CHAPTER 5 - Present Day

"In and out, Rave, no need for theatrics," Anthony spoke into my ear and I rolled my eyes. Theatrics my ass.

I was crouched in the shadows between stacks of shipping containers just waiting for the signal that the coast was clear. My wolf was in stealth mode, her interest perked and focused as I noted the guards on patrol of the shipping yard.

They reek of poison, my wolf told me. Poison was her word for anything that harmed the body. Drugs, alcohol. Since our rapid descent onto Boston she'd learned a lot about human ways. And that's what these guards were. Human.

Odd choice for a pack, even one full of criminals. Maybe the Southtown Terrors were low on man power.

A fun fact I tucked away to tell Rob later. Whatever the reason, it made my job easier. Humans were easier to trick, their senses dull, especially if they'd been imbibing in 'poison'.

"Clear." Anthony's voice came through the headset and I took off.

My goal was the abandoned warehouse at the end of the lot. Except it wasn't so abandoned.

Stacks of shipping containers whizzed by as I ran full speed, my wolf keeping track of the guards and their locations.

We'd developed a sort of system over the last few years. Somehow she was still growing, developing skills that often surprised me. Like now, where she used her awareness as a sort of tracking device in my mind. I knew that there were six human guards in the yard. I knew where they were, and I even knew one was taking a piss behind the stacks three rows to my right.

My wolf wrinkled her nose.

She had also become so much more than should have been possible. A fully developed presence with sharp intellect and even sharper senses.

The warehouse loomed ahead of me, a two story building of whitewashed concrete. The first level held massive rusted doors for moving shipping containers in and out, and the second had sparse, small windows. I dashed around the side of the building, searching for a man door, which I found.

Wolf, just inside the door. My wolf warned.* He's coming out.*

I ran past the door, around the backside of the building and waited.

I could feel my wolf tracking him, his scent distinctive from the guards. The door opened, the well oiled hinges still grinding to my ears, and then footsteps as he walked into the yard, his goal unknown, but he was heading away from me. I waited a full ten seconds, for him to get far enough away and then made my way back to the door, my heart racing a little.

I was a risk, going to the door while he was still in the open, but I was crunched for time, we'd planned the job for just before the gang meeting, and I didn't want to be caught when the rest of the pack showed up. As much information as my wolf gave me, she couldn't tell the direction of his attention. I just had to count on the fact that he would be looking the way he was walking and not looking back toward the warehouse.

Thankfully, I made it inside with little trouble. The main floor was a massive open space with only the occasional pillar to hold the building aloft. There were three wolves in the back corner, where a light had been hung from the rafters, surrounding a very nice Mercedes, they hadn't heard the door due to the noise from their tools and general lack of intelligence.

I knew I was hidden, for the most part, but being in the open was always nerve-wracking. I found the stairs along the wall I was slinking along and paused for a moment to let my wolf do her thing.

Five upstairs, down the hallway I think, she told me.

I hoped they were in a room, and not the office I was looking for. I climbed the stairs, careful of making noise my wolf couldn't mask and slowly peered along the landing, which was one long hallway with closed doors along either side.

Perfect.

I crept my way along the hall pausing at the first door.

Empty, my wolf informed me.* No one's been in there for a while.*

Probably not the office then. I went to the next door.

*A den. *

A bedroom, makeshift or not. I hesitated. Should I check it out? It wasn't entirely impossible the documents would be in there.

I smell books, across the hall...and...

The scent hit me at the same time, like a hammer to the gut. My breath whooshed from my lungs.

Darius.

What the fuck was he doing here? Immediately I flashed back to the night my parents died. The shame, the unbridled fury.

My wolf honed in her senses, picking his presence from the others. They were separate, four males, rogues, were in a room at the end of the hall. I could hear the low murmur of their voices. But Darius was in the room in front of me.

We are ready, she encouraged.

So I turned the knob as quietly as I could, relived when it turned out to be unlocked, and then quickly let myself inside, closing the door behind me.

I'd caught him, hunched over a makeshift desk made of a steel door that had been set on two stacks of crates. Slightly crooked, and covered in an interesting amount of papers. Logic said my documents would be among them.

I wasn't quiet enough to keep him from hearing me come in and he whirled around, bracing one leg behind the other, his arms loose at his sides, ready for a fight.

Goddamn he looked good. I hated it.

The last five years had taken a promised young alpha and sculpted him into a man. Muscles filled out the black v-neck t-shirt, from bulging biceps to the faint outline of sculpted abs. Faded jeans encased thick thighs, and, as I'd gotten an eyeful before he turned around, the best ass I'd ever seen.

His dark eyes studied me from above high cheekbones and a rugged jaw that hadn't been shaved in a day or two. His black hair was mussed, more unkempt than I'd ever seen it, as if he'd been having a rough day.

I glanced at the stains around the hem of his shirt. Or maybe a rough few days.

My perusal gave him a moment to think, before a look of shock slapped his face.

"Raven?"