Sweeter Than Honey: (Scifi Shapeshifter Erotica) (The Revenant Chronicles Book 1) by Mina Carter, 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