Chapter 3
Kaylee
The whole pack—several hundred shifters—gathered in the clearing in the woods, some still wearing leather aprons from the tannery, others with dirt-stained hands from the woods, and I spotted the cooks from the communal kitchen with blood still staining his forearms. When the alpha called, the whole town came to a halt.
The only people not here were those underaged.
More than one set of eyes glared at me, but I ignored them and took my place near the back. Just because I didn’t have a wolf didn’t mean I didn’t belong at a pack meet, despite what most of them thought.
“Quiet, everyone,” Alpha Landon called from the head of the clearing.
Silence fell immediately, and his dark eyes roved over the gathered figures.
I watched him, careful not to meet his eye.
His presence was so completely captivating that it was hard to focus on anything else.
And that was without a wolf inside me to respond to the dominance I could sense rolling off him in waves.
Every other head in the clearing was bowed in respect, and I quickly dipped mine, too.
It was never a good idea to catch Landon’s attention.
Nice and inconspicuous, avoiding everyone’s notice, that was how I liked to roll.
“Kaylee Thornton,” Landon boomed. “Where is Kaylee Thornton?”
I started, and a dozen pairs of accusing eyes turned in my direction. Crap. I swallowed hard and lifted my head.
“Here, Alpha Landon,” I said, trying to quash the strained tremor in my voice.
“Come here.”
For a moment—one insane, reckless moment—I considered running.
Illogical terror welled up in me, and it took every ounce of self-control I had to keep from turning on my heel and launching myself into the woods.
That, and the knowledge that several hundred wolves would be on my all-too-metaphorical tail if I tried it.
I stepped forward, and the sea of shifters parted for me. Murmurs and dirty looks followed me, but that was nothing new. The alpha summoning me at a pack meet, though? Yeah, that was all new, and new was never good.
I reached the front and the alpha nodded to someone behind me. I heard movement and flicked a look over my shoulder in time to see two of the pack’s enforcers take up positions flanking me. A shiver ran through me and I turned back to the alpha.
“What’s going on?”
“Speak when spoken to,” the alpha grunted. I opened my mouth to object because fuck that—I hadn’t done anything wrong—but one of the enforcers gripped my arm and I snapped my mouth shut.
And then, from the shadows behind the alpha, a figure stepped forward.
He was tall and broad shouldered, wearing jeans and a shirt that fitted his body closely enough that I could make out the lean, wiry muscle beneath.
His dark eyes stared out impassively from beneath close-cropped hair, and as he turned them on me, my breath caught in my throat.
Danger.
He was dangerous. I could feel it as clearly as I could feel the breeze working its way through the trees around us.
A shiver ran through me, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
Something stirred inside me, something primal, something wild and reckless, something that urged me to turn and run into the trees, and take the throat of anyone who stood in my way.
I tamped it down before that crazy instinct could get me killed.
“She will do,” the man said curtly.
“Do what?” I asked dumbly, and the enforcer squeezed my arm more tightly. The guy’s eyes narrowed.
“Silence,” Landon snapped. He nodded to the enforcers again, and the asshole currently trying to carve a hole into my arm dragged me to one side.
The alpha turned his attention to the rest of the pack, not bothering to answer my question—not that I’d expected him to—which did nothing to quell the panic rising inside me. Something about this was very wrong.
“This is Rook, guardian of Red Ridge. He has come to claim his Tribute.”
Whispers raced round the gathered pack, and I might not have a wolf but I still had the shifter hearing I’d inherited from my mother. Hearing good enough for me to pick up the word ‘dragon’.
I pivoted, open-mouthed, to stare at Rook. “You’re a myth,” I said.
“I have selected Kaylee Thornton. If any member of the pack objects,” Landon said, “let them speak now.”
No-one spoke, and a heavy silence fell across the gathered shifters.
Tribute. He was giving me to the…dragon.
Or whatever the hell he was, because clearly ‘dragon’ wasn’t an actual thing.
But at the very best, I was about to be given to some sort of gangster psycho, and honestly that sounded pretty shit to me.
And not a damn one of the people I’d known my whole life had a problem with it.
“I object,” I protested, squirming in the arms of my captor.
“You will be silent!”
“I’m not a…pet. You can’t just give me away.”
“I am your alpha. I can do as I damn well please.” His eyes glinted coldly. “But it is not I who had the final say. The pack has spoken. You will abide by their decision.”
“Fuck the pack! You bunch of spineless—”
The enforcer clamped a hand over my mouth, cutting off the rest of my tirade. I tried to sink my teeth into his hand, but his grip was so strong I couldn’t even move my jaw. Bastard.
“I’ll be back to collect her in the morning,” Rook said coolly. “So that she has time to adjust to the shock, and say her goodbyes.”
“There is no need. She has no friends or family.”
Rook’s eyes narrowed. “But she is of this pack?”
“She is. Her mother was daughter of a beta.”
“So be it. She will return with me.”
I grunted my objections behind the enforcer’s hand, but it seemed like no-one was in a listening mood. Whatever. I’d just bust out of this guy’s car—he seemed the sort to own a vehicle—the second he turned his back.
Cold cuffs snapped around my wrists, locking them behind my back, and I yelped in surprise.
Landon handed the key to Mr. Big Time Gangster, who slipped it into his pocket.
Fine. So I’d have to pickpocket the completely intimidating psycho who looked like he could snap me in half like a twig.
No problem. That was just a little…complication, that was all.
With my hands cuffed behind my back. Sure. Why not?
Rook dipped his chin a fraction to Landon, which I guess was gangster for deal done—bastards—and then took a step back.
The alpha wolf shifter scurried aside while I canted my head, trying to work out why my captor was backing away…
because I was under absolutely no delusions that he’d suddenly and unexpectedly developed a conscience.
And then I saw Rook’s outline shimmer and blur, and my eyes widened.
His frame grew and expanded, and the trees around him groaned.
Several branches snapped with a loud crack and then abruptly, in the time between one blink and the next, I wasn’t looking at a man.
I was looking at something large, reptilian, and winged.
I swallowed. He wasn’t a myth. He wasn’t a gangster. He was an actual dragon.
Fuck. My. Life.
He threw his green-gray scaled head up and loosed a reptilian roar, lashing his tail from side to side in the wrecked trees. Behind me, murmurs of shock, awe, and fear spread through the pack like wildfire, and even Landon had his head bowed respectfully.
The dragon pinned its wings to scaled flanks and stalked forward on four limbs, each tipped in deadly sharp talons.
He stopped in front of where I stood rooted to the ground, and lifted one front claw.
I could do nothing but watch as it stretched toward me and wrapped effortlessly around my torso, snatching me up to his chest.
Then he flapped his sail-like wings, and lifted us up into the air.
Well, shit.