Lycan Legacy - Paladin: Tales of Luna White - Werewolf Veronica Singer (children's ebooks online txt) 📖

the open area. The way I wended our path, what would have been about two hundred meters in a straight line took us over twice that distance.

At the door, I magically bypassed the sensors and alarms. I used my magical lock-pick to open the door quicker than a human could have opened it with a key.

Once inside, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I inhaled and scented a human, barely a second before she appeared at the end of the hallway. She was a grandmotherly type in a shapeless floor-length black housedress. She jerked at the sight of us, and her eyes grew wide. I gave her my most sincere smile and put a finger to my lips to shush her.

No good. She opened her mouth to scream.

Then the ball of nitrogen I had formed around her head took effect. Her eyes rolled up and she collapsed to the floor.

“Good thing she fainted,” murmured Manny.

Mike and I swapped a look as he used flex-cuffs to bind her hands and feet. Manny opened a door, revealing a closet, and Mike placed her inside as gently as possible while I fretted at the delay. He was sometimes too nice for this kind of work.

There was no one else up at this hour, so we quickly made our way to Logan’s location. A door opened onto a downward-running stairwell that led to another door. We waited on the stairwell for several moments as I probed the area beyond the door. No scent of anyone other than Logan.

I opened the door to a well-lit garage and stepped through.

There were no cars here.

Logan, in wolf form, was held by a collar made from two half-circles of solid silver, welded together to encircle his neck. A length of braided silver cable, about three meters long and thicker than my thumb, ended in an eyelet at the collar. The other end of the cable was looped around the pillar and through the eyelet at that end.

I raced to Logan and stroked his head, avoiding contact with his restraints. The tight collar was coated with Logan’s blood, which burned and smoked at the touch of silver.

“Don’t worry, Logan,” I whispered, “your alpha’s here now. We’re going to get you out of here.”

I channeled moonlight magic through my touch and joy leaped in my heart as Logan’s eyes flickered open.

From the other side of the room, Manny said loudly, “Are you crazy? You brought us on a hostage rescue mission for a fucking dog?”

17

Logan and I both stared at Manny and growled, my blue eyes expanding to match Logan’s deep amber.

Manny backed to the door, palms up and sweating profusely.

Mike stepped forward to block Manny’s view, and said, “Hey, Logan. Let’s get you out of here.”

He froze at Logan’s growl. I erected my soundproof bubble around us to prevent Logan’s growls from waking everyone in the building.

“He’s been stuck as a wolf for too long,” I said. “Don’t move. Even with my scent on you he might attack.”

I forced my eyes and fangs to shift back to human. Manny was shaking his head back and forth, rejecting what he was seeing.

I crooned in Fae to Logan, using the sleep-inducing lullaby I had used on the twins and Mike. His enraged eyes dimmed, and he blinked slowly several times. Each blink took a bit longer than the previous one.

Finally, despite the pain caused by the silver, he slept. I eased his massive head to the ground and stepped away. I pulled my gloves on, grabbed the cable, and gave it a tug. The loop tightened against the pillar and the cable groaned, but everything was solid. Maybe the cable was a mixture of metals? If it had steel strands interwoven with the silver, it would be much stronger than pure silver.

“We need to break this cable so we can get him out of here,” I said.

“You don’t have any tricks to get him free? Can’t you unsnap that collar?”

“That’s not a dog,” Manny muttered behind us. “That’s a goddamn wolf.”

“No. It’s welded and so tight it’s embedded in his flesh. My lock-pick won’t work, it’s too strong to break, and the construction makes it impossible for me to freeze.”

“Freeze?” muttered Manny.

“Yeah. I once froze a link in a silver chain to liquid nitrogen temperature to make it brittle enough to break like glass. I was able to isolate that link from the next, and I still almost lost an arm. If I try that with this cable, it will freeze Logan before I can break it.”

“Why not use those fancy hydraulic snips you used on the concertina wire?” asked Manny.

Because my claws won’t work on silver.

Mike stepped in with, “They broke after she cut the last wire.” Turning to me, he asked, “Can’t you force him to shift to human? The collar is tight, but his neck is a lot smaller when he’s human.”

“Not as long as he’s touching silver.”

“There’s got to be something we can do,” said Mike. “Maybe use some C-4 to break the cable?”

I balanced the efficiency of my sound dampening field against the force needed to blow the cable. The explosion would either kill us or bring down the roof on our heads.

“That won’t work. Maybe if both of you put your hands under the collar around his neck to isolate—”

“Hell, no!” Manny jerked his head around like he was searching for a way to escape. “I’m not getting within ten feet of those jaws.”

“Can you keep him calm enough that he won’t attack if we touch him?” asked Mike.

“I can’t promise,” I admitted. “He’s in a lot of pain right now.”

Logan’s eyes fluttered open and he growled. I pulled the gloves off and sat next to him, stroking his head and crooning until he slept again.

Then Manny seemed to snap out of his astonished daze. “Good thing I came with you,” he said as he rummaged through his pack. “This is what we need.”

He held up a hacksaw with a smile. Then his