Page 13 of The Dragon's Dream Mate (Savage Shifters Special Ops 3)

However, my aching need to be close to him overshadowed any sense I might have had. I got undressed and climbed into the bed behind him, pulling the sheet over us both. My chest pressed against his back, and the physical contact felt so wonderful.

Lucian sensed I was there, as he pulled my arm over him and held it close to his chest while he tangled his legs up with mine.

Finally able to relax, I fell asleep, hoping that these few days of being close to Lucian would be enough to last me a lifetime, because I knew in my heart of hearts that there could never be another man for me.

6

Lucian

Iwas a little shocked to wake up and find Rainey naked in bed with me. This time she was holding me close to her. I guess I was pretty tired from the morning’s excursion because I hadn’t even felt her slipping into the bed next to me.

Feeling her body pressed to mine when I woke up was a pretty nice feeling. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to think about that.

She woke up as soon as I did. Her hair was a mess, and she had to blink to get the sleep out of her eyes. She was so adorable that I kissed her on her pert little nose.

Then, although I would soon be losing them when I shifted again, I pulled on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt.

“Come on, let’s go eat. Man must feed the beast.”

She laughed and got dressed, put her hair up into a bun, and together we went in search of food.

As dusk fell, Jared shifted into his wolf form, and I turned back into a dragon. Damian turned into a tiger. We all made our forms seem smaller through mirage magic so that the people on the streets would only see domesticated pets out for an evening stroll.

We slipped out of the back door of the hotel. Gage left a bag hidden in the wooded lot behind the building, so we could turn back into human form and not walk into the hotel completely naked.

The house was quiet. We noted that there was a guard at the front door. He had hidden a couple of weapons in the bushes by the front door, so that they weren’t noticeable to people casually walking by, but would be easily accessible to him in case there was some type of emergency.

I flew by the house on the front side and noted through the window that two men were sitting on the couch, watching television and smoking. They looked as though they were common thugs who had been recruited straight off the streets. They had no stake in this business. They worked for the highest bidder.

Jared and Damian had made it around back.

“Here, kitty, kitty,” the guard in the back said. As I flew up to the roof of the house to watch, I thought, “This is going to be interesting. Does Damian even know how to purr?”

Damian pretended to be a shy cat, who might be interested in being petted by the human but wasn’t entirely sure about it yet.

The guard really wanted to pet that cat and kept calling to him and slowly trying to approach him.

While Damian kept the guard occupied, Jared was able to look through the window where a second light was on. He was also able to look into the bushes and see that the guard in the backyard only had one weapon. I guessed that it made sense because a privacy fence surrounded the backyard.

Jared looked through the rest of the windows in the backyard, and then, he hopped over the fence. Damian saw that he was done and followed suit.

I flew over them, looking for anyone who might be following them, but there was no one.

When we got back to the hotel, we shifted form, dressed, and went inside to deliver our reports.

Rainey was pacing the room with Gage when we entered the room.

“There is one guard who sits on the front porch. They seem to rotate every four hours, which is what we observed today. Sometimes, the guard will pace back and forth in the front yard, or pretend to be doing yard work, but he is never far from the front door. He has two rifles hidden in the bushes next to the front step. He has easy access to them, although they are hidden from view from people who are casually passing by. The guard tonight was playing a game on his phone. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to anyone or anything going on around him.”

I took a breath and a swig of water before continuing. “Two more men were sitting on the couch in the front room watching television. There was a pistol resting on the end table beside each man. To be honest, they looked more like they were stoned than they were on guard,” I said.

Jared took over. “While Damian kept the guard in the backyard occupied with a game of ‘here, kitty, kitty,’ I was able to check out the rooms in the back of the house. The kids were chained together. It looks like the men had simply gone to a hardware store and got a long logging chain. Then, they used regular handcuffs to secure four of the kids by their ankles to the chain.”

“That will make it easy to get the kids unhooked from the chain,” Gage noted.

“It will. It seems that the handcuff system was more of a way to keep the kids from going anywhere than it was to keep someone from breaking them out. It’s doubtful that they are expecting a raid, considering how relaxed the guards were,” Jared said.

“Did you see Simone?” Rainey asked, no longer able to hold her question.

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