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Bertrand moved to grab some pork tenderloin off one of the tables, and I made myself follow him. I couldn’t afford to dwell on my worries right now. As far as I was concerned, every shifter in this room was my kin. They needed me girding myself for the battle ahead, not wallowing in whatever dire possibilities my imagination could come upwith.
I chewed and smiled and chatted with the many canine kin—and a few avians—who came over to meet me. The canine shifters were as fawning as the ones I’d met before, but their eyes looked a little haunted. I found myself reassuring them again and again. “We won’t let the vampires win. I’ll see that they pay for what they’ve already done. The one thing they can’t beat is dragonfire.”
Even though I knew that wasn’t entirely true. The vamps could shoot through the flames. And I couldn’t promise I’d have enough, not when I hadn’t shielded Nate quickly enoughyesterday.
I’d eaten about as much as my stomach would take around the knots it’d tied itself in when I caught a glimpse of West near the doorway. He was just popping a last piece of flatbread into his mouth with a nod to the attendant he’d been talking to. Then he ducked out thedoor.
I didn’t let myself think. I just hurried afterhim.
The wolf shifter was vanishing around the bend when I reached the hall. I jogged over in time to see him turning into another room just past the kitchens. What the heck was he doing overthere?
When I reached that door, I paused before easing it open. On the other side, West’s head jerkedup.
He was standing in what appeared to be a storage room. Several metal tanks were stacked against one wall. They gave off a dull yellow shine in the dim light of the overhead bulb. A sour tang tickled mynose.
“Kerosene,” West said, noticing my puzzled stare. “We keep a stock of it to hold us over in case there’s a problem with the natural gas line. We’re pretty isolated out here. In the winter… Anyway, I was thinking we might want to have them more readily at hand. In case we need extrafuel.”
“Oh. That could be a good idea.” I took a step inside, letting the door swing shut behind me. My skin twitched with an increased awareness of how small the room was. How little distance remained between me and my wolfshifter.
West rubbed his temple and ran his fingers back through his hair, the silver strands glinting amid the light auburn. He looked at me, his mouth flat, his eyesunreadable.
“I’m sorry about how I talked to you earlier,” he said in a tone brisk but not quite dismissive. “I’ve got too much on my mind. Too much to keep track of. Is there something youneeded?”
It wasn’t the most effusive apology I’d ever gotten, but I could see the strain in him so clearly that any hurt I’d held on to melted. “No,” I said, and then reconsidered. When would we get another chance to talk like this? That was why I’d followed him, wasn’tit?
I sucked in a breath. “Actually, there is. I just—I want to understand. This war, or whatever it is, with the vampires… It’s weighing on you more than the otheralphas.”
West let out a hoarse chuckle. “We’re on my territory here. This is my estate. The difference between host and guests,Sparks.”
I fixed him with an insistent look. “It’s more than that.” Because he’d been more on edge, more worried about possible consequences of any conflict we faced, from before we’d had any idea the vampires might attack. From the moment he’d met me. And, hell, maybe even before, for all I could know about that. “Marco said I should ask you about yourmother.”
West muttered something under his breath that sounded like it contained several curse words and the word “cat.” He shook his head, moving to brush past me to the door. “You don’t want to hear thatstory.”
I grabbed his arm, just above the elbow, with enough strength to halt him. To remind him that he might be alpha, but he was talking to adragon.
“Yes,” I said. “Ido.”
West met my eyes straight on for the first time since I’d come into the room. I felt suddenly hot, standing that close to him, my bare hand against the solid curve of his bicep. But I held his gaze. I wasn’t backing down, not thistime.
“Fine,” he said, stepping away from the door and from me in the same movement. Just like that, I could breatheagain.
The wolf shifter turned his head as if inspecting the tanks. “There isn’t much to it. There’s a major fae habitation not far from here. We had a clash with them when I was fifteen. They’d told earlier alphas we could settle on a part of their territory they were no longer using themselves. Then they changed their minds. Some of the younger shifters mouthed off at the fae who barged in to tell us to leave. I tried to make peace, but I’d only been alpha for fouryears.”
“And you were only fifteen,” I said. My heart was already sinking with the sense of where this story wasgoing.
“Old enough to know my responsibilities,” West said. “They thought we were weak, that they had an excuse to root us out and grab some of our domain to add to theirs at the same time. They hit the village by the border of those grounds. We all went out to fight, all of us able-bodied.”
He hesitated. When he spoke again, his voice was rigidly even. “The fae were coming at us from all over. I was alpha. I was giving the orders. My parents had come to fight too. My mother was practically beside me. One of the fae came at her out of nowhere, knocked her over with ablast.
“I could have jumped in. I might have saved her life. But at the same time a whole charge of fae rushed at us from the front lines, where most of the fighting was, and my kin there started tofalter…”
He stopped. The silence hung for a long moment. “I raced to the front,” he said. “As fast as I could. Called everyone to me. Took down three of the glowy bastards myself. If I hadn’t, it would have been a slaughter. We’d have lost at least a dozen more lives. We might have lost the whole village. Instead we pushed themback.”
A lump had filled my throat. “But your motherdied.”
“Yes,” he said harshly. “That’s what real loyalty is, Sparks. I swore to serve my kin as much as they serve me. I could have been selfish and put one person I cared about over the good of the pack, but then I’d have been a wretch of an alpha. I have to put them first, always. Every time they show their throats to me, they’re telling me they know I don’t taketheirloyalty lightly. I won’t let themdown.”
“And everyone knows about the choice you made.” Marco had known about it, and the canine and feline kin weren’t exactly buddy-buddy.
