Stronger as One (#1, Completed)

35. Follow the leader

RILEY

I stood there frozen. The shifter world was still new to me, but it was part of my heritage and as much as I struggled to understand it at times, the obvious threat to it sent a chill to my bones.

"Riley!... Riley! Are you okay? You didn't hear me the first few times I called you," Aiden said with concern in his voice. All I could do was to motion for him to read the last message that I had pulled up on the screen.

"Holy crap - this is bad! We need to get Nat and get out of here before we play right into the hands of these guys."

Just then Rafe burst into the room.

"I know where my sister is."

I quickly shut down the laptop to make sure that no one could figure out that we had accessed it. I knew that I would have to speak to the others about whatever was going on here but first, we needed to save Natalia.

"Where is she, Rafe? And how do you know?"

"We mind-linked. She is very weak because they are keeping her drugged." His jaw clenched in anger, his hands tightened in fists. "The mind link was very weak because of it but she seems to be okay. Well, alive. They are keeping her in...." he paused and I knew that he was probably getting flashbacks from his own time spent here, " in the dungeons below."

I touched the earpiece of my radio and instructed everyone that we were heading for the dungeons. We barely made our way to the ground floor though, when one of the guards spotted us. Hardly a second later I heard the security alarm blaring around the mansion. Great, so much for the element of surprise.

We hid behind whatever furniture we could find as more guards emerged, shooting at us with their guns. Our group returned the fire, taking some of them out in the process.

"Guys, we need to split up in order to take control. Callum, Aiden, you are closer to the other door so try to go around and attack them from behind, cutting off their reinforcements from wherever they are coming. See if you can shift if needed." They both nodded and subtly made their way through the other door as we covered them. "James, Rafe, we need to try to get to the dungeon entrance on our left. Clear?"

I turned around looking for their agreement but instead all I saw was Rafe getting up from behind the table that he and I were using as cover and trying to sprint for the dungeon door. For fuck sake, will he ever learn to listen?

I didn't have time to think further about it though as I felt the hairs at the back of my neck stand up, alerting me to impending danger. It felt like time changed to slow motion- I peeked from behind the table and I saw that the guards were preparing to use the same energy ball blaster like the one they used to me and Nat when she got kidnapped. I saw them aim at Rafe and shoot as he moved towards the door, and my instincts kicked in at that point.

I jumped towards him to push him out of the way while James shot our attackers but not before they had fired the energy ball. I felt myself collide with Rafe's body second before the energy ball hit us. We both fell on the ground behind a nearby wall.

At first, I wondered why I didn't feel the blast from the energy ball but when I saw my glowing protection bracelet, I realised that it had once again saved me from whatever magic these guys were using. It's only then that I noticed that was lying on top of Rafe. I turned my head to look at him but that was a big mistake as I suddenly found myself dangerously close to his lips. My breathing hitched and my mind went blank as I was not sure what smart thing to say right now to downplay how intimate our position felt. The bastard beat me to it though.

"You know, Moreau, you didn't have to go through all that trouble to get on top of me," he smirked. "Next time just ask." Prick.

"In case you didn't notice, I saved you, you idiot. And why can't you simply follow the plan?" All I wanted was to wipe that overconfident expression off his face. Apparently, my words worked because he turned stone-faced before he rolled us over to be on top of me.