shift back into his dragon form when Charlie growled a warning at them all.
They’d spent years working together as a team, learning each other’s quirks and developing their own warning calls. Wyntir had warned him first that Ruphus was about to attack, and now Charlie was telling them all to back off. Despite being the new guy on the team, and only with a few days under his belt, even Grizz caught on because he pulled free of Ruphus just as Charlie blew a massive blue bubble at him.
Fire blazed in Ruphus’s jaws, ready to blast them all, but the bubble floated over and enveloped him and his fire. It fizzled out promptly, leaving the dragon glaring at all of them.
With Jake incinerated and Ruphus contained, Thrett bolted back to the auditorium to find his son. He had to be around somewhere, but Thrett couldn’t shake the unnerving worry that Jake had been lying all along and an accomplice had made off with Trystin.
He pounded on the main entrance and called for Rylan to let him in. As soon as she cracked open the door, he burst inside. Never in his life had he felt so helpless and so guilty at the same time. He wanted to rage and scream and cry and… No, he wanted to find his son, and by god, that’s what he was going to do!
“Where’s Trystin?” they both asked each other at the same time.
Instead of finding it amusing, they both looked crushed as understanding set in. Trystin was still missing.
Rylan’s eyes were already rimmed with red, standing out sharply against her pale skin. He swept her into his arms and held her as she sobbed against his shoulder. Wetness filled his own eyes and he struggled to maintain control, but the strongest will was nothing in the face of losing a child.
Then the sweetest sound reached his ears and he nearly cried with relief.
“Don’t cry, Mommy. I’m right here.”
They both turned to find Trystin climbing out from inside a nearby wooden lectern that had been pushed up against a wall. What the hell was the kid doing inside a piece of furniture?
It didn’t matter. They were together again, just the way it was meant to be.
Chapter Ten
Thrett’s leg jiggled furiously under the table as he checked his watch for the thirteenth time since the meeting started. He was antsy to get out of this conference room and head back to Rylan’s house so he could be with his family—where he belonged. Every minute spent apart from them physically hurt him, and he wondered if that feeling would ever go away. He hoped not.
Nothing was more important than family. Charlie had told him that and—surprise, surprise—he was right. The family he’d developed at Wildridge was wonderful, but they didn’t need him. But now he had Rylan and Trystin, who needed him as much as he needed them. He’d die before he let a hair on either of their heads come to harm, and Thrett was a pretty damn hard dragon to bring down. They filled a void in him he’d never realized existed. Funny how life could turn on a dime like that.
But his personal life had almost no effect on his duties as a security specialist at Wildridge, so he sat between Wyntir and Grizz at the conference table, going over the events of the day.
Despite his being new to the team, Grizz fit right into the group’s dynamic, and Thrett really appreciated the guy’s Shifter Bureau of Investigation-level of professionalism. Not that they could pat each other’s asses and make champagne toasts just yet. There were still too many loose ends to tie up before they could celebrate.
“The dragon we apprehended is safely in custody,” Charlie announced, making eye contact with each of them. “We’ve learned that he—”
Charlie paused to sniff the air and then pulled a face. Tessa sat between him and Dyrk, happily tapping the meeting notes on her laptop with a large bottle of kombucha sitting next to her. She slowed her typing and looked up at him, lips forming a small O, and then she screwed the cap back on the bottle, toning down the vague scent of vinegar in the room.
“Thank you, dear,” he flashed a kind smile before going on. “As I was saying, it appears he is one of Grizz’s former associates from the SBI—most likely hired by Joshua Slocum before we knew he was a traitor. He’s now awaiting trial for murder and attempted kidnapping.”
“What