Page 56 of Mated to Team Shadow

The guards looked at each other, and one did not learn the SEAL truism "do not walk into your own death." He drew his weapon and fired at Ryker.

Several things happened at once. Ryker spun as the bullet hit his shoulder and Kane sprang at the shooter knocking him to the ground, and an alarm went off. Two other guards ran, which is a dangerous thing to do from a prey-driven jungle cat, and Damon ran after them. I stood my ground growling at the last guard, and he tossed his weapon then put his hands over his head. With a swipe of my dinner-dish-sized paw, I knocked him to the ground, and he stared at me in shock. I stalked toward Ryker to find him shifted into his jaguar. His shoulder bled, but his cat would heal super fast. He hissed at me, and I saw he was in shock from the gunshot. I swiped at his head, a dangerous thing to do, but it was all I could think of to snap him out of it.

No, go. Ryker lunged at me as if I were the threat. We tumbled, and I shifted—another dangerous thing, but I needed my words.

"Ryker!" I yelled. "Snap out of it! We're losing our escape window!"

Kane shifted his attention from the man he injured who was squirming on the ground in pain and leaped at Ryker. This got Ryker's attention, and he released his claws gripping into my skin and jumped back.

"You clear, Ryker?" I said. "We've got to go!"

Ryker stared at me, chuffed, and then ran in the direction Damon took off in. The wound in his shoulder didn't seem to hold him back, so I figured the jaguar healing abilities had kicked in. Kane glanced at me over his shoulder then followed Ryker.

I looked at the men on the floor.

"If you try to follow us, we will kill you, understand?"

The uninjured one nodded while the other moaned and groaned. I hoped Doc Melkot had someone good with stitches here because the unlucky guard would need them.

I shifted and sped out of the mess hall toward the scent of my teammates. Several guards laid passed out on the floor, and some had visible wounds. But it struck me that for a facility this size there was a dearth of personnel. This wasn't right, and I wondered what was up.

I found Ryker, Kane, and Damon at a locked double door at the end of the hall. Kane had shifted and worked at pulling the keypad apart. I growled, and he gave me a surprised glance. I lunged at the pad and swiped it with my claws shredding it off the wall.

"So much for finesse," said Kane. He crossed some wires, and since in cat form I couldn't see the colors, I didn't know which ones. But the door clicked open.

"The last one over the fence buys dinner," said Kane.

The klaxon continued to blare, but I saw or heard no evidence of a response. Running down another hallway brought us to another, but unlocked, double door. We pushed through it to find ourselves in an aircraft hangar, but there was no aircraft. Sun streamed in from the roof that missed several panels. We sniffed around, each of us taking a different section. I only picked up faint traces of aircraft fuel, diesel and oil, and barely any human scent. We glanced at each other. There was something very wrong here.

Ryker padded to the side door beside the hangar door and inspected the controls for the large hydraulic door. I walked to it too and shifted. This set-up was decades old and not the current equipment in use by the military.

"What do you think?"

He sat on his haunches and gazed up at me. We both knew that tactically we couldn't stay here, but we didn't know what was out there either. Melkot could have a bunch of men out there with guns ready to take us down.

Except for a handful of guards, we had not encountered a tactical threat.

He jerked his head to the door.

"All of us out?"

He shook his head.

"Just you?"

"Yes."

"Not the best idea."

He growled, but Damon came up beside him and head-butted Ryker in the shoulder. Ryker hissed, but Damon did too. He wouldn't let Ryker go out there alone.

"All or none of us," I said. I twisted the door handle and pushed the door open, and Ryker glided out the door. Damon followed, and then Kane. I shifted one more time and followed them out even though I didn't know what we would find.

Kane

Fucking Ryker. He should have let one of us do recon, but no, he had to go out that door.

It was an eerie quiet, and as I looked around the heat, the scent of tropical vegetation and the slant of the sun in the sky told me that we did not go far.

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