Marked By Magic by Christa Wick
Chapter Fifteen
Tanner watchedMichelle pace in front of the clan's black SUV. She held a phone to her ear, but there was no actual call in progress. The prop was just an excuse for her lips to be moving for an extended period as she chanted a spell over and over to determine if there were any Hunter wards on the Gibley Medical Supply Company.
He had vetted the business and the building's exterior online. The company had been in operation for over a decade. It was listed as a verified supplier of medical supplies and equipment by well-known global manufacturers.
Beyond the company's legal and commercial bona fides, he had used satellite images to determine that there were only two doors in and out. The one he was presently staring at was for the public. The second was at the rear of the building for deliveries.
With no advertising or social media photographs of the interior, he didn't know how much of the nearly five-thousand square feet comprised the sales floor versus how much of it was the warehouse area. He also had little better than a bird’s-eye view of the building on the satellite image, along with its alley, and the two other businesses on the street—a metal scrapyard to the west and a lumberyard to the east.
"Any wards?" he asked as Michelle put her phone away.
She rolled her lips before saying anything, her brows lifting at the same time.
"Perfect world, I'd get to walk the perimeter before answering."
"Perfect world wouldn't have any chance of Hunters in there trying to kill us," Tanner parried. He didn't add that a slightly less imperfect world wouldn't have his mate out on a mission because she was the most experienced latent in detecting wards and also had the most medical knowledge among the women.
Nor would Denver had saddled him with the three youngest wolves on the team.
And there wouldn't be a side mission for basic supplies, either!
"Did you just roll your eyes at me, Mitch Tanner?" Michelle laughed.
He snapped straight, shook his head, then shot a wilting glance at Colt, Jet, and Joelle as they bickered over the list of things each was tasked with getting in town while he and Michelle picked up the medical supplies necessary for the transfusions of magic-infused blood the golem would be receiving from the mated pairs at the mansion.
"What is your professional opinion as it applies in an imperfect situation?" he asked, flashing her one of his rare but genuine smiles.
"As far as wards go, it feels clean," she answered, then gestured at both the medical supply store and the scrapyard. "But places like these can have a lot of darkness hanging around them."
She flicked a finger at a van that had been flattened by one of the scrapyard's machines.
"There's a presence where the driver's seat used to be that won't leave what's left of the vehicle until it's melted down to a cube." Turning her attention back to their target, she nodded. "And places like this have a lot of dark shadows from all the depressed energy shed by parents and spouses who have spent years or decades caring for someone with a serious illness, their days measured in doling out sustaining pills, making trips for supplies at places like this, and trying to remember whether they cleaned the feeding tube after breakfast."
"Is that why you didn't finish your nursing clinicals?" Joelle asked, pulling away from Jet and Colt to stand by Michelle. "You finished everything but that, didn't you?"
"Yes and yes," Michelle answered. "Anyway, it doesn't seem warded. And the lumber yard feels completely in the clear."
No matter how impressed Tanner was with his mate's rapidly expanding powers, a part of him wasn't convinced that it was safe to enter the building. The front doors were steel. There were no windows. And on-site security included three cameras out front, one a globe camera over the doors and another camera mounted on a swivel base at each end.
The cameras weren't just for show, either. He had seen one move in his direction. It seemed to hesitate for a second, as if the operator had intended to focus on Tanner's group, then it skipped forward, reaching the end of its arc then returning to base. At the opposite end of the building's front, the other camera had remained in a fixed position.
"This place doesn't have medicine on the premises, does it?" he asked, interrupting the fresh round of bickering that had erupted between Colt, Jet, and Joelle.
Michelle frowned.
"Not like a pharmacy," she answered, her mobile lips that played a starring role in his fantasies twisting in concentration. "It will have saline drips, bulk bottles of ibuprofen, things like that, but not any medicine that requires a prescription. At least the website didn't reference having a pharmacist."
"Anything other than drugs that would be high value?" he asked, his wolf clawing at his spine with each glance he shot at the oppressive looking building with its brick facade painted a dark gray.
"Oh, certainly!" Michelle answered, her head jerking to look at the store once more before bobbing as she visually ticked off all three security cameras. "According to the website, the store does retail sales of breathing machines. That's about a thousand dollars a unit. The devices have modems in them, so someone would have to be an idiot to steal one, let alone a lot of them, but crooks are generally idiots, I guess. The CPAPs are probably the most expensive thing I saw listed, but there was plenty of other equipment that would run several hundred dollars a unit, and at much smaller sizes than a CPAP. Easy to shoplift if they don't have security tags on them or if the thieves are willing to do a grab and dash."
Her explanation satisfied Tanner, but he didn't get so much as a second to let some of the tension filling him recede. Colt, demonstrating the attention span of a house cat instead of the adult shifter he claimed to be, had grown bored with Michelle's explanation and was trying to steal the shopping list the latents had given Joelle.
The feisty she-wolf responded with a hard shove against Colt's chest.
"You all know what you're supposed to get," Tanner barked, scowling first at Colt, then at Jet before landing on Joelle. "You're not here to enjoy yourselves. This is a mission, not a day off. You'll work as a team, but you're each responsible for making sure the items on the list you received make it into the van."
Joelle raised an index finger, then wiggled it for attention when Tanner didn't immediately respond.
"What?" He spoke with just enough growl in his voice to warn her against any frivolous questions.
"We really need a female with us for some of the items on my list," the she-wolf answered.
Tanner furrowed his brow at the baffling statement, while Jet devolved into a fit of laughter and Colt leaned so close to the she-wolf that his lips almost touched her ear.
"Last I checked—" he whispered until Joelle stole Colt's breath with a sharp elbow to his ribs.
"In your dreams, you drooling loser."
Finished bringing Colt back into line, she thrust the piece of paper forward so Tanner could read the list.
"Uhm…" He shook his head, uncertain of what to say beyond the unalterable fact that Michelle would remain glued to his side during the outing.
It didn't matter that Joelle, as a female shifter with a breeding cycle radically different from her human counterparts, wasn't familiar with the more feminine items on the latents' list. No way in hell would he place Michelle's safety in the hands of the two morons and she-wolf. Beyond that, Michelle was the best equipped among them to obtain the right supplies for the blood transfusions.
"Don't overthink it," she told Joelle, rescuing Tanner as his cheeks began to pink. "They'll be grateful for whatever brand and fit you bring back. To the extent you do any comparing, just consider what you might find uncomfortable if—"
"You've obviously never seen the toy collection she has back at Witch Mountain," Colt joked before doubling over in laughter.
Only a last second jerk to his left avoided the thrust of Joelle's knee at his face.
Tanner caught Colt by the back of his neck and drew him close.
"I don't give a damn that no one is out buying scrap metal or lumber. The three of you, stop doing shit that would attract attention! Get in the van, get the items on your lists, stick close to one another, and meet us in front of the coffee shop at the entrance to town in ninety minutes or less. If you miss the deadline, head for the truck stop north of town. You know the damn drill."
Releasing Colt, he glared at Jet and Joelle in turn until each looked down in submission.
"Wait," Michelle softly called as the three younger wolves started for the van. When they turned back, she held her hand out to Joelle. "Give me your list."
The little she-wolf smiled, jogged forward, then whipped out the piece of paper from her back pocket. Taking it, Michelle looked at Tanner.
"I feel like Colt and Jet are competing for attention—"
Tanner thrust his hand toward the two males in warning before they could interrupt.
"So any order telling them to stop acting out, no matter who gives it, is going to be skirted at a minimum and outright disobeyed at worst once they are on their own." Pausing, she looked over the list. "This is short enough that they can pick up these items while Joelle stays with us. I mean...if you think that's a good idea."
Good idea? He loved it. He just hoped his mate was doing it to punish the young males and speed up completion of the mission instead of having Joelle as a buffer. Things had been a little awkward after the passionate night they had spent together.
With a glance at both women, Tanner nodded.
"But, boys," he said as Jet and Colt turned away with downcast gazes and cheeks colored a blazing red. "To the extent you do any comparing, just consider what fit you might find uncomfortable."
