Page 16 of Ranger’s Honor (Lone Star Wolf Rangers #4)

DALTON

I get back to her place just ahead of her, shift, and make it look like I never left.

When she walks through the door, cheeks flushed from wind and emotion, I don’t ask where she’s been.

She doesn’t offer an explanation. But we both know I followed her, watching from the shadows, fury simmering under my skin even as something deeper, harder to name, twisted in my chest.

I told myself it was for her safety—that I needed to know she was okay.

But the truth? I needed to see her. Needed proof she was still standing.

So I stayed hidden, watching as she knelt beside her mother’s grave, her voice thick with sorrow and secrets.

It should have felt like an invasion. Instead, it cut me open.

She didn’t try to hide what she was doing. And I didn’t try to hide that I was there. But it doesn’t change the fact that she walked into what could have been a dangerous situation without me right beside her—and I’m not letting that slide.

Over dinner, the air is warm with the smell of pasta and garlic, but there’s tension beneath it. She gives me a small smile, and I answer with a tight one of my own.

“You could have told me,” I say finally, voice low.

Her fork stills. “You would’ve stopped me.”

“No. I wouldn't. I would have gone with you. You think I’m okay with you walking out there alone? You could’ve been walking into something you couldn’t see coming,” I say, cutting myself off before the rest of what I’m thinking gets out.

My jaw tightens. “Next time, you tell me—and we go together, Kari.”

Her eyes flash. “I had to go. You know I did.”

“I don't know that I do, but even if you did, you didn't have to go alone,” I snarl, leaning in, “but understanding you need to do something and letting you go alone are not mutually exclusive.”

"Dalton, you don't own me. You don't get to control every little thing in my life."

"I don't want to control 'every little thing,' but I will make sure that whatever you're doing, you are safe when you're doing it."

"And if I don't agree with you?"

I shrug. "Then I'll make sure it gets done my way."

"You can't do that," she snarls.

I wonder if I should tell her the way her eyes flash when she's really pissed is incredibly sexy. No. Probably not the right time.

Instead I say smoothly, "Try me."

The rest of the meal passes in uneven bursts of conversation, the clink of cutlery punctuating the quiet.

By the time the plates are cleared, the worst of my anger has cooled, but the edge is still there, sharp and protective.

She drifts to her keyboard, fingers tapping at the keys, while I comb through surveillance feeds and encrypted files.

The silence between us isn’t hostile, but it hums with everything we didn’t finish saying.

She heads upstairs first, yawning around a sleepy smile, bare feet scuffing softly on the wood floor.

I watch her disappear around the landing, the sway of her hips burned into my mind like a brand.

I'm still in the middle of a file when the glow from her room dims. A few minutes later, the house is quiet, and I can almost imagine she’s already dreaming.

I’m out on the back porch, watching the horizon bleed into darkness, the burn of too many thoughts chewing at my edges, when my phone buzzes in my pocket. The sound slices through the stillness, sharp and insistent—a reminder that peace never lasts long in this world. Rush.

"Talk to me," I answer, already braced.

"Elias Vega’s resurfaced."

The name alone snaps my spine straight. My grip tightens around the phone, that tight surge of heat in my gut rising fast and hot.

A flash of memory—Elias bleeding on a concrete floor three years ago, barely conscious and still giving us intel—hits like a gut punch.

If he’s resurfacing now, it’s not for nostalgia. It’s because the fire’s getting close.

"Where?"

"South Pier. That busted-ass amusement park they’ve been trying to condemn since forever. Said he’ll talk, but only to you. He’s twitchy as hell. You’ve got a small window."

"Understood. I need someone with their eyes glued to the house and the perimeter."

I hang up and head upstairs, the creak of each stair underfoot muffled by the weight in my chest. The door to the bedroom is cracked, soft light spilling across the floor like a beacon.

She’s curled on the bed, one hand tucked under her cheek, laptop still glowing dimly beside her.

The sight of her—bare skin wrapped in one of my shirts, hair wild against the pillow, breath slow and even—hits like a fist to the chest. Mine.

I already marked her. Claimed her. And now one of the bastards we’ve been chasing is circling closer.

She stirs as I kneel next to her. "Dalton?"

"Elias Vegas is back. We’ve got a location, the old amusement park on the south pier."

She sits up instantly and I realize I gave her too much information.

Her eyes are sharp despite sleep still clinging to her lashes, and something in them guts me.

There's a flash of guilt for allowing her to be dragged into this world, twisted up with the admiration I can’t seem to hide. "I’m coming with you."

"No."

"Try again."

"Kari...”

"I may not be your backup, Dalton, or a Texas Ranger or even your partner in the field—but I am your fated mate and I love you.

I won't be left behind. I've already bled for this—well maybe not bled, but you know what I mean. I'm the one who’s carrying Sookie’s torch and connecting the dots no one else can see. If you walk out that door without me, I’ll still find my own way there.

So your choice isn't whether or not I go, it's whether or not I go with you. "

There’s steel in her tone. That fierce, unyielding resolve that drives me insane—and draws me like a magnet. I grind my jaw. "I love you too, but you don’t follow orders worth shit."

"No. I don't, but I am following the truth. And right now, that truth’s waiting at the end of a broken pier."

She’s impossible. And she’s right.

Every instinct I have screams to keep her safe, lock her in the goddamn house if I have to—but there’s something in her eyes that stops me.

Not defiance. Not even stubbornness. It’s conviction.

A fire that mirrors the same relentless drive that’s been clawing under my skin since the moment Sookie’s name entered our lives.

She’s not trained for this. She doesn’t have a Ranger’s clearance or a soldier’s edge.

But she has courage—and a mind sharp enough to make even my team sit up and pay attention.

I hate that I admire it. Hate more that it hits like a spark to dry tinder, sharpening every instinct I have until all I want is to protect what’s mine.

And yet, I also know this: I trust her. More than I trust most men I’ve bled beside. And that trust? It costs everything.

So yeah. She’s right. And it may well be the death of me.

Forty minutes later, we’re slipping into the ruins of the old South Pier.

Rusted beams claw at the sky, skeletal against the shifting clouds.

The boardwalk groans under our weight, warped and splintered from years of storms. Salt and aged wood hang heavy in the air.

I take it all in, not with regret or hesitation, but with the sharp focus of a man who knows exactly why he’s here—and who he’s here for.

The awareness of her is constant, a steady thrum under my skin, sharpening every sense.

She’s close, within reach, and nothing in this place or beyond it will keep me from protecting what’s mine.

Somewhere deeper in the structure, a rusted girder creaks against the wind, long and low like a groan. The distant crash of waves echoes beneath the floorboards, their rhythm muffled by the warped boards underfoot.

Shadows stretch across broken rides and collapsed scaffolding, flickering with the intermittent hum of a failing security lamp. Each step echoes faintly, the sound swallowed fast by the ocean's pulse. I keep Kari behind me, her hand at my lower back.

Elias steps out of the shadows like he’s always been part of them. He’s lean, pale under the glare of a flickering light, eyes darting like he expects a bullet through the skull.

"You got two minutes," he says.

"Then don’t waste them," I growl. "The Reaper. Where is he?"

Elias flinches. "He’s close. Tracking movements. Watching the network for cracks. But he’s not just killing anymore."

Kari steps forward. "What do you mean?"

Elias’ eyes flick to Kari, then back to me. "He’s unraveling people. Targets fated pairs. Doesn’t want them dead—wants them destroyed from the inside out. Love, trust, stability. He severs it. Then he finishes the job."

Kari goes still beside me. I feel the tremor in her body, subtle at first, like a shiver caught between fear and rage.

My arm instinctively presses closer, anchoring her to my side.

The air around us sharpens. I hear the breath she pulls in—too fast, too shallow—and my wolf stirs with a low, silent growl of protectiveness.

I want to drag her back, tuck her behind me, shield her from every word that just carved into her heart.

But I don’t. Because I know her. She’s processing, not panicking.

Still, the need to protect her ignites like wildfire through my chest, primal and fierce. She’s mine. And he’s coming for her.

"He’s fixated," Elias continues, his tone grim. "On her. The Reaper knows if he takes her out, he can cripple the investigation—and more than that, he can gut you and Gideon in one move. That coyote-shifter’s obsessed with making sure no one walks away from him whole."