I’d just had to believe we’d have seen more deaths if my decisions had been different.
Dad hadn’t believed that. Or maybe he hadn’t cared. The memory of his turned back, his shoulders stubbornly stiff, had stopped stinging over the years, even though he still hadn’t said a word to me since. I was his alpha, but I wasn’t his son anymore.
Today, it took a long time for the flames to burn down. We stood in silent witness the entire time, letting the smoke and the smell wash over us. Honoring to our dead.
Normally when the last flames flickered out amid the embers, we would see the ashes carried to their resting place and then be done. But when Nate stirred to move forward, Ren touched his arm. She stepped out from our ring toward the foot of the pyre.
Her face still looked a little paler than usual, making her dark eyes and hair gleam starkly in contrast. But I had to admire the strength with which she held herself, the steadiness of her posture. Whatever memories had rocked her when we’d arrived this morning, she’d wrestled them under control.
Her voice came out steady too—steady and clear.
“The rogues have gotten away with too much, for too long. I wish I could have been here sooner to fulfill my role as dragon shifter. But now that I am here, I swear to you that we will see justice for these deaths. And if I have my way, the rogues won’t shed one more drop of kin blood.”
She raised a fist in the air and snapped it back to her side. A solemn air still hung over the gathering, but several voices in the crowd rose up in agreement. “Not one more drop!”
I bit back a frown. I wished I could cheer too, but our dragon shifter wasn’t in any position to be giving her word on that matter. Her mother hadn’t been able to take on the rogues, and she’d been a dragon shifter with years of experience, who’d grown up into the role. The fact that Ren would even try to make that kind of promise just showed how much she still had to learn.
Maybe the times really had changed. Maybe there were things a dragon shifter couldn’t set right anymore, even with new powers and the four of us by her side.
Well, I hadn’t committed myself yet, as much as parts of me had wanted to. It wasn’t her fault she was so far behind, but that didn’t mean I had to sacrifice myself and my kin holding her up.
I told myself that, but at the same time the determination on her face tugged at my heart. That damned mate bond still nagging at me, stirring up my emotions. I had to keep a tighter leash on them. If one touch from her could sever all my self-control, how could I put my kin first?
*
Ren
The pungent scent of the fire’s smoke followed me down into the basement of Nate’s estate house. I rubbed at my bare arms and resisted the urge to clear my throat. Would that be some kind of sign of disrespect? There were so many shifter traditions and expectations I still didn’t know.
And from the way West had narrowed his eyes at me as we’d left the funeral clearing, he was keeping a careful tally of them.
Thankfully my other three alphas and Alice weren’t looking for excuses to dismiss me. We had a rogue to interrogate—one who hopefully knew more than the avian woman who’d attacked me on Aaron’s estate had. She’d been forced to cooperate. This one had joined the fight right alongside the others.
The guard who’d led us down to the short row of holding cells nodded to one room. On the other side of the door’s small window, a skinny man with scruffy light brown hair was slumped on a bench. His wrists and ankles were chained to opposite ends, so he couldn’t hurt us—or himself. As long as he was in human form, at least.
I stepped back from the window. “How do we know he won’t shift to get out of the shackles?”
“The tranquilizer we use in situations like this suppresses the ability to shift,” Aaron said, ready as ever with explanations. “The guards will have lowered the dose so he’s conscious enough to talk to us, but his bodily control is still inhibited.”
“He should be awake enough now,” the guard said. He unlocked the door for us.
Nate strode in first, anger radiating off him. Marco slipped in ahead of me. As I passed through the doorway, my nose caught the rogue’s scent. He was canine—some sort of dog. I wasn’t surprised. He had the look of a mutt.
West’s teeth bared when he came in. For once his glare was turned on someone other than me. This guy would have been his kin if the dog shifter hadn’t turned to murder instead.
Aaron stayed in the doorway, Alice right behind him. She stood tensed, as if she didn’t totally believe the precautions taken would be enough to protect us.
“You,” Nate growled. “Let’s start with the easy questions. What’s your name?”
The dog shifter’s gaze slid up toward Nate’s face, but his thin lips stayed clamped tight. He swayed slightly where he sat, his shoulders hunched.
Nate loomed even higher over him. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said. “But I’ve just come back from sending off four of my kin, whose deaths you had a hand in. I’ve got nine others still recovering. So I’m not feeling very forgiving at the moment. We can do this the painful way if you want.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” the rogue spat out. His voice was slightly slurred, I guessed because of the tranquilizer.
My back stiffened. If he’d attacked us, I’d have had no problem seeing Nate savage him. And there was no question in my mind that he deserved payback. But if what we wanted was answers, I wasn’t sure torture was going to get us any. We’d watched rogues throw themselves to their deaths, impale themselves on our claws, just to avoid talking. They didn’t seem to value their own lives much compared to their cause.
“I’ll ask you again,” Nate said, his tone turning even darker. He raised his hand, and it shifted into a giant grizzly bear paw. “Just tell us your name.”
The rogue stared back with a wavering but defiant gaze. Words tumbled from my mouth before I’d even thought them through.
“There’s another way we can get him talking. I can use the truth-seeking flames. It worked on the fae monarch.”
Nate turned to me. “Are you sure you’re up for that, Ren?”
I shrugged. Now that I’d volunteered, I’d better be. “I’ve had a day to get my energy back. And it’ll be a lot faster than anything else we could try. You know what the rogues are like.”
“Yes.” He eyed the dog shifter. The rogue stayed where he was with the same hunched posture, but I thought a little of the remaining color in his yellowed face might have drained away. He might not know what I was talking about, but he knew it probably wasn’t good for him.
That settled things. “Let’s do it. Now, while the tranquilizer is still affecting him. We’ll need to bring him to a bigger space so I have room to shift.”
“That can be arranged.” Nate motioned to the guard.