Page 9 of Dragon’s Rebel

Chapter 4

Three hours later, Rebel was suspended from a cable ten stories above the ground, hovering just outside the tinted plate glass windows of BioGen’s office building on the outskirts of Tacoma. Ready to break in and steal the serum that would hopefully turn Thorne back into a human.

Find the Seal. Save the world. Go back to real life.

She counted the windows again, confirming her position. Two floors down, check. Third window from the left, south side. Check.

She sent a mental thought out to Thorne, who was circling overhead. I’m set. Going in.

His reply came immediately. Be careful.

Stop hovering, Lizard. I’m always careful.

Technically I’m gliding, not hovering. And it’s a long way to the ground for someone with no wings.

I got this. Now stop distracting me.

He went silent. Rebel immediately missed the sense of his presence, which was disturbing. Like she was getting dependent on him—and getting dependent on a guy was the last thing she needed. Especially if it was a broody, difficult, magic-wielding guy.

That would just lead to frustration and heartache. And thinking about it was a direct road to fucking up and getting caught. She had to focus.

From her combat vest, she pulled a heavy-duty suction cup with a handle, and her glass cutter. Attaching the suction cup to the glass, she cut a wide circle around it.

Now for the tricky part.

She could feel the electric current of the security system that covered the windows. Rebel concentrated, pulling the electrical field over herself like a blanket, until the system was fooled into thinking she was part of the window.

This was her own secret superpower, the reason she was such a successful thief. She could manipulate any energetic field, magical or electronic, and either escape it at will, or become part of it.

Like now.

She pushed the circle of glass though the hole, laying it on the credenza someone had conveniently placed under the window. Then she carefully swung herself through, feet first, avoiding the glass.

She crouched on top of the credenza, automatically checking out her surroundings.

The office was dark and empty. According to their intel this was an executive office, with no security cameras or audio.

Too many illegal deals going down that they didn’t want recorded, probably.

Not her problem. She was here for one thing, and one thing only.

She disengaged her harness from the cable and headed for the computer on the desk. She fired it up and inserted the thumb drive with the codes Thorne’s hundred grand had bought her. Life was so much easier when you were bankrolled by someone who was literally rolling in gold.

The software automatically bypassed the login and used the network to hack into the security system. Rebel took over the cameras for this floor and forced them to play a recurring loop of the last few minutes, so the watchers in the security control room would see nothing but empty rooms and hallways. She had fifty-seven minutes before guards passed through the hallways on their next security sweep, and the control room realized they couldn’t see them on the video feed.

Plenty of time.

She used the security hack to disable the locks and motion sensors in the storage vault, and access the files on the serum she was about to steal.

Then she took an extra minute to download the latest security protocols and alerts, in case their intel was out of date already.

Which it was.

There was a red flag from two days ago. A breach of one of the labs, and a theft of Shifter Toxin DRA-4269. Whatever that was. The company had tripled their security team, and were doing sweeps every twenty minutes.

Instead of fifty-four minutes before the next sweep, she now had fourteen.

Fuck.