The wind was picking up. And so was his confusion. He’d intentionally scared her off, but it made him . . . furious, angry, lonely, enraged, and jealous of Mirabel. He was turning into a fickle teenager.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out, hoping it was Emma. But no luck.
Oak: Landed. I’ll be there in ten minutes.
Flint: It takes two hours to get from the city airport to here, if not longer.
Oak: Carter flew me in to a small airport nearby.
Flint rolled his eyes. His brother had the cash to do things like that too. And he might. He hadn’t checked his bank account recently. His product team had some deal with late night television direct sales, and they were taking his double harness clip product to the homeowner market.
Oak: Meet me at the building.
Flint sent Oak a thumbs up emoji. He wanted to leave his truck on Main Street. He needed the walk. Really, he needed a run in his fur, but he also didn’t want his truck ending up at the impound yard. And it would, because nothing gave the guys in blue more laughs than locking up pickup trucks with Hundsburg firefighter stickers in the windows.
He climbed in and slammed his hand on the steering wheel when the apple and cinnamon scent of Emma wafted from his skin. A low grumble from his wolf sat in his throat. The noise rumbled around his gut, the sensation alien to him.
He and his wolf weren’t two separate individuals. Some shifters had a problem switching back and forth. Their beast was a foreigner to them, something they fought to control. His brother had had that problem. He’d spent too much time in his skin making his millions.
Not Flint. When his wolf asked to shift, he shifted. That was part of the reason it hadn’t surprised him when he found himself waking up outside of Emma’s townhouse. Now his wolf clawed at his insides, like when Penny wanted out and kicked the doormat until it accordioned up like a fan proper ladies used on a hot summer day.
Another slam of his hand on the steering wheel and Flint backed out of the spot, making a U-turn in the break of traffic and heading away from town to the old school.
There were two security guards at the school. Humans, barely rent-a-cops. Flint nodded to the one sitting in the sedan at the entrance to the property and pursed his lips. Why did the guy even bother? From behind the parked car, you could see a few windows but none of the six doors or the loading dock.
The only protection in the building had been from Carpenter Jack and his employees, the latter unfortunately not being around this week. Carter, while buff, was a human and wasn’t always at the building. His black luxury SUV from earlier was gone, leaving just Emma’s wreck of a car, a shiny pink micro car that screamed Mia, and Jack’s truck.
Flint parked next to Emma’s car, eyeing it. He reached out to open the door of her car, but little purple and blue strings hung around it. Huh. Wards. The more he was around Emma, the more of his own powers he was picking up on, intentionally but mostly not. Picking up on wards was something new for him.
He gave up the idea of hot-wiring her car and taking it up the hill to her and decided to make better use of his time than staring at his girlfriend’s . . . friend’s . . . Emma’s car. He made his way around to the front of the building, avoiding the piles of snow from the roof, and let the world of scent into his system. A rabbit had scampered through the eaves line not long ago. Four different humans he didn’t know, plus Carter, Chief Ledger, Hudson, Beck, and most of the guys on his crew. Seems they were all doing a lap around the building in both fur and human legs. The building’s foundation had more scents than the Pittsburgh Hounds stadium. Shit, Oak wasn’t going to be able to find anything out here.
Flint rounded the back of the building and ended up near the fire station. They had the number two engine out today, and Hudson stood on the side, wiping it down with a chamois.
Hudson waved at Flint, like him searching the perimeter of the old school wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
Flint had to go back to work tomorrow. But last he checked, he had four weeks of vacation to use up. Maybe now was the time?
Oak’s rental car pulled into the lot, and Flint changed his direction from the fire station to Oak. By the time Flint stepped on to the concrete, Oak had the security guard pinned against his car.
“Whoa. What’s—”
Oak cut Flint off. “I’ll tell you what’s happening here. This SOB is sitting on his ass, in his warm, piece of shit car, playing on his phone instead of actually doing his job. Like a real agent.”
“It’s an old . . . school building. What’s there to watch? It’s the most ridiculous assignment ever.”
Flint wasn’t used to looking up to many, but Oak’s six-foot-seven frame demanded it. They hadn’t seen each other in a few years, and Oak had filled out even more. But Flint would have taken a thousand dollar bet as to what would happen next.
Oak pushed the pale guard up against the car with one hand and opened the door to the sedan with the other. The guard’s ass deposited on the seat, Oak tapped the guy’s legs with his foot, and the loser quickly pulled them in. “You’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me.”
“I just did.”
“I work for Mr. Williams.”
“Not anymore, you don’t.”
“I don’t even know who you are,” the guy stammered through his open window.
“It doesn’t matter who I am. Just that you get the hell out of here. You’re wasting time.”
A radio cracked, and another man in a cheap suit jogged toward them.
With the possibility of a pack war, their alpha had every member of the clan take classes in defensive arts. Flint wasn’t anywhere near the level of Oak, but he knew a thing or two.
“What’s going on?” asked the other security guard.
“Get in the car. Your firm is fired.” Oak dialed a number on his phone.
“You can’t fire us.”
“Carter. Your guys on the ground here are useless and in the way. I’ve axed them.”
“Fine,” came from the phone.
The washed-up guard dog in the car tilted his head up. “That wasn’t Mr. Williams. It could—”
The other one held up his phone, showing him a text that had just come through. “We’re off the case.”
