“It’s me, baby.” Stone squatted down in front of me, holding out his hand. “It’s okay.”
I leaned my head out as far as it would go and sniffed.
Oh.
I whimpered as I scooted closer, pressing myself into my mate.
“Sin, can you shift back for me?”
Huh?
Stone grabbed my head and stared down into my eyes. “I need you to shift back, baby. I need you human.”
Crap.
I tried to remember what it was like to shift, to turn back into a human. It had been so long. I yelped when my bones began to crack and realign, my muscles stretching and contracting. My yelp turned into a howl, which morphed into a scream as my body became human once more.
Fuck, that hurt.
“Jesus, baby.” Stone crushed me in his arms. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I thought you’d lost me, too.”
“You shifted, baby.”
“Yeah, I got that.” I lifted my head and glanced around. “Conrad shot one of the kids, and I—Conrad! Where is he?”
There was a lot of blood, but Conrad was nowhere to be seen.
“Stryker has him, Sin. Don’t worry.”
“He kidnapped all these kids, him and Councilman James.” I clutched at Stone, needing to make him understand. “There are more, but they’ve already been taken away.”
“We’ll find them,” someone behind me said.
I shuddered when I glanced over and saw the man crouched down beside me and Stone. “You’re the cook.”
“That’s sort of a hobby,” the guy replied. “I’m actually an agent for the council.”
I squinted at the guy. “Why did you pretend to be the cook?”
The guy shrugged. “I was undercover.”
Of course.
“I take it you didn’t poison me?”
He shook his head. “No, that was all Conrad. I don’t put poison in my food. I prefer a face to face attack if I need to take someone out.”
“Then, could you make me an all meat pizza? I’m starving.”
The man chuckled. “Why don’t we get these kids upstairs where a doctor can take a good look at them, and then I’d be happy to make pizza for everyone?”
“Deal.”
I returned my attention to Stone. “What happened to you? When you didn’t come back to the bedroom, I went to look for you. There was blood in my office. I thought it was yours.”
Stone jerked his head toward the cook. “I caught this guy going through your computer.”
