That traitor, Phillipe, crumpled at Ren’s feet with a gush of blood down his chest. My dragon shifter dodged backward, shaking her hand to withdraw her talons. As the snow leopard shifted back into Phillipe’s stringy human form, her head whipped around. Her gaze locked with mine. A sudden worry shimmered in her eyes.

Why? Because she’d killed one of my kin? Good riddance to that piece of excrement. She’d been fucking glorious.

I rose up out of my jaguar form, ignoring the aches and pangs where I’d have new scars tomorrow. Then I brought my hands together and started to clap.

Around the room, my kin and the other alphas were gradually shifting back. Most of them joined my applause. Ren’s head swiveled as she took in our response, looking startled and then, with a lift of her chin that made my heart swell with affection, owning it. Not a princess of flames anymore. The woman before me was every inch a queen.

I walked up to her and took her hand. “He got what was coming to him,” I said in a low voice. “You were amazing, Ren.”

I leaned in to kiss her, and someone gave an exhausted but still joyful whoop in the crowd. All of my kin had to feel it now—that my bond with my mate had been consummated, that their own desires could bring them new feline children after all these years. But that wasn’t the only reason to celebrate.

Ren kissed me back hard, as if replenishing her strength through the meeting of our lips. I was happy to give anything she needed to take. She touched my cheek, finding the claw mark just below my eye that hadn’t yet sealed. I shook my head to tell her not to fret about that. The wound only stung a little while I stood here next to her.

Then I turned to face my kin and raised our joined hands in the air in a gesture of triumph. “The rogues and the traitors among our kin have been put down. This is the security a dragon shifter brings us. A new age for us is about to begin. An age when shifters will work together against our enemies, and live and love without the shadow of violence hanging over us.”

“Here’s to the dragon shifter!” someone—I thought Silvan—shouted from our audience.

“To the dragon shifter!” a bunch of voices joined in. Some wary, some limping, but all bright-eyed, several of my kin slunk over to show their respects to Ren, as if they’d only just met her.

Better late than never. A smile crept over my face as I watched them bob their heads and press their hands to hers, murmuring words of gratitude and encouragement. No one here had ever seen a battle like this on our home ground before. And no one here had seen a dragon fight like Ren just had.

Even a cat could appreciate the strength she’d shown—and the mercy.

My gaze traveled away from her to those we’d lost despite my mate’s courage and all of our best efforts. Coreen’s husband, Raoul, had taken a fatal bullet to the chest. The rogues had dealt fatal flows to a few others in the fray. A couple of my attendants who’d rushed in to help had fallen and not gotten up. And there were many kin alive but too weakened from their wounds to stand.

Several more attendants had slipped into the room now that the chaos had settled. I motioned them over. “Bring our injured kin to the medical room, quickly. And we’ll need to arrange a funeral for the dead.” I paused. Not all of the dead. Phillipe had lost the right to that respect, and the rogues had never earned it to begin with. “The rogues we’ll burn too, elsewhere.”

They nodded and ran to follow my orders. Coreen had gone to kneel by her husband, resting her hand on his forehead, her shoulders slumped. “I’ll help see to him,” she said in a rough voice to the attendants who’d joined her. Her gaze found mine.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Her mouth twisted. “He fought well. He didn’t know how to stand back. It wasn’t his nature.” She looked over my shoulder, toward Ren, and then back to me. “Thank you,” she added. “Maybe we have gone too long without a dragon shifter.”

“I have no intention of losing this one,” I said, and she managed a hint of a smile.

I made my way back to Ren. Some of my kin were still clustered around her, fawning over her. She was holding herself straight, answering them all warmly, but I could sense the exhaustion in her. My mate had fought too many battles in the last few weeks.

I wrapped my arms around her from behind. Even with the pain of my healing wounds, the feel of her bare skin against mine was heaven. I pressed a kiss to her shoulder and murmured in her ear, “Shall I escort you back to your rooms? I can’t imagine how big a break you need after all that.”

Ren’s lips twitched. She leaned into my embrace for a moment. But her eyes traveled across the room to where her human friend was standing.

“I think there are a few things I need to take care of before I get to do any resting,” she said.

* * *

I walked over to Kylie tentatively, watching for any sign that I’d come close enough. She’d never seen my dragon form before, and her first time, all she’d seen me do was clobber rogues and fry them into cinders. And then I’d sliced open a guy’s throat right in front of her.

She’d already been having trouble coping with the violence she’d been faced with. And now I was right in the middle of it. Maybe she’d just want to head right home and never speak to me again.

My best friend saw me coming and moving forward to meet me. I stopped, letting her set the pace. To my surprise, she strode right up to me and threw her arms around me, not seeming to care that I was naked and a little bloody.

“Oh my God, Ren,” she said. “I was so scared for you. But you were such a badass! Holy shit, those rogues didn’t know what hit them, did they? Fucking assholes.”

I hugged her back with a halting laugh. “You were scared for me? I was freaking terrified one of them would hurt you.”

“Aw, I had my eagle bodyguard fending them off. No problems there. And I got in a couple hits of my own.” A tremor ran through her body, but she sucked in a breath and kept her voice steady. “I mean it. You were amazing.”

My heart felt as if it had cracked open. My own breath came in almost a sob. Kylie pulled back to stare at my face. “What’s wrong?”

“I just— Maybe it was stupid. I’ve been so worried that this whole... well, everything would be too much for you.” I waved to the remains of the battle around us. “It’s not what the shifter community is usually like. At least, from what the guys have told me it isn’t. But everything is such a mess right now. I don’t want to have to fight, but I do have to. People are dying... You shouldn’t have to deal with all that.”

“Hey,” my bestie said firmly. She gripped my shoulder until I met her eyes. “I don’t have to. But I want to. The second F in BFF stands for forever, remember? How much shit did we get into and then back out of when we were in New York? So the stuff you’re mixed up in now is a little scarier—fine. Maybe I need to take a step back sometimes, but I’m still in this with you.” A grin broke over her face. “My best friend is a dragon. How many people can say that?”

I really laughed then, and squeezed her with another hug. “You’re the best, Kylie. I’m sorry I was shutting you out.”

“I get it,” Kylie said gently. “Just don’t do it again, you hear?”

When I let her go, we stepped to the end of the room. Kylie’s gaze drifted over the wreckage. “So... we don’t have to worry about any more of those jerks showing up, do we?”

“I don’t think so. From what we heard, this was their last-ditch effort, all-in to take us down. Otherwise Phillipe wouldn’t have shown his hand.”

And we’d defeated them. The rogues were decimated now—the ones who’d wanted me and my alphas dead, at least.

My legs wobbled under me. I might have tipped back against the wall if a large hand hadn’t caught my arm.

“Hey,” Nate said, bending to kiss my temple. “The shift and the fighting took a lot out of you.” He glanced at Kylie. “Do you mind if I borrow her and make her get some rest?”

“Please do,” Kylie said with a sweeping gesture. She shot me a grin and a wink as the bear shifter ushered me away.

The other alphas were waiting in the hall. “What about the rest of your kin?” I said to Marco.

“Ah, they’re pretty good at looking after themselves,” he said in his usual languid tone. “I gave a nice little speech and passed out some orders. That should hold them over for at least a few hours.” His expression turned more serious. “We’ll have the funerals tomorrow.”

“And luck willing, no more for a long time after that,” Aaron remarked. He took my hand as we headed to my guest suite.

When we reached the door, the four guys followed me in. I crawled onto the bed, and they piled on around me. The morning’s exhaustion was already catching up with me. I yawned and set my head on the pillow, surrounded by their warmth, and just like that, I was out.

* * *

I woke up, a little groggy and achy but feeling a lot more alive than before, to a streak of late afternoon sun drifting through the window. I stretched on the bed, and my mates stirred. Looking down at myself, I grimaced.

“Okay, I think a bath is in order before dinner.”

Marco slid off the bed with a chuckle. “As much as I’d like to join you for that, I think I’d better touch base with my kin. But I will see you at dinner... and after?”

The lilt of his tone sent a flutter of desire through me. I pushed myself up to meet him, pulling him into a kiss. “Of course ‘and after.’”

I’d already checked out the bathtub in the suite’s bathroom. Like the bed, the circular tub was plenty big enough for five. Four should be a piece of cake. I turned the taps until the water was gushing out in a steamy stream. A handful of sea salt to make it nice and invigorating—perfect!

“I take it we’re all invited?” Nate said, strolling in after me.

“The more the merrier. I’d like to think of it as a big, wet reset button in this visit. Good-bye, rogues! Hello, whatever the heck shifters usually do!”

“There’s plenty of time for you to learn all of that,” Aaron said. He slipped his arm around me and pressed his lips to my shoulder. “And I look forward to guiding you along the way.”

“Hmm. Me too,” I said with a suggestive waggle of my eyebrows that made him laugh.

As I plunged into the hot water, West finally emerged from the bedroom. He took in me already submerged and his fellow alphas climbing in after me, and shrugged. “Why not?”

Well, that was about as much enthusiasm as I could hope for from my wolf shifter.

The whisper of the water against my skin brought back the memory of the more pleasant activities I’d gotten up to this morning. My little interlude in the pond with Marco. All the fun that could be had while playing around in the water. I licked my lips, looking around at my mates. Then a deeper urge gripped my heart.

I could have lost any of them today. If one of them had been caught by the wrong bullet, like Coreen’s husband had... Just the thought of it wrenched at me.

They needed to know just how much they meant to me.

I glided through the water over to Aaron. He smiled, reaching to cup my cheek. I settled on his lap and leaned in for a kiss. His other hand settled on my waist, his thumb stroking over my side as our mouths pressed together slickly. I was plenty hot and bothered already by the time I eased back. But I held myself a little away from him and gazed into his bright blue eyes.

“I love you,” I said, the feeling of it rushing through me as if saying the words out loud had uncorked a whole new bottle of adoration.

Aaron’s face lit up. He kissed me again, even more deeply this time. Then he said, with his lips just an inch from mine, “I love you, Serenity. Always.”

I drifted from him to Nate beside him. The bear shifter welcomed me into his arms, already grinning. I snuggled into his embrace and kissed him hard, wanting him to feel how much this mattered to me. He rumbled in his chest, his fingers caressing my back. I touched the side of his face as I pulled away to meet his warm brown gaze.

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said. “Don’t you ever doubt it.”

I brushed my lips to his again. Then I turned. West watched me from the opposite corner of the tub. His body was tensed, but his dark green eyes looked softer than usual.

“Come here, Sparks,” he said. “I might as well get my kiss.”

Did he think he wasn’t getting the rest? Well, maybe I wasn’t totally sure either. It was a little hard to follow how I felt with all the push-pull between us. But if he was offering a kiss, he’d better believe I was going to take it.

I floated over to him, half expecting him to change his mind. Or to grab me and plant one on me so hungry it made my head spin.

He reached for me, easing his fingers around my wrist to tug me a little closer. He teased his other hand into my hair. We held each other’s gazes for a moment, his strangely searching. A flutter passed through my chest. Then he drew me the rest of the way to him.

His mouth claimed mine with a tenderness I couldn’t have been prepared for. His lips coaxed mine apart to deepen the kiss, and just like that, I was lost in him. Lost in the gentle passion of his embrace, lost in the smell that lingered on his skin as if he’d brought the forests of his home here with him.

This was the man I’d known my mate could be. The one I’d caught glimpses of in the rare moments when he let his guard down.

My head was spinning when he released me from that lip-lock. I stared at him for a second, catching my breath, my whole body aflame with both lust and a more heartfelt longing. I drew in a breath to say what I’d said to the others, what felt undeniably true now—and the door thumped in the other room.

As I swiveled around, Marco strode into the room. He was frowning, his eyes dark with concern.

“A few of the rogues escaped,” he said. “Not so many that we’d need to worry about them on their own, but—my people’s reports say they headed north. Straight toward a troop of vampires that just annexed my New York property and is now moving on from there. It looks like the rogues have even more allies than we realized. And they’ve just incited a full-scale paranormal war.”

I groaned, tipping my head back against the cushion of the water. So much for resting. But the resolve I’d felt during the battle only hardened inside me.

“Fine,” I said. “They’ve got no idea what they’re getting into when they mess with a dragon. It’s time to show all our enemies what a bad idea that is, once and for all.”

* * *

Are Ren and her mates up to this new challenge? Find out in the final volume of The Dragon Shifter’s Mates, Dragon’s Fate.