We should have fought against this forever ago because the cages of shifters on the top floor are devastating to see. Quickly, I jump into the building and shift to my human form. Then I start hauling the cages out of their rows and motioning for the dragons to come lift them. We have plenty of shifters with us. They don’t have to haul the cages all the way back to Fablestone right now. They just need to get these shifters out of the Lucky building.
One-by-one, the dragons lower themselves, select a cage, and lift it. They carry the cage off into the woods, probably to a clearing, and leave it there. Then they come back. Within minutes, the second floor of the room is almost empty.
That’s when Lucky decides to join the party.
Four scientists in white lab coats enter the room.
“What the fuck are you doing?” A tall man growls at me. He sneers and then raises his hand. He’s holding a weapon, and he fires it at me, but I’m ready for him. I’m not scared, and I shift easily into my true form. I breathe out fire at him, and he instantly dies.
His teammates don’t back down, though. They ignore him, instead choosing to try to circle me, but they’ve forgotten the fact that I’m with friends.
With family.
With dragons.
They don’t realize the second wave of dragons sneaked in downstairs and are coming up behind them.
I shift back.
“You stupid humans,” I say. “You only had four of you watching this facility?”
“Four is more than enough for what we were doing,” a petite woman with bright red hair says. “And you never even noticed until now. Who’s the stupid ones now
? You shifters don’t even notice when a stray goes missing from your pack. You don’t even do anything about it. You just carry on because you don’t want to give shifters a bad name by attacking a scientific building.”
“Those days are over,” I tell her.
“What are you going to do? Kill me?” She laughs, raising her weapon, and she shoots. Before whatever she’s firing can hit me, though, I’m knocked to the floor and something lands on me.
“What the fuck?” I groan, and then I look up to see a familiar face.
A face I’ve been searching for.
“David?” I ask, looking up at my brother-in-law. “What the hell?”
“You came,” he says with a smile, and then he lands on me.
Carefully, I push him off of me and look at him lying on his back.
“David?” I ask. What the fuck? He took a bullet or a syringe or something for me, and I don’t know what the fuck those assholes put in it, but it doesn’t look good. “David, stay with me.”
I ignore the hell breaking loose around me as the rest of our team makes their way to the second floor and surrounds the scientists, as the dragons continue to save the locked-up shifters, as everything continues to unfold.
I ignore all of that and just hold my brother-in-law and as David’s life begins to fade away, I start to cry.
Chapter Fifteen
Peggy
I spend the day with Daisy and Cameron’s mom, Henrietta. She shows me around the vet facility at the clan and she plays with Mocha and Frappe. They seem to love getting to be around the other kittens who are being cared for at the veterinary clinic. I’ve never seen them this happy or active before, and it makes me glad.
But I’m still worried, and it shows.
Henrietta tries to talk to me and to welcome me to the clan, and I appreciate it, but I’m also nervous. The day passes slowly, and I have no way to communicate with the dragons while they’re gone. They didn’t want to take tech since the Lucky scientists could so easily intercept any transmissions.
All I can do is sit and wait.
I get a grand tour of the clan’s town, which is lovely and wonderful, and then Henrietta returns home to put Daisy to bed for the night. There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep or even to relax, so I choose to wait on Wilson’s front porch.