The guest suite Kylie had been given looked a lot like my set of rooms, other than her bed was only a regular king sized one and not wide enough to comfortably fit five. I guessed the shifter kin didn’t expect anyone other than their dragon shifter to be calling multiple mates into their bed. Or else they expected those other people to squish.

“Is everything settled now?” Kylie asked me, bobbing on her feet. She’d only managed to sit on the elegant settee for about ten seconds before she’d bounced back up again with her irresistible energy.

“As settled as it can be,” I said. “Marco still has to fight that guy. But he seems sure he can take him. I just hope he’s prepared for anything. The rogues definitely don’t mind fighting dirty.”

“They haven’t tried anything that big so far, though, right?” Kylie said. “I mean, there were the three that attacked us at West’s people’s village, and then it sounded like you took on that bunch near Nate’s estate no problem.”

My heart sank with the weight of all the things I’d been avoiding telling her. I should have told her everything sooner. Maybe if she’d realized just how dangerous my life had gotten, she wouldn’t have rushed down here on this visit.

On the other hand, maybe she’d just have rushed down sooner.

“There’ve been a couple of other... incidents,” I said slowly. “When we were traveling to Sunridge, a bunch of them ambushed us. That was when I managed a full shift the first time. And the rogues who attacked Nate’s estate—they killed four of the kin before the guards managed to stop them.”

“Oh!” Kylie’s eyes went wide. “The thing at Sunridge—that was weeks ago. Why didn’t you tell me?”

I worried my lower lip with my teeth. My fingers shivered with an itch I hadn’t felt in days—the urge to find some object to pilfer, to take control. I curled them into my palm instead. I wasn’t that street rat thief anymore. I was a freaking dragon shifter now.

“I knew you’d be worried,” I said. “We came out of the ambush fine, and the attack on the estate was over before I even got there.”

Kylie was still looking at me with a hesitant expression. “I’d rather be worried and know what’s really going on with you than be kept in the dark. You should know that, Ren.”

I had. But I’d kept her in the dark anyway. There wasn’t really any way I could justify it.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “There was so much going on... Keeping quiet about it and focusing on the good stuff just felt like the best way of handling it at the time. But you see why I’m worried.”

Kylie nodded. “I guess if those asshole rogues do turn up, you can go full dragon mode on their assess,” she said, more of her usual cheerfulness coming back.

“That’s the plan.” I groped for a change in subject—to a subject that wouldn’t make me want to pocket every valuable in the building. “Marco’s people will be summoning us to dinner soon. I should put on something nicer. If there are rogues around, I want them remembering who’s in charge here.” I managed to grin. “You want to help me pick out a dress?”

“Want to?” Kylie said, clapping her hands. “I’ve been dying to since you sent me that photo of you at Aaron’s place. All right, let’s do this thing.”

We ducked into the hall and passed a few doors to my rooms.

I opened one wardrobe and then another. Kylie made a squeeing sound as she pawed through the offerings. “Oh, this is amazing. You’re going to look like a boss, all right. Forget princess—you’re going to be the empress of all shifters.”

I laughed and held out my arms to take the first dress she tossed to me. By the time she’d gone through all three wardrobes, my arms were aching and my face buried in silk and satin. I hefted the heap onto the bed. “Um, I think we need to do a little narrowing down here.”

“Yes, yes.” Kylie tapped her lips. She grabbed a couple out of the pile. “I don’t know what I was thinking with this one. And now that I’m looking at them all, black is definitely too dour. The rest you’ll just have to put on so I can ogle you.”

She shot me a bright smile as she went to put back the discards. I shook my head and stripped out of my T-shirt and jeans. As I shimmied into one of the dresses from the top of the heap, a simple pale green silk number, Kylie sat down on the edge of the bed. She glanced across its width, her eyebrows arching in amusement. “Hmm, I can’t imagine what you’d need a bed this big for… No, wait, actually I can.”

My face flushed at her teasing. But when she turned back to me, a shadow had crossed her face.

“Is there anything else you decided not to tell me from the last few weeks?” she asked.

Shit. I looked at myself in the mirror, contemplating the green silk flowing over my body. Did I look like an ingénue or a girl who’d severely fucked up the best friendship she’d ever had? Neither was what I was going for. I reached to pull that one off.

“There might have been a few things,” I admitted without meeting Kylie’s eyes. “Not that I didn’t want you to know. Just that would have been hard to talk about with only texts.”

“You could have called me,” Kylie pointed out.

“I couldn’t see getting into it except face to face.” Except now here we were, face to face, and I felt even more awkward. I grabbed a wine red gown out of the pile. “I told you my mom died on the mountain... I saw it. Like a vision. It was a bunch of fae who killed her. Murdered her. They were trying to stop her from getting that power she wanted me to have.”

“The special fire that you can use to make people tell the truth,” Kylie filled in.

“Yeah.” At least I’d kept her up to speed that much.

“Why did the fae care about that?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Things have been tense between the shifters and the fae, but I’m still finding out the details there. Their attack wasn’t, like, officially sanctioned, but the fae monarch hadn’t discouraged it either. They must not have wanted any shifter to have that kind of power.”

And to be fair, the first person I’d used it on was their own monarch. To be fair to me, I wouldn’t have needed to use it on her if she’d been upfront with us in the first place.

Kylie rubbed her mouth. “Wow. So you have to worry about the fae coming after you too?”

“Not exactly. There’s a treaty—and we confronted the fae monarch, and she swore to follow it. But I guess it’s always possible they could decide to break their word.”

That was an awful thought. I’d rather not go there while we had the rogue threat right in front of us.

“Damn.” Kylie looked over at me, and her eyes lit up. Her smile looked a little stiff, but I’d take it. “And damn. Okay, forget all the other ones. That is The Dress.”

My lips twitched. I glanced down at myself, smoothing my hands over the gleaming fabric. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. Anyone who messes with you in that get-up is just asking to become dragon barbeque.”

I laughed, and for a second, things between us felt almost okay. This was Kylie. My best friend, my one true friend. She’d always had my back. If I couldn’t even live up to her expectations, I didn’t have a hope in hell with the shifters.

* * *

“Holy cow,” Kylie said when we stepped into the ballroom-turned-banquet hall. “And I thought this place couldn’t get any fancier.”

Marco, who was between us holding my hand, chuckled. “My kin are known for being easily distracted by shiny objects. I’m no exception.”

“Well, you definitely went all out on the shiny,” I said. Silver plates glinted at every seat; crystal wine glasses sparkled. Gold embroidery shimmered in a looping pattern along the edge of the gleaming white table clothes. The crystal chandeliers overhead were all alight now, sending a sharp yellow glow over everything and everyone below.

I had a feeling it wasn’t just those lights that made the feline kin look a tad jaundiced. Tension hummed through the room beneath the clamor of voices. This wasn’t just a dinner. It wasn’t even just their first formal dinner with their new dragon shifter in attendance. It was the dinner before their alpha’s latest challenge. One that had even higher stakes than any of those before.

I nodded and smiled to the feline kin as Marco walked me up to the head table. The other alphas were already sitting in their spots around the two chairs reserved for us. I sat down with Marco at my left and Aaron at my right. Nate leaned past the eagle shifter to catch my eyes and offer a warm smile. But my pulse had already picked up again with a prickle of anxiety.

Kylie ended up at Nate’s right, which was probably the best I could have hoped for when she couldn’t sit right next to me. She grinned at the big bear shifter and immediately started gabbing away. I could only imagine how West would have reacted if he’d had to be her conversation partner through dinner instead of having stoic Alice on his other side. Kylie would have chattered my wolf shifter’s ear off just like anyone else.

Actually, that might have been fun to watch.

Several more feline kin from the prominent families joined us at the head table. I found myself facing a cheetah pair, the wife rubbing her cheek with the back of her hand like a house cat washing its face. Next to them was a pair of lions that included the woman who’d greeted me so skeptically when I’d first arrived. Coreen—that was her name. My head was getting awfully crowded with those.

Thankfully, Julius was sitting nowhere near us. I spotted his hulking form at the far end of the room, where I guessed Marco had asked his attendants to put him. And I wasn’t exactly disappointed to see Silvan stationed at a distant table too.

Marco’s kin eyed him with darting glances as they dug into their meals. They ate like cats too, with swift delicate bites. Coreen dabbed at her mouth with her napkin after every forkful.

“Is the challenge arena already prepared?” she asked after a few minutes of strained silence. It was weird how a question that ominous could be said as if it was a polite inquiry. Her tone was the same as if she were asking what we were having for dessert.

But then, Marco acted equally unfazed. “My attendants are setting everything in order right now. I suppose you’ll be there for the show.”

“The more witnesses, the more worthy,” Coreen’s husband put in with a rumble of a voice.

“Interesting philosophy,” West muttered.

Coreen shot him a hard look. Marco twitched under the table, and I suspected he’d just kicked the wolf shifter in the shin. His smile stayed pleasant.

“I’m glad the matter with the vampires up north was finally settled,” the cheetah man put in. “There haven’t been any more stirrings, have there?”

“Not of enough concern that my people up there have mentioned it to me,” Marco said. “You know what the bloodsuckers are like. No attention span for anything unless it’s actively bleeding.”

The cheetah shifter woman snickered at that. My stomach had clenched tighter. “Was there a lot of trouble because of our confrontation with the vampires when we went into the city?”

Mom had left me a trail of clues leading to the mountain in Sunridge, and we’d had to go exploring the New York City subway system to find the first one. Right into vampire territory. They hadn’t been real pleased about our intrusion.

Marco waved his hand. “Oh, just normal vamp mutterings. We sorted them out. They don’t really want to tango with the shifters.”

I wasn’t sure how much that comment was the truth and how much was necessary bravado for his kin. Right now he probably needed to look strong and in control even more so than usual.

Aaron set his hand on my thigh under the table and squeezed reassuringly. He leaned close. “Tonight will be fine. Marco’s been through this situation more than once. We all have. And we’re still here.”

I’d have felt more comforted if I hadn’t sensed the worry underlying his words. He wasn’t completely confident either. The rogue’s involvement was a wild card none of my alphas had faced during a challenge before.

The talk all along the table quieted at the scrape of chair legs. A guy at the far end of the table had just stood up. He raised his hands with a smile that looked weirdly giddy. His hair, mixed with patches of dark brown and pale gray, poked up in tufts from his rounded head. I didn’t remember being introduced to him earlier, but his appearance immediately made me think snow leopard.

“With all the commotion, I want to speak up and say how much I support our alpha,” he said in a jovial voice that carried through the room. “Marco has kept us in line and seen us through troubled times no other alpha has had to address. I know he’ll continue to do so.”

He focused his gaze on his alpha and dipped into a low bow. Marco chuckled, smiling back, but the guy’s demeanor made my skin tighten. He seemed too eager to speak. Praising Marco more to ingratiate himself than because he meant it.

Was this some kind of attempt to protect himself? Did he think Marco would punish people who seemed at all in favor of Julius after he won? That didn’t seem like the feline way of doing things.

Marco didn’t appear bothered. “Thank you for your kind words, Phillipe,” he said, holding up his glass as if to toast the leopard shifter. “I know it too. And in an hour, this whole room will know it.”