Deliberately, Hadyn pinned what she hoped was an easy smile to her face. “Forgive me for staring,” she said. “I’m not used to being around so many shifters at once.”
Her gaze sought out one in particular as she walked farther into the room.
“Behind you, love,” Rune murmured in her ear.
She jumped and shot him a miffed scowl. “You’ve got to quit that sneaky stuff around me.”
His expression didn’t change—not in front of an audience—but a snigger sounded from a group standing close together at the back.
No doubt from someone who thought they knew what Rune was like…but didn’t. Not really.
“They want to hear your story from you,” Rune said, ignoring the laughter. Water off a duck’s back, except for the tightness around his eyes.
“Okay.” Here we go again.
Hadyn gathered her thoughts, then did a similar rundown to how she’d gotten here that she’d done with Rune’s old team. Silence greeted her as she stopped talking, and she glanced around. Waiting for questions, waiting for a single expression to give her anything. All she got was a wall of nothing. Reminded her of second grade when she did an oral report on Amelia Earhart. Who knew seven-year-old humans and dragon shifters had that blank stare thing in common? Rough crowd.
“Let’s see her mark,” a blue dragon with eerie light-blue eyes said.
Untrusting. That she’d expected.
Without a word, Hadyn turned her back to the man, her short hair already leaving her neck exposed. “Go ahead.”
A shuffle of feet stopped at Rune’s snarled, “Try it.”
Words that jerked her gaze to the man at her side, to find him staring down whoever had dared to step closer with eyes gone fully black, reminding her of a demon she’d encountered once.
“Creeptastic,” she shot at him, except with an air of awe that made him want to puff up a bit.
He ignored the comment, still eyeing whatever threat he’d perceived. Not that any of these people would try anything in this space, surrounded by trained fighters and killers.
“We need to see it,” the other man said. She hazarded a guess that he’d held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. His voice certainly sounded wary.
“You no touch new friend,” Vilsinn snapped in a voice that sounded like rock grinding on rock.
Hadyn covered a laugh with her hand over her mouth. Seeing dragons wary was a novelty. As far as she knew, only hellhounds made them second guess their place at the top of the predator pyramid. Apparently, cave trolls, who were known to be unpredictable and violent, did, too.
After a beat, the shifters turned back to face her. “Then how do we—”
“You don’t touch her,” Rune said. “I do.”
What was this?
“That sounds mighty proprietary toward a woman whose mate is supposedly dead.” This from a different person, the voice lower, rougher. Hadyn glanced over her shoulder to see who’d said that, only to find a gold dragon at the back, a head taller than the others, almost as tall as Levi, a question in his gaze.
“She’s mine,” Rune declared in a voice so hard it brooked no argument.
“Excuse me?” Hadyn demanded, swinging to face him, hands on her hips. “That better be some kind of strange reference to what a jewel I am and not what it sounded like. Sex does not give you rights.”
The first flicker of a break in his focus on the others twitched at the corner of his eye. “You’re under my protection,” he said.
“That’s not what you just said,” she pointed out.
Finally his gaze slid to hers, though his expression remained blank. Still, she got the impression under all that controlled impassivity, he was as shocked as she was by his claim. “We can talk about it later.”
“You bet your ass, we will,” she countered. Then turned her back to him. “Do it.”
He hesitated long enough that she got a chance to prepare herself for what came next. After all, the first time he did this, she’d become a turned-on ball of near-orgasm. Now that she’d had him inside her, knew the pleasure of his hands, his lips…
That stream of black and silver-tipped flame across the nape of her neck didn’t make her jump this time, it made her tense up, eyes squeezed shut tight.
She couldn’t contain the moan that ground from her throat, even after bracing herself for the impact.
“Oh, gods,” she groaned, and pitched forward, hands on her knees, trying to breathe the sensations away.
It didn’t work.
Sudden and immediate pleasure starburst inside her. A supernova of instant orgasm. Vaguely, she was aware of Rune cutting the fire off abruptly and his body coming around hers, hopefully blocking her from view as moan after moan poured from her lips. Strong arms wrapped around her, holding her upright as her legs turned gelatinous, no longer supporting her.
The final wave crested, and she quieted, trying to wrap her mind around how immediate that had been.
“Fuck, love. Sorry about that,” he whispered in her ear.
She cleared her throat and straightened, trying to push the heat of a full body blush back down. “They’d better see it quick before it disappears,” she said.
She refused to look him in the eyes. Not yet.
After a brief hesitation, Rune stepped to the side, though he kept a hand on her hip. No one said a damn thing, but she could sense them come near to see the faintly glowing ghost of a mark she knew they’d find at the nape of her neck. She’d told them that part, so no one commented on it.
“Guess she really is his,” one male voice quipped. Rivin or Keighan at a guess.
For once, the other one said nothing.
At a squeeze of Rune’s hand, she turned to face the gathering and waited. She wasn’t sure what for.
“I’ve seen enough of the Alliance, and even the Alaz team’s actions, to know you aren’t lying.” That same blue dragon shifter from before spoke up, finally. “If it came down to standing against them, I would, but you’re asking me to go save a couple of rogues.”
Dismay could be heavy, she discovered right then, lead-weighted balls in her gut. “Even if it’s the right thing to do?” she asked softly.
The other man flicked her a glance that told her everything. Her right thing and his right thing weren’t necessarily the same. “I have a family and my own community to think about,” he said.
“You’re not wrong,” Rune said.
Which yanked her focus to him as he gave every person in the room a hard stare. “Stand up against the Alliance, and you’ll be a rogue, too,” Rune pointed out. “Consider this, though. If things continue, and leadership continues to break down, eventually you will have to. We all will.”