Here Kitty, Kitty - 73. Chapter 26.2

Tristan met the concerned gazes of his team.

“I don’t want to hear it. We have more important things to worry about than my mother’s lousy taste in bond mate. I will deal with the fallout from this after we get our people back. Understood?”

Slowly everyone nodded. Tristan focused on Carl and finally, his mate acquiesced with a tilt of his head. But, the look in his eyes said they would be having a serious conversation at their earliest convenience.

With a curt gesture, he strode forward, picking his way over the body of the man he had thought of as his father. Now? He wasn’t so sure.

Looking at the crude map the prisoner had drawn for them he turned left and brought up a shield in time for a shifter to bounce straight off it and into the wall.

He dropped back and allowed the shifter members of his team to engage. The battle was bloody and short but was loud enough to raise the alarm.

“There are more coming, we need to move.” Kitryn’s voice in his mind was loud and filled with tension.

“Turn right and then take the next left.” It took a moment for Tristan to realize he was hearing Meg. Someone had obviously extended the mind link to include everyone instead of the separate ones he set up to start with.

Following the instructions, the sound of footsteps faded. The last turn they took brought them to a locked door.

“The way is clear,” came Meg’s voice again. “Cheryl is through the door and in the second room on the left. She has guards with her, but the number is being hidden, even from Fran.”

Tristan sent an acknowledgement and gestured for everyone to gather around.

“Options?”

“Frontal assault and bull our way through.” That suggestion—unsurprisingly—came from Kitryn.

Tristan just glared and turned to the others, trying to ignore the mental argument now going on between Kitryn and Simon.

“As much as I hate to agree with the cat,” Carl’s comment elicited a low hiss from Kitryn. He may be right. The only way in is the door, so a frontal assault is the only option I see.”

Carl raised a finger. “What about a distraction. If another team makes a lot of noise at the opposite end of the hallway, either all or most of the guards with Cheryl may go to investigate. That will improve our odds of overpowering whoever is left in the room.”

Tristan looked at the rest of the team and everyone nodded that they thought that was the best option. Carl sent out a mental call for another team to meet them and they waited.

***

“Heard you needed a distraction,” came Orion’s amused voice and Tristan looked down to meet the dwarf’s gaze.

“If you wouldn’t mind. If, of course, you don't have something better to do today.”

Tristan ignored Orion’s scowl and eventually the dwarf turned and motioned to his team.

Both teams headed through the door and Tristan kept his by the door to the hallway as Orion’s team crept along and past the room Cheryl was in. Once they were a short distance past it, they started yelling and hollering curses and war cries.

Four men came barreling out of the room and Orion’s team took off. The dwarves may have been short, but they were very fast.

Carl and the other vamps on the team blurred away, followed closely by the shifters.

Once the sound of flesh meeting flesh and dying groans had calmed down Carl called out the all clear.

Tristan sauntered into the room to see Cheryl in a standoff with one very pissed of kitty.

Hope the new year is treating everyone well