Page 64 of Seducing the Dragon
Bram signaled to his team of five dragon-shifters in human form to wait. Once two dragons swooped down and gently landed on the four-story abandoned building in the distance, he nodded at his team and moved.
Surveillance and tapping their local contacts had confirmed the Carlisle hunters were still using one of the two tunnels reported in the DDA’s reports. That was how Bram and his team would try to enter the hideout.
Bram crept through the bushes hiding the entrance until he found the branches concealing the door. Picking up a stick, he pushed aside the branches and held his breath, but he didn’t see any sort of alarm or keypad. Simon Bourne and his hunters were clever enough to have silent alarms, but Kai and Bram had earlier decided to risk it. After all, Bram’s break-in was a decoy meant to divide resources.
Raising a hand to signal for everyone to be ready to fight, Bram rammed his shoulder against the wooden door. On the second try, the old wooden frame splintered. The door gave way and he barreled inside the dark tunnel.
The blackness was no match for his keen dragon-shifter eyesight. With each step, his dragon pushed harder against the wall inside his mind. Bram’s patience with his dragon was nearing its limit. He took what few precious seconds he could spare to say,You can help me soon. I need my human half for the plan to work.
Let me out. I will make you stronger.
When the time comes, I’ll do that. For now, stop with the bloody roaring. You’re acting like a two-year-old who didn’t get the sweets he wanted at the shop.
His dragon huffed.I’ll give you ten minutes of peace. If you don’t use me by then, I’ll find a way out of this prison.
Bram could just make out a door at the end of the tunnel. He quickly instructed his beast,Wait for my signal.
Slamming up the partition in his mind again, Bram stopped in front of the new door and put his ear against the cool, metal surface. He could hear more than a few pairs of footsteps on the other side as well as the shuffling of equipment and muffled shouts. Chances were the hunters knew the tunnel had been breached.
Good.If they were occupied with Bram and his team, they wouldn’t notice the other dragons’ approach.
He conjured up Evie’s dark blue eyes and red hair. Using her face to focus, Bram shoved against the door, but the metal didn’t give. Unable to shift, he’d brought along a gun. Taking it out, he flicked off the safety and shot the lock three times. With another shove against the door, it gave way and he burst into a giant room of chaos.
People were running about, picking up supplies. On the far side of the room, a large group of human men and women dressed in black formed a protective circle around a smaller group of humans in white lab coats. Before he could try to guess what they were moving, the white coats escaped the room via the exit on the far side.
It was then his eyes fell on the green, unmoving dragon in the corner. The restraints and tubes told him what had been done to Charlie, and his inner dragon howled with grief.
The female Protector was dead.
Bram growled. The grief and sadness would have to wait. More than just about anyone, Charlie would understand the need to focus on saving the living before grieving for the dead. Channeling some of his inner dragon’s anger, Bram gave the signal and rushed toward the twenty or so black-clad humans still inside the large room.
It was time to give Kai the distraction he needed to save the others. Bram refused to believe Evie, Nikki, or Murray were also dead. No, if he had any say, no more of his clan members would die in this building at the hands of the hunters.
Evie had been abandonedto the dilapidated conference room for about twenty minutes. There was a guard outside her door, so escape wasn’t an option.
After a quick check of the room and not finding any real faults, she sat down. Rather than processing everything she had seen in the last half-hour, the silence had brought back memories of the dying green dragon. A dragon who was most likely dead.
First, human sacrifices had died because of her. After today, a dragon’s death would also be on her head.
For someone who had joined the DDA in hopes of protecting life, Evie saw more death than she liked. Even though she’d saved more lives than not, it was still difficult to digest.
Only remembering what she told Bram, about how she survived the two human sacrifices, helped with her guilt about the dragon. She would analyze what had caused the dragon’s death later and find a way to prevent it from happening again. Evie refused to believe this old building full of dragon hunters and scientists would be her final resting place. Somehow, some way, she’d escape and find help.
The door opened behind her. The sound sharpened her focus, although it took everything she had not to ask what had taken so bloody long.
She turned to see a male dragon-shifter in human form swagger into the room. The dragonman’s hair was longer and hesported a short beard, but there was no mistaking the eyes, the tattoo, or the slightly crooked nose of Neil Westhaven.
Instead of screaming “murderous traitor,” Evie merely raised an eyebrow and asked, “What do you want?”
The dragonman flipped around one of the chairs and sat with the back facing his front. “I’m guessing by your nonchalance you’re either quite calm in stressful situations or you’ve seen my face before.”
“Both, but I’m more curious about you. They’re killing a dragon in this facility for their blood, yet you don’t seem to care.”
He shrugged. “Stonefire interfered in my private life. When they chose to protect the human sacrifice over one of their own, I stopped caring about them. I left and made sure the human female got what she deserved. The only good thing to come of it all is the child has secured my position here.”
His tone was almost bored, the bastard.Punching him in the face won’t accomplish anything. You need information, Evie Marie, or you’ll never make it out of here.
Right, then.With a deep breath, she forced her voice to remain neutral when she said, “So they’re starting a blood farm here, aren’t they?”
