Page 72 of Bad Blood Alpha

Fucking awesome. They were going to rescue an enraged, insane dragon and set him free. Maybe that muzzle wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

While Kira worked on her sister, Flynn began searching the lab area. There were a few paper notes and files, all of them with recent dates, none of them conveniently labeled “My Evil Plan in Excruciating Detail.” And a quick look at the main computer capacity showed that downloading the hard drive would take too long.

He planted some C-4 and a detonator on it instead.

He checked his watch. Sloan and Caitlyn would only be a quarter of the way through their mission.

He went back to Mayah, unbuckling the restraints holding her to the chair. She was starting to regain consciousness, moaning softly. Flynn could barely stand to look at the stitches holding her mouth shut.

He’d seen enough cruelty in his life to turn him against humans and shifters both, forever. But there was something about sewing someone’s fucking mouth shut that made his stomach roil.

He found a pair of small surgical scissors and cut through the stitches. There wasn’t time to remove them, but at least she could open her mouth.

He wondered how this asshole had been keeping her alive, if she couldn’t eat. Intravenous, maybe? Or magic?

When Mayah was free, Flynn scooped her up and carried her over by the dragon cage, setting her down gently in a sitting position, her back against he wall. The dragon hissed.

Kira stood by the cage, hand extended. “Emon?” she said softly. “Emon, it’s Kira. We’re going to get you out of here. Can you Change?”

The dragon moved his head back and forth like a snake about to strike. He hissed again, and a growl rumbled in his throat.

He didn’t trust them. Or he didn’t understand. Flynn murmured to her, “Plan B.”

He was starting to get that crawling feeling between his shoulder blades. Like when something was sneaking up on him, and he didn’t know what.

Or when a mission was about to go sideways.

He scanned the room again. All quiet—no obvious alarms going off. No one lurking in the shadows.

They still had ten minutes before Sloan and Caitlyn would have the explosives set.

He said to Kira, “There’s a door at the back of the room—probably used to be a private salon or a card room. I’m thinking he might keep his files in there. Stay here with your sister.”

Kira looked up at him, her hand resting on Mayah’s arm. “It would go faster with two of us.”

It would, but he couldn’t ask her to leave them. “Try to talk to Emon,” he said. “See if you can get through to him.”

She nodded.

Flynn headed for the door at the back of the room. His shoulder blades were still prickling. They needed to fucking get through this and get out.

He touched his lapel mic. “Sloan, report.”

“Right on schedule,” he said. “Eight minutes.”

Too damn long.

He was right about the small salon, though. It had been converted into an office, with filing cabinets and a shiny new laptop—with a Gen-X logo on it.

They must have provided the generators, too, to run the electricity. How fucking generous of them. He didn’t turn the lights on—just used his small flashlight, easily extinguished if someone came looking.

Not that Mayah being out of her chair wouldn’t be a dead giveaway that someone was here.

Flynn checked for other exits. The place was lined with bookshelves and filing cabinets on one wall, tapestries on another. Behind one of those was a wooden door. Flynn cracked it open, then opened it wider when he only saw darkness beyond.

A staircase, going down. It gave a sharp turn to the left a few steps below him, and then descended into darkness.

No telling where it went. But it was a back door out, at least.