Page 182 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

Terrible timing. Terrible, terrible timing, because the man had just said something so reassuring and kind that my whole chest wanted to walk toward him without asking permission.

“Rafe,” I said softly.

His face changed.

The space between us thinned.

Then Max barked. A hard, full-bodied bark that cracked through the driveway and sent every thought in my head scattering.

I turned at once.

Max stood rigid, nose angled toward the far side of the front gate. His tail was high, body locked. He barked again, then pulled forward against the leash toward a white service van parked outside the gate.

My skin went cold.

Rafe looked from Max to me. “What is he trained to detect?”

“A lot of things.”

“Quinn.”

“Drugs. Weapons. Explosives.”

The last word changed the air around us. Rafe went still in a way that made every piece of him look suddenly less human.

Max barked again.

We ran.

The gate should have opened when Dimitris’s guard saw us coming. It didn’t. The booth near the entrance stood empty, its little fan still turning inside the open window. Rafe reached the gate first and tried the control panel. Nothing. I ducked into the booth and grabbed the intercom handset.

Dead.

“Shit.”

Rafe looked through the bars at the van, then back toward the house. “Stay here.”

“No.”

“Quinn.”

“No!”

His shoulders shifted, a ripple of power moving under his skin. Heat pressed outward. He was already beginning to change.

I grabbed his wrist.

The warmth of him jolted through my palm. His eyes cut to mine, gold-edged and furious.

“You’re not going alone,” I said.

“This isn’t a goddamn negotiation.”

“Correct. I’m not asking.”

“Someone may be inside.”

“Then you need someone small enough to fit where you can’t, a dog trained to find explosives, and a woman who is done letting rich men waste her time.”