Chapter Sixteen
As much as she’d hoped to keep their mating a secret, the moment Navi had spotted Sierra and Jer in Beaver Tavern, her plan had gone up in flames. Finn couldn’t hide his emotions when he tried, and most of the time he was too blunt and forward to even attempt subtlety. Navi couldn’t deny that was one of the things she liked about him most.
She ran a hand over the askew pieces of her pixie cut, trying to ignore the sticky sweat clinging to her even with the cool breezes the descending night brought. Navi and Finn flew across the highway, Finn gunning the gas pedal to release some pent-up aggression after the way he and his alpha had butted heads back there.
Navi cast a glance his way, unable to reconcile the idea that this gorgeous, ferocious man was hers. Night stretched long shadows over his face, bringing out the arch of his nose, the stubborn jaw, and deepening the scar along his eyebrow as well as the ones littering his neck and arms from countless years of fighting. Despite all his taut muscle and the scowl twisting his features, his dark eyes held a softness betraying the truth of the man inside. He had a big heart, bigger than most—beyond that, a vulnerability from his past scars and mistakes that made her chest ache.
In the distance, the soft glow of a floodlight illuminated a plot of warehouses, the aluminum siding reflecting against the beams. On the plus, at least their friendly local shaman had given them the right site, since these were the exact sort of warehouses they’d been searching for. Now they just needed to figure out if he’d tipped off Rossi or not. If they stumbled into an emptied and cleared-out warehouse or, worse, one with a crew of Landsliders hiding in wait, Navi would be paying Joe another surprise visit and that one wouldn’t be a casual chat over coffee.
Finn pulled to the side of the road, finding a patch of unpaved dirt before the clearing opened up to the warehouses. Tall grasses and bushes obscured his Challenger from view.
“Are you going to be okay with seeing Rossi again?” Navi asked when the car settled into Park and he shut off the engine.
Finn shrugged. “I’ll have to be. I won’t let my temper compromise our position.” Even with the casual way he spoke, Finn brimmed with an unspoken tension and his mouth formed a hard line. Navi reached over to squeeze his hand, half in disbelief at the connection that had formed between them. Never in her life had she been able to touch someone so effortlessly without complicated signals or the wall that existed between her and near everyone else on this planet.
He grinned, returning the squeeze. “You’re one in a million, Tremere. Let’s go track this bastard down.”
She nodded, hopping out of the passenger side. Navi glanced at the road, but no cars approached in the distance. She crouched out of view on her side of the Challenger and Finn joined her as they stripped, crumpling clothing into balls before tossing them back inside the car. If stealth was required, only one form would do. Even as she straightened to begin her shift, she couldn’t help admiring the view of the man who’d been inside her hours earlier or dismiss the memories of how he’d wrung her dry of every last orgasm.
Focus. Navi forced her gaze to the car in front of her as she let the panther free. Fur sprouted along her arms and legs and her bones began to shift with the transition onto all fours. In this form, the night grew brighter, the crisp metallic scents sharper and the trills of cicadas more resonant. She arched her back in her panther form, her claws digging into the ground with her stretch. Finn’s wolf was a beautiful russet color, and he padded toward her to brush his muzzle against hers. Her panther preened at the constant affection. Navi had cut herself off from that nonsense until the animal side of her had grown touch-starved. However, Finn just might shower her in enough affection to make up for all those years.
Navi headbutted him lightly before trekking past Finn in the direction of the warehouses. With her heightened senses, she could hear the rustle of movement from inside and the gentle murmur of voices, meaning they weren’t heading into a cleared-out place. However, that also meant, if they got caught, they’d be facing whatever shifters or humans Rossi employed.
She padded toward the warehouse with the silent stealth afforded to her kind, slinking along the inky shadows away from the floodlight’s beam. Finn kept close behind, following her lead with an ease she didn’t expect from the headstrong man. Yet what Navi realized after having worked with him over this past week was that Finn made an incredible soldier. If his talents were put to proper use, he followed orders intuitively and in most situations could predict the course of action she took without her needing to utter a word. Based on the acidic comments he’d swapped with Sierra at the tavern, it had grown clear that for a while now he’d been an idling engine in his role as beta.
Every few steps or so, Navi paused, gauging the surroundings again and making sure the thrum of voices hadn’t silenced and that the pounding of footsteps didn’t travel in their direction. She’d slipped along the right side of the building to pad across the asphalt as she avoided loose stones and twigs with the finesse of a cat. The closer to the back of the warehouse she got, the more her nose pricked at the odd stench. Out here, shale, earth and metal were the natural ones she picked up, but as she and Finn continued their silent approach, she noted something wrong, like rotting eggs, something that made her fur stand on edge.
Back here, the doors to the warehouse were left wide open and the fumes were picked up by the breeze, the stench even stronger there. A couple of vehicles had been wheeled out back, dented pick-up trucks with the beds open and pallets piled high on each one. Navi doubted the crew here was dealing with shipping and receiving gravel and pavers like the sign out front advertised.
Headlights flicked on from the nearest truck and Navi froze.
The moment the truck rumbled their way, they’d be discovered.
The thunk of a few guys closing the trunk bed echoed through the clearing right when the engine of the truck roared to life. Navi didn’t have time to signal to Finn—she acted on instinct. She bolted for the tall grasses surrounding the beaten dirt space here, hoping the men didn’t pay attention to the shift of the shadows.
Dust clouds billowed as the truck surged forward, toward the narrow path they’d skulked down.
Navi landed in the midst of the grasses, peering out from behind the tall blades and the fringes of bushes. It wasn’t until she stopped that she looked around for Finn. Her heart rammed in her chest. She searched around the clearing but didn’t catch a glimpse of silver and russet fur or the glint of his amber eyes. Navi padded back and forth, trying to sneak a better view past the surrounding grasses, unable to quell the icy fear that, so used to operating on her own, she’d left her own mate to danger.
A gentle nip to her ear caused her to whip around, fangs bared.
Finn crouched behind her, his eyes glowing with warmth when he nudged her in the side. Her heartbeat returned to a reasonable rate despite the jolt of adrenaline coursing through her veins. She let out a light huff, unwilling to show how much she’d grown attached to him in such a short time.
The truck’s beams filtered over them as it made the sharp turn toward the front of the warehouses and Navi ducked on instinct. Finn crouched beside her, the two of them in perfect stillness while the truck’s engine whirred noisily, cutting through the soft sounds of the cicadas in the bushes and the crickets’ occasional chirps. Navi didn’t dare move, not wanting to alert the couple of guys who loitered in the clearing. She didn’t doubt her prowess against them, but she also wasn’t willing to risk letting Dale Rossi slip through her fingers.
The weight of the night out here rolled through her, the heaviness in the sticky air and the surrounding grasses laden with nature’s symphony. She remained ever vigilant, watching. Waiting.
After the guys ground out their cigarettes under heel, the orange glow of the embers winking out, they headed on inside the building. Even though Finn padded back and forth a few times in impatience, Navi hadn’t moved an inch, not until their footsteps transitioned to the front of the warehouse. She stepped out from the thicket of grass and bushes they’d hidden behind. At a normal place, she’d be concerned about any shifters in the group picking up their scent—however, with the meth operation in here, their nostrils would be singed by proximity.
Navi quickened her pace, veering away from the trucks as she padded in the direction of the open doors and the smog filtering out from them. They must have the meth operation running at full steam to move product fast. These warehouses might be in the boonies, but the cops around here didn’t have much to entertain them—it was a matter of time before their shoestring facility got busted and shut down. If the Landsliders hadn’t gotten involved in this production, Navi would’ve left this matter to the human police.
However, if busting their operation brought her even a step closer to finding where Mackey Kendricks had gone, the risk would be worth it.
Together, they approached the exit of the warehouse, the clouds of smog and gut-wrenching stench making her eyes water and her sensitive nose tingle. One glimpse of the facility’s interior was all she needed, enough so they could set up a plan of attack. The closer they got, the more bile rose in her throat and she fought back a gag.
The warehouses lights were dimmed, with a couple of the front overheads beaming their fluorescent light down. From where she peered in, she could only spot rows of granite pavers in every shape and size as well as pallets of equipment to be shipped. It looked like the warehouse maintained a solid front as a shipping facility, if anyone was dense enough to not catch the foul stench on the breeze from the meth lab they’d slapped together. Oily sludge stained the aluminum siding and the smog drifted to cloud around the lights.
With the fluorescents beaming down in the front of the warehouse, they didn’t have a hope or prayer of sneaking up to where the crew of five guys loitered. The percolating meth stripped her senses, so she couldn’t even gauge if they were shifters or human. If she were dealing with any shifter crew but the Landsliders, discovery wasn’t a concern. She would compel them to freeze and proceed from there. However, with the way the Landsliders had resisted her compulsion before, she couldn’t bank on the ability now.
Navi tilted her head before leading Finn deeper past the lines of shelving and further away from those bright lights. Inside the warehouse, the stench intensified, but it wasn’t until she followed the trail of smog that she noticed the makeshift vents protruding from the ground that poured out the noxious fumes, coming from an underground room.
She padded towards the end of the shelving before peering down in both directions. To the left, more and more stacks of boxes and crates sprawled across the warehouse until the shelves stopped to open up into a cleared front section where a couple of cranes and Bobcats sat. To the right, shadows swallowed the area. The ink-stain darkness betrayed depth and she took a few steps toward the shifting miasma, trying to distinguish what hid there.
Smoke trickled up from the scorched shadows and the stench grew so strong she could barely focus. Her eyes stung in the wake of the fumes wafting through this place and she’d already lost the ability to smell anything but the oil-thick, repulsive stench. This was indeed the site of the operation, but she had yet to spot the boss. As she approached, the slope of stairs grew more visible—this was the way to the warehouse’s basement.
Even though her sense of smell had become temporarily scorched away, her hearing hadn’t dulled in the slightest. So the creak of the basement door caught her attention before the spill of light from the bottom of the steps followed.
Navi’s feet moved on reflex right when a man appeared at the bottom of the stairwell. The splash of sallow light from the basement revealed a sour face, wisps of black covering his shining pate, and red-rimmed eyes.
Finn wasn’t moving along with her. He crouched there, fangs bared and stock still.
Fuck. No doubt, this bastard was Rossi.
Navi leapt in Finn’s direction as the steps creaked and the murderer of Finn’s parents ascended. She could compel Finn to follow her, but that would break the beautiful trust between them, because certain actions couldn’t be revoked. Even the thought of using compulsion against her mate made her skin crawl. Navi nudged him in the side a few times, strong and urgent taps. Finn whipped around, as if her touch had jarred him from the paralysis. She tilted her head in the direction of the back door.
Creak, creak.
He was coming closer. They needed to scram, and fast.
Navi’s heartbeat accelerated, adrenaline flooding through her while she bolted past the loaded shelves as quietly as possible. The guys up front wouldn’t catch her scent, but if they were shifters, they had advanced hearing, too. Finn followed close behind despite the tension she could feel brimming off him.
The steps pounded louder. If Rossi happened to glance down the rows of shelving, he’d be able to spot the panther and wolf who didn’t belong there.
“Hey, boss,” one of the guys called from the front. The crew remained in their cluster up there, no one stepping in their direction or glancing to the shadows. Their mistake. Navi didn’t waste time. They needed to leave now or risk blowing their cover. Without another glance, Navi slipped through the back door leading to the gravel lot. She landed on all fours without a sound and prowled toward the tall grasses. Her ears pricked to attention as she tensed, prepared for shouts, the clatter of footsteps or any other indicator she needed to bolt.
Finn loped past her, his eyes gleaming amber while he emanated a powder keg of tension. Together, they raced for his Challenger.
Clouds of dust filtered behind her and the pads of her feet barely touched the ground with the speed she flew forward. From the warehouse came the slow murmur of voices, even though the scent of the cooking meth clung to her fur like an oily film. The stench made her want to gag, and she had the feeling it wouldn’t be leaving her any time soon.
Finn reached the Challenger before she did, and he had already begun to transform back to two feet by the time she skidded to a halt. Navi let out a breath to focus as she embraced the prickling beginning of the shift, even though her panther grumbled its disapproval, same as it always did. Out of her two forms, the ancient panther spirit would always be the more powerful and begrudge accepting the weaker one. Still, Navi was a stubborn sonofabitch.
Her claws morphed into fingernails, her fur mutated to skin and she rose on two feet again. Even with the shift, the noxious scent of the meth still stung with each inhale. She wrinkled her nose and hopped into the passenger side of Finn’s Challenger. He sat in the driver’s seat with his keys in the ignition and the engine thrumming. He stared ahead with a turbulent look in his eyes, his mouth forming a tight line.
“Let’s head out, Finn,” Navi said, her voice level and quiet.
His dark gaze flashed and he slammed his hands against the steering wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he roared, the sound reverberating through the car. Beneath the intense anger brimming off him was a grief so raw it twisted her chest. This deep sorrow belonged to a boy who’d found his parents murdered. Who had experienced far too much, too early. She could relate. Navi didn’t say a word in response, just let him process the torrent that rushed through him fierce as a hurricane.
He jammed on the gas pedal and the Challenger shot off down the road. Finn’s anger didn’t dissipate and his aggression heated the space between them. Navi would never rob him of that, never try to bury the rage he deserved to feel, the sort that had lit her up from the inside on too many nights to count.
Navi reached over and placed a hand on his bare thigh. He flinched at first, the touch a shock from the turmoil rocking him. He glanced to her, those umber eyes softening for a heartbeat and, in that moment, she held more power than she’d ever wielded as a member of the Tribe.
“You will avenge them,” she murmured. “I swear to you his crimes will not go unpunished.”
“I know.” Finn’s voice lowered, growing deadly, dangerous. “I’ll be there to make sure.”