Page 51 of Gavin

They made their way across the room to the steel beam. She was still shaking, but she knew she needed to get to the ladder and get down to the others, so she inhaled and exhaled a fewtimes, focused, and walked across to the ladder. She was sonot a fan of heights, so she didn’t look down, just crouched and put her hands on the ladder, then swung one leg to it.

“I’ve got the ladder. You can climb down,” a male called.

She glanced at Gavin, who watched her intently and then climbed down to the ground floor.

“I think he’s going to just jump, so back up,” the male said. Once she saw him up close she realized it was one of Gavin’s friends, Devon.

She stepped back and watched as Gavin went down a few rungs of the ladder, then simply leaped to the ground with a huff.

“That was pretty cool,” she said.

Gavin’s whiskers twitched again and she recognized it as him smiling.

“Hey, Sadie, you’re okay!” Ryan said, jogging over. “Do you need an ambulance?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “A little beat up.”

She knew once her adrenalin wore off that she’d feel the effects of her abduction, but for now she was fine. She looked around the open space. There were six males unconscious or tied up, and the two that had fallen from the second floor and appeared to be dead.

She didn’t see Victor, and she was certain there were more males that had been with him.

Her heart sank.

“He got away?”

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “When we infiltrated downstairs, there were more males in here and while we were fighting them and sending males up to help upstairs, Victor got away along with a few others.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Well,” Ryan said, lowering his voice, “one of the guys that worked with Victor said that he overheard him talking toBrent Foley, who said that if something went wrong with this abduction, he wanted Victor to focus on another shifter group and stop wasting Brent’s resources chasing after you. And he was also planning to go after a couple of white tigers we have in the pride.”

“Do you believe him?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Ryan said. “I was being very persuasive.”

She smiled. “I don’t know if I should feel relieved or not. That he’s still out there running around and trying to hunt shifters…” She let the thought die without finishing it. She’d never wished someone would die before, but then again, she’d never been hunted for her fur either.

She sure as hell wished Victor Hawthorne was pushing up daisies right now.

“We’re not going to stop our security measures,” Ryan said. “But maybe you two can go back to your own home and get out of Midas and Maya’s if you’d like.”

“I’d love that,” she said. “As long as it’s safe for us.”

“We’ll do our best to make sure it is.”

Sadie watched as they rounded up the humans. A few tigers would wait for the authorities and explain that they’d attacked some shifters and let the police deal with them. She and Gavin got into an SUV, her mate climbing into the back and stretching out. She cuddled up against him, resting her head on his chest so she could listen to his heartbeat.

It was the best sound she’d ever heard.

She couldn’t wait to tell him how crazy she was about him.

Once he was back to human.

“I’m so ready to go home, Gavin,” she said.

He made an agreeing sound and purred.

Chapter

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