Page 47 of Protected By Her Mate

It hits me she hasn’t slept any more than I have and she doesn’t have the body of a shifter to sustain her when the going gets tough.

Our date the evening before feels like it was weeks ago. “Who’s taking care of Luke?”

“My parents came over,” she says, covering a yawn. “They’re great, always come running when I need them. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

We sit silently for several minutes when a car drives by us and parks in the driveway of the house we’re staking out.

“Now that’s interesting,” Charlie says, leaning forward in her seat.

Even more interesting, the person who steps outside the vehicle is someone we recognize. Officer Hogan from the blast scene.

“So he is a shifter hater,” Charlie observes.

“Maybe he’s here to ask questions. Maybe the LA cops know more about ASHRA than we were led to believe.”

“He’s going inside.”

We wait for him to re-emerge.

“I’m so tired, I must be hallucinating.” Charlie moves forward in her seat again, squinting, her gaze on the sky.

Frowning, I lean forward as well. She points and I follow the line of her finger. She’s right, I see it too, but what? As I watch, it grows progressively larger.

“It’s not moving fast enough to be an airplane,” she muses.

It’s moving up and down as it steadily approaches. “Shit,” I growl.

“What is it?” Charlie says, alarmed.

“Dragon.” Without taking my eyes off the sky, I say to Charlie, “We need to get out of here fast. Dragon fire is hotter than lava and we don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.”

“You can’t have said what I think you just said.” But she throws the car in drive and does a three-point U-turn in the street, speeding away from the Los Angeles ASHRA headquarters.

I lose sight of Pinky for a split second, then her giant wings crest over top of the house. Seconds later, she lets out a roar and a glow lights up her long fuchsia throat before a stream of fire bursts from her snout, blazing a path of destruction below her.

No one can survive dragon fire. Everyone in that house, Hogan included, will have burned to death.

Chapter 18

Lit

CHARLIE

Idrive us to the nearest motel, a seedy establishment on the outskirts of the city surrounded by an equally seedy strip mall and acres of scrub brush. It’ll have to do. I can’t drive any further. My brain is fried from exhaustion.

“Only one room available. Queen bed. You’ll have to be out by morning,” the desk clerk says without looking up from his computer.

Looking at Lennox, I say, “It’s the one-bed romance trope.” I start giggling, finding everything about our situation hilarious. My hot and cold semi-boyfriend is going to be forced to share a room with me. Not just a room, but a bed too!

The line between his eyes draws down, and I know he heard my thought, which only serves to make me laugh harder.

“We’ll take the room,” he tells the clerk, pulling a credit card from his wallet and handing it over.

“Don’t forget to get the receipt,” I gasp, unable to contain my giggles. “You know, because we’re here for work. Wouldn’t want to accidentally use the royal coffers for this.”

He grips my arm and leads me out the front door. “You need sleep. You’re not making any sense.”

“No, you’re not making any sense.” Am I slurring? I pull my arm away and grab my bag from the car while he does the same.

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