He slipped his hands into his pockets while he strode across the linoleum. The alliance between the Silver Springs and the Red Rocks would merge the territory of the two packs, a shift he wasn’t looking forward to. Finn had agreed to follow Sierra, but, as her beta, he didn’t feel full confidence in his place once she’d started going to Dax for advice and not him. His restlessness had been amped to eleven and this added fuel to the fire.
“Can I help you, son?” An older woman sat behind the counter with a Grisham novel propped open in front of her. Her leathery skin suggested hard labor outside and her dark eyes were sharp when she glanced to him. Sunlight filtered through the open windows and a large steel fan echoed with a whup-whup-whup throughout the store.
“Nah, I’ve got this,” he said, flashing her a smile. “Thanks for the offer, though.”
She nodded without a grin in return as she settled into her seat. He wasn’t going to jump into interrogation mode without examining the storefront itself. Finn strolled through the aisles, scanning the shelves for anything out of place, a bag of charcoal briquettes in the wrong section, or cans with enough of a mark on them that no one else would bother buying them. His folks used to make drops and, if this was a site, he knew the tricks. He inhaled as he walked through. Past the normal scents he’d gathered upon walking in, he caught a hint of other shifters, faint enough he couldn’t quite distinguish their animals.
That wasn’t incriminating in and of itself—folks could be going in and out of this store like himself and leaving their scent. However, the odds were less likely in a human-owned store out in the middle of nowhere. Finn focused, letting the wolf ride him at the edge of turning, his fangs dropping down even though he kept them out of sight. He sank into a crouch while his hand remained on the shelving as if he were searching for something. Closer to the ground, he sniffed, trying to track any patterns.
His nostrils tingled at the scent, his wolf snapping out in aggression at the invading smells. Finn tamped the urge to growl while he followed the scent trail down the aisle, keeping out of view from the owner. He neared the section with cans of cat food, dog food, litter—all the pet basics. Right around here, the smell grew stronger, since these shifters apparently lacked ingenuity. He flipped through the boxes of dog food, noticing a couple with the tabs on the side open. Bingo.
His parents had done drops and pick-ups over the years when Ace, their meth dealer, required those runs. He recognized this protocol in action, all the tricks to avoid detection. The whole thing disgusted him all the more now that he knew what they’d been up to. Back then, he had been too young to realize the full consequence of what his parents and the other scumbags were involved with.
Time to see if the store owner’s clued in on this or not.
Finn sauntered to the counter, the box of kibble in hand. He plunked it on the surface, drawing the woman’s eyes from her Grisham novel yet again. A broad smile plastered his face as if he was friendly as get-all. “Just going to buy this today, ma’am.”
The older woman placed the hardback on the counter and poised her fingertips over the keys of the register like she was preparing to ring him up. Her gaze settled on the mark and rip in the side of the box.
“Looks like that one’s defective,” she said, a touch of insistence in her voice. “Why don’t you put it back and get a different one?”
Finn shrugged. “My dog will tear into the box anyway. I don’t mind.” He didn’t budge.
A frown spread on the woman’s face and those scraggly brows furrowed. “I’ll get you a new one.” This time, she left no room for debate in her tone, a hard edge instead. If he’d been suspicious before, he was resolute now. The owner knew what business went on in her store.
“I’ve got it,” he said, jogging over to the display. He snagged one of the clean boxes but grabbed a can of cat food with a hefty dent and slipped the thing into his pocket. Normally, he was against shoplifting, but if this gave him a chance to get a leg up, he wouldn’t waste it. Finn strode around the shelves with the regular box of puppy chow in hand for his nonexistent dog, and he plunked the kibble onto the counter before fishing out some bills.
The woman rang him up, those sharp eyes remaining on him the entire time. Her dour frown never budged from her face. Not like her lack of pleasantness mattered, because he’d gotten what he came for. Navi had wanted to confirm the drop site? Well now he had the evidence in his pocket. Finn strolled out of the general store and swung by his car to toss the box of dog food and his stolen can inside.
From where he stood, he couldn’t spot Navi on either side, but then again she’d said she would be sneaking around the back. He cast a glance to the windows as he walked the length of the general store, giving enough berth to stay out of view while heading to the back. The looming trees cast their shade everywhere and a couple of beams of sunlight peeked through the leaves to imprint on the beaten earth where a car was parked, presumably the owner’s.
Beyond the small lot, the woods sprawled out in every direction, the trees a rampant infestation around these parts.
He scanned the area, his wolf straining against his chest to race free through the forest. No sign of Navi. Anywhere.
Worry crawled up his arms when he crossed the clearing, scanning the ground for any sign of her. She’d said she’d be scouting around here, not vanishing completely out of sight. Besides, with his car still parked in place, she couldn’t have gotten far. His heartbeat picked up a couple of notches the farther he strode along the beaten dirt patch, closer and closer to the woods. He sniffed the air around him, trying to latch on to her scent.
At the edge of the woods, dark droplets against the flat ground snared his attention. Dark, dark red on a tan canvas.
Finn crouched at once, capturing the tinny stench—he could distinguish who that belonged to in a heartbeat after the way her scent had imprinted on his mind. Navi.
His stomach bottomed as he stared toward the thick cluster of trees and bushes obscuring the trail ahead of him. He’d stand a much better chance of tracking her in his four-legged form.
He cast a glance behind him, but no other cars had pulled into the lot and the general store obscured the view from the road. Finn shucked his clothes off, faced the forest and let the wolf take over.
The shift rocked through him, like returning to his true skin as his body began to morph. Fur sprouted along his arms, his sight shifted to his sharper wolf eyes and he lowered to the ground on all fours. The green leaves grew more vibrant around him, the rich scents of earth, twigs and fallen leaves tickling his nose in this form. He settled onto his pads with ease. No matter how much he honed his muscles, how often he trained, he never moved with this effortless grace in his human body. Finn never felt as connected as he did when the trill of the birds filtered into his hearing, the sun heated his fur and the crickets chirped through the bushes.
He dipped his muzzle to the ground, inhaling and imprinting her scent. From this vantage point, the trail grew illuminated where it had been obscured before. The broken twigs close to the ground, the bend in the leaves ahead. The earth crumbled beneath his paws when he padded forward, following her scent. He quickened his pace farther into the woods as her trail grew clearer and clearer with every step forward. In this form, he needed to race along the land, to indulge in the urgency that had ridden his bones when he had stepped to the back lot behind the store and she wasn’t there.
All the while, he remained aware of his peripheral. Whatever caused her to vanish promised danger and, with the Landsliders utilizing this place as their drop site, any one of them could sneak up on him at a moment’s notice.
His surroundings whirred around him while he raced forward, the crunch of twigs, the rustle of crisp leaves, and the soft breezes rifling through his fur. He listened for any indicator of Navi even as his heart raced faster and faster, a tug-of-war between sharpened worry and the exultant joy of the run.
Up ahead, he caught the flash of dark fur.
Finn skidded to slow his pace, creeping toward the figure crouched behind the bushes.
A massive black panther prowled out from the spot, her silver eyes flashing. Finn’s wolf stilled when he caught hint of the scent—Navi. Relief crashed over him. He’d never seen her shifted form, but he shouldn’t have expected anything less magnificent than the panther who prowled before him now. Her sleek coat reminded him so much of the dark shade of her hair, the muscles the same coiled power, but her stature loomed even larger in this form than the compact woman he’d begun to know.
She padded over to him and nudged her forehead against his. His wolf quieted in the presence of one of the Tribe. All the power that emanated around her on a normal basis grew unleashed in this form. This was the totem animal she’d been tethered to from birth, one of the original shifter spirits the shamans had bound to humans when their kind had been created.
Finn nudged back. Even though she might be bigger and badder than he was, Finn was still a proud wolf—he didn’t stand down to anyone, Tribe or no.
She tilted her head toward the general store, the direction he’d come from. Without waiting for a response from him, she took off, crossing the clearing with a couple of strides in her powerful form. Finn sprang after her, launching off his back limbs to hurtle forward. Tribe members could freeze an entire arena of shifters with their compulsion, and, hell, he’d seen folks get twitchy in their presence alone. However, Finn Kelly wasn’t one to run from danger.
He raced after it through the woodlands on four legs.
Even though Navi could run with the speed and agility of a panther, Finn was no slouch, and he knew these woods with a familiarity she could never hope for.
With every faster lope forward from her, Finn gained the edge by avoiding a bush or finding the shorter route rather than looping around. Before long, he ran neck and neck with the panther, close enough to get caught up in the breeze of her steady stride, an almost mechanized smoothness to her movements. His heart pulsed with his pace, but he refused to drift behind her and let her take lead.
All too fast, the beaten dirt lot behind the general store careened into view.
Finn came to a quick halt at the same time as Navi and they turned to face one another. Her luminous eyes regarded him with a measure of respect and he puffed forward, the competitive nature of his wolf sated by having held his own.
Voices came from the front of the store—no way he and Navi could reach the car and change there. Finn slunk to the bushes and began the shift. All too fast, he returned to his human form, the fur molding to smooth skin and his bones transitioning into place, despite the tug in his chest to remain as a wolf.
His clothes lay in the crumpled pile he’d left them in and he dipped down to slide his gym shorts on before stepping out past the bushes. Navi had shifted back and, instead of the massive panther from a few moments before, she stood by the nearest oak tree in her human form, buck naked. The sun warmed the deep golden undertones of her skin and those lethal curves were on full display. Her heavy breasts and hips he wanted to grip all over again had imprinted on his memory after his one night with this woman.
“What happened to your clothes?” He smirked, walking closer to her. The droplets of her blood stained the packed earth, reminding him of the near heart attack she’d given him.
She shot him a glare. “Wasn’t thinking about spares when I caught one of the Landsliders snooping around back here.”
“And you didn’t think of coming in to grab me?” he asked, his voice sharpening. All he’d seen was the blood and he had assumed the worst. He held his shirt in his hands, warring between his annoyance with her and the fact that she stood clutching her tits and glancing at the general store ahead. He let out a sigh and tossed his wifebeater to her.
She tugged it over her head, ruining the spectacular view. His shirt came down to her thighs and he couldn’t help the surge of satisfaction at his scent marked all over her. “You had your task,” she said, fixing those hazel eyes on him. “And I had mine. I’m not going to waste the time checking in when the opportunity came up. I saw the chance and took it.”
“You’re a gem to work with, aren’t you,” he responded, a slight snarl to his words. He couldn’t help himself. The irritation burned through him something fierce that he’d even worried for a heartbeat when she deemed giving him any sort of heads-up too much of a bother. “It’s about letting your partner know so they don’t come to the back, spot your damned blood and wonder what the hell happened.”
“If you’re too emotional to think with a level head, I’ll pick someone else to join me out here, Kelly,” Navi spat with a hint of a growl edging her voice. Her hazel eyes flashed silver.
“Bull-fucking-shit,” Finn argued, his fangs elongating when he faced her, arms crossed over his bare chest. “I find it hard to believe the Tribe operates like a bunch of lone wolves—that’s a surefire way to end up dead.” No way did she get to turn this shit around on him when she’d taken off without so much as a how-ya-do. No one in the Red Rock pack operated on their lonesome because the job wasn’t worth more than a person’s life, a lesson each cub learned early and one Finn had taken to heart after watching his folks waste away.
“Each of us in the Tribe has enough power that we don’t need to worry about pack mentality,” she threw back, the retort driving into him like a dagger. Guaranteed strategy to cut him off at the knees—remind him how much stronger she was. How they weren’t even in the same class.
“Well, then, guess you won’t be needing my help,” he growled. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Chapter Four
Awkward didn’t come close to describing the grade-A level tension that descended in Finn’s Challenger. Navi hunched forward in the seat, ready to spring out the moment they came to a halt. Her words had been harsh—she knew that. But goddamn, the concern in his eyes, how he got all worried prickled under her skin something fierce and, before she could help herself, the acid had spewed from her lips.
Finn gripped his steering wheel with enough strength to nearly rip the thing off. Even though he wasn’t sniping back anymore, his anger was still palpable in the car and the way those dark eyes burned suggested he remained on the edge.
Navi sucked in a deep breath, regaining some clarity despite the guilt and irritation boiling through her. “How did your end of things turn out?” she chanced, not expecting much in the way of a response from him, since the tension stretched like a live wire between them.
“They’re running something via the usual pickup routes in a nowhere town,” he responded, not bothering to look at her. She lifted her brows in surprise. After his emotional outburst before, she’d expected more of the same, not this calm and collected side. “The owner made a stink when I went to buy one of them, so I bought a regular box of dog food and in the process slipped one of the marked cans into my pocket.”
“Adding theft to the repertoire?” she teased, anxious to return to normal and avoid the whole ugly scene from before. Truth be told, she wasn’t comfortable in the slightest at what feelings emerged the moment those brown eyes glowed with a care she wasn’t used to.
His brow arched, but he didn’t bother looking her way. “You’re not doing that. Not with me.”
“What?” she shot back, crossing her arms over her chest.
“You don’t get to skate on past our fight like it didn’t exist, and we’re not going to play pretend,” he said, his voice cool and lethal. “Either you want to work together—and work as a team—or you can cut me loose now for not fitting your definition of obedient servant.”
Whatever could be said about Finn, the man wasn’t lacking in guts. Few individuals possessed the bravery to mouth back to her like he did. Her abilities scared them off first and her harsh mouth second. She needed to work with someone who could view her as an equal, not a yes-man or someone too cowered to voice an opinion. As much as he pissed her off, she wouldn’t find another one like him in these parts.
“Look,” she said, gritting her teeth to force past the uncomfortableness prickling through her. “The Tribe doesn’t hold hands and Kumbaya. Most times, when we investigate we’re on our own and we accept the brunt of whatever danger is flung our way. That being said, I asked you to help, which entails working with you.”
“Shocking, I know,” Finn interjected, his sarcasm as hot as his temper.
Navi jutted her jaw forward. “If you’re going to be a brat, I’m going to stop right here.”
“Kind of tough to do when I’m driving,” he retorted. She bit back her words, simmering with annoyance. When he glanced to her, his expression softened as did his grip on the steering wheel while they soared down the highway. “Fine, let’s talk. What are your thoughts?”
Her brow wrinkled as she ran a hand through her relaxed strands of hair. Hell, she couldn’t make heads nor tails of him. One second she was sure his temper would send her racing the opposite direction and the next the storm had departed and he was speaking sense.
“We’re going to have to head to the site at night when the Landsliders aren’t spooked from my pursuit, so before then, I’d say we’d better hash out some ground rules. I’m not unreasonable. If you’re bringing up points to assist our mission, I’ll gladly listen. Why don’t we grab drinks at Beaver Tavern and figure things out over a pint?” she asked. “I’m pretty sure we could both use a brew.”
Finn stiffened for a moment, but for the life of her she couldn’t gauge why. Nothing she’d mentioned warranted the response.
He tapped his fingers against the side of the wheel before heaving out a sigh. “Sierra keeps spares at Beaver Tavern, so we can change there. I could use a drink or two myself.”
Forged Decisions Page 3
