Sweeter Than Honey: (Scifi Shapeshifter Erotica) (The Revenant Chronicles Book 1)

Copyright

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

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About the Authors

Copyright

Copyright 2015
Mina Carter & J.William Mitchell

Cover Art by Mina Carter

Published by Blue Hedgehog Press: Jan 2015.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Author's note: All characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.

Sweeter than Honey

(The Revenant Chronicles)

MINA CARTER

USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

&

J.WILLIAM MITCHELL

Chapter One

Bad intel would fucking kill him.

Jensen Haye grumbled as he pulled up outside a rough-looking warehouse and cut the engines on his pickup. It was a retro-model, imported from earth at an exorbitant rate, and cost him more than his troop transport to run, but he didn’t care. Live fast, die young...it was the way all men in his line of work went.

That thought brought him back to why he was here, and he shoved the door open to climb out of the truck. The hatch to his vehicle slammed shut and locked behind him as he strode toward the warehouse. The dilapidated polycrete building was as disreputable looking as the rest on this block.

Most of the buildings were empty. The rest were merely fronts for various illegal chop-shops churning out dodgy flyers, and at least one housed a black-market surgeon. It was the kind of place a person who wanted to avoid the attention of the authorities could go to get gunshots, plasma pulse burns and blast injuries seen to. The guy was a pretty good doc, actually. Although Jen himself didn’t need his services—his other nature ensured he healed quickly—members of his team used the illicit doctor’s medical services on a pretty regular basis.

Except for the last three casualties. Dozer, Bull and Tucker hadn’t needed medical attention. Instead they’d come home in body bags. Jen’s teeth ground together as he slammed open the door and stepped into the shaded interior of the warehouse. The temperature plunged instantly from the boil-the-skin-from-your-bones heat outside to bringing goosebumps up across his exposed skin. And there was a fair bit of it on show.

Like most of his crossed species, Jen didn’t like to wear too much over his arms and shoulders, which meant he’d dressed for this outing with his usual lack of care. Worn and faded denims were tucked into heavy combat boots, and an old t-shirt strained over the breadth of his chest, leaving his arms bare. He thought he really should get some bigger shirts; this one seemed to have shrunk in the wash or something.

Laundry though, was the least of his worries. A step inside the building he paused, his eyes narrowing as he cast his senses about him. As expected, there was someone else in the warehouse, and the light, feminine scent that reached his sensitive nostrils assured him it was the woman he’d come to see. A growl just beginning at the back of his throat, evidence of his anger, he stormed between the ancient racking to the main area.

“You’ve got some fucking balls, lady,” he snarled as his quarry came into view. The neatly dressed woman turned in a swirl of blonde curls. He didn’t stop, crossing the space between them to loom over her, his fist clenched to stop it from wrapping around her slender throat. “Your fucking bullshit intel got my men killed. Three Revenants dead. Because of you.”

Tessa Honeywell was a damned cool customer, always had been, and even with the tenor of their meeting she didn’t disappoint. Dressed in a tailored navy pant suit and pumps, she looked more like an executive who belonged in the business district instead of traipsing around abandoned warehouses to meet with a jaded merc like him. She didn’t even fucking blink as he got into her face. Her bright blue eyes just looked right back into his, the corners tightening almost imperceptibly. As if she was waiting for him to calm down. The expression on her face wasn’t any better, though he was glad she kept it neutral. For her sake. Anything less and he would have seriously doubted his control over himself.

“I’m sorry that they’re dead, Jensen,” she replied in her typical way, her silken voice sounding out the words she spoke in a measured cadence. “But like I already told you, what happened was a situational complication. None of my sources were able to account for the third element that blindsided you, nor did any of my analysts catch anything out of the ordinary when they vetted the details prior to your operation.”

“Situational complication?” he said slowly, trying to contain the rage that surged through him. Only half-human, he was more volatile than either of his parent races. A fact which had resulted in his downfall and the subsequent creation of the Revenants years ago. “They’re dead lady. I’d call that a bit more than a fucking ‘situational complication’! A complication is ordering the wrong freaking pizza, not having half the bastard Jentarian forces down on your head during exfil!”

He glared at her for long moments, but she didn’t bat an eyelid, which made his fury surge anew. She was as cool as a fucking cucumber, not a hair out of place, talking about complications when he was three men—three friends—down.

“Gah! What’s the point?” He snarled and turned on his heel. “I’m outta here. Next time you get complications, lady, call someone else.”

*

“What do you want from me?” Tessa cried out before she could stop the words, throwing the sharply exclaimed query right at his retreating back. She’d been holding onto that question between all the snarling comm calls from him up to the point he’d demanded a private meeting with her.

She had shown up, hoping she’d get an answer, but all she got was more aggravation. She’d seen him angry more than once before, but it was different this time. He’d been growling, literally growling at her, which made her even more nervous. The sounds weren’t like anything she’d heard, not from any man. They were feral, dangerous. The low, grating rumbling touched something visceral within her, as if she were face to face with a ferocious predator about to tear her apart.

And as he bore down on her with eyes as hard as flint, and deadly tension that coiled within his hard, muscled body, Jensen Haye certainly looked every bit the dangerous predator that he was.

He was no ordinary mercenary, easily one of the best in the business, if not right at the top of the food chain. His name carried with it the same gravity one would use to talk about death, spoken with a little bit of fear and consciously avoided. His darker history, one she'd only been able to dig up snippets of, certainly contributed to that. That had been before he founded The Revenants, one of the best wet work teams in the business.

They were an asset Tessa was about to lose because their fearless leader had his head up his ass.

No. She wasn’t about to let that happen, not without a fight. Marching up to him, she blocked his way and held her ground. “Do you think I enjoyed watching all of that happen a million miles away, helpless to do anything? Were you expecting some sort of self-flagellation on my part? See me punish myself for a mistake that you’re blaming on me? If I cried and pleaded to the gods right now to make this right, would that make you feel better?”

He stopped, quicker than any man that big had a right to be able to, and glared down at her. She’d always found his eyes fascinating, a combination of colors that sparkled and mesmerized. After the growls, and everything else she’d heard about him… Just what the hell was he?

“What would make me feel better,” he ground out, “is not having to bury three of my men. Men who were closer to me than my own brothers.”

She suppressed the urge to bite her lip. Her rule was to never show anything, not in front of her assets. To them she was the hard as nails, cast iron bitch. But in all that, she’d almost forgotten that to him, his men weren’t assets. The Revenants had a reputation as a hard team, but it was well-known that they were like family.

Tessa narrowed her eyes at him. “Well, if I could turn back time and prevent their deaths, I certainly would. But sadly, while I’m capable of many things, time travel isn’t one of them. You’re a mercenary, one of the best. It’s why I hired you and your team. You know the risks and how to get the job done right. Since they were professionals, Dozer, Bull and Tucker knew the risks too. This is a dangerous profession; people die for a variety of reasons.” She sighed. “So sure, go ahead and blame their deaths on me, if that makes you feel better. But when you finally get your head out of your ass, maybe you can put the bullshit aside and tell me what you do want from me and why we are here, because I’m pretty sure you didn’t invite me to this hellhole just to yell at me.”

His expression unreadable, he reached into his back pocket and pulled free a data-chip. “My ops guy pulled this from a battle-comp we managed to swipe. Sweetheart, you’ve got a mole. That’s why I called bad intel.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she allowed this bit of news to percolate in her head. A mole was a serious matter; it meant the enemy knew exactly what they were doing and when they were going to do it. She had arranged the particulars on this operation herself, calling in her best analysts to review the data, but the final details were things she put together on her own. Jensen knew this. When she opened her eyes, her cool demeanor had returned as she regarded him calmly.

“So all this time you knew there was a mole on our end.” It hadn’t been a question. That came next. “Was that dramatic tirade legitimate or purely for show?”

He shrugged. “No, I’m pissed as hell and don’t trust a word you say right now.”

“I see.” She nodded as she pocketed the chip he’d given her. “Tell me, was I supposed to walk out of here alive if I didn’t satisfy your curiosity, or would that have been taken care of outside?”

If she thought he’d been angry before, it was nothing to the fury that raged in his unusual eyes now. His entire body was rigid, muscles taut as anger rolled from him in waves.

“That… was out of order,” he finally said, his voice low. “I might be an animal, but even so, I don’t engage non-combatants.”

Animal? Did he mean literally or figuratively? She could have pointed out that if he thought she’d betrayed their team and caused the deaths of his comrades, if she’d been in his position, she wouldn’t blame him for killing her slowly either. But she held her tongue. Somehow he didn’t seem to think she was involved; otherwise, he wouldn’t have told her his suspicions of a mole, nor would he have given her the data chip… if it were legit.

“But you don’t trust me anymore, do you Jensen?” She held his gaze, focusing on the mesmerizing colors swirling in his eyes that she‘d always thought were outrageously beautiful for a man, especially one as dangerous as him. “Do you distrust and hate me so much that you would walk away? After all the good we’ve done, things the government can’t or won’t do? After all the lives we’ve saved?”

“Hate?” His eyes narrowed at the word, and he took half a step forward. “I don’t hate you. I may not trust you, but I don’t hate you.” He seemed to wrestle with something for a moment, a moment in which she became very aware of just how close he was. Far closer than she normally allowed people to stand.

Another growl was her only warning before his hand caught her around the nape of her neck, and she was hauled up against his hard, muscular body. His mouth crashed down over hers in a rough, hot kiss. But before she could register what was going on, he shoved her away and strode for the door.

If his goal had been to stun her speechless, then Tessa would have to admit he did a damned good job. She never expected the kiss. Worse still, she had been ill-prepared for how it affected her. If his growls made her nervous in a way that she wasn’t sure stemmed from apprehension or anticipation, then there were no misunderstandings with that kiss. From the top of her head all the way to the tips of her toes, which she could have sworn had curled in the onslaught, she felt the heat permeate her body to ignite a fire within her.