Page 82 of Sergi
To see her naked again wouldn’t be a bad thing, and he grinned. His cheeks hurt from how much he’d smiled since meeting her. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”
Chapter Thirty
Devon glancedaround the director’s office at the broken furniture and debris littering the floor. There had been a vicious fight, and while some of the damage could be blamed on the aftermath of purposeful destruction, not all of it could. The fresh scent of blood drew his attention to the lab side of the room.
Remus flipped through files, magazines, and books that remained on the desk, tossing the discards to the floor once he’d searched through them. Devon had assumed Remus would go with the team to remove the guards at the stairs, but he sent Beckham, preferring to help search for evidence.
“Let me know if it was a vampire kill or shifter.” Remus picked up the remaining pieces of a laptop. “They did a good job on this. The hard drive looks damaged, but we should have it checked anyway.” He poked around the desk and then the floor before lifting a letter opener. He eyed it curiously. “This has dried blood on it.” He pried the hard drive from the laptop and pocketed it.
Devon glanced down at the body and then over at its head two feet away. He used the toe of his boot to turn it so he could see the face. “Well, I’ll be damned. This is where Venizi stashed him.”
“Who?”
“Boris Gheata. He’s the vampire who killed Boretsky, knocked me out, and injected me with Magic Poppy.”
Remus stepped over the detritus of the office to stand next to Devon. He stared down at the head. “No bite marks, but it could have been a shifter.”
Devon grinned. “I don’t think so. I recognize the method of killing.”
“Sergi?”
Devon chuckled, and it turned into a laugh. “Yes. Thank the gods, Sergi was alive not that long ago.”
Remus tapped him on the shoulder. “We only have another thirty minutes. We should ensure all the shifters are getting out. I’d like to see if any of my wolves survived.”
He didn’t mean the wolves that came with them on the mission. Remus wanted to know if Carlos and any of the previous shifters he’d sent remained alive. Devon didn’t blame him. If there were vampires being held captive, Devon’s first thoughts would be to his Family.
“There’s nothing to keep us here. With all the other labs ransacked and blood vials destroyed we’re lucky to have found one salvageable vial of Magic Poppy. Maybe we can find something off the hard drive.”
Devon gave Gheata’s remains one last look, then turned and jogged after Remus. When they arrived at the closest staircase, only a handful of shifters were coming up. One of the shifters from their original team was quickly directing them down the hallway, where additional team members waited for them.
Devon called Bella on the burner. “What’s the status?”
“It didn’t take long to disarm the guards. There weren’t many of them. Most of the shifters are out, as well as the lab staff. We haven’t found the director. He’s either dead, holed up in one ofthe panic rooms we can’t open, or the staff is protecting him. We’ll find out soon enough.
“We put the guards in the back of a cargo van that was parked in the garage. It’s been moved several hundred yards down the road. It would be best to have everyone out of the building in the next ten minutes. We don’t know what type of explosives are being used to destroy the facility.”
“We’re at the second staircase. We’ll follow the last ones out.”
When Bella didn’t respond for a moment, he prepared for her to argue with him for remaining behind. She only said, “Roger that,” then hung up.
Devon turned in time to see Remus hugging one of the shifters. When he stepped back, Devon sighed with relief.
Carlos had survived.
An older shifter followed behind, and when he stopped to speak with Remus, Devon thought for a moment The Wolf might collapse, but he straightened with Carlos’s help.
Devon raced over. “What’s happened?”
When Remus couldn’t get any words out, which was odd for him, Carlos shook his head, and Devon didn’t push. The Wolf had gotten some unexpected news, but Devon couldn’t tell if it was good or bad.
“He’ll be alright. We were the last of the shifters.” Carlos pushed them toward the exit. “This is Cadfael, an Alpha who’s been a captive for years.”
Devon shook the shifter’s hand. “I’m Devon.” He directed his next question to Carlos. “Do you know where Sergi is? His tracker showed up a couple of hours ago on the other side of this mountain. If he’d been with the shifters, Bella would have told me.”
“We weren’t sure if Rafael survived or how soon you’d send a larger team. There’s a back door out of the building.”
Two team members moved behind them to push them faster until they were all jogging toward the exit.
