.
I wasn’t in the dragon shifter’s estate. I wasn’t five years old anymore. I focused on the clay tiles under my feet, the warm breeze, the quiet murmurs aroundus—
Shit. I shoved myself upright with a quick swipe at my eyes. Nate kept his arm around me, which was probably a good thing, because my legs wobbled for a second before I found my balance. Aaron was standing at my other side, Alice right in front of me. She touched my shoulder, her tone light but her eyesconcerned.
“Hey. Are youokay?”
“Yeah,” I said, willing my voice to stay steady. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect— It just reminded me of the attack on my mother’s—on my estate. When I was a kid. When—” My throat started to close up. Better not to go into any more detail than that. From the look on Alice’s face, she already understood what Imeant.
And beyond her, the delegation of Nate’s kin who’d come out to meet us, the shifters working at washing away the mess of last night’s attack, they were all watching me. Watching me make a total fool of myself. How the hell were they going to trust that I could deal with this threat when just seeing the aftermath sent me halfway to a breakdown? My handsclenched.
“I’m okay,” I said firmly, squaring myshoulders.
“Your memories were suppressed for so long, it’s understandable that you’re not used to handling the more traumatic ones,” Aaron said. I wondered how much that reassurance was for my benefit and how much for the othershifters.
“Well, I’ll just have to get used to handling them,” I said. “Right now we have to focus on the attack that happenedhere, and how we can make sure it doesn’t happenagain.”
Thomas made a soft coughing sound. He directed his gaze at his alpha. “On that topic... I said we had to killmostof the rogues in the assault. But we did manage to capture one—and to stop him before he could end his own life. We had to subdue him with a tranquilizer for the time being, but we can wake him up when you’re ready to questionhim.”
Chapter 3
West
We kingroups had plenty of differences between us. There was no denying that. But at the core, in some vital ways, we were the same. A shifter kin funeral looked and sounded like a shifter kin funeral whether the dead being honored were canine or feline or avian—or something else, liketoday.
