Series: Shifter Ops Series by Renee Rose
Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 30911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 155(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 155(@200wpm)___ 124(@250wpm)___ 103(@300wpm)
“You have no proof,” Charles sputters.
Selene sweeps her hand out towards us. “We have the word of these shifters.”
“Shifters–” Charles sneers.
“--who I consider to be close and personal friends,” Selene adds.
Declan and I blink at each other. Close and personal friends? Maybe she meant Allison and Fiona.
“Let’s recap. You hired men to follow these shifters and capture them. When that didn’t work, you tried again yourselves.”
“It’s impossible to find good hired help this century,” Charles sneers.
“You took our friends, put them in cages. And tried to entice them to kill Lucius. But let me guess.” She pulls a sheet of paper out of her pocket. “The instructions to activate kill mode didn’t work.”
“Aww, yeah. Check and fucking mate,” Fiona says. She strolls over to us in human form, dressed in her jeans and boots and crop top, and pulling on her jacket.
“What, what’s happening?” I ask. “I don’t understand.”
“Lucius and I knew there was a coup brewing. We wanted to quash it, but we needed the vampires to act first. So we planted the idea that there are shifters bred fast and dangerous enough to take down Lucius.” She waves the paper. “And there’s a code to hypnotize them to do anyone’s bidding.”
“The code,” Allison says, “is the Cuban Shuffle?”
“So that’s why they kept dancing.” I rub my head.
“Yes,” Selene chuckles. “We thought they’d come after me, and then I could destroy them fairly. We had no idea that things would go so far off the rails.”
“I told ya, it couldn’t be us,” Declan says to Charles.
Charles looks too angry to speak. “That’s…that’s entrapment.”
“All’s fair in vampire wars.” Selene pats his cheek, hard, almost a slap. Then she slams the stake into his chest.
There’s a frightened cry from over by the truck. Jenkins has made it to his feet. He tries to run for the far edge of the field, but Selene appears at the fence, waiting for him. There’s a wet, sucking sound, and he falls. Selene plants her boot on the stake and slams it home.
Lucius sighs like he’s watching a clip of an adorable puppy. “All done, moon of my heart?”
Selene straightens and dusts off her hands. “All done.” She disappears and reappears in front of Lucius, smiling up at him.
The barn doors creak open. Laurie comes out, holding the blanket with one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other. “W-w-what’s g-going on?”
He drops his hand and sees the staked vampires, Selene and Lucius, and Allison wrapped in my coat. He does a double take and twitches backwards so hard a cloud of feathers explodes behind his head.
“Chillax, Laurie.” Fiona gives him a double thumbs up. “We won.”
Laurie
My head and heart are pounding from the vampire scent, but from the looks of things, the action’s over. Allison breaks away from the group to stand close to me, and her sweet scent helps.
Selene produces a pack from somewhere and pulls out a set of blankets. The fabric is thin enough to roll into a tiny packet, but unfurls as a square large enough to cover our nakedness. It’s soft and warm, too.
“How did you get here so fast?” Fiona asked.
“Allison texted me last night.” Selene shakes out a third blanket for Fiona, who’s in short sleeves. When Fiona waves it away, Selene hands it to Declan instead. “I wanted to come then, but Lucius didn’t think the werebears would appreciate us showing up on their doorstep.”
Parker snorts, and I know what he’s thinking. He explained to me once that under Lucius and Selene, the shifters and vampires have come to a careful truce. They keep the peace by ignoring each other; otherwise, it’d be a bitter fight with heavy losses on both sides.
“So we flew up here and bunked out at our favorite Taos resort. Lucius didn’t want to me to see my Saturnalia present before we celebrate, but it’s almost solstice, so…” she shrugs and turns to Lucius. “Are these my presents?” She points at the herd of vampire deer, a delighted smile brightening her pale face.
“Yes, my queen.” Lucius lifts the hair from her nape and presses a kiss there.
“They’re so cute!”
“Aren’t they?” Allison says. She and Selene start chatting about the herd and Lucius’ plan to free them.
Fiona rubs her arms like she’s chilled, and when Declan sidles up to Fiona and places the blanket around her shoulders, she doesn’t shrug him off.
Parker paces over to me. “You okay, L-bird?”
I nod.
“I still can’t believe they came all this way to help us.” He pitches his voice low, but there’s no such thing as too quiet for a paranormal to hear.
“Of course, we’d come help you out,” Selene speaks up. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Uh…” Parker and I look at each other frantically. I wish I could pull the blanket over my head.
Fiona answers for us, in her usual blunt manner. “Um, because you’re with the freaking King of the Vampires, and they're them.”