Page 26 of Ranger's Honor
For now, we hold the line. And that, somehow, feels like the most fragile miracle of all.
CHAPTER 10
DALTON
Idon’t move. Neither does she.
Kari’s eyes are locked on mine, still lit with the fire that damn near leveled me a minute ago. There’s something fierce in them—something that scrapes across the walls I’ve spent years fortifying.
My chest tightens, a low ache blooming under the sternum. I should shut it down. Instead, I let the burn settle in, let it remind me I’m still human. Her breath’s uneven, chest rising and falling with a rhythm that syncs too perfectly with the pounding behind my ribs.
I should turn around. Say something that’ll dial us back. But there’s nothing left in me to pull us apart right now.
Not when I still smell her skin, still taste her defiance in the air.
"We’re going" I rasp.
Her eye brows lift. "We?"
There’s no sarcasm in it—just a beat of surprise, like she’s not used to being included. Her gaze sharpens, searching my face for strings I’m not pulling. Relief flickers across her features, chased by something steadier. She’s still suspicious. Still calculating.But underneath it all, there’s that glint of resolve I’ve come to recognize—she’s all in.
"You found it, you’re not staying behind. But you don’t even think about going in alone... not again."
She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t smirk or gloat. Just nods once, sharp and clean, then heads for the stairs. I exhale through my teeth and grab my gear—blade, backup piece, tracker drone, comms. By the time she comes back down in black jeans and a fitted jacket, eyes sharp and mouth set, my instincts are already crowding in. I’m not ready for what it does to me.
She moves like a mission—purposeful, focused, every step calculated like she's got a target and a plan to reach it. Her spine’s straight, shoulders squared, and something primal stirs in me—part pride, part protectiveness, all possessive instinct roaring to the surface. She looks like she belongs in this fight, and hell if that doesn’t wreck me in ways I can’t name. The way her eyes are scanning as if she’s already diagramming every weak spot in whatever we’re walking into. It hits me low and hot, the way it does when she’s like this—unshakable, dangerous, all fire under pressure.
And fuck me, but that’s more dangerous than anything waiting out there.
The second warehouse squats at the edge of a marshland, wrapped in scrub pine and cracked asphalt. Not much on the satellite feed—no recent utilities, no paper trail—but the road in is worn, and something about it stinks of fresh cover-up.
We park and trek the rest of the way on foot. Kari keeps pace. Silent. Focused. She doesn’t stumble. Her movements aresharp and economical, like muscle memory’s already kicking in. Although why she should have muscle memory eludes me.
It should unnerve me—how easily she reads the terrain, how instinctively she moves through danger—but it doesn’t. It lights something dark and hungry in me. Twists low in my gut, tightens around my ribs like a claim. She’s not backup. Not bait. Not just Gideon’s little sister. She’s a weapon in her own right. She’s my mate. And the possessive, primal part of me? It eats that up.
She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t question. She follows my lead like she was born to it, her trust in me absolute—and that, more than anything, makes me want to bare my teeth at the world and dare it to touch her.
I scan the perimeter with infrared. No heat signatures, but motion sensors blink along the southern wall. I motion for her to hold position as I duck around the building’s east side. The fence line’s breached—recently. I kneel, fingers brushing the ragged edge.
Kari crouches beside me without a word. "Tool marks. Not weathered. Someone came through here."
"Probably about the same time you got that file uploaded."
She nods and slides past me, hugging the wall. I let her take point. Only because I’m glued to her six.
The warehouse itself is gutted, but the bones remain. The steel rafters loom above like ribs, skeletal and rust-bitten. It reminds me of that other op—the smell, the silence, the sense that something had gone very wrong just before we got there. That memory presses in with the staleness of rust and regret, sharp enough to draw blood if I let it. The scent of oxidized metal hangs thick in the air, mingled with mildew and something faintly sour, like old oil.
Every step echoes too loudly across the buckled concrete floor, the sound bouncing off empty walls and broken windows. Somewhere deeper inside, a single drip repeats likea metronome. Outside, the whine of insects presses against the walls, blending with the distant hum of the marsh—alive, watching. The kind of place that remembers violence. That waits for more.
Steel rafters stretch across the ceiling, shadowed by partial scaffolding and a half-collapsed security station tucked in the rear—remnants of structure in a place abandoned by order. Kari’s already climbing.
"Kari...”
"Relax. I’m not going far. I just want a look at that camera mount."
I grind my molars as she scales the scaffolding. The metal groans but holds. Her fingertips brush the rusted security housing—and I see her freeze.
"Found something. Not standard. There’s a second lens inside. And a...”
