Page 22 of The Dragon's Dream Mate (Savage Shifters Special Ops 3)

“Don’t worry. The team will be here tonight. A bunch of superheroes will come in and save the day,” I said whispering.

“Are you a superhero?” a little boy asked.

I shook my head. “No, I’m only their secretary.”

Simone whispered. “Don’t let her fool you. She’s a bigger superhero than anyone. She came in here to be with us.”

My heart swelled with pride at her words.

“Does that make you my loyal sidekick?” I asked her.

She nodded solemnly. “Yes, but I need a good sidekick name.”

“We’ll think of something,” I said.

While we were talking, I looked around the room. It looked like the window into the backyard was going to be the only way we were going to escape.

10

Lucian

Watching Rainey walk away from me into a known danger was one of the hardest things I ever had to experience. It was even harder than when I walked away from her because I was so numb.

I was antsy, and finally, Gage kicked me out. “Shift form and go hide in a tree. Watch over her and the kids. Let us know if anything changes.”

Although I would be sitting still and waiting in the tree, it was better than sitting still and waiting, cooped up in the van. I flew out and found a nice and strong branch to hold my weight. The last thing I needed was to draw attention to myself by breaking a branch and have it come crashing down on someone’s car or house.

I landed in time to see Rainey being escorted into the house. When the man grabbed her by the arm, I had to fight the urge to swoop down and tear him apart, limb by limb.

A deep sigh escaped and, with it, a spark.

“Easy there, Lucian. Don’t start a forest fire before we can rescue anyone,” Damian said, through the earpiece stuck in my ear. The earpieces were designed by our company. They were put into our ears as piercings, so they would stay with us, regardless of what form we took.

The day seemed to creep by. As it did, I had time to reflect on why this mission bothered me so much. I knew that Rainey was more than capable of taking care of herself. I knew that she had faced even more dangerous situations in the past. I knew that it was part of her job.

Unfortunately, knowing all of this did not make me feel any better about the current situation. I was very worried about Rainey.

I walked away from her so many years ago without a single word. In all the passing years, I never tried to contact her. Did I even have the right to worry about her? Did I have the right to see her as anything other than another competent member of a team?

The answer was that I gave up those rights a long time ago. Yet here I was, sitting in the tree, about to lose my mind. A thought occurred to me in the back of my brain that maybe I was so worried because deep down inside of me, I had never stopped loving her.

My thoughts were drawn back to the situation at hand when I heard one of the men smashing her cell phone and telling her that they had to check her to make sure she didn’t have anything on her. I knew what that meant. The thought of them groping her made me growl loudly.

“Easy, Lucian,” Damian admonished through my earpiece.

I had to practice my breathing techniques when I heard her tell one of the men to stop it because they had hurt her, plus the comments they made after. After a minute or so, when I had reined in my temper, I noticed that I had both of my claws wrapped around a tree branch and was in the process of choking the life out of it. Luckily, the tree branch wasn’t harmed, and I got great satisfaction from picturing the man’s neck in its place.

Rainey was finally put in the same room as the rest of the kids. As much as being held captive sucked, it was a relief that she was out of the company of the men for a while. It also meant that the kids were still safe.

She managed to get their names and ages, which were written down by the group in the van. They would have Alex and Andrew start researching missing children by those names and ages and figure out where their families were.

The rest of the day seemed to take forever. We listened as the men came into the room a few times to let the kids use the bathroom and to make sure they had food and water. I guessed that they were under strict orders to make sure that the kids were in decent shape when they were delivered to whoever had paid for them.

That was likely the only reason that they hadn’t tried to rape Rainey. The ominous warning about Jake suggested that touching the ‘merchandise’ was strongly prohibited.

I turned my attention to the men in the living room. They had just left Rainey’s purse lying around, so the microphone picked up everything that the men said.

One of them told the other that they could have their fun with Rainey. “After all, the bosses don’t even know that we have her. Why couldn’t we just have some fun with her and get rid of her? No one would even know. We wouldn’t have to worry about the bosses finding out, and we wouldn’t be so bored sitting here, playing babysitter.” The man sounded as though he was whining. I wanted to slap him once for whining, and then beat the shit out of him for what he was suggesting.

---