Feeling like an idiot, he shook his head to clear his thoughts. "That went well."
He restudied the building. If he went to the sides of the glass, he risked setting the house on fire. He was pretty sure Valerie was probably locked in her room, so he didn't want her to have no way to escape.
That left one option. He rose to the roof and landed. With his sharp talons, he ripped a hole in the roof and yanked the insulation out of the way. Once he had a way into the attic, he shifted into human form and crawled down into the gaping hole. Being a dragon definitely had its benefits.
He hoped that no one would expect one of them to actually breach the house. He found the staircase that led down from the attic and hurried to the door at the bottom. As carefully as he could, he eased it open. From his calculations, he should be on the same floor that Valerie was being held on.
No one was in the hallway as he opened the door enough to slide out. He got his bearings and ran toward the door at the end of the hall. It wasn't an ordinary bedroom door, and from the quality of the lock on it, he didn't figure he was wrong about Valerie being on the other side. He flipped the lock and peeked inside.
"Ty!"
Valerie came toward him with Mitchell in her arms. He put a finger to his lips. He just needed her to get back to the attic with him so he could fly them out.
They were halfway down the hallway when Randall appeared at the top of the stairs from the level below. "Think you're going somewhere, Valerie?"
Tyson stepped in front of her. "She's going with me." His mind whirled as to his options. There was no way he could shift in the tight confines of the hallway.
"She's not going anywhere, especially with my son." He held up his hand, and Tyson frowned at the syringe he held. "We have a little business to attend to, my son and I."
"What the hell is that?"
Valerie snarled at him. "It's a shot to force Mitchell to morph into a wolf or whatever they call it. He's not old enough, but Randall is out of time or he loses his alpha position. It'll kill Mitchell because he's not ready."
Randall's lip curled. "I'll make you a deal. Put the boy down, and I'll allow you two to walk away. I'll only make this offer once."
"Allow?" Tyson's temper exploded. "I don't need some dog giving me permission to do anything, especially right before he's about to murder his own kid."
Randall laid the syringe on a shelf that hung on the wall. "Very well. We'll do this the hard way."
Tyson watched in horror as a cracking sound filled the air. He turned and pushed Valerie. "He's shifting. Get to the attic. I'll be there in a minute."
"You can't fight him. You can't shift in here."
"We don't have time to argue. Go!"
In a moment, a full sized wolf stood in front of him. He maneuvered his way away from Valerie the best he could to try and give her a clear path to the attic. But Randall's snout was pointed straight at her.
"You're not keeping the kid, you sonofabitch."
Randall's attention switched to Tyson. He took a step forward with his hackles up. Tyson kicked out at him. "Come on, you mangy cur dog. Pick on someone your own size for once."
Valerie was almost past when Tyson watched her divert her direction and actually walk closer to the wolf. She grabbed the syringe off the shelf and shoved the plunger. Fluid squirted all over the floor before she ran toward the attic.
Randall turned at her movement and started to follow, but Tyson launched himself to cover the distance and tackled the big dog to the floor. They wrestled on the floor, and even though he couldn't shift into a dragon, Tyson still had some of the strength advantages at his disposal.
Randall tried to twist and bite, but Tyson was too quick to move out of the way. He regained his feet and the two of them squared off again. Valerie was out of sight.
"I told you. You have to get through me to get to her again, and you're not used to someone fighting back."
Randall sprung at him, but Tyson caught the wolf in the side of the head with a mighty right hook. He flew into the wall and bounced off before he hit the floor.
When he rose, Randall apparently noticed that Valerie was no longer with them. He suddenly turned to spring down the hallway toward the attic, but Tyson managed to grab one of his back paws. When Randall leapt toward the empty hallway, his leg hyper-extended from Tyson holding on. With a yelp, he fell to the floor again.
Tyson kicked him while he was down. "This is for Londyn and all the bullshit you've put that kid through." He kicked again. "This is for Valerie for every time you touched him and made her cry."
He reared back to kick again, but Randall bolted and disappeared down the stairs to the lower floors.
"That's right, you yellow-bellied chicken. Go hide. You can dish it out, but you can't take it." He hurried to the attic stairs and rushed up. Valerie had ducked into a corner with Mitchell behind her, and they both rushed toward him.
