Page 26 of The Dragon's Dream Mate (Savage Shifters Special Ops 3)

I don’t think that I breathed until we arrived at the hotel. I parked the van by one of the side entrances and unloaded my precious cargo.

We linked hands again and used the stairs to make it to our floor. Finally, victory was in sight.

12

Lucian

We heard Rainey’s grunts and groans. She must have been trying to get the window open without making a lot of noise. I could almost hear the bad words she had been thinking in her head.

After a while, she must have succeeded because I heard Simone fake a loud sneeze, and at the same time, a rubbing sound came through. Those were all great signs that she had been successful in her mission.

I heard the kids asking questions about when they were going to get out of there. She reassured them and told them that they had to be patient. It would be in the middle of the night when everyone was sleepy.

Once again, it occurred to me how good she was with those kids and that she would be a great mother.

She was an incredible woman. She was brave, willing to face these monsters in their lair, knowing that they could rough her up pretty good before anyone arrived. She was tough and strong. I imagined that if they got physical, she could give them as good as they got. She was calming and reassuring and had those frightened children eating out of the palm of her hand.

How much she had grown from the little girl I had left behind to the strong, capable woman she had become.

That didn’t mean that I was any happier about her being the sacrificial lamb, so to speak, in this case, or that she would likely put herself in danger in future cases. It just meant that I respected her that much more. And perhaps, that love I had for her all those years ago had started to rekindle.

Finally, the time came for us to launch our rescue.

Gage was going to take out the guard in the front yard. Damian and Jared would take care of the men who were in the house. I would grab the guy in the backyard and make sure that Rainey and the kids got to the van safely.

No one paid attention to the small menagerie that traveled to the house in the dead of night. I guessed that if anyone looked out the window, they would simply mistake Gage as a large dog. Maybe, if the stereotypical old woman who is staring out the window, spying on her neighbors isn’t wearing her glasses, she might mistake Damian as a dog as well.

I flew over the back fence, letting loose a long low whistle as I went. As soon as I whistled, I heard Rainey take out the screen from the window.

The guard heard that noise and said, “What the…”, right before I hit him from behind. I may have also accidentally breathed on him a little, scorching his backside.

He wasn’t likely to get an apology.

Once he was trussed up better than any Christmas turkey I ever saw, I rushed over to the window and peaked through. They were focusing on Rainey and didn’t see me.

A girl that was the spitting image of Rainey was standing there with a toddler. A tiny baby came through next. Simone held the baby for a second, then asked the toddler to sit down and hold the baby so she could help the others out.

The toddler, despite being so young, seemed to be completely aware of what was going on and quickly complied without a sound.

It seemed to take forever to get the kids out. Kid after kid came through that window, and then seemed to blink their eyes in a brand new appreciation of the outside.

The kids were out, and I was anxiously waiting for Rainey. My heart was beating a million miles an hour. A crash came through the room, and I heard Rainey tell the guy that he’d lost.

Finally, I was very relieved to see Rainey pop out at the same time Damian crashed through the back door.

I made a hole through the fence. Rainey quickly got the kids to walk hand in hand to the van, with me following behind to make sure there were no bad guys waiting in the wings to pounce.

I felt so much better with the kids safely tucked away in the van and after Rainey had driven off. I flew behind them a short distance just to make sure they weren’t followed by anyone else who might have been watching the house.

Since there were no other vehicles on the street, I felt that they were safe and headed back to the house.

All four of the guards were trussed up together in the middle of the living room. My other three team members had managed to change and get dressed and were standing guard over them. I went back to the fence, where I had hidden my clothes. I shifted back into human form and got dressed, before entering the house.

“Awww, you guys had all the fun while I was gone,” I said, in a mock whine.

Gage indicated that the man whose shirt had burn marks in it and his back had suspicious-looking blisters forming. “It looks like we didn’t have all the fun.”

I tried to put on an innocent face, but it didn’t work. “I slipped?” I said in a questioning voice.

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