ETY | MW [✔]

01.

As the truck swerved around the corner, Wonwoo resisted the urge to grab hold of the door. For the fifth time in an hour, he regretted letting Taehyun drive. The alpha liked speed. Wonwoo did too, but only when he was the one behind the wheel.

Their shopping list was short: some ammunition, some explosives, and a few lockpicks. Standard stuff. There were a handful of places Wonwoo knew they could get them, but he didn't like to shop in the same places too often. It was too easy to become predictable, too easy to be tracked. And, to a man, they all had pasts. He didn't want anyone's history coming back to haunt them.

"So... Hyunwoo for the ammo, Seokmin for the tools. But where are we going to get the stuff that goes boom?" Taehyun asked him as they took another turn, and the market came into view.

"Rumor has it Seungcheol will be here today. He's always good for that sort of stuff."

Taehyun gave a low whistle. "Haven't heard that name in a while. Thought he'd gotten out of the game."

"Nah. Pissed someone off and was laying low for a while is what I heard. Lucky for him, his problem got into a bar brawl and didn't come out the other side."

"Happy coincidence?" Taehyun suggested.

Wonwoo grinned and shook his head. "If it was, then Seungcheol has the best luck of any shifter I've ever met."

They parked up and climbed out.

"We could split up, make this go faster?" Wonwoo suggested. He knew Taehyun would say no, the alpha was always protective in a crowd like this.

"Or we'll stick together and just move fast."

Together it was.

They hit up Seokmin first, Wonwoo admiring the intricate metalwork that went into the beta's tools.

"Haven't seen you around in a while," Seokmin said.

"You know us," Wonwoo replied, not prepared to be drawn into that conversation. "We'll catch you again."

"I look forward to it," Seokmin called after them.

"If we were thinking of recruiting," Taehyun said to him in an undertone as they walked away. "He'd be top of the list, right?"

Wonwoo gave him a wry smile. "We don't have enough of the right kind of work to keep a guy like Seokmin busy. He'd be bored. Bored shifters are trouble."

Seeing a crowd around Hyunwoo's stall, they headed toward the back of the market for the gray tent with the blue flag that marked Seungcheol's spot.

"It's been a while," Seungcheol said in greeting.

"Nice to see you out and about again," Wonwoo replied.

Seungcheol was one of the few shifters that Wonwoo suspected saw through the fake beta scent he wore. If he did, the alpha never commented on it. He was good like that.

"What can I do for you boys?"

Taehyun put his hands in his pockets. "We're doing some mining. Need something to get the rock out of the way."

It was an old joke, but Seungcheol grinned all the same. "I think I have something that'll do the trick."

They left a few minutes later, down a good deal of cash, but with enough explosives to handle any job that came their way for the next few months.

Hyunwoo's stall was last, the crowd having thinned a little. Wonwoo let Taehyun do the talking, knowing Hyunwoo was an alpha's alpha and they'd get a better deal.

While Taehyun and Hyunwoo haggled, Wonwoo wandered a little away, staying within earshot. Raised voices from around the back of a group of tents drew his attention, and he stepped around, curious as to what was going on. There was a shifter on the ground, in chains. He was in human form but acted like he wasn't, growling and snapping at the shifters trying to rein him in.