Read Online Tempted by the Jaguar #4: Infiltration (Riverford Shifters) by Cristina Rayne - Free Book Online Page A

a sinking feeling that the taste, the smell of
violence was still very much present. She stilled, almost afraid to even
breathe, as the two alpha predators stared at each other, each as still as a
marble statue.
    Then Maxim blinked, and the suffocating tension in the air seemed to dissipate
all at once.
    “I’m okay, now,” he said roughly, though his eyes still smoldered with
anger.
    Hunter nodded. “Your tiger’ll get his chance. Both of us will get our
taste of blood soon.”
    Although his words should have disturbed her, something deep inside of
her understood them well, wanted to join them, even. Kylie hastily pushed those
feelings to the side. It was best to deal with them later, when she wasn’t so
on edge and in danger of losing herself to her jaguar. Hunter and Maxim had
enough to deal with without having to chase after a rampaging Returner.
    Maxim took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Call the bobcats and
the wolf Elders and have them come to the club. I think it’s time to plan an
infiltration of our own.”
     
    ***
     
    Still reeling from the discovery that Molly, minus Ty, was now a prisoner
in a place that had done unspeakable things to God-only-knew how many others,
Kylie sat silently beside Hunter on one of the many couches in one of the VIP
sections of Southern Glacier and listened while the large group of assembled
shifters strategized.
    “One of my guys has managed to learn the identity of one of their
scientists, a geneticist from the LA lion clan,” Maxim said, bringing up a
photo of a blond man who looked to be around sixty onto the flat-screen on the
wall before them. “He’s also learned where the lion stays within Amarillo when
he is not at the ranch.”
    “I recognize the bastard,” one of the wolf Elders from Parker Grove
spoke up. “He was in the news not too long ago—something about analyzing the
mitochondrial DNA in some recently discovered Denisovan bones.”
    “If they’re mucking about with DNA, do you suppose they are trying to
develop some kind of biological weapon at that ranch?” another wolf asked.
“Something that is only affective on shifters?”
    Maxim’s expression hardened. “That’s the very reason why this needs to
be an infiltration rather than an all-out assault. We need to do this as
quietly and covertly as possible to not only give us a chance to rescue our
loved ones unharmed, but to also steal as much of their data as we can get our
hands on. The last thing we want is to go in guns blazing…” He leveled a look at the group of bobcats. “…and risk them killing all their captives and
destroying all their data. We need to be inside the complex and down in the
lower levels before they even realize they’re being invaded. We’ll back them
into a corner of our choosing. While rescuing our people will be our priority,
we need to find out what the bastards are up to just as badly, especially now
that we’re finding more and more of the bastards in our city.”
    “We can use the geneticist as our distraction,” Hunter said, looking
meaningfully at Kylie, “catch him as he’s heading back to the ranch and use his
vehicle. We can have the bobcats take out all the perimeter guards
simultaneously with tranqs while their attention is turned to the geneticist’s
arrival.”
    Maxim nodded. “I can also have some of my guys hack into their security
system. It should buy us enough time to get a couple of rescue teams inside. I
wasn’t able to locate any schematics, so we’ll be moving pretty much blind from
that point on. We only have the intel Jack Bray has provided us of the interior
and its personnel. We’ve constructed a partial floorplan based on what Jack’s
recollected.”
    The picture of the geneticist was replaced with the ranch’s partially
constructed floorplans. Kylie frowned as she noticed several underground
floors. How in the world were they ever going to find all the captives, much
less rescue them from such a structure,