Saving His Mate (A vampire-werewolf romance) by Savannah Stuart, Katie Reus Page A

wealthy.
    Owning beach front property anywhere could be pricey, but they also owned an entire condominium building next door to Kincaid’s personal residence. At least almost everyone was at work. And even though she knew for a fact they had a security system, she’d thrown a giant boulder through the back French doors a couple days ago in preparation.
    Lauren had felt like a total jerk doing it, but she’d needed them to replace the doors. Which they’d done this morning. The chances of them having already replaced the security contact that would be standard with the system on the new doors was about five percent. More like zero percent considering she’d been watching the house practically ever since she’d ruined the doors. And when she hadn’t been spying, one of her pridemates had.
    As she examined the French doors now she realized the lock was also new. And it wasn’t the cheap kind either. But, she was very good at getting into places she shouldn’t.
    Less than sixty seconds later she was inside the master bedroom. After a quick perusal of the top part of the door frame she breathed a sigh of relief to see no new contacts in place. Carefully closing the door behind her, she paused and glanced around the giant room. With her supernatural eyesight she didn’t need to turn on a light to see everything—not that she would anyway. Might as well just put up a bright neon sign that she’d broken in.
    The furniture was masculine, but there were definitely feminine touches. Not that Lauren cared about any of the décor. Now she was focused on looking for a safe. If he were going to hide diamonds and emeralds, it would definitely be in a safe. There was a slim chance he’d put it in a bank vault, but shifters and vamps, especially one as old as him, were weird about that stuff. No, they liked to keep their valuables close on hand.
    For all she knew a silent alarm had gone off. There weren’t any visible sensors in the bedroom, but that didn’t mean shit. She knew that by breaking in blind without knowing the complete layout of the security system she was taking a chance but almost no one had sensors in their bedrooms. It didn’t make sense. Living room areas and downstairs areas of course, but bedrooms and any upstairs saw too much foot traffic on a daily basis.
    Moving quickly and quietly she went to the most obvious place to hide a safe. The closet. Nothing there. She searched behind picture frames next, then everywhere else she could think of before moving to the next room. The door was open to reveal an office.
    Pausing, she could hear only the wind and waves outside. There were residual scents in the house but that made sense. She stepped inside the room, her boots silent against the rich hardwood floor. Two steps in, she realized she wasn’t alone. It was like an abrupt assault on her senses and her inner animal simply knew.
    Before she could turn fully around, she was tackled to the ground by a huge male. Definitely supernatural.
    Strong, muscular arms encircled her from behind, throwing her to the ground, the male on top of her. Somehow he managed to angle their fall so he took the brunt of the impact on his arms. All the air left her lungs in a whoosh as panic slammed through her. She hadn’t heard him, hadn’t even scented him. That alone told her how dangerous he was.
    Though all her animal instinct told her to fight, she knew she was at a disadvantage. Going limp, she didn’t struggle. The second she was set free or her captor loosened his grip, she was running. Wolves might be strong, but jaguars were wicked fast. In human and shifter form.
    “What the hell are you doing sneaking around in wolf territory in my alpha’s fucking house?” a familiar male voice said near her ear, a trickle of his fresh scent that reminded her of the beach in winter enveloping her.
    She hadn’t scented him before, probably because of her own fear and panic at doing such a stupid thing—but now his scent covered