Page 153 of The Wolf and the Chimera
We couldn't leave our power in Lyall's hands.
As guards attacked Kieran and Melanie, I tore my gaze off my mate and focused on Bo’s dark eyes.
“Where’s the lab?” I asked.
“Closer than you think,” he said and moved past me, toward the frosted glass door beside the metal countertops.
I muttered a curse.
When I had asked Lyall what lay beyond the door, his reply had been quick.
Nothing,he had claimed,just safe methods of disposing of your power.
Like most things Lyall said, it had turned out to be bullshit. Knowing Lyall, however, it made sense that the lab was attached to this room. No other eyes or cameras would have had access to the power he hoarded.
I yanked on the cool metal handle of the lab door. It didn’t budge. I noticed the flashing red light and key card above it.
“We need a keycard—”
Bo flashed a silver card over the scanner, and a green light flashed. As I followed him inside the narrow lab, overhead lights flickered to life.
Bloodied and breathless, Melanie and Kieran flanked us. No guards followed them.
“Lyall trusted you enough to give you access to this?” Melanie asked.
“I stole it,” Bo said.
In addition to a sink, Bunsen burners, test tubes, and other ordinary equipment, two obsidian containers, and a silver safe lined the white countertops. As Kieran and Bo grabbed the containers, I winced.
“Careful,” I warned. “Without a wielder, my power acts as some kind of bomb if it escapes that container.”
“That’s what you were threatening Lyall with,” Kieran realized and swallowed.
The others turned to leave, but the silver safe caught my attention.
Whatever was inside, Lyall hadn’t wanted anyoneto have access to it but himself and his most trusted allies. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have hidden its contents away in safe made of silver.
“What’s in there?” I asked Bo.
“I really wasn’t that trusted,” he insisted. “I don’t know.”
“Incoming,” Melanie warned.
Wielding her claws, she ducked out of the lab and clashed with another guard. Still, I couldn’t make myself move. Drawn to whatever was inside, my chimera stirred under my skin.
“Kieran,” I said, “any idea about the passcode?”
“Elle,” he countered, “we really need to go—”
“I want nothing more than to get Ryder and leave,” I said, “but something inside me is screaming to open this.”
I met his gaze, and Kieran cursed. He sat the obsidian container on the counter and rapidly prattled numbers andletters to me, which I typed with equal speed. He didn’t dare touch the safe. A small red light flashed, and the safe remained locked.
A male guard as large as Bo crashed into the lab. As he snarled, rage contorted his animalistic face.
“Traitors,” he growled.
Bo met him fist for fist and claw for claw, but blood seeped from a wound on his thigh. The enemy wolf noted it and landed a brutal kick. Kieran turned and helped his friend.
