My breath hitched, but then two human forms ran to me. One had her frantic gaze fastened on the furballs I carried.
I deposited the two wide-eyed girls into the arms of a mother who alternately hugged and searched their fuzzy bodies for signs of injury. Her face twisted when she saw the collars.
The other peeled back her cloak hood to reveal long, braided white hair. “Bring them here,” Cara said, gesturing to the stairwell. “Hurry.”
We retreated to the shadows of the stairwell and unfastened the leather collars from around their necks. The toddlers transformed to humans and clung to Kitani as Cara ran her hands over them.
“They’re scared, but okay,” the Watcher said.
“I thought you guys had gone after that Galeran guy?” My voice trembled.
Cara’s mouth straightened. “It was all a ruse. Ash—a friend—told us to come back. And so we did.”
I couldn’t process it, not with Darius’s words echoing through me. Who had planned all this? Was it Talakai? The Dragon was damned smart. My gut twisted tighter as I glanced toward the fight—but I couldn’t see the blue Dragon past Tyrez’s huge form.
“Your arms...” Cara’s gaze scanned them.
I rubbed at the blood. But beneath it, only scabs and scars.
“Let me finish the healing,” she said. Before I could object, she’d folded warm hands around them, and closed her eyes.
My skin, and the flesh beneath, heated and tingled, but it didn’t hurt too much as they reduced to fine silver lines. Then her eyes rose to mine as the rooftop fight swirled around us.
The green Dragon’s motionless body partially blocked our view, but I saw two underworld Dragons try to flee, wings beating hard as they took off from the roof. Tyrez and the big purple Dragon dragged them back and held them down, forcing them to surrender and transform.
Sebastian was a whirl of flashing silver, everywhere and nowhere at once.
Two huge Sabre forms slashed their way through the last group of guards. Matt stepped off a prone form and looked toward them, just as the few survivors threw down their swords in surrender. But the taller of the two cats kept stalking toward them, lips pulled back from long canines. Then the stockier one pounced on and held him down.
“Enough, Cody,” Ryan’s snarl carried clearly to us. “It’s overr. Get a grrip.”
Holding the twins, Kitani left my side and walked forward, and Cody threw Ryan off. Both Sabres shifted to human as they ran—until all three were curled around each other and their offspring.
From beside me, Cara sighed.
Sebastian swirled to a standstill, his horn in one hand, the short sword in the other. Impossibly tall and covered in blood.
But alive.
I knew, now, why Matt had been so impressed. Cara moved toward him, and she and Tyrez, in mid-shift to human, blocked my view as they conferred with the Bellati.
It left me adrift in the fact I’d killed three people.
I couldn’t give one hoot about Darius. Grievan likely fell into the same category. But the guard had just been doing his job.
I tried to stir up guilt, but all I could think about was the twisted blue-scaled form lying on the roof.
I walked to where it lay. The Dragon had no doubt tried to escape Tyrez by shifting to human, so he could use the stairs.
He’d been all but decapitated. Blue scales scattered over the human form. Long black hair obscured his face, and it was shaved on the sides...
No.I felt sick, but I needed to know.
Strong arms wrapped around me, and I inhaled a familiar musky scent. “Hey, Angel,” Matt breathed into my hair.
He shouldn’t be touching me. I pushed his arms off me as I turned away from the dead Dragon shifter and stared up into eyes flaring emerald.
He was naked again, and fresh slices dripped blood across his gorgeous chest. He looked from me to the dead shifter. And then he stepped past me to lift the hair away from the face.
